No more challenges?

#1

hmm? any coding challenges or something.... :stuck_out_tongue:

#2

Last one didn't quite took off :frowning:

If you have something in mind don't be afraid to open a new topic!

#3

How about an object that measures the entropy of a signal. A single sine wave is low entropy and white noise is high entropy. Low entropy waves need additive synthesis and higher entropy waves need subtractive.

#4

On which basis? And to do what?

(sorry, but i feel that Clausius, Kelvin and Carnot are turning in their graves after this post)

Also, to prove that i'm not dissing you only: entropy does not simply measure the amount of disorder in a system, that's just the quick explanation for kids. In reality there's a lot of stuff going on: first of all you can't define it for stationary states, but you can only measure differences of it. Also, to extend some concepts of entropy to our world you'll have to consider also the energy of the signal. (in general, in fact as entropy grows, energy goes down and disorder goes up).
To do that you should be able to recognize the period of a wave (which is hard for basic waves, extra hard for generic signals) and calculate the energy of the signal (integrating the amplitude over the period), do a spectral analisys of the signal (hard and cpu intensive) and phase analysis (in fact a sawtooth signal can be made visually unrecognizable by phase shifting harmonics, though you'd hear it exactly as a sawtooth)

#5

Well, you can define Shannons' entropy in terms of 'Information Theory' for a signal. I wonder if that this is what Dolphinwolf had in mind.

Or you could approach the 'complexity' issue by computing a signal fractional dimension (but that would be computationally expensive and not sure to what end in the Axoloti).

Now this looks interesting: Fractal Interpolation Waveforms. Gordon Monro. Computer Music Journal. Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring, 1995), pp. 88-98. as a waveform generator. Fractal waveforms have all sorts of interesting properties, like this one:

#6

sounds like an interaction between the calculation density and the calculation rate just like the foldover frequencies that will happen when you go beyond nyquist

#7

The paradox is about the perceived fundamental frequency, like when looking a fractal set one loses the idea of whether the image has been enlarged or reduced. The effect that Schoreder described happens at the whole range of (well, playable) frequencies, not in the high range only (when you go beyond the Nyquist limit).

#8

well, I think the calculation itself could be seen as working in the nyquist range if you use it to generate audio.
Depending on the settings of the calculation, certain points will be calculated and others not. When shifting the range or start of the calculation, each point will have another outcome, generating a different wave. It's because of this "leaving out" of the values in-between-samples, that it might cause foldover frequencies.
though, I haven't read the paper and I'm just responding from the idea that I got when I read the post.. XD

#9

I see what you mean, but I do not think the effect described is that, but instead a perception paradox of where the fundamental moves to when playing the 'next note' when using a complex tone with a specific relation between the harmonics. There are no extraneous frequencies generated as a result of the Nyquist limit. The paper uses a Weierstass function (sum of cosines) to demonstrate it, where playing one octave up results in the pitch to be perceived to be lower by one semitone (!). Worth reading the paper, it is quite interesting.

#10

Input signal, measure Weiner entropy, return value.

#11

i'd suggest a contest about a combination of hardware andsoftware this time, giving axoloti owners the ability to expiriment with external hardware like pots and interact witgh them live (withot the patcher) :slight_smile:

though this requires the judges to have a similar setup in hardware sadly

for example: "challenge: create a gui with an arduino supported board to adjust your dsp"

where the gui can be a 2x16 lcd, a small tft with touch, rotary encoders, whatever.

why am i suggesting this: because the library of objects and sounds is pretty close to completion in my opinion (although not 100%), but the inter communication with other hardware, like arduino, serial messages and such tends to be alot less complete.

edit: since development time can be alot, and since i think the timespan of a month is a bit too short, i'd also suggest utilizing a longer deadline, for example, the rest of the year. (which is more than 2 months from now)

#12

I welcome a new community challenge, and prefer to leave it to the community to come up with one.
That said, I think the best topics for a challenge are more "low-hanging fruit" to reach substantial participation.

#13

Id be up for a challenge , assuming time etc - I liked the idea for the Lifeforms one, but somehow couldn't make the time to do it.

I wonder how to encourage participation?

as @Inaba said, perhaps making them longer would help.. given the voting windows etc, monthly did seem quite rushed.
also perhaps if the challenge was 'broader', so that it was more likely to be in line with what users are wanting to do anyway i.e. its a motivator to get on with your own project.

Im also not sure about the 'competition' or voting element , some might not want to be 'judged' and frankly the whole voting thing is a hassle ... i didn't care for it much .

I don't know, perhaps something really simple, which is just submit your patches/objects in a bi-monthly 'showcase' where others can just comment etc.

or perhaps something where its a community challenge... rather than individual?!
e.g. we open it up, and users contribute stuff... and other users combine it, and we see what in the month we can create - a collaborative venture.

I think id be much more likely to participate in something like this , since its about working together, and everyone can contribute as little or as much as they like?
(e.g. some might contribute objects, some subpatches, some samples, etc)

overall, id have like to have seen more collaboration/discussion from the challenges, rather than a competition... just listening and playing with patches.
(but I completely accept i could be in the minority on this ... many might like the competitive side :slight_smile: )

#14

well, I like the collaboration idea..
this way we could bundle expertise. Some have the ideas, some have the synthesis know-how and others have the needed coding skills.
Oeh, what about this?
Axoloti against arduino? :stuck_out_tongue:

or isn't there some official thing we could enter as an axoloti-group and win that together? :slight_smile:

#15

I find all ideas are good. I even think we could have several challenges going at the same time. I miss the patch challenges, it was fun and great for learning new ideas and ways to do patching. But maybe just monthly patch sharing could be enough.
Collaboration challenges are a great idea too, but maybe on a longer time span.
New object challenges would please me too, even if I could only enjoy testing them, being such a crappy coder. But most object creators here don't need challenges, I find them (and especially you @SirSickSik ) so prolific already.

Maybe we could have a challenge to make help patches for some of the new objects

Or maybe work on objects and patches on a specific theme. I've been reading about the Zyklus MPS-1 today and started thinking about using the axo as an "arranger". I've always hated arranger keyboards, but having modules that we could abuse with our own settings excites me quite a bit.
We can already do quite a bit with the objects we already have, and @SirSickSik 's last creations, but maybe if we had some kind of chord recognition module, and more kind of "improvisation" modules, we could assemble some very useful patches for assisting musicians of all sorts

#16

ah yeah, a challenge:

who can explain all my modules? XD

ah, and ps, I just brought out yet another note-scaling module, based on the guitar.
a note-per-note microtonal tuner (only 1 octave, next octave is just power of 2) is also coming up

#17

Maybe a collaboration on a SOS Synth Secrets Complete patch set?
Or a General MIDI patch bank :slight_smile:

#18

Something that is simple yet creative.
It doesn't even have to sound good, just something weird or original.
You could limit the size of the project by processor % use, like say 15%.
This way it forces the big patch designers to scale down, and gives room for us noobies to have a go.

#19

Er, Maybe you are interested in working on the Holy Grail challenge I just threw in?

Marc Brassé