Linseg not working with grain?

Newbies
#1

Hello to all!

This is the second time I am studying Csound.

First time it was around 2005, when I created some pieces that I still like to this day. Actually they were just the exercises of chapter 1, which I tried to make as interesting as possible, and some of them ended up so nice to my ears that I considered them finished works. I was using qbasic back then to feed random parameters to the score file of Csound. Of course Csound can do that itself, but I hadn’t yet read the relevant chapter. For some reason I stopped working after a while but I always wanted to come back to Csound and I’m glad I finally did! If anyone wants to hear my old pieces I give a link at the end of the message. This is not as much self-promotion as wanting to share my joy with you! (The Csound pieces are the “studies”, “pieces” and the “miniature”, possibly “meditation” as well).

Moving on to the present: I started again from scratch, doing my homework. The canon exercise on chapter 1 seemed promising. I didn’t get that right and made a canon for all 6 instruments instead of just for instrument 106. So much for the better! Things got more interesting when the exercise called for changing amplitudes and frequencies for each instrument. I got something in my hands that can evolve to a keeper. But there are still things I don’t know how to do. One of them is avoid clicking sounds when a sound stops abruptly. I don’t mind them in my older pieces, but in this one they stand out. A friend, who is an experienced Csound user, taught me about the linseg opcode. Nevertheless, grain is not affected by it and still makes an annoying clicking sound at the end of it. I know all this will be explained sooner than later in the book, but somehow this got me stuck. And although there are many more things to improve on it (stereo panning would be nice), I’d like to ask if there is a simple way to remedy the grain problem now.

Thank you all!
Dionysis

#2

Hi @Dionysis I have no idea what book you are even referring to here? Can you be a little more specific/ Also, if you can prepare a very simple example of code that illustrates the issue? Often through the process of reducing your code you’ll find your answer, and if not, someone here might be able to help.

#3

Ah yes! I’m referring to The Csound Book (edited by Richard Boulanger).
I don’t think the problem is example-specific, but this is how the instrument looks like:


      instr  105
k1 linseg 0, p3*0.01, 1, p3*0.98, 1, p3*0.01, 0
a1 	grain 	50, 440, 55, 5000, 10, .05, 1, 3, 1  ;asynchronous granular synthesis
     out  a1
	endin

As I said, linseg has no effect to it whatsoever. Even if I modify the linseg to something like this:
k1 linseg 0, p30.1, 1, p30.7, 1, p3*0.2, 0

there is no change whatsoever.
Grain does not seem to be affected by it.

#4

No it won’t have any effect because you’re not using the output of the linseg opcode. Do you mean to use it to control the other amplitude of the instrument? If so you can do:

out a1*k1

Or you can use k1 to control the amplitude of each successive grain. :+1:

#5

Great! That solved it! Thank you!

#6

While we’re at it:
The grain amplitude parameter does not seem to have any effect.
I’m referring to the first parameter after the grain opcode (signifying the “amplitude of each grain”, accodring to the reference manual). This is 50 in the example above. Even if I make that a 5 the overal volume produced by grain does not change.

#7

Do you have 0dbfs set in your orchestra?

#8

Very interesting! Didn’t know about that.
I read about it, but it is still a bit beyond my grasp.
Only thing to ask here: Why is grain not influenced by a change of the amplitude parameter? Reference manual says the parameter defines the aplitude of each grain. Shouldn’t a change in the parts (i.e. grains) result in a change in the sum?
Thank you!

#9

It certainly should. Can you post your full csd?

#10

When I copy/paste the code it is not displayed in the same way. Do I have to change some forum setting or something?

#11

And it says that as a new user I cannot upload attachments (I trying uploading the csd file instead).

#12

Just paste the code, then select it all and press the code format button in the editor window, i.e, ‘</>’ :+1:

#13

Oh, great! Here it is :slight_smile:

<CsoundSynthesizer>
<CsOptions>
</CsOptions>
<CsInstruments>
sr 	= 	44100
kr 	= 	4410
ksmps 	= 	10
nchnls 	= 	1

		instr  	101
k1 linseg 0, p3*0.001, 1, p3*0.989, 1, p3*0.01, 0
a1   	oscil   1000*k1, 420, 1
	out 	a1
		endin

		instr   102
k1 linseg 0, p3*0.001, 1, p3*0.989, 1, p3*0.01, 0
a1   	foscil 	300*k1, 425, 1, 2, 3, 1 ;simple 2 operator fm opcode
	out 	a1
		endin

		instr   103
k1 linseg 0, p3*0.001, 1, p3*0.989, 1, p3*0.01, 0
a1   	buzz   	1500*k1, 430, 10, 1  ;variable pulse train
	out 	a1
		endin

		instr   104					
k1 linseg 0, p3*0.001, 1, p3*0.989, 1, p3*0.01, 0
a1 	pluck 	1500*k1, 435, 440, 2, 1   ;karplus-strong plucked string
	out 	a1
		endin

		instr 	105
k1 linseg 0, p3*0.01, 1, p3*0.98, 1, p3*0.01, 0
a1 	grain 	5, 440, 55, 5000, 10, .05, 1, 3, 1  ;asynchronous granular synthesis
	out 	a1*k1
		endin
		
		instr 	106					
k1 linseg 0, p3*0.001, 1, p3*0.989, 1, p3*0.01, 0
a1 	loscil  2000*k1, 445, 4  ;sample-based looping oscillator
	out 	a1
		endin
		

</CsInstruments>
<CsScore>
; Function 1 uses the GEN10 subroutine to compute a sine wave
; Function 2 uses the GEN10 subroutine to compute the first sixteen partials of a sawtooth wave
; Function 3 uses the GEN20 subroutine to compute a Hanning window for use as a grain envelope
; Function 4 uses the GEN01 subroutine to read in an AIF audio file

f 1  0 4096 10   1    
f 2  0 4096 10   1  .5 .333 .25 .2 .166 .142 .125 .111 .1 .09 .083 .076 .071 .066 .062
f 3  0 4097 20   2  1
f 4  0 0    1   "sing.aif" 0 4 0


;inst	start	duration
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i 101          94.9632       .6696435 
i 102          25.60291      1.096932 
i 102          29.60291      1.096932 
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i 103          112.408       2.156835 
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i 101          .2250483      1.780807 
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i 106          109.9045      .7060223 
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i 102          82.48276      .6937002 
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i 103          84.6935       .9567131 
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i 104          117.5758      1.169552 
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i 105          3.507779      3.600261 
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i 104          11.74201      2.596025 
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i 104          119.8849      .757066 
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i 101          23.20836      1.763843 
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i 101          28.72862      1.38114 
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i 101          11.66535      .6166117 
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i 106          103.5787      .5472243 
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i 101          113.9733      1.458827 
i 101          117.9733      1.458827 
i 101          98.71107      .7516712 
i 101          102.7111      .7516712 





</CsScore>
</CsoundSynthesizer>
#14

Currently, your 0dbfs value is circa 32000, because you haven’t specified different. I’d use 0dbfs=1 so that your max gain across all instruments is 1. It is easier to work out the correct amplitudes when this is the case. Right now you’ve set your grain amplitude to be 5/32000, which really isn’t much at all. And changing it to 1000 isn’t going to make much of a difference either.

p.s be careful changing 0dbfs, all of your other opcodes will need to have their amp values brought below 1 also, otherwise you risk blowing your ears off! So please turn down your speakers on the first run after making these changes :slight_smile:

#15

ok I’ll try that, thank you!
All instruments will refer to the same scale afterwards? (i.e. 0-1)
I guess I’ll have to keep it e.g. up to 0.5, because many sounds at the same spot would have their amplitudes added, risking distortion, right?

#16

This is correct :slight_smile: All outputs summed must be below 1.

#17

So, when 0dbfs is not defined (as in my initial program) there is no risk of clipping?

Of course that doesn’t answer why the amplitude change in grain had no effect in the first place…

#18

the risk of clipping is always there, whatever 0dbfs you set.

if you do not set as rory suggested …

0dbfs = 1

… then you use the default value which is because of historical
reasons 32767 (15 bit).

when you use the suggested 0-1 range, all what is larger than 1 is clipping.
when you use the default value, all what is larger than 32767 is clipping.

best -
joachim

#19

I think it does.

You’re changing the amplitude from 0.001 to 0.0001, I’m not surprised you don’t hear a difference. Of course, technically there is a difference, but I can’t imagine it would be easy to hear. Try reworking your code to make full range of +/-32767 or set 0dbfs to 1 and use a full range of +/-1