[PD-dev] Re: new external, please add me to the CVS dev

[David Merrill]

Sure, I don't mind introducing myself -I  wouldn't want there to be a 
double-standard..

Hi everyone, I'm David Merrill. My computer-music-related interests 
revolve around the design and construction of new musical instruments, 
and more broadly, human-computer interaction. I've been working with pd 
since about 2001, when I was a masters student in computer science at 
Stanford doing coursework at CCRMA, the university's computer-music 
center. Since then, I have built a number of projects using pd, including:

 - a signal external in C that allows parameterized 'morphing' between a 
sine wave and a square wave, allowing for nice "rounded corners" square 
waves anywhere in-between.

 - a digital, computer-vision-based, rotating-platter "music box" 
inspired midi instrument.
http://web.media.mit.edu/~dmerrill/cool.html

 - a singing-on-pitch training program that used Miller's [fiddle~] 
object to track vocal singing pitch and a haptic backpack to deliver 
vibrotactile feedback to help a singer correct in realtime.
http://web.media.mit.edu/~dmerrill/tactile_performance.html

 - an "attentional mixer" that ramps volume levels of different audio 
streams up and down based on the user's facial orientation towards 
various physical objects
(.MOV video) http://web.media.mit.edu/~dmerrill/images/AM_web_512kbsec.mov

 - an "adaptive music controller" - a musical instrument that learns to 
map a person's custom gestures and continuous manipulations to triggered 
sounds and continuous effect parameters
http://web.media.mit.edu/~dmerrill/adaptive_controller.html

 - a joystick-based voice sampler/triggerer/looper/shifter/scrubber 
sound play application.

..and I'm sure there are more small, one-off projects that I am 
forgetting (like my 7:30AM low-passed white noise program that hacked 
quickly and turned up LOUD to muffle the jackhammer that had unkindly 
started up outside my window in Boston). I am a competent C and Tcl/Tk 
programmer, though most of my time in PD is spent at the patch-creation 
level (fortunately).

My current pd-related project is to build a 'road-hardened', 'gig-ready' 
pd-based portable audio-processing system that is extremely robust and 
'plug-and-play' in the sense that you can plug in a controller and it 
begins to work immediately.
http://web.media.mit.edu/~dmerrill/audiopint.html

Anyway, the reason I wanted to be a developer on the CVS is that I have 
built an external that can scan for input devices in linux and output 
the file descriptor (i.e. /dev/input/event5), so that the device(s) can 
be dynamically loaded and their location doesn't have to be hard-coded 
into the patch. The hardware scan can happen as the result of a [bang], 
or can be triggered when new hardware (i.e. a USB joystick, for example) 
is plugged into the system. I imagine that this external will be useful 
to people (a) as-is, for making their patches more robust against 
accidental un-plugging/re-plugging or the order in which devices are 
plugged in, and (b) as an example of how to use the linux hardware 
abstraction layer (hal) and dbus to scanning for devices more generally, 
that can be modified and used in many contexts.

well, that's my story - did I pass the test? ;)
best regards,
-David Merrill

David Plans Casal wrote:
>
> On 29 Apr 2006, at 02:41, carmen wrote:
>
>>> <someuser at media.mit.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> I am forwarding your request to the pd developers list, as this is the
>>> place where we normaly discuss additions. Maybe you can also explain
>>> what your external does, in order to not duplicat functionality.
>>
>> usually the new developers are asked to offer 'a bit about themself' 
>> and/or 'what they're doing with pd'. is this request waived for .edu 
>> addresses? perhaps only certain .edu addresses?
>
> IMO, this isn't just a 'validation' process, but a way to get to know 
> incoming developers and their interests, reduce possible duplication 
> of efforts, etc., so it's a good idea, and we shouldn't wave it for 
> education institutions necessarily...
>
> d
>
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MIT Media Lab
dmerrill at media.mit.edu