Help with portmidi, mplayob and mplayobs

[George]

Hello Ben. ...  or anyone else still here

I've recently acquired an Arturia MicroFreak. Having some fun.

I have mplay working nicely driving the freak.

Also have playob running OK without midi.

But can't figure out the logic of mplayob and mplayobs. In portmidi.xtm

I have been unable to find any examples of its use.

If someone could give me an example of mplayob and mplayobs in action that would be great!

By the way, I have written a series of simple tutorials for a beginner starting on the MicroFreak and hope to put these up on my Gists site soon.

Regards

George

[George]

OK

I have figured most of it out I think:

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;; THIS WORKS FOR playob: 

;(define playloop1
     (lambda (beat dur)
              (playob 1 4 synth (+ 12 62) 40 dur) ;; first beat of a 4-beat bar
          ;     (playob 2 4 synth 65 40 dur) ;; second beat of a 4-beat bar
          ;     (playob 3 4 synth 69 40 dur) ;; 3rd beat of a 4-beat bar
          ;     (playob 4 4 synth 72 40 dur) ;; 4th beat of a 4-beat bar
               (callback (*metro* (+ beat (* 0.5 dur))) 'playloop1  (+ beat dur) dur)))

(playloop1  (*metro* 'get-beat 4) 1/4)

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;; This also works for playobs:

;; Although I don't  understand the logic of the list numbers - which will play or not play?

(define playloop2
  (lambda (beat dur)
    (playobs (list 1  3  8) 8 synth 60 80 (* 1.0 dur))
    ; (playobs (list  2  4 7) 8 synth 67 70 (* 1.0 dur))
    ; (playobs (list 3  7)     8 synth 67 80 (* 0.2 dur))
    ; (playobs (list 2  7)     8 synth (random 70 80) 80 (* 1.9 dur))
    (callback (*metro* (+ beat (* 0.4 dur))) 'playloop2 (+ beat dur) dur)))

(playloop2 (*metro* 'get-beat 8) 1/8)

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

;; And the midi version mplayob into MicroFreak preset such as Preset 381 "Sardine":

(define *metro* (make-metro 40))
;; Define a  loop to play a note on a specified beat:

(define mplayloop_freak1
  (lambda (beat dur)
    ;           ofst bar  stream          note vel dur ch
    (mplayob 2 4 *mout_2_freak*  60 20  dur  0) ;; second beat of a 4-beat bar
    ; (mplayob 1 16 *mout_2_freak* 65 20 dur   0) ;; first beat of each 4th bar
    ; (mplayob 1 8 *mout_2_freak*  69 20 dur   0) ;; first beat of each 2nd bar
    ; (mplayob 1 12 *mout_2_freak* 72 20 dur   0) ;; first beat of a each 3rd bar

    (callback (*metro* (+ beat (* 0.5 dur))) 'mplayloop_freak1 (+ beat dur) dur)))

(mplayloop_freak1 (*metro* 'get-beat 4) 1/4) ; play a quaver on specified beats of a 4 beat bar

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

;; And the midi version mplayobs

;; This is mplayobs which works too but I can't follow the logic of the list numbers - which will play or not play?

; See portmidi.xtm#L946

(define freakPad1
  (lambda (beat dur)))
(mplayobs '(1 4 5 6 ) 2   *mout_2_freak* (- (random (list  45 48 60 63 65 67 70 74 )) 7) (random '(10 120)) (* 3.2 dur) 0)
(callback (*metro* (+ beat (* 0.5 dur))) 'freakPad1 (+ beat dur) dur)))

(freakPad1 (*metro* 'get-beat 8) 1/4)

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PS. I had plenty of trouble getting the MicroFreak to respond to extempore velocity messages.

All notes were sounding the same volume whether I sent velocity numbers of 1 or 126.

Eventually with the help of Arturia Support I got the correct setting.

I will put further info on this and also #CC messaging in my Gist site soon.

Regards

George