[linux-audio-dev] Project: modular synth editor

Iain Duncan iainduncan at telus.net
Fri Jan 16 09:56:21 UTC 2004


> This is what AMS, SSM, gAlan, PD etc let you do right now - MIDI is
converted
> to a 'voltage' signal (by various means) and then routed to plugins in the
> graph. Ditto JACK - you can connect a JACK port to anything you like in
these
> apps.

I don't know near enough to say it should be Jack specifically that does the
inter-app passing of control signals. But my point is that *midi converted
to a signal* is insufficient. Midi is low depth low sample rate ( or baud in
this case ) totally impractical as say the input source on a filters CV in
case you wanted really tight envelopes. I'd like to see one module able to
generate a high res signal in some cool manner that can then be used for
whatever strikes my fancy, without worrying about the signal being too
coarse for my selected job. Or many modules each working one one signal that
in the very end goes into a filter cutoff plug. So say a user wants to
sequence something from midi, they could *start* the signal as 7 bit, but
once it's in the signal path it gets upped to 24 or 32 by audio sample rate
so that as it goes through envelopes, lfos, sample and holds, mixers, etc,
etc, we aren't processing a low quality signal. ( I hope I'm making some
kinda sense here. )

I guess what I'm really trying to say is just that we should keep an eye to
the future and make sure we enable the inter-app routing of HIGH resolution
control signals through some kind of easily accessible standard if we really
are trying to achieve a *modular*. The beauty of a modular is that you *can*
use an audio signal as a control signal and vice versa. It doesn't care, go
ahead, blow up your speakers! Sure, that does means higher overhead, but
personally, I'm a lot more interested in having my CPU choke on a killer
modular than being able to run yet another limited software synthesize, know
what I mean? Modulars are supposed to be expensive . . . ; )

Iain





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