[PD] tabread4~ interpolation revisited

[Peter P.]

Hi list,

having asked my students to compose pieces in Pd using audio data in
tables and reading them via tabread4~ my ears are still slightly
bleeding from the interpolation artefacts audible in almost every second
composition. Surely, everyone likes to slow down playback and I think it
should be possible without too many audible artifacts in Pd.

There is this legendary discussion on this list
https://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/2008-06/062864.html
after Cyrille kindly posted about his tabread4c~ external. He also
pointed out more elaborate interpolation schemes such as in
https://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/2008-06/063221.html
At that time a lot of list members agreed that it might be great to
switch interpolation algorithms in tabread4~ with an argument or
message to the object. As far as I can tell no additional interpolation
got implemented until today. Am I correct here?

The issue got briefly revisited two years later in 2010
https://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/2010-03/077232.html
and raised by me again in 2015
https://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/2015-05/110312.html
https://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/2015-06/110751.html
after which I switched to supercollider for the specific project I was
working on at that time as it performed better at slow playback.

What could be a possible way to get slow playback from tables with less
artifacts? (I am tempted to add "in 2019") ;)

Thank you for all ideas and comments!
P