[Sc-devel] Embedding Specs in SynthDefs

[James Harkins]

A couple of other things I thought of:

1- Would it be worthwhile to suppress the control spec data when  
creating a synthdef binary stream that is not going to be saved on  
disk? Oh wait, you already answered that question... fine with me, if  
we don't have to include client only data in server messages.

2- How will specs be associated with arguments? Instr uses simple  
array ordering, but I doubt that would be sufficient for this because  
of Control.names... in which case, association by name could also be  
tricky because there is no guarantee that every control will have a  
unique name.

3- SynthDef.wrap? There, you will have multiple Control UGens.

2 and 3 should not be taken as objections, just cases to consider.
hjh

On Jul 28, 2007, at 8:49 AM, Scott Wilson wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> James and I have chatted a little more about this offlist, and I'd  
> like to offer the following, hopefully clearer outline:
>
> - SynthDesc seems an appropriate place to have information about  
> Controls in SynthDefs.
> - We must be able to derive SynthDescs from scsyndef files. That  
> this is necessary with the current working method suggests that by  
> this point scsyndef files are for the client as well as the server.  
> This is an attitude change I admit, but perhaps a useful one.
> - I'd like therefore to consider adding optional specs to  
> SynthDescs, SynthDefs, and scsyndef files.
> - As far as impact goes, this would involve only minimal changes to  
> files (i.e. the addition of one 16 bit "0" at the end) for defs  
> with no specs, and only a small additional amount of data for defs  
> with specs. Specs could be discarded when using SynthDef:send to  
> minimise bandwidth.
> - This would have the advantage of making all this information  
> easily portable and self contained in a single file good for both  
> client and server.
>
> This would not preclude moving Instr into Common, and of course it  
> might make use of this. I'm happy to listen to other solutions if  
> people find changing the scsyndef format objectionable, but I do  
> think having persistent associated specs in some form would be  
> useful. My main reason for suggesting this is that I thought  
> SynthDesc might be the appropriate place for this.
>
> Another possibility might be to add specs to SynthDescs, and just  
> archive those with the def included if you wish to keep them. The  
> scsyndef file would not include this extra data. This is portable,  
> but requires either duplicate storage or housekeeping on retrieval.
>
> Thoughts or objections?

: H. James Harkins
: jamshark70 at dewdrop-world.net
: http://www.dewdrop-world.net
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