BRDS external on Rpi

Pisound Support
1

This is mostly a direct question to @thetechnobear, but since it might be useful to others here as well, I decided to publicly post it.

I did try to convert the BRDS Pd patch for Pisound. Mapping the controls to the Pisound App was quick&easy and it seems to work really well overall.
I have only two issues, and these relate to the external itself:

  1. Some models do not seem to work correctly, meaning that they don’t respond to pitch changes (the sound is always at the same pitch) and the timbre does not sound like anything I know from Braids… it sounds more like a high-pitched whine. Is that due to hardware differences between a regular Rpi and the Organelle?
  2. Is there a way to have the external respond to integers at the “Shape” input? Right now it expects a float from 0 to 1, but that makes selecting the models a bit fiddly. Not all of them make sense in a Pisound (or Organelle for that matter) patch. So I’m trying to find a good way to select the ones I like most and leave out the rest. That would be easiest with the Shape input responding to integers. This way CSAW would be for eg. 1 and FOLD is 4 etc. and you can quickly map that with a [select] object. Is there anything that can be done about it?
1 Like
2

Hey, can you show us the .json files for the patch? There is a ‘int’ data type which would behave as an integer, see https://blokas.io/pisound/docs/Pisound-App/#parameter-definitions

3

Sure, I can upload that later, when I get back.
I am aware of the “int” data type and use that a lot. The problem is on the pd external side of things, i.e. the external expects float values that go from 0 to 1, which is how things work on the Organelle.
I can of course sit down and figure out which float values correspond to which model, but having them accessible via discrete integer values would make things easier.

4

Sorry totally forgot about this due to lots of being swamped with work.
Here’s the JSON file, but as mentioned previously, I don’t think that’s related to my issue in any way. I think the issue is with the binary external.

Since discourse won’t let me attach the .json file, I’m pasting it here:

{
    "name" : "brds",
    "display" : "Pisound Braids",
    "parameters" : [
      ["float","osc-shape","Shape",0,1,0],
      ["float","osc-timbre","Timbre",0,1,0],
      ["float","osc-colour","Colour",0,1,0],
      ["int","osc-octave","Octave",1,5,1],
      ["int","cutoff","Filter cutoff",0,127,0],
      ["float","reson","Filter resonance",0,4,0],
      ["float","vcf-env-amt","VCF envelope amount",0,1,0],
      ["int","vca-attack","Amp Attack",0,500,0],
      ["int","vca-decay","Amp Decay",0,1000,0],
      ["int","vca-sustain","Amp Sustain",0,100,0],
      ["int","vca-release","Amp Release",0,2000,0],
      ["int","vcf-attack","VCF Attack",0,500,0],
      ["int","vcf-decay","VCF Decay",0,1000,0],
      ["int","vcf-sustain","VCF Sustain",0,100,0],
      ["int","vcf-release","VCF Release",0,2000,0]
    ],
    "pages" : [
        ["pg_main","Main",["osc-shape","osc-timbre","osc-colour","cutoff","reson","osc-octave"]],
        ["pg_ampenv","Amp-ENV",["vca-attack","vca-decay","vca-sustain","vca-release"]],
        ["pg_vcfenv","VCF-ENV",["vcf-attack","vcf-decay","vcf-sustain","vcf-release","vcf-env-amt"]]
    ]
}

Of course I can also upload the whole thing if you want.

5

Little update: Talkes to Technobear over at lines and he said he’s working on a Plaits external, so I guess I’ll just wait for that to be out instead! But thanks nonetheless.