Randomness in a SynthDef

1

I’ve been looking in the help docs and books, but I can’t seem to figure out how to get random numbers of a scale within a SynthDef,

Specifically something like this:

Scale.yu.degreeToFreq(IRand(0,12),2640,0);

I keep getting error: ERROR: Primitive ‘_BasicWrapAt’ failed.

Full code:

(
	SynthDef(\hh, {
	arg out=0, gate=1;
	var sig, o1, o2, png, penv, henv, tail, env, n0, penv2, scale, rand;
	rand = Rand(0,12);
	scale = Scale.phrygian.degreeToFreq(rand,2640,0);
	penv = EnvGen.ar(Env.perc(0.001,0.15).range(1000,20000));
	penv2 = EnvGen.ar(Env.perc(0.001,0.35));
	henv = EnvGen.ar(Env.new([2640,4000,2640],[0.2,0.4]));
	env = EnvGen.ar(Env.perc(0.001,0.45),gate,doneAction:2);
	n0 = BrownNoise.ar(1);
	o1 = Pulse.ar(scale/10,0.7)!4;
	o2 = Pulse.ar(Rand(2490,3491)+o1,0.5)!4*o1*0.5;
	o2 = Pulse.ar(scale+o1,0.5)!4*o1*0.5;
	png = BPF.ar(o2, 1000+penv, 1)*penv2*1;
	tail = BPF.ar(o2+n0,henv,0.2)*penv2!2;
	sig = HPF.ar(o2+png*0.6+tail, 2000);
	Out.ar(out, sig*env );
}).add;
)
2

DegreeToKey | SuperCollider 3.11.1 Help should get you part of the way there.

hjh

3

That looks pretty cool too, but I’m not trying to convert a signal to note values, I’m just trying to chose a number from 1 to 12 randomly each time the synth is played within a certain scale.

4

This is a signal.

hjh

1 Like
5

I’m so confused.

I’m mostly just using Scale.major.degreetoFreq as an example, where I want to pass it randomly chosen numbers (1…12).

I’m trying to generate a random number each time the synth Plays, sot each time it’s built on the server.

It looks like Rand does that, and as you said that is a Signal, but degreetoFreq can’t take a signal as an input, so it fails, which would happen with any other function I try to give Rand to?

It’s ok, maybe I just need to keep reading and it will make sense…

6

degreeToFreq is a language-side calculation.

So when you say “generate a random number each time the synth Plays, so each time it’s built on the server” – if the random number exists only in the server, then it isn’t available to language-side operations.

So there are two directions you can go:

  1. Generate the random number language-side, do degreeToFreq in the language, and pass that frequency to the synth in the argument list.

  2. Or, use server-side operations to get the frequency from the server-side random number. DegreeToKey is server side, and it’s the hard part of degreeToFreq.

Both would work.

hjh