Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] sfront 0.65 09/07/00
From: Paul Winkler (slinkp23_AT_yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Sep 21 2000 - 19:57:37 EEST
John, and anyone else working with SAOL / sfront:
Hi, I've just started checking out SAOL and sfront, having
possibly reached the limits of my patience with the csound
orc language. :)
Do you know if the saol mailing list is active?
I sent a message to saol-users-request_AT_media.mit.edu
but I haven't received any reply.
I may be totally on the wrong track here, but I'm interested
in the possibility of using SAOL to build complex
high-quality dsp applications without having to muck around
in C. :)
Looking over the examples and docs that come with sfront, I
see I've already got quite a wish-list.
1) As far as I can tell, "sample" and the input bus are the
only ways to get audio from disk files into SAOL. This I
find very troubling - is there no equivalent to csound's
soundin / diskin opcodes? I was hoping to create an
automated soundfile-mixing application in SAOL, so obviously
I need access to arbitrarily large soundfiles, and I want to
start them playing at any time. Am I SOL with SAOL? :(
The only thing about soundfiles from disk that I've noticed
in the SAOL draft is this, on page 97, section: 5.10.2
Sample
"For standalone systems such as authoring tools,
implementers are encouraged to
provide access to other audio file
formats and disk file access using this field (for example,
to allow a filename as a string constant here). However, the
only normative behaviours are those described in this
subclause."
But that doesn't address the issue of disk files larger than
available RAM.
2) Will there ever be support for sample formats other than
16-bit int? In particular, 32-bit float and 24-bit int would
be very nice. Also, the mono-only restriction on the sample
opcode is a bit irritating!
3) One thing I like very much about csound on linux is the
-L command-line flag, which lets me pipe ASCII score events
to csound's standard input from any program I like. This is
a great way to control csound in realtime without suffering
the limitations of MIDI. Is there any way to do something
like that with sfront? So the compiled sa executable could
receive text SASL events on stdin, and process them asap in
the order received? Or do I need a realtime MP4 decoder for
that?
4) Likewise, I sometimes find it useful to connect MIDI
applications via stdin and stdout. (This would probably be
easier to implement.)
5) Would it be possible to provide an option to generate
LADSPA plugins with sfront? That would be really cool!
6) Will sfront support multi-channel soundcards? ALSA?
--
................. paul winkler ..................
slinkP arts: music, sound, illustration, design, etc.
web page: http://www.slinkp.com
A member of ARMS: http://www.reacharms.com
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