libmapper

Article Published in IEEE Multimedia

Now available online: Joseph Malloch, Stephen Sinclair, and Marcelo M. Wanderley. “Generalized Multi-Instance Control Mapping for Interactive Media Systems”. In IEEE MultiMedia, 25(1), January–March 2018. DOI: 10.1109/MMUL.2018.112140028

3devices_cyclic

We articulate a need for the representation of temporal objects reflecting dynamic, short-lived mapping connections instantiated from a template, in tools for designing and using interactive media systems. A list of requirements is compiled from an examination of existing tools, practical use cases, and abstract considerations of node connectivity and information propagation within a graph of connected devices. We validate the concept through implementation in the open source software libmapper, and explore its application by integration with existing controller/synthesizer software and hardware.

Article published in MTAP

Now available online: Malloch, J., Sinclair, S., M. M. Wanderley. Distributed tools for interactive design of heterogeneous signal networks. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 73(2),  2014. DOI: 10.1007/s11042-014-1878-5

We introduce libmapper, an open source, cross-platform software library for flexibly connecting disparate interactive media control systems at run-time. This library implements a minimal, openly-documented protocol meant to replace and improve on existing schemes for connecting digital musical instruments and other interactive systems, bringing clarified, strong semantics to system messaging and description. We use automated discovery and message translation instead of imposed system-representation standards to approach “plug-and-play” usability without sacrificing design flexibility. System modularity is encouraged, and data are transported between peers without centralized servers.

pyo and libmapper

This morning I attended a very interesting presentation on the pyo DSP module for python. From their website:

pyo is a Python module written in C to help digital signal processing script creation.

pyo is a Python module containing classes for a wide variety of audio signal processing types. With pyo, user will be able to include signal processing chains directly in Python scripts or projects, and to manipulate them in real time through the interpreter. Tools in pyo module offer primitives, like mathematical operations on audio signal, basic signal processing (filters, delays, synthesis generators, etc.), but also complex algorithms to create sound granulation and others creative audio manipulations. pyo supports OSC protocol (Open Sound Control), to ease communications between softwares, and MIDI protocol, for generating sound events and controlling process parameters. pyo allows creation of sophisticated signal processing chains with all the benefits of a mature, and wildly used, general programming language.

Here’s an incredibly simple example – it creates and plays a single sine at 200Hz:

from pyo import *

s = Server().boot()
s.start()
a = Sine(freq=200, mul=0.5).out()

Since we already have Python bindings for libmapper, with a few lines of code we can make this example “mappable” and interactive.

from pyo import *
import mapper

s = Server().boot()
s.start()
a = Sine(freq=200, mul=0.5).out()

try:
    dev = mapper.device('pyo_example')
    dev.add_input_signal('/freq', 1, 'f', 'Hz', 200, 500,
                         lambda s, i, v, t: a.setFreq(v))
    dev.add_input_signal('/mul', 1, 'f', 'na', 0, 1,
                         lambda s, i, v, t: a.setMul(v))

    while 1:
        dev.poll(5)

finally:
    s.stop()
    s.shutdown()

*Note: The above code snippet has been updated for compatibility with libmapper v1.0 and greater.