[PD] MOD Trackers (was Pd to CV for a Moog) (OT)

[David Powers]

Offhand, I'd have to mention that left to right is not by any means a
characteristic of all languages ... only Western ones. I think the
fact that it has syntax is more linguistically significant, than the
fact that its written form appears different than a typical language.
If C is a "language" than I'd argue that PD is also one... The
problem, if anything, is that C, or PD, have TOO MUCH structure and
syntax.

Human language exists in a state of indeterminacy and ambiguity,
whereas computer languages are too precise.

~David

> No, it's got syntax, at many levels, functionally, because it must have to work.
> But not *that* syntax, "that" being its representation, as a  fixed written
> language with linewise ordering in a file. In Pd GUI your syntax is spacially
> all over the place. That's nice, it changes your thinking because you can
> put down the essential operators as they come to mind and then plumb them
> up later, whereas with a written language is forming statements like sentances
> starting at the left side and finishing on the right. It's a different kettle
> of badgers completely. And it's got a syntax in the sense of strictness, the
> way blocks are evaluated, so if you don't know and obey the rules it won't work
> just like any other language.
>
>
> >
> > > or computational causality either.
> >
> > How can Pd execute a patch then?
> >
> > I don't see a lack of causality.
>
> Me neither, unless Millers cracked some quantum jiggerypokery without
> saying. I mean expression of it. Not exactly elegant in Pd is it? There's
> always good old [until], "only a matter of time [until] you're gonna have
> to reboot".
>
>
> > > If I remember right a tracker file stores the samples as well as the
> > > timing sequences so they'd have to be read into arrays. (?)
> >
> > Conceptually you need a 1-D array for the order, a 3-D array of structs
> > for the patterns (pattern#,row,channel), and one array per sample. I say
> > conceptually because the actual layout could be different if it makes
> > things any easier.
> >
> > For Impulse Tracker files, the 3-D array is to be replaced by a sequence
> > of 2-D arrays because each pattern may have a different number of rows;
> > and also there's the concept of instrument which inserts itself between
> > the concepts of pattern and sample.
>
> That's quite a powerful structure, and the instruments layer makes sense for
> a polyphonic audio sequencer that wants to deal with multi playbacks from the
> same table. It would be really interesting to see what ways people came up with
> for representing that data with a way to read and write MOD files to and
> from a generaly open ended datastructure sequencer like Franks.
>
> a.
>
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