Sample Accurate Triggers: Holy Grail? Or...
Posted: Tue May 03, 2022 2:23 am
In a recent thread, the age old debate about synchronisation between 'green', Ruby, and audio streams has once again been visited. And anyone who's been around FlowStone for very long will no doubt be aware that, since the earliest days of SynthMaker, there has been an almost Arthurian (or Pythonesque) quest for 'green' triggers which can be placed more rapidly and precisely than usual (ideally with single-sample precision).
After my 15-odd years of using this software, and some rather useless attempts at making plugins using conventional code, I have a pretty firm hypothesis about sample-accurate triggers, and I thought I'd post it just to see what anyone thinks (maybe nothing! - I totally understand that a lot of people have no interest or time for musings about FlowStone's inner workings - the whole point of FS is that you shouldn't really need to know!)
So here's my hypothesis, and we'll see if anyone bites!:
Sample-precise triggers are not a myth; they have existed since the very beginning of SynthMaker; they are all around us and are essential to nearly every schematic. However; they live only in the shadows, or disguise themselves as run-of-the-mill sluggish triggers. Apparatus could be devised by which FlowStoners might access their power, but DSPr have judged that we should "be careful what we wish for" - for the consequences of using them recklessly or without the requisite training could be dire. Thus we are forbidden from explicitly conjuring them up.
"From whence do I derive such conspiracy theories?", I hear you ask. [auditory hallucinations can be very confrontational sometimes!]
Well, there are certainly some technical details which can be, indeed have been, empirically tested. Other parts can be deduced from the way that VST works and general software engineering principles. However; DSPr restraining us from shooting off our own feet? - that's rather more conjectural, though with some basis in dealings that I had with the dev's when I was a SynthMaker beta-tester many years ago.
In any case, I am confident that the current limitations of triggers are not something that can ever be overcome by any kind of clever building, coding, or hacking on our part (and nor does Ruby live up to its hype in this regard). FWIW, I think that most of the use-cases for sample-precise triggers could be implemented with only a handful of new primitives (and extremely careful use of them!) - but either DSPr let us into the magic or they don't, and I think that's all there is to it.
After my 15-odd years of using this software, and some rather useless attempts at making plugins using conventional code, I have a pretty firm hypothesis about sample-accurate triggers, and I thought I'd post it just to see what anyone thinks (maybe nothing! - I totally understand that a lot of people have no interest or time for musings about FlowStone's inner workings - the whole point of FS is that you shouldn't really need to know!)
So here's my hypothesis, and we'll see if anyone bites!:
Sample-precise triggers are not a myth; they have existed since the very beginning of SynthMaker; they are all around us and are essential to nearly every schematic. However; they live only in the shadows, or disguise themselves as run-of-the-mill sluggish triggers. Apparatus could be devised by which FlowStoners might access their power, but DSPr have judged that we should "be careful what we wish for" - for the consequences of using them recklessly or without the requisite training could be dire. Thus we are forbidden from explicitly conjuring them up.
"From whence do I derive such conspiracy theories?", I hear you ask. [auditory hallucinations can be very confrontational sometimes!]
Well, there are certainly some technical details which can be, indeed have been, empirically tested. Other parts can be deduced from the way that VST works and general software engineering principles. However; DSPr restraining us from shooting off our own feet? - that's rather more conjectural, though with some basis in dealings that I had with the dev's when I was a SynthMaker beta-tester many years ago.
In any case, I am confident that the current limitations of triggers are not something that can ever be overcome by any kind of clever building, coding, or hacking on our part (and nor does Ruby live up to its hype in this regard). FWIW, I think that most of the use-cases for sample-precise triggers could be implemented with only a handful of new primitives (and extremely careful use of them!) - but either DSPr let us into the magic or they don't, and I think that's all there is to it.