[PD] [delwrite~], or "what Pd operations are/should be realtime?"

Matt Barber brbrofsvl at gmail.com
Wed Nov 23 18:59:37 CET 2016


I don't know about average, but I have heard "longest delay I use is maybe
30-60 seconds" a few times. The bass piece I presented at PdCon has up to
30 seconds of delay for a complex mensuration/transposition canon, and it
would be very useful to be able to clear it for rehearsal purposes.

On Wed, Nov 23, 2016 at 12:35 PM, Jonathan Wilkes <jancsika at yahoo.com>
wrote:

> > In this case, I'd probably rather see a hybrid approach where a second
> buffer is already waiting. Then you could give "clear 300", and it would
> switch to the empty buffer immediately while guaranteeing that the other
> one is clear in 300ms. But this is maybe too complicated for the user, and
> uses too much memory?
>
>
>
> Matt,
> In the user reports, what is the average size of the buffer?  Are we
> really talking about buffers greater than, say, 1000ms?
>
> This sounds like premature optimization to me.
>
> -Jonathan
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 7:32 AM, Ivica Bukvic <ico at vt.edu> wrote:
>
> For clear, I can imagine having a second empty memory buffer being created
> while delay continues to use the populated one until the memory allocation
> is complete. At that point a simple change in the pointer should suffice,
> after which the old buffer gets trashed. This would break determinacy, so
> perhaps a separate argument could be used to enable this option in which
> case the object could get another outlet that sends a bang when the
> procedure is complete.
> Best,
> --
> Ivica Ico Bukvic, D.M.A.
> Associate Professor
> Computer Music
> ICAT Senior Fellow
> Director -- DISIS, L2Ork
> Virginia Tech
> School of Performing Arts – 0141
> Blacksburg, VA 24061
> (540) 231-6139
> ico at vt.edu
> www.performingarts.vt.edu
> disis.icat.vt.edu
> l2ork.icat.vt.edu
> ico.bukvic.net
>
> On Nov 22, 2016 00:07, "Matt Barber" <brbrofsvl at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi list; thanks for a wonderful PdCon (to Stevens and NYU people
> especially).
>
> I had a quick chat with Miller after the "future of Pd" discussion. I told
> him there is one feature I've heard Pd users ask for many times: a "clear"
> method for [delwrite~]. A [delwrite~] resize method is something I've heard
> brought up a number of times as well, but I didn't mention it.
>
> Each of these has a runtime cost that could disrupt the realtime dsp
> calculation. Clearing a [delwrite~] is a linear-time operation, and for
> long delay lines it could cause audio dropouts; resizing is more
> problematic because it's not clear what to do with samples already in the
> delay line – probably it would need to be cleared as well, which would take
> even more time (although there is already an indirect resize function when
> sample rate is changed).
>
> On the other hand, Pd arrays can be resized and cleared (const 0) ad
> libitum, which is more or less the same operation. We usually tell users
> 'do this at your own risk when computing audio.'
>
> So what is the main difference? I think it's that [delwrite~] is a tilde
> object that is supposed not to cause dropouts on its own. If clearing it
> could cause a dropout, there are reasons for thinking of that as a bug
> rather than simply a risk.
>
> Is there a compromise procedure? We could add an option to spread the
> clearing out over time. For instance "clear 5000" would mean "clear the
> delay line over the next 5000 ms." A second argument would let the user
> choose whether to preferentially preserve the most recent samples or the
> oldest samples. Given only a time argument, default would be to preserve
> oldest samples (less work has to be done overall since the write pointer
> would also be filling the line with zeroes). Without a time argument (i.e.
> "clear" with no arguments), the default would be to clear it immediately
> with the understanding that there could be a possible dropout.
>
> A broader topic for another time would be "what Pd operations are/should
> be realtime, and which are best at load time?"
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Matt
>
> ______________________________ _________________
> Pd-list at lists.iem.at mailing list
> UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> https://lists.puredata.info/li
> stinfo/pd-list <https://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Pd-list at lists.iem.at mailing list
> UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> https://lists.puredata.info/
> listinfo/pd-list
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/attachments/20161123/88024994/attachment-0001.html>


More information about the Pd-list mailing list