Seeing the recent fuzz about sequencers and timing accuracy on this forum; here is a very very simple sequencer made out of very very basic max objects.

I guess it can be useful as an illustration of how a sequencer works.

http://www.arttech.nl/basic-sequencer.zip
Just enable Play.

Furthermore: is there a timing problem with this sequencer?

Cheers,
Mattijs

Mind you, since you made it easy to load many duplicate events, you might try loading up multiple copies of all of them. If you give it 4 or 5 copies of each event, and let it play for a while, you’ll probably see/hear what people are talking about. Every once in a while you get pronounced flamming between parts. The flams vary from just funky phasing, to outright flams. Which attack in the flam is the right one? Which one’s on time?

This is on a PPC G5 dual 1.8, os x 10.4.9, max 4.6.3. Maybe it’s my machine, but I’m not exactly running a centris 660av anymore! ;-)

J.

Thanks

>
> Mind you, since you made it easy to load many duplicate events, you might try loading up multiple copies of all of them. If you give it 4 or 5 copies of each event, and let it play for a while, you’ll probably see/hear what people are talking about. Every once in a while you get pronounced flamming between parts. The flams vary from just funky phasing, to outright flams. Which attack in the flam is the right one? Which one’s on time?

But wait, that has nothing to do with timing. That is about trying to play equal events multiple times at once. If you add two notes on top of each other in Logic you get the same effect.

Let’s for a moment assume you won’t add two equal events on the same position.

> This is on a PPC G5 dual 1.8, os x 10.4.9, max 4.6.3. Maybe it’s my machine, but I’m not exactly running a centris 660av anymore! ;-)

If you only enable Play after starting the patch (without adding any more events) there is no problem, right?

Mattijs

hehe… Sorry I had to be a pest. Mind you, I have to say that you don’t get the same effect adding two or more notes on top of one another in Logic. If you did, they wouldn’t have sold many copies. I only did this to show the fact that the timing problems that I think people generally complain about aren’t really timing, per se, but are scheduling problems. That’s where timing problems seem to come from, and Max seems to be really sensitive in this regard.

> Let’s for a moment assume you won’t add two equal events on the same position.
>

Fair enough. But if we’re running more than one track, chances are we’ll have multiple events on the same position. What about a chord, for example? Or, heaven forbid, two chords. If you let it play for a while, you’ll see what I mean. Sometimes you get a full-on flam. That is, I think, what gets people all wound-up about timing problems and the scheduler.

As always, I’m open to being proven wrong…

J.

So I’m curious what you might be meaning. Is there a chance you could record what you hear and post it on the forum?

I’m so keen on this because I have the strong feeling we can make a strong statement towards this ongoing timing discussion by providing examples like the patch I posted.

Mattijs

Btw I just saw I forgot to connect the clear bang properly. I updated the link: http://www.arttech.nl/basic-sequencer.zip

Quote: jbm wrote on Thu, 14 June 2007 16:24
—————————————————-
> >
> > But wait, that has nothing to do with timing. That is about trying to play equal events multiple times at once. If you add two notes on top of each other in Logic you get the same effect.
> >
>
> hehe… Sorry I had to be a pest. Mind you, I have to say that you don’t get the same effect adding two or more notes on top of one another in Logic. If you did, they wouldn’t have sold many copies. I only did this to show the fact that the timing problems that I think people generally complain about aren’t really timing, per se, but are scheduling problems. That’s where timing problems seem to come from, and Max seems to be really sensitive in this regard.
>
> > Let’s for a moment assume you won’t add two equal events on the same position.
> >
>
> Fair enough. But if we’re running more than one track, chances are we’ll have multiple events on the same position. What about a chord, for example? Or, heaven forbid, two chords. If you let it play for a while, you’ll see what I mean. Sometimes you get a full-on flam. That is, I think, what gets people all wound-up about timing problems and the scheduler.
>
> As always, I’m open to being proven wrong…
>
> J.
>
>
>
>
—————————————————-

Quote: jbm wrote on Thu, 14 June 2007 16:24
—————————————————-
> > Let’s for a moment assume you won’t add two equal events on the same position.
> >
>
> Fair enough. But if we’re running more than one track, chances are we’ll have multiple events on the same position. What about a chord, for example? Or, heaven forbid, two chords.

Note, I was talking about two -equal- events on the same position. So chords and multiple tracks are no problem since these events are different, even though they might be triggered at the same time. In my example hihats are triggered simultaneously with bassdrums.

> If you let it play for a while, you’ll see what I mean. Sometimes you get a full-on flam. That is, I think, what gets people all wound-up about timing problems and the scheduler.

Ok, I believe you’re taking two steps at a time here where you shouldn’t.

So
1) there are flams after you added the events to the sequencer multiple times -> This is expected behaviour since in that case two or more bassdrums will be sequenced to be triggered at the same time.

2) people get wound-up about timing problems and the scheduler. -> I don’t think the flams have anything to do with timing or the scheduler, as mentioned above. The reason -I- think people get wound-up about timing and scheduler problems is because they don’t understand how those systems work. Which we can’t expect them to because there is no proper documentation about this for non-software-engineers. This patch is meant as an illustration how to use max correctly in case you want to build a sequencer.

Mattijs

>
> As always, I’m open to being proven wrong…
>
> J.
>
>
>
>
—————————————————-

Well, I added them accidentally at first, then started messing around with that. I realize it may not have been exactly “fair” to do that, as the patch is clearly not made with that sort of polyphony in mind… But I thought it was interesting, and symptomatic of the sorts of problems people talk about, that it did start phasing and flamming. I mean, it’s common practice to define a chord, in midi, as a series of pitches sent at (essentially) the same time.

Anyway, yes, for the most part, I deliberately loaded multiple events. gulp… I realize that the flamming problems may have been more related to the little sampler’s monophonic design, than to any problems with timing.

J.

I’m going to make a version of this using 4 instances of your basic patch, with one start toggle, just to see if the flamming still occurs.

J.

Ok, that explains the miscommunication.

> But I thought it was interesting, and symptomatic of the sorts of problems people talk about, that it did start phasing and flamming.

Perhaps, but for the moment let’s try to seperate the ambiguity about timing and sequencing from other possible problems people may have.

> I mean, it’s common practice to define a chord, in midi, as a series of pitches sent at (essentially) the same time.

Yes, but again, even though a chord may consist of multiple events defined at the same time, these are not -equal- events. A chord is built with events that differ in pitch.

In my example events are indeed played at the same time: hihats, snares and bassdrums. They are played by a deliberately simple monophonic drum sampler. As you said, it requires a polyphonic engine to play a chord, but there is no restriction to playing a chord as far as the sequencer is concerned.

>
> Anyway, yes, for the most part, I deliberately loaded multiple events. gulp… I realize that the flamming problems may have been more related to the little sampler’s monophonic design, than to any problems with timing.

Thanks a lot for confirming. This is important because in fact I am hoping to refer to this patch from now on whenever someone starts another topic about perceived inherent timing flaws in Max.

Any additions are of course welcome. This includes changes to the interface that could lower the risk of possible user mistakes such as adding multiple copies of events ;)

Best,
Mattijs

J.

sequencer

#N comlet loadbang;
#P inlet 221 35 15 0;
#P outlet 49 376 15 0;
#P inlet 156 27 15 0;
#P window setfont “Sans Serif” 9.;
#P window linecount 2;
#P comment 297 129 116 196617 Just enable DSP and press Play.;
#P window linecount 1;
#P comment 224 67 96 196617 Add these events;
#P newex 30 273 87 196617 samplePlayer $1;
#P button 30 132 15 0;
#P comment 47 132 74 196617 Clear sequence;
#N vpatcher 40 104 501 568;
#P window setfont “Sans Serif” 9.;
#P newex 239 69 40 196617 t clear;
#P newex 86 216 21 196617 t 0;
#P newex 86 197 40 196617 change;
#P newex 86 178 27 196617 / 1.;
#P newex 134 216 31 196617 % 1.;
#P newex 88 371 36 196617 zl reg;
#P newex 50 370 27 196617 i;
#P newex 50 216 27 196617 t i i;
#P newex 50 390 27 196617 + 1;
#P newex 134 197 35 196617 * 0.5;
#P newex 134 178 46 196617 / 1000.;
#P newex 134 159 27 196617 – 0.;
#P newex 50 197 27 196617 i;
#P newex 50 349 41 196617 sel 1 0;
#P newex 50 329 27 196617 &&;
#P newex 50 110 30 196617 t b b;
#P newex 50 269 44 196617 zl nth 1;
#P newex 50 289 29 196617 t f f;
#P newex 84 309 27 196617 < 0.;
#P newex 50 69 40 196617 t i i 0;
#P newex 189 140 48 196617 cpuclock;
#P newex 189 120 32 196617 sel 1;
#P newex 50 90 49 196617 metro 2.;
#P newex 50 309 33 196617 >= 0.;
#N coll events 1;
#P newobj 50 249 68 196617 coll events 1;
#P newex 134 140 48 196617 cpuclock;
#P newex 170 69 40 196617 / 240.;
#N comlet (bool) play;
#P inlet 50 49 15 0;
#N comlet (bang) clear;
#P inlet 239 49 15 0;
#N comlet (float , bars) loop length;
#P inlet 103 49 15 0;
#N comlet (list) event to add;
#P inlet 300 49 15 0;
#N comlet (int , bpm) tempo;
#P inlet 170 49 15 0;
#P outlet 88 393 15 0;
#P message 300 131 53 196617 renumber;
#P message 315 111 52 196617 sort -1 0;
#P newex 330 90 84 196617 prepend insert 1;
#P newex 300 69 40 196617 t b b l;
#P connect 9 0 17 0;
#P connect 17 0 14 0;
#P connect 14 0 21 0;
#P fasten 28 0 24 0 55 410 38 410 38 193 55 193;
#P connect 21 0 24 0;
#P connect 24 0 29 0;
#P fasten 36 0 12 0 244 246 55 246;
#P connect 29 0 12 0;
#P fasten 1 0 12 0 335 246 55 246;
#P fasten 2 0 12 0 320 246 55 246;
#P fasten 3 0 12 0 305 246 55 246;
#P connect 12 0 20 0;
#P connect 20 0 19 0;
#P connect 19 0 13 0;
#P connect 13 0 22 0;
#P connect 22 0 23 0;
#P connect 23 0 30 0;
#P connect 30 0 28 0;
#P connect 17 2 24 1;
#P connect 35 0 24 1;
#P connect 18 0 22 1;
#P connect 29 1 30 1;
#P connect 19 1 18 0;
#P connect 27 0 33 0;
#P connect 33 0 34 0;
#P connect 34 0 35 0;
#P connect 23 0 31 0;
#P connect 31 0 4 0;
#P connect 32 0 18 1;
#P connect 7 0 33 1;
#P connect 20 1 31 1;
#P connect 21 1 11 0;
#P connect 11 0 25 0;
#P connect 25 0 26 0;
#P connect 26 0 27 0;
#P connect 27 0 32 0;
#P connect 16 0 25 1;
#P connect 7 0 32 1;
#P connect 10 0 27 1;
#P connect 5 0 10 0;
#P connect 17 1 15 0;
#P connect 15 0 16 0;
#P connect 8 0 36 0;
#P connect 6 0 0 0;
#P connect 0 0 3 0;
#P connect 0 1 2 0;
#P connect 0 2 1 0;
#P pop;
#P newobj 30 160 66 196617 p sequencer;
#B color 5;
#P hidden newex 135 108 60 196617 loadmess 1;
#P flonum 30 108 35 9 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 221 221 221 222 222 222 0 0 0;
#P comment 67 108 64 196617 Bars to loop;
#P message 207 185 56 196617 0.5625 sd;
#P button 98 227 15 0;
#P button 64 227 15 0;
#P button 30 227 15 0;
#P button 207 67 15 0;
#P hidden newex 100 84 72 196617 loadmess 136;
#P hidden newex 183 350 18 196617 t l;
#P message 207 203 44 196617 0.75 sd;
#P message 207 167 44 196617 0.25 sd;
#P message 207 352 50 196617 0.875 hh;
#P message 207 334 44 196617 0.75 hh;
#P message 207 316 50 196617 0.625 hh;
#P message 207 298 38 196617 0.5 hh;
#P message 207 280 50 196617 0.375 hh;
#P message 207 262 44 196617 0.25 hh;
#P message 207 244 50 196617 0.125 hh;
#P message 207 226 32 196617 0. hh;
#P message 207 142 44 196617 0.75 bd;
#P message 207 124 38 196617 0.5 bd;
#P message 207 106 44 196617 0.25 bd;
#P message 207 88 32 196617 0. bd;
#P newex 30 206 112 196617 route bd sd hh;
#P toggle 30 59 15 0;
#P comment 46 59 29 196617 Play;
#P number 30 84 35 9 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 221 221 221 222 222 222 0 0 0;
#P comment 67 84 28 196617 Bpm;
#P window linecount 5;
#P comment 297 174 116 196617 Note: The events to the left are loaded with a loadbang. Make sure you don’t add multiple copies of these events.;
#P hidden connect 22 0 17 0;
#P hidden connect 22 0 16 0;
#P hidden connect 22 0 15 0;
#P hidden connect 22 0 14 0;
#P hidden connect 22 0 13 0;
#P hidden connect 22 0 12 0;
#P hidden connect 22 0 11 0;
#P hidden connect 22 0 10 0;
#P hidden connect 22 0 19 0;
#P hidden connect 22 0 26 0;
#P hidden connect 22 0 18 0;
#P hidden connect 22 0 9 0;
#P hidden connect 22 0 8 0;
#P hidden connect 22 0 7 0;
#P hidden connect 22 0 6 0;
#P connect 38 0 22 0;
#P hidden connect 26 0 20 0;
#P hidden connect 7 0 20 0;
#P hidden connect 8 0 20 0;
#P hidden connect 9 0 20 0;
#P hidden connect 18 0 20 0;
#P hidden connect 19 0 20 0;
#P hidden connect 10 0 20 0;
#P hidden connect 11 0 20 0;
#P hidden connect 12 0 20 0;
#P hidden connect 13 0 20 0;
#P hidden connect 14 0 20 0;
#P hidden connect 15 0 20 0;
#P hidden connect 16 0 20 0;
#P hidden connect 17 0 20 0;
#P hidden connect 6 0 20 0;
#P connect 25 0 33 2;
#P connect 5 2 25 0;
#P hidden connect 20 0 30 4;
#P hidden connect 32 0 30 3;
#P connect 24 0 33 1;
#P connect 5 1 24 0;
#P hidden fasten 2 0 30 2 35 154 63 154;
#P connect 33 0 37 0;
#P hidden fasten 28 0 30 1 35 154 49 154;
#P connect 23 0 33 0;
#P connect 5 0 23 0;
#P connect 30 0 5 0;
#P hidden connect 4 0 30 0;
#P hidden connect 29 0 28 0;
#P hidden connect 21 0 2 0;
#P connect 36 0 4 0;
#P window clipboard copycount 39;

sampler

#P window setfont “Sans Serif” 9.;
#P window linecount 1;
#P newex 199 130 145 196617 loadmess replace 808hh01.aif;
#P newex 21 130 32 196617 t 0 1;
#P newex 73 130 29 196617 sig~;
#P newex 73 149 91 196617 groove~ $1_hihat;
#P newex 21 90 32 196617 t 0 1;
#P newex 73 90 29 196617 sig~;
#P newex 73 109 117 196617 groove~ $1_snaredrum;
#P newex 21 50 32 196617 t 0 1;
#P newex 73 50 29 196617 sig~;
#P newex 73 69 112 196617 groove~ $1_bassdrum;
#P newex 199 90 145 196617 loadmess replace 808sd01.aif;
#P newex 199 50 145 196617 loadmess replace 808bd01.aif;
#P newex 199 69 109 196617 buffer~ $1_bassdrum;
#P newex 199 109 114 196617 buffer~ $1_snaredrum;
#P newex 199 149 88 196617 buffer~ $1_hihat;
#P inlet 21 30 15 0;
#P inlet 38 30 15 0;
#P inlet 55 30 15 0;
#P outlet 73 174 15 0;
#P connect 18 0 4 0;
#P connect 8 0 5 0;
#P connect 7 0 6 0;
#P connect 15 0 0 0;
#P connect 12 0 0 0;
#P connect 9 0 0 0;
#P connect 17 0 15 0;
#P connect 16 0 15 0;
#P connect 17 1 16 0;
#P connect 14 0 12 0;
#P connect 13 0 12 0;
#P connect 14 1 13 0;
#P connect 11 0 9 0;
#P connect 10 0 9 0;
#P connect 11 1 10 0;
#P connect 1 0 17 0;
#P connect 2 0 14 0;
#P connect 3 0 11 0;
#P window clipboard copycount 19;

test patcher

#P window setfont “Sans Serif” 9.;
#P window linecount 1;
#P newex 523 71 48 196617 loadbang;
#P user ezdac~ 119 225 163 258 0;
#P message 360 208 30 196617 open;
#P newex 208 238 64 196617 sfrecord~ 2;
#P newex 402 100 92 196617 basic-sequencer 4;
#P newex 304 100 92 196617 basic-sequencer 3;
#P newex 208 100 92 196617 basic-sequencer 2;
#P toggle 495 38 15 0;
#P newex 94 100 92 196617 basic-sequencer 1;
#P fasten 8 0 0 1 528 94 181 94;
#P fasten 8 0 2 1 528 94 295 94;
#P fasten 8 0 3 1 528 94 391 94;
#P fasten 8 0 4 1 528 94 489 94;
#P fasten 1 0 0 0 500 77 99 77;
#P fasten 1 0 2 0 500 77 213 77;
#P fasten 1 0 5 0 500 146 213 146;
#P fasten 1 0 3 0 500 77 309 77;
#P fasten 1 0 4 0 500 77 407 77;
#P connect 4 0 5 1;
#P connect 3 0 7 1;
#P connect 3 0 5 1;
#P connect 2 0 5 0;
#P connect 0 0 7 0;
#P connect 0 0 5 0;
#P fasten 6 0 5 0 365 230 213 230;
#P connect 4 0 7 1;
#P connect 2 0 7 0;
#P window clipboard copycount 9;

You are right about that. When I minimize/unlock patches and switch programs sometimes it happens that events are dropped. I am curious what that could be.

> I recorded the output with an sfrecord~. Maybe I can post it on my site and send you a link.

I think I already experienced what you mean. I’ll look into the patch some more to see how this can be explained.

>
> I’m going to make a version of this using 4 instances of your basic patch, with one start toggle, just to see if the flamming still occurs.

Ok, let me know what your results are.

Mattijs

Mattijs

Quote: jbm wrote on Thu, 14 June 2007 18:04
—————————————————-
> Okay, so what I just did was to pull out the sampler, and give it a changeable argument, just to specify independent buffers. I made a patcher with 4 instances of your sequencer, with arguments for the buffers. The all start on the same toggle. The outputs feed into a stereo sfrecord~. I put two of the instances into the left channel and two into the right, so any timing problems would be really obvious. Basically, it does okay. When playback timing is really locked, the output is mono, dead centre. When it wavers the stereo channels really “pop” out. As I say, it didn’t do too badly, but it’s not stellar. And we’re really not talking about sample-accuracy here. They flam, which means they’re many ms apart.
>

Quote: jbm wrote on Thu, 14 June 2007 18:07
—————————————————-
> oh, and btw, it’s kind of a cool effect when they do start to wander! ;-)
>
—————————————————-

…indeed.

It would be nice to get to the bottom of this, as this exchange has really exemplified some of my joys and frustrations with Max.
Joy: being able to make simple, elegant, and functional music machines, like your little sequencer object.
Frustration: that such nice, clean objects as yours can have problems scaling to larger environments, when used as abstractions.

cheers,

J.

I tested your patch. Here is a recording of what happens when I play the sequence (overdrive enabled) and then start opening applications, browsing to heavy flash websites, etc, on a Powerbook G4 1.25.

http://www.arttech.nl/basic-sequencer-recording.aif

As far as I can hear there is indeed some stereo/phasing-ish effect, but I can hear no flamming. So I’d say that there may be an error of 1 or 2 ms (in the range of phasing), but not around 30 ms (in the range of flamming).

And then there are the moments that everything halts for a short moment, which I assume happens when the cpu is overloaded and can’t be used by max for a short moment. Note that no events are dropped in such a case and no cumulative error occurs (something a lot of people complain about when using metro and counter).

Based on these results I’d say everything works as expected.

An interesting find regarding the dropping out of events: on the powerbook this problem doesn’t occur! A few hours ago I was on a MacPro Quadcore where the dropouts occurred approximately once in a minute.

Could this have something to do with multiple cores (i.e. the dsp thread running on a separate processor)? Would you have the oppurtunity to do a test on a single-core computer?

Mattijs

i have to admit the thought never crossed my mind to use cpuclock and the time divisions as float for events.

but then again i’m not a software engineer… i tend to go for signal based clocks as i find them more reliable, especially past 1/32 divisions – which isn’t that fast when doing intricate rhythms.

to illustrate the grudge i have with metro (or event scheduler?), see patch below. it doesnt seem to matter if i have overdrive on / off with metro. BTW, this is also on a dual core MBP.

sometimes i feel Max timing goes through a Logic humanise effect!

j

#P window setfont “Sans Serif” 9.;
#P window linecount 1;
#P comment 465 177 100 196617 reset phase / speed;
#P newex 368 345 33 196617 < ~ 0.;
#P user scope~ 369 382 499 512 256 3 128 -1. 1. 0 0. 0 0. 102 255 51 135 135 135 0;
#P newex 368 326 38 196617 delta~;
#P comment 147 52 100 196617 start / stop;
#P window linecount 2;
#P comment 13 364 100 196617 compare metro / phasor;
#P window linecount 1;
#P newex 404 201 30 196617 t b b;
#P newex 533 233 27 196617 0;
#P user scope~ 237 382 367 512 256 3 128 -1. 1. 0 0. 0 0. 102 255 51 135 135 135 0;
#P newex 115 385 27 196617 + 1;
#P toggle 115 364 15 0;
#P newex 115 407 71 196617 selector~ 2 1;
#P newex 404 272 27 196617 0.;
#P newex 404 177 60 196617 sel 1;
#N vpatcher 494 44 841 398;
#P outlet 42 182 15 0;
#P window setfont “Sans Serif” 9.;
#P window linecount 1;
#P newex 107 109 29 196617 t b f;
#P inlet 107 85 15 0;
#P newex 42 151 29 196617 * 4.;
#P window linecount 0;
#P newex 42 96 40 196617 / 240.;
#P inlet 42 53 15 0;
#P connect 0 0 1 0;
#P connect 4 0 2 0;
#P connect 1 0 2 0;
#P connect 2 0 5 0;
#P connect 4 1 2 1;
#P connect 3 0 4 0;
#P pop;
#P newobj 368 135 55 196617 p bpmtohz;
#P flonum 368 234 62 9 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 221 221 221 222 222 222 0 0 0;
#P comment 432 234 100 196617 interval in hz;
#P newex 368 303 46 196617 phasor~;
#P comment 280 91 292 196617 from 1/32 timing has a strange shuffle like effect with metro.;
#P flonum 208 234 35 9 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 221 221 221 222 222 222 0 0 0;
#P user ezdac~ 115 475 159 508 0;
#P newex 145 300 37 196617 click~;
#P number 244 91 35 9 4 0 1 3 0 0 0 221 221 221 222 222 222 0 0 0;
#P flonum 196 91 35 9 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 221 221 221 222 222 222 0 0 0;
#P toggle 145 93 15 0;
#N vpatcher 20 74 620 474;
#P window setfont “Sans Serif” 9.;
#P newex 44 128 31 196617 120.;
#P comment 65 190 55 196617 ms – float;
#P comment 209 69 42 196617 divider;
#N comlet ms interval – float;
#P outlet 44 190 20 0;
#N comlet divider – float;
#P inlet 191 69 17 0;
#N comlet bpm – float;
#P inlet 44 69 17 0;
#P newex 191 91 29 196617 t b f;
#P newex 44 149 176 196617 expr ((60000./$f1) *4.) * (1./$f2);
#P comment 62 70 26 196617 bpm;
#P connect 3 0 8 0;
#P fasten 2 0 8 0 196 118 49 118;
#P connect 8 0 1 0;
#P connect 1 0 5 0;
#P connect 4 0 2 0;
#P connect 2 1 1 1;
#P pop;
#P newobj 196 135 58 196617 p bpmtoms;
#P newex 145 177 61 196617 metro 125.;
#P comment 245 234 100 196617 interval in ms;
#P connect 17 0 18 0;
#P connect 18 0 16 0;
#P connect 16 0 7 0;
#P connect 3 0 1 0;
#P connect 1 0 6 0;
#P connect 6 0 16 1;
#P connect 16 0 7 1;
#P fasten 26 0 16 2 373 372 180 372;
#P connect 4 0 2 0;
#P connect 2 0 1 1;
#P fasten 2 0 8 0 201 163 213 163;
#P fasten 6 0 19 0 150 348 242 348;
#P connect 5 0 2 1;
#P fasten 4 0 13 0 201 120 373 120;
#P fasten 21 0 12 0 409 226 373 226;
#P connect 13 0 12 0;
#P connect 12 0 10 0;
#P fasten 20 0 10 0 538 299 373 299;
#P fasten 10 0 24 0 373 321 373 321;
#P connect 24 0 26 0;
#P connect 26 0 25 0;
#P hidden fasten 3 0 14 0 150 158 409 158;
#P connect 14 0 21 0;
#P fasten 21 1 15 0 429 266 409 266;
#P connect 15 0 10 1;
#P fasten 5 0 13 1 249 120 418 120;
#P fasten 14 1 20 0 459 213 538 213;
#P window clipboard copycount 28;

This is actually very interesting, and a little disconcerting. I can’t post my recording right now, but I’ll post it tomorrow. My playback had pronounced flamming, which went in phases – and I would guess, coincidentally, that it happened around every minute. It would flam for 2 or 3 bars, then go back to normal for around a minute, then start flamming again. My machine is dual G5 – though not dual-core. What machine was your recording made on? I’m now *very* curious about this… I can try disabling one of my CPUs tomorrow in the CHUD tools as well, just to see if the periodic flamming goes away. I’ll report back at some point tomorrow, and post my recording as well.

cheers,

J.

Thanks justin! For the record, I assume seq~ works exactly this way, the difference is that this allows for a look inside and can be educative in that aspect.

>
> i have to admit the thought never crossed my mind to use cpuclock and the time divisions as float for events.
>
> but then again i’m not a software engineer… i tend to go for signal based clocks as i find them more reliable, especially past 1/32 divisions – which isn’t that fast when doing intricate rhythms.
>
> to illustrate the grudge i have with metro (or event scheduler?), see patch below. it doesnt seem to matter if i have overdrive on / off with metro. BTW, this is also on a dual core MBP.
>
> sometimes i feel Max timing goes through a Logic humanise effect!

I tested your patch and recorded a few seconds of audio at a subdivision of 32. On a powerbook G4. In the middle of the recording I switch from the metro output to the phasor output. I don’t hear a difference.

http://www.arttech.nl/justin-recording.aif

Maybe you could also post a recording so that we can compare..

Cheers,
Mattijs

btw: a tip: you might have named the number boxes of the bpm and subdivision. Sending a loadmess with a functional value is also a pro.. One could be less tempted to try your patch if one had to guess what those number boxes are for. ;)

On 14/6/07 16:01, “Mattijs Kneppers” wrote:

>
> Mind that in this patch the events are loaded with a loadbang. Don’t load them
> yourself. If I load the patch and do nothing but enable dsp and then press
> Play I get a very straight little beat loop and I don’t experience
> timing/phasing/flamming problems in any form.
>
> So I’m curious what you might be meaning. Is there a chance you could record
> what you hear and post it on the forum?
>
> I’m so keen on this because I have the strong feeling we can make a strong
> statement towards this ongoing timing discussion by providing examples like
> the patch I posted.
>
> Mattijs
>
> Btw I just saw I forgot to connect the clear bang properly. I updated the
> link: http://www.arttech.nl/basic-sequencer.zip
>
> Quote: jbm wrote on Thu, 14 June 2007 16:24
> —————————————————-
>>>
>>> But wait, that has nothing to do with timing. That is about trying to play
>>> equal events multiple times at once. If you add two notes on top of each
>>> other in Logic you get the same effect.
>>>
>>
>> hehe… Sorry I had to be a pest. Mind you, I have to say that you don’t get
>> the same effect adding two or more notes on top of one another in Logic. If
>> you did, they wouldn’t have sold many copies. I only did this to show the
>> fact that the timing problems that I think people generally complain about
>> aren’t really timing, per se, but are scheduling problems. That’s where
>> timing problems seem to come from, and Max seems to be really sensitive in
>> this regard.
>>
>>> Let’s for a moment assume you won’t add two equal events on the same
>>> position.
>>>
>>
>> Fair enough. But if we’re running more than one track, chances are we’ll have
>> multiple events on the same position. What about a chord, for example? Or,
>> heaven forbid, two chords. If you let it play for a while, you’ll see what I
>> mean. Sometimes you get a full-on flam. That is, I think, what gets people
>> all wound-up about timing problems and the scheduler.
>>
>> As always, I’m open to being proven wrong…
>>
>> J.
>>
>>
>>
>>
> —————————————————-
>
>
> –
> SmadSteck – http://www.smadsteck.nl
> Hard- and software for interactive audiovisual sampling

My guess was there could be a relation between the dropping out of events and multiple cores. But not between multiple cores and periodic flamming..

Mattijs

Quote: jbm wrote on Thu, 14 June 2007 21:38
—————————————————-
> This is actually very interesting, and a little disconcerting. I can’t post my recording right now, but I’ll post it tomorrow. My playback had pronounced flamming, which went in phases – and I would guess, coincidentally, that it happened around every minute. It would flam for 2 or 3 bars, then go back to normal for around a minute, then start flamming again. My machine is dual G5 – though not dual-core. What machine was your recording made on? I’m now *very* curious about this… I can try disabling one of my CPUs tomorrow in the CHUD tools as well, just to see if the periodic flamming goes away. I’ll report back at some point tomorrow, and post my recording as well.
>
> cheers,
>
> J.
>
—————————————————-

Mattijs

Quote: roger.carruthers wrote on Thu, 14 June 2007 21:57
—————————————————-
> Getting something rather strange when I try to download the patch (updated
> link) – it starts to download as ‘basic-sequencer.zip’, then changes into an
> XL file called ” staff_rota_wb_11.06.07_with_no_end_times.xls” !
> Subsequent attempts to download it result in exactly the same behaviour,
> with the original being overwritten, instead of the usual Safari behaviour
> of adding a ’1′ to the file name…
> However, I can say that when I downloaded the original patch at work and
> ran it, the timing was not good (Intel iMac 2GHz); no flamming, but obvious
> timing glitches.

The question is: did this timing glitches occur without your cpu being busy with other stuff? When the cpu is at 100% it is quite normal that timing glitches will occur.

> Unfortunately I can’t try it again here at home, for the
> reason above,
> Cheers
> Roger
>
>
>

yeah will do it tomorrow.

> btw: a tip: you might have named the number boxes of the bpm and subdivision. Sending a loadmess with a functional value is also a pro.. One could be less tempted to try your patch if one had to guess what those number boxes are for. ;)

didnt have much time for the labelling / init process!
but this is an interesting subject for me, as i have had numerous problems getting solid timing in the past… excuse my enthusiasm to dive straight in there!

how did it go at 1/64?

j

The recording is here:

http://www.arttech.nl/justin-recording-64-128.aif

What you hear is: 64 metro, 64 phasor, 128 phasor, 128 metro.

Does that mean that with default dsp settings and performance options, event-based timing is ‘useful’ until you reach approximately 120 bpm with 64 subdivisions? Guess so..

Mattijs

Quote: justin wrote on Thu, 14 June 2007 22:14
—————————————————-
>
> > I tested your patch and recorded a few seconds of audio at a subdivision of 32. On a powerbook G4. In the middle of the recording I switch from the metro output to the phasor output. I don’t hear a difference.
> >
> > http://www.arttech.nl/justin-recording.aif
> >
> > Maybe you could also post a recording so that we can compare..
>
> yeah will do it tomorrow.
>
> > btw: a tip: you might have named the number boxes of the bpm and subdivision. Sending a loadmess with a functional value is also a pro.. One could be less tempted to try your patch if one had to guess what those number boxes are for. ;)
>
> didnt have much time for the labelling / init process!
> but this is an interesting subject for me, as i have had numerous problems getting solid timing in the past… excuse my enthusiasm to dive straight in there!
>
> how did it go at 1/64?
>
> j
—————————————————-