Xenakios Composer's Desktop Project frontend plugin first release

[Xenakios]

edit 9th July 2018 : Removed link to blog post and downloads. The plugin development has ended and too many problems have appeared since the last release from 2015.

[Quest The Wordsmith]

I read the "About CDP" section on their website and I'm still totally in the dark. As simply as you can explain, what is CDP?

[ivansc]

I followed the link AND the subsequent explanatory ones... all I can her is tumbleweed..... (blush)... apparently too arcane for me

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by Quest The Wordsmith

I read the "About CDP" section on their website and I'm still totally in the dark. As simply as you can explain, what is CDP?

CDP is a collection of sound processing programs, some of which date back to the 1980's. As they are command line programs, they are notoriously difficult to use in a modern sound production environment. The 2 known GUI front ends SoundShaper and SoundLoom (especially the latter) don't necessarily help the usability problems much.

My Reaper extension plugin allows using the CDP programs more or less easily directly within Reaper, with a GUI and with interactive feedback. (As far as that is possible to achieve as the sound has to be fully processed by the command line programs before it can be heard.)

It's of course completely subjective whether the CDP processings have anything of interest to offer to someone. Your mileage will definitely vary with these...They are best for sound processings where you look to pretty much destroy the original sound. (So don't expect these will offer subtle EQs or compressors or such.)

[Quest The Wordsmith]

Originally Posted by Xenakios

CDP is a collection of sound processing programs, some of which date back to the 1980's. As they are command line programs, they are notoriously difficult to use in a modern sound production environment. The 2 known GUI front ends SoundShaper and SoundLoom (especially the latter) don't necessarily help the usability problems much.

My Reaper extension plugin allows using the CDP programs more or less easily directly within Reaper, with a GUI and with interactive feedback. (As far as that is possible to achieve as the sound has to be fully processed by the command line programs before it can be heard.)

It's of course completely subjective whether the CDP processings have anything of interest to offer to someone. Your mileage will definitely vary with these...They are best for sound processings where you look to pretty much destroy the original sound. (So don't expect these will offer subtle EQs or compressors or such.)

You are such a nerd... and I'm jealous. Thanks for the explanation. Now I understand. So then what do those programs that you can now interact with in Reaper (thanks to your plugin) actually do? Is it basically FSU type stuff or anything of interest to the recording engineer?

[nofish]

Thanks Xenakios.

Do you by chance know if there's something in CDP that can do spectral morphing of two sound sources ?

That would be something I'm really interested in.

As an example, the morphing capabilities of the Kyma system

http://www.symbolicsound.com/cgi-bin...cts/SoundClips

(scroll down a bit to the 'Audio Morphing' section.)

[Quest The Wordsmith]

Originally Posted by nofish

Thanks Xenakios.

Do you by chance know if there's something in CDP that can do spectral morphing of two sound sources ?

That would be something I'm really interested in.

As an example, the morphing capabilities of the Kyma system

http://www.symbolicsound.com/cgi-bin...cts/SoundClips

(scroll down a bit to the 'Audio Morhing' section.)

I remember the Capybara from Kyma YEARS ago. Was a ton of money, but did those morphing sounds. The demo CD showed a baby morphing into a cat and a lion morphing into a motorcycle. I'd DEF be interesting in morphing programs.

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by nofish

Do you by chance know if there's something in CDP that can do spectral morphing of two sound sources ?

There is, but my front end does not yet support handling those programs. I will definitely be looking into that at some point.

I haven't actually tried to use those morphing things from the command line or with the existing GUI front ends either, so I have no idea how useful or convincing sounding the morphing programs in CDP are. I should check those soon...

[semiquaver]

Iirc CDP does morphing... Going to check this out asap...

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by Quest The Wordsmith

Is it basically FSU type stuff or anything of interest to the recording engineer?

FSU, basically.

The use case is mostly for composers of "sonic art" style or sound designers to generate materials that can then be further worked on with more traditional things in the DAW.

[semiquaver]

aaak -- need mac version!

someone kindly offered to port in the other thread???

PS thanks so much for doing this

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by semiquaver

aaak -- need mac version!

someone kindly offered to port in the other thread???

PS thanks so much for doing this

Yeah, Oli Larkin offered to do builds for OS-X but I haven't heard from him lately. Maybe he is on a vacation or something...

You of course have the possibility to build from source code...Isn't open source just wonderful?

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by TonE

Where to put the dll? Into the plugins dir? How to activate it?

For 64 bit : C:/Program Files/REAPER (x64)/Plugins

For 32 bit : C:/Program Files (x86)/REAPER/Plugins

To use, call up the action "Xenakios : Show/hide CDP front-end" via the Reaper actions window. The action is not added to any menu and doesn't have a shortcut key by default.

[snared_wolf]

Congratulations Xenakios. This is a massive addition to Reaper, and something that is sure to be of benefit to a number of people here. I very much look forward to working with the OSX version.

[PitchSlap]

Thanks for this. I know it's still early in the development, but I think this could go a long way to making CDP approachable to a wider audience.


Also for those wanting to know a bit more about CDP, this brief tutorial might be helpful.
http://www.synthtopia.com/content/20...os-x-terminal/

[Badmotor]

Also, watch the video on here:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2014/0...eky-cdp-learn/

[Tritone]

Sounds and looks amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your work and time. Really excited to start using it (and I thought I had followed the installation instructions rather well) but I was presented with this message upon previewing an item:




Any idea what I should do?

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by Tritone

Sounds and looks amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your work and time. Really excited to start using it (and I thought I had followed the installation instructions rather well) but I was presented with this message upon previewing an item:

Any idea what I should do?

There's not much to be done. The CDP programs can give an error or even crash like you experienced. If you get the Windows crash dialog, dismiss it and try the processing with some other settings.

If Reaper also crashed or became unusable, that would be a bug on my part and I'd need to look into fixing the plugin's behavior in case of CDP crashes.

Which Modify process mode did you try using?

[Airpom]

Originally Posted by Badmotor

Also, watch the video on here:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2014/0...eky-cdp-learn/

Just watched this video. This fascinates me. Super cool. I started watching like yeah whatever. And then he did the distortion effects. Count me interested. If someone could make a video! sort of exploring the functions in practice.. that would be super awesome.

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by snared_wolf

Congratulations Xenakios. This is a massive addition to Reaper, and something that is sure to be of benefit to a number of people here. I very much look forward to working with the OSX version.

Thanks for the compliments. I hope the OS-X version happens sooner than later, but unfortunately I am simply not now at a position to do the builds myself.

[Xenakios]

There's a bug, the plugin window can't be closed by the window close button. (The action to toggle the plugin window visible/hidden works though.) That will be fixed for the next public build.

[ValeryOrloff]

Oh, OH!
how it's complicated

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by ValeryOrloff

Oh, OH!
how it's complicated

If you are referring to my plugin front-end, I am a bit surprised. It is in my opinion the easiest way to get some results out of the CDP system that exists at the moment. If you are referring to the plugin, could you elaborate on what is so complicated about it?

If you are referring to the video where BT with great pains managed to produce a couple of results during the 10 minutes, yes, then I agree, that is slow and complicated. It is the native way of working with the CDP system, since it is just a collection of command line programs, after all.

[ValeryOrloff]

Download Workshops Readme link, Download Tutorial Workshop 1-2 links on http://www.composersdesktop.com/workshops.html (dream.cs.bath.ac.uk/CDP/Readme-CDPWorkshops1-2.pdf, /CDPWorkshop1-2.zip) are dead!

there are other sources for Tutorial Workshop 1-2?

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by ValeryOrloff

Download Workshops Readme link, Download Tutorial Workshop 1-2 links on http://www.composersdesktop.com/workshops.html (dream.cs.bath.ac.uk/CDP/Readme-CDPWorkshops1-2.pdf, /CDPWorkshop1-2.zip) are dead!

there are other sources for Tutorial Workshop 1-2?

I don't know why the links at the CDP website are dead. (I am not part of the CDP team, by the way. Just a 3rd party developer.) The workshops are not likely to help much with my plugin anyway. The workshops likely expect you to use CDP via the command line.

[ValeryOrloff]

Hi Xenakios!
Do I understand correctly?
unzip cdpr700-InstallPC to any folder and from your front-end plugin by "Import" menu locate folder with files such as “pvoc.exe”, “modify.exe” and “distort.exe”, that's all, right?

Do I need totally install cdpr700 by included setup.exe?

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by ValeryOrloff

Hi Xenakios!
Do I understand correctly?
unzip cdpr700-InstallPC to any folder and from your front-end plugin by "Import" menu locate folder with files such as “pvoc.exe”, “modify.exe” and “distort.exe”, that's all, right?

Do I need totally install cdpr700 by included setup.exe?

If the plugin was put into the right location for Reaper to find it, it should ask to locate the CDP binaries when Reaper is started. The Import button menu in the plugin only deals with importing audio into the plugin. (I should actually probably allow choosing the CDP binaries location from the Settings button menu too...)

It should be enough to have the CDP programs folder available to be chosen from the plugin. (So, a full install shouldn't be needed.)

Note that the plugin GUI by default should be wide enough to show the CDP processors list, so if you've resized it to be narrow (or if the plugin at first start wrongly comes up like that), the processors list on the bottom right is not visible.

[ValeryOrloff]

Originally Posted by Xenakios

show the CDP processors list

yes, I see the processors list, ok! but they were a lot less than in the CDP folder, and they are slightly different in color, why?

and what purpose for a second small screen, which is lower?

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by ValeryOrloff

yes, I see the processors list, ok! but they were a lot less than in the CDP folder, and they are slightly different in color, why?

The different colors in the processors list are to indicate time domain and spectral domain processors.

I haven't added all the CDP programs in the plugin, as has been previously explained. The plugin does not have the necessary GUI and logic code yet to support all the programs. (For example all the CDP programs that output or want as input non-spectral analysis files are not yet supported. Processors that take in as input more than 1 audio file or output more than 1 audio file are not supported. etc)

I've also omitted some programs that could already work because they are not in my opinion that interesting to have in the plugin. (For example the CDP delays, reverbs and time domain filters are quite redundant. Commonly available VST plugins are much better and easier to use for those kinds of sound processings.)

If you want to fully explore all the CDP programs, you will be better off using them from the command line or using the existing GUI frontends SoundShaper or SoundLoom. Those will however be more difficult to use and won't have integration with Reaper.

The second waveform display shows the processed output sound file. It can be clicked with the mouse to seek into that location in the file during preview. (There's a bug in the current public build that allows to also make a time selection in the lower waveform display, but that isn't useful for doing anything.)

[ValeryOrloff]

Originally Posted by Xenakios

as input non-spectral analysis files are not yet supported. Processors that take in as input more than 1 audio file or output more than 1 audio file

in my opinion, it can be left for later developing...
so, you have chosen the most interesting effects?

another question:
what purpose for a second small screen, which is lower?

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by ValeryOrloff

what purpose for a second small screen, which is lower?

I updated my answer above to explain that.

[ahs]

the inet is big and mighty. i am on a long search of a little kyma and now that !!!

where to find all cdp programms ?

[ValeryOrloff]

what am I doing wrong?


preview don't work, nothing in small screen,
for some unknown reason the video is not displayed inscription
"CDP sfedit cut failed"

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by ValeryOrloff

what am I doing wrong?

preview don't work, nothing in small screen,
for some unknown reason the video is not displayed inscription
"CDP sfedit cut failed"

Is the sound you are trying to process a wav or aiff file? The plugin won't work with flac/wavpack/mp3/ogg etc. (I will make the plugin check more aggressively to prevent using the non supported file formats...I know the file formats issue is an annoying inconsistency compared to what Reaper itself supports...I will try to think about some solution to that at some point.)

The "sfedit cut" step may fail if the time selection made in the upper waveform is too short. I've tried to prevent that from happening but there may be some cases where the too short selection is let through.

[Breeder]

Originally Posted by Xenakios

Is the sound you are trying to process a wav or aiff file? The plugin won't work with flac/wavpack/mp3/ogg etc.

Why not use AudioAccessor REAPER API to get things done?

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by Breeder

Why not use AudioAccessor REAPER API to get things done?

I need an audio file on disk that works with both the CDP programs and Juce's waveform drawing... :-/ So that means limiting things to wav and aiff at the moment. (I could of course somehow convert the item selected in Reaper to a supported format, but I haven't done that yet.)

[Breeder]

Originally Posted by Xenakios

I need an audio file on disk that works with both the CDP programs and Juce's waveform drawing... :-/

A shame...AudioAcessor is indeed fantastic because it returns samples as they appear in REAPER (excluding FXs, fades, envelopes etc...though some things can get manually accounted for) so looped items, cuts etc are all taken into account.

Maybe you could write AudioAcessor samples to tmp file on the disk and load that instead?

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by Breeder

Maybe you could write AudioAcessor samples to tmp file on the disk and load that instead?

Yes, but that adds yet another potentially time consuming step into the processing. Currently, at worst, the following steps need to be run when the CDP rendering is done (when processing one of the CDP spectral programs) :

-sfedit cut
-housekeep (to mix down a stereo file to mono)
-modify loudness (to allow changing the preprocess volume)
-pvoc analysis (to analyse into spectral domain)
-any of the spectral CDP programs
-pvoc resynth (to get a PCM audio file from the spectral domain file)

But I will consider using the AudioAccessor method.

edit : Of course by using the AudioAccessor etc to write a temp file, I could probably handle the 3 first steps at one go, together with the audio file format conversion. I would however also need to write the equivalent Juce-based code for the software when it is working in standalone application mode. (The currently private standalone application build is important to me because it allows more quickly to test and debug things. I also have one potential end user for the standalone application already.)

[ValeryOrloff]

Originally Posted by Xenakios

Is the sound you are trying to process a wav or aiff file? The plugin won't work with flac/wavpack/mp3/ogg etc. (I will make the plugin check more aggressively to prevent using the non supported file formats...I know the file formats issue is an annoying inconsistency compared to what Reaper itself supports...I will try to think about some solution to that at some point.)

The "sfedit cut" step may fail if the time selection made in the upper waveform is too short. I've tried to prevent that from happening but there may be some cases where the too short selection is let through.

I experimented with regular vocal wave library, inserted and played from Media Explorer.
Then i close CDP plugin and open Xenakios Pitch bend plugin, tried it, whereupon Reaper could not be closed, i could only do it with the "End process" windows option.
Xenakios, try consistently both plugins for same item, are you confirm it?

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by ValeryOrloff

I experimented with regular vocal wave library, inserted and played from Media Explorer.
Then i close CDP plugin and open Xenakios Pitch bend plugin, tried it, whereupon Reaper could not be closed, i could only do it with the "End process" windows option.
Xenakios, try consistently both plugins for same item, are you confirm it?

I highly doubt the troubles you had was an interaction between the 2 plugins, but I will take a look at some point if that could be the case after all...