Modulating a sound with long sustain

Questions and Answers
1

I already know how to modulate parameters for patterns with multiple events, using waveforms and random values. For example:

d1 $ s "kick*16" # speed (range 0.5 1.5 $ slow 2 sine)

What I'm trying to understand is if it's possible to modulate values for a single sound/event sustained in time. In a daw I would use an envelope on an effect and modulate it over time. I don't know if it's possible to achieve that in tidal, given its architecture. When a message is sent to SuperDirt and a sound created in Supercollider, is it possible to change the parameters of that sound while it is still playing?

I tried the following approaches but none gives me a smooth transition between values within a single sound/event:

d1 $ n "c" # sound "superhammond" # tremdp 1 # tremr (range 0 15 sine)

d1 $ n "c" # sound "superhammond" # tremdp 1 # tremr (smooth "0 15 5 10")

d1 $ n "c" # sound "superhammond" # tremdp 1 # tremr "<0 15 5 10>"
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2

Hi @earthlydelight, the short answer is unless you're doing stuff with midi (e.g. sending CC values separately from notes), then no.

However this is being fixed for the next version of tidal, we have a nice proof of concept working so it shouldn't be too long.

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3

That's a great news, can't wait to try it!

Thank you guys for all the hard work you're putting into this :slightly_smiling_face:

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4

This seems huge! I'm really looking forward to checking it out :smiley:

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5

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to check in on the current state of this feature now after 5 years from @earthlydelight post. It’s actually something I’ve been interested in for quite a while: being able to launch from Tidal a synth that behaves more like a drone, and then evolve the sound by sending events on the synth’s supported parameters, without having to do any MIDI mapping.

My understanding is that in principle this should be possible with mi-ugens synths for Tidal (or similar long-sustain synthdefs), but I haven’t managed to “crack it open” and get a working setup.

So my questions would be:

  • Has there been any progress or recommended approach to control/modify parameters of a single long-sustained sound directly from Tidal?

  • Could someone share a minimal working example where one can experiment with this idea?

Any hints or pointers would be much appreciated!

6

Hi, have a look at control busses: Control Busses | Tidal Cycles

7

Wow, thanks a lot!, I’m truly delighted! You visionaries devs have once again come up with such an elegant, robust and practical solution. Control busses feel like a perfectly natural extension of Tidal’s philosophy, and it’s thanks to your vision and careful design that we can enjoy this kind of power and simplicity combined. It really opens up a whole new creative playground, being able to treat a single sustained voice as a “living organism” and then sculpt its shape in time directly from Tidal.

A huge thanks to the developers and everyone contributing to this ecosystem, it’s brilliant work, and it keeps inspiring me over and over again.

I do have one additional question though, just to make sure I’m heading in the right direction: when creating my own synthdefs or custom audio effects, what’s the recommended way of exposing parameters so that they can be modulated over time via theese control busses? In other words, are there specific interfaces or conventions that new synths/effects need to follow in order for Tidal to recognize and handle those controls seamlessly?

8

I just realised there’s an important detail I had overlooked regarding the use of control busses.

My original idea was to use once to launch a single synth event and then gradually evolve its sound by changing the values of a control bus over time.

However, I’ve noticed that whenever I re-evaluate the code using once, it (as expected) triggers a new instance of the synth each time, which defeats the purpose of having one single, long-living sound to sculpt.

For example, something like this (assuming "omi" had infinite sustain) will just create a new instance on every evaluation:

once $ s "omi" # model 8 # timbrebus 1 0.2

What I was hoping to do would be more like talking directly to the bus, somewhat similar to NodeProxy concept in SuperCollider.
Conceptually something like:

bus1 $ s "omi" # model 8 # timbre 1

and later:

bus1 $ s "omi" # model 8 # timbre 1.5

I suspect I’m not approaching this in the right way — could anyone share how they manage to achieve this kind of continuous sound evolution directly within Tidal?

Any hints or examples would be hugely appreciated!

9

I think what you want to use is the bus recv functionality for your long running synth, keeping it separate from the bus send/control function.

There’s an example in this post: Creating effects chains or audio buses - #5 by cleary

10

Thanks for pointing me to the thread Bernie! I had a look, and lots of concepts mentioned are still a bit over my head, but it’s exactly the kind of guidance I needed. I really appreciate you steering me in the right direction.

And here I was thinking I might have some free time this weekend… now you’ve given me proper homework to study and fill in my knowledge gaps :sweat_smile:. Honestly, I couldn’t be happier about it, thanks again!"**

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