David Beaudry

There is quite a bit of useful info on syncing the playback of multiple sound files using play~ or groove~, but not so much with sfplay~, and I'm a bit stuck on what to do here.

For a audio show control app I am working (or have been working on for the past several years) I have a collection of "banks" inside a poly~. The source for playback is the sfplay~ object. To preserve sanity in other parts of the bank, each sfplay~ is set-up to play either stereo or mono files. Let's say I have 6 mono files (or even 3 stereo files) from a 5.1 bounce that I want to play back. I want these 6 files to play back with sample-accuracy relative to each other. Is there a way to sync these using sfplay~? This would be 6 sfplay~s in 6 poly~ instances. I had this working beautifully when using play~ (creating a "sync" channel of sorts), until I had a show that had over 3 gb of sounds/music, and not enough RAM!

Does anybody have any suggestions on how to go about this? Is it possible with sfplay~?

Hi all,
There is quite a bit of useful info on syncing the playback of multiple sound files using play~ or groove~, but not so much with sfplay~, and I'm a bit stuck on what to do here.

syncing-sfplays

Yes. Check out sfplay~ with sflist~ to establish cues. Once you've 

set up the cues, they may be triggered with sample accuracy by just 

Since it sounds like you've got quite a number of files, you'll need to 

increase the diskbuffer probably, but otherwise it should work. Also, 

do note that you could also just use sfrecord~ to write the sounds as 

6-channel aiff files and then play them back using sfplay~ 6. Granted, 

you won't find too many apps that will be happy opening them, but this 

will work like a charm, and is how I perform an octophonic piece of 

Yes.  Check out sfplay~ with sflist~ to establish cues.  Once you've 
set up the cues, they may be triggered with sample accuracy by just 
sending the cue number at signal rate.

Since it sounds like you've got quite a number of files, you'll need to 
increase the diskbuffer probably, but otherwise it should work.  Also, 
do note that you could also just use sfrecord~ to write the sounds as 
6-channel aiff files and then play them back using sfplay~ 6.  Granted, 
you won't find too many apps that will be happy opening them, but this 
will work like a charm, and is how I perform an octophonic piece of 
mine.

Yeah, that's the path I've been heading down the past couple days is triggering the preloads using a signal in the left inlet (and sflist~), but it gets a bit hairy due to some other things I'm trying to do (sustained loops, etc.). I certainly appreciate the input, tho. I've gotta map this out on paper to see if this is really a path that will work for me. Seems like this is the only way to get multiple sfplay~s to sync.

FYI: Emmanuel Jourdan's "Soundfiles merger" is perfect for merging multiple sound files into one (and a bit easier than sfrecord~)

http://www.e--j.com/sphpblog/static.php?page=sfmerger-download

P.S. & shameless plug: for the more curious, this is part of a complete overhaul of a project I released last year called "Theater Max" while I was faculty at UCLA:

http://remap.ucla.edu/audio/theatermax/intro.htm

FYI: Emmanuel Jourdan's "Soundfiles merger" is perfect for merging multiple sound files into one (and a bit easier than sfrecord~)
http://www.e--j.com/sphpblog/static.php?page=sfmerger-download

P.S. & shameless plug: for the more curious, this is part of a complete overhaul of a project I released last year called "Theater Max" while I was faculty at UCLA:
http://remap.ucla.edu/audio/theatermax/intro.htm


> do note that you could also just use sfrecord~ to write the sounds as 

> 6-channel aiff files and then play them back using sfplay~ 6. Granted, 

> you won't find too many apps that will be happy opening them, but this 

> will work like a charm, and is how I perform an octophonic piece of 

----------------------------------------------------

i have also used this method for a 12 channel surround installation. it's much easier to control the playback of multi channel files, alas this might be more difficult if you need to have some with loop points...

FYI, there is an application for editing and creating (up to 16 ch) AIFF / WAV files. Unfortunately it's not UB, so it might be a bit slow on intel macs. I dont think there is a windows version, although there may be alternatives...

> Also, 
> do note that you could also just use sfrecord~ to write the sounds as 
> 6-channel aiff files and then play them back using sfplay~ 6.  Granted, 
> you won't find too many apps that will be happy opening them, but this 
> will work like a charm, and is how I perform an octophonic piece of 
> mine.
>
> Peter McCulloch
> www.petermcculloch.com
>
>
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syncing sfplay~s