EspGrid 0.42

[David Ogborn]

Dear friends,

I am pleased to announce the official release of version 0.42 of the EspGrid software - the synchronization and sharing software for laptop ensembles I have developed around the Cybernetic Orchestra at McMaster, during the project "Scalable, Collective Traditions of Electronic Sound Performance" (supported by Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, SSHRC).  The software and some additional helpful files (code/patches) can be downloaded here: http://esp.mcmaster.ca/EspGrid-0.42-OSX-10.7.zip

Over the course of the past year, earlier versions of the software have been presented at the Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium, the Audio Engineering Society Convention in San Francisco, and most recently, the live.code.festival in Karlsruhe, Germany.  This 0.42 release is a "clean-up release" - with better stability and synchronization.  EspGrid has been developed around the ideas of neutrality and hybridity with respect to the languages and environments employed by laptop and live coding performers.  The EspGrid application "sits in the background" and takes care of clock synchronization, to a large degree independent of the diverse and multiple "foreground" environments in which performers/creators work.  Another participant in the live.code.festival session (chair Alex McLean, if I recall correctly) provided a perfect example of the intent of the EspGrid software: three electronic musicians find themselves on a train together; despite all using different languages/tools to make their music, they each fire up EspGrid and instantly share a tight common clock and a metronome that anyone can control.  Jamming ensues...

The EspGrid software is being made available to community as free and open source software (GNU public license version 3).  The code base of the software includes a large and growing number of unit tests, and development should proceed according to the principles of test-driven development.  The rudiments of a help/documentation system are in place.  Binary executables exist only for Mac OS X at the present moment but the Windows and Linux ports of the software are the highest, immediate priority following this release.  Windows and Linux users in mixed laptop ensembles don't need to wait for these ports however: there is a "side chain" mechanism that allows users/machines without a running grid to piggyback on a user/machine that is running the grid.

To get/browse the source code, visit the software's Google code site at: http://code.google.com/p/espgrid 

Enjoy - and feel free to get in touch for help/issues with the software.  I hope that some of you will find this useful, and look forward to working with you on the (gradual) evolution of this tool!

Yours truly,

David

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Dr. David Ogborn, Assistant Professor
Communication Studies & Multimedia

Director, Cybernetic Orchestra

McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

http://esp.mcmaster.ca

http://davidogborn.net

http://twitter.com/d0kt0r0

1-905-525-9140 ext 27603

[Rua Haszard Morris]

Looks very interesting - are there any examples of how to make use of
the beat synchronisation in SuperCollider? (or other software?)

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[David Ogborn]

Hi Rua,

In the 0.42 ZIP file there is a folder called EspGrid-helpful-code.  Right now it just has ChucK and Max examples but I would love for it to have some SC ideas soon.

In the Cybernetic Orchestra we mostly use it (in ChucK) as follows:

The grid sends beat events on "whole number" beats (1, 2, 3, 4 etc) as OSC messages

The Esp class (in the helpful code folder) makes events available from that, including events between the beats

// for example:

Esp.b(4.25) => now; // wait for the 

Have had some conversations about ways to tie it into SC's clock classes more directly - so stay tuned about that!

Yours truly,

David