Abhoth Contributions

#1

Forum profile : @Abhoth
Contributor prefix: abhoth

objects
abhoth/wave/polyplay - a variant on factory/wave/play intended for polyphonic use. Streams audio from sd-card. With a sample rate control for pitch.

patches
AxoBlock: (MPE patches for my Axoloti Roli Block project)
- abhoth/AxoBlock/Mellotron - 6 voice mellotron with 10 selectable tapes
- abhoth/AxoBlock/ScaryMovie - 5 voice "VHS horror movie" synth strings MPE patch

misc
Sonic Bloom Mellotron samples in 48kHz .raw suitable for Axoloti. Individual files named with midi note no. Redistributed with permission from Sonic Bloom. The original, free sample library can be found here: Sonic Bloom

#2

abhoth/wave/polyplay

Description:
A variant on factory/wave/play intended for polyphonic use. Streams audio from sd-card. With a sample rate control for pitch.

The rate control/linear interpolation is a bit rough, but in my opinion good enough for the Mellotron patch I wanted it for. If smoother pitch control or higher audio fidelity is needed it needs more work. In addition to being less efficient than the facory/wave/play object it also uses more memory (because of a third buffer for reading from sd-card, which then applies the resampling to the pingpong buffers).

#3

abhoth/AxoBlock/Mellotron

Description:
6 voice Mellotron with 10 selectable tapes.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BchpjWGj-Qb/?taken-by=abhoth_

This happens to be an MPE patch simply because the midi controller I use for it sends MPE midi. Expression isn't actually used, so it would be easy to convert it into a "normal" polyphonic midi patch.

The samples used for this patch are a free sample pack from Sonic Bloom converted to 48kHz .raw. Individual files renamed with midi note number instead of "C#3" etc. Redistributed with permission from Sonic Bloom. The original, free sample library can be found at http://sonicbloom.net/en/

The sample folders in the archive should go to the root folder of the sd-card. This patch is made specifically for my Axoloti project. Some parameters are in my case modulated by physical knobs/push buttons. So open the cut-off frequency of the filter completely and turn up the volume on the audio out for a non-modulated, "normal" starting point.

Need help to understand an issue with Wave/play object
#4

Hi, I tried the Mellotron patch but can't get sound out of it...
Where should I put the samples? I tried in the root of the SD card and in the Mellotron subdirectory, but none works...
Thank you.

#5

The sample folders should go in the root.

As there is a sample per key, the range of notes that actually makes a sound is only a couple of octaves. Perhaps your midi notes were too low or high?

#6

The problem was the MIDI channel, I was sending in CH1, when I switched to CH2 the patch start to sound. Strange thing it is in main patch and in subpatch the settings shows CH1...

One thing I noted is that when I play notes with some release I hear clicks, also when I play notes in rapid progression or consecutive chords (even without exeding the polyphony) I get distorted audio. I don't know if it is a problem with the mixing of the voices, or my microSD card is slow, or if it something else...

Thank you for the patch!!!

#7

It is an MPE patch, so midi channel 1 isn't going to work (that is the master channel, the rest are for notes).

The noise issues doesn't sound good, though! I don't have any clicks, but when I first tried doing a Mellotron patch using the factory/wave/play object I had ugly clicks whenever a sample was playing and a new one was started. What I believe was happening was that when the sd-card was busy seeking the start of the sample data, the thread responsible for reading from the sd card took so long that audio rate cycles were skipped. Hence the clicks. So I bought the fastest sd-card I could find. When that didn't appear to help, I made the "polyplay" object with lower thread priority. Which fixed it. But I didn't go back to try the old, slow card. So I don't actually know if a sd-card with poor seek time will cause problems. It seems likely, I guess, but it could be something else that is wrong and just happens to work out on my specific card.

I haven't noticed any distortion, but to rule that out it is probably worth it to attenuate the audio from the polyplay object, just in case.

#8

I think the problem is the SD card, as the distortion is more like glitches...
I will try to update my SD card soon.

I'm pretty sure about MIDI channel, it worked in channel 2, but it is strange because as I mentioned it's says channel 1 in all settings...

Tahnk you!

#9

I bought a new microSD card and now the distortion/glitch is gone :slight_smile:

But time to time the sound cut off after I play a note and keep it doing it for a few seconds... then it back to play normally... Any ideas of what could be...

#11

Hmm, I’m not having that problem. I just tried turning off MPE on the seaboard and using midi ch. 2 only as you do, but things still seems to be fine.

Only other difference I can think of is that you should of course not use the modulation for my specific hardware potmeters. For instance, I have a volume knob modulating the main volume out, so if you haven’t already, remove that.

If you look at the wave/polyplay object there is a trigger input to stop the wavefile from playing. It is strictly speaking not needed, as without it the sample will just play to its end in silence. I don’t see why it would work at my end, but cause problems for you, but I guess you could try to remove the signal from that input to see if that makes a change...

#12

I re-routed the modulations, so that shouldn't be the problem... I will try to discconect the input you mention.
Thanks!!!

#13

abhoth/AxoBlock/ScaryMovie

Description:
5 voice MPE synth-string patch with wobbly pitch, noisy crackles and saturation for an old horror VHS-movie feel.

MPE expression is just used to control filter frequenncy and pitch bends, so not much would be lost with a non-MPE midi controller using any midi channel but 1.

#14

Hi, I have used this and loaded my own samples and it works beautifully. What I would like to do, as I don’t have an MPE controller, is to be able to set my own midi channel, set a midi key range and perhaps just use a filter to open as velocity increases. Can you point me to the parts I need to modify to enable me to do this please?

#15

Man i am really excited right now finding this object cause it clearly proves pitchable streaming playback is not that big of a deal. What i want it to do is be pitchable via midi notes but i am having trouble hacking into your object. It stops working as soon as i embed it to be able to edit, i am assuming you are including some external libraries? Any hint on how to go about editing/adding a pitch inlet instead of the parameter pitch knob?

i just had a different thought - shouldn't it be possible to use the same interupt-free streaming functions to load data into a table? where the normal table SD read function interrupts the audio playback.

#16

I can't see the patch.. would really like to try it out...
am I missing the link somewhere ?

#17

Hey, can anybody give me some hint how to change midichannel to 1 on the mellotron patch.
Since I don't have an MPE ontroller I would like to combine this patch with my other "synth" patches, where I am using a Korg nanoKey Studio on channel 1.

#18

Are the RAW samples still available for this patch somewhere? I'm getting a 404 error for the URL in the original message: https://www.getsky.no/p/get-49690001/2758d0c28d9043879ee266053ab70fd8

#19

Yes the link is broken.... There are a lot of freebies at Sonic Boom and maybe you can extract the .wav https://sonicbloom.net/en/category/freebies/ ... as I probably will do.

#20

I've updated the link. It should be:
https://sky.telia.no/s/0512758d0c28d9043879ee266053ab70fd8

#21

Brilliant! Thank you. I had downloaded the Sonic Bloom samples and started working through converting and renaming them. So glad I don't have to do them all now!