A SuperCollider class to record and play Buffers. I write this Class to improvise with musicians that play acoustic instruments, so I can record small Buffers of the instruments in the moment of the improvisation. Also, it can be used to record small fragments of the sound environment to perform a live coding session with sound as material.

The class calls a document that contains 4 Buffers, 2 mono, and 2 stereo. Odd Buffers are mono and even Buffers are stereo.

Be aware of feedback when you use this Class with big sound systems.

SonoTexto is part of a series of classes I am developing for my PhD in UNAM, with the support of CONACyT through the Posgraduate Music Program UNAM.

1 Download or clone the repository and put the folder in your SuperCollider Extensions. You can find the path to Extensions with this line.

Platform.userExtensionDir

2 Make a directory called sonotexto in your SuperCollider Recordings folder.

3 Open a new file in SuperCollider and boot SuperCollider.

4 Write this code:

n = SonoTexto

n.boot

5 If you run for the first time SonoTexto it aware you to make a directory called sonotexto in the Recordings dir. Run this line to know where the Recordings path is.

Platform.recordingsDir

Then you can create it programmatically using the method unixCmd by copying the path that appears in your post window and telling SuperCollider to make a directory called sonotexto. Replace path/to/Recordings with the path you have obtained in your Post window.

"cd path/to/Recordings".unixCmd;

"mkdir path/to/Recordings/sonotexto".unixCmd;

6 To record the four Buffers write this line. You can write just one buffer or rewrite any buffer, 1 = true, 0 = false.

n.rec(1, 1, 1, 1)

7 To listen the Buffers run these lines:

Synth(\b1)

Synth(\b2)

Synth(\b3)

Synth(\b4)

8 You can rewrite the Buffers during the improvisation, just maintain the true argument for the Buffer you want to rewrite.

n.rec(0, 1, 0, 1)

9 You can keep the Buffer's sound. 1 = True, 0 = False.

n.write(1, 1, 1, 1)

Each SynthDef has these arguments:

\b1: rate = rate, tg = trigger frequency, st = startPos, lp = loop, pb1 = pan, ab1 = amp, atb1 = attack, sb1 = sustain, rb1 = release, ob1 = out

\b2: rate = rate, tg = trigger frequency, st = startPos, lp = loop, ab2 = amp, atb2 = attack, sb2 = sustain, rb2 = release, ob2 = out

\b3: rate = rate, tg = trigger frequency, st = startPos, lp = loop, pb3 = pan, ab3 = amp, atb3 = attack, sb3 = sustain, rb3 = release, ob3 = out

\b4: rate = rate, tg = trigger frequency, st = startPos, lp = loop, ab4 = amp, atb4 = attack, sb4 = sustain, rb4 = release, ob4 = out

rate: you can modify the speed of the sample in values other than 0, eg. 1 is normal speed, 2 is twice the speed, 0.5 is half the speed. You can use minus values as -1 and if the value of the loop parameter is 1, then you can play samples in reverse.

tg: this returns the playback to the start point of the sample depending on the frequency. You can put values from 0 to higher.

st: this is the initial point from which the sample starts to play. You can modify this number by multiplying or dividing the numFRames of the sample. eg. ~buf1.numFrames/2 will start at half of the sample. Be careful not to divide or multuply by 1, otherwise, you have no sound because you are getting the number of samples to start at the end of the sample.

loop: you can put values from 0 to 1. 0 is loop inactive, and 1 is loop active.

pb1 or pb3: is the pan value for buffers 1 and 3. These buffers are mono, you can move the sound between Left (-1.0) and Right (1.0).

ab1 ... abn: this is the amplitude value. Usually, you multiply amp between 0 and 1 as a normalized value. As you are working with recorded sound at the moment sometimes you need to go beyond 1. You may listen to how much you go beyond 1, and be extremely careful if you record again a buffer as you can have strong feedback. I am looking for a solution to have a more convenient way to approach this parameter.

atb1 ... atbn: this is the attack time value.

sb1 ... sbn: this is the sustain time value. Notice that buffers 1 and 2 have 5 seconds duration, so this value can be between 0 and 5.

rb1 ... rbn: this is the release time value.

ob1 ... obn: this is the output. The default is 0, you can modify it to another value if you have a multichannel sound card or want to send your sound through another bus, eg. an effect bus.

Synth(\b1, [\rate, -1, \lp, 1, \pb1, -0.9, \ab1, 1, \atb1, 1, \sb1, 2, \rb1, 1]);

Synth(\b2, [\rate, 2]);

Synth(\b3, [\st, ~buf3.numFrames/2, \pb3, 0.5]);

Synth(\b4, [\atb4, 0.5, \sb4, 8, \rb4, 1.5]);