Ping Garden Software Instrument

MengQiMusic · February 15, 2021, 2:39pm

Happy Chinese New Year! We wish you a great fruitful 2021. Here is a gift from us, it’s called Ping Garden, a software instrument utilizing Mac multitouch pad as playing interface. It uses filter pinging and FM for sound synthesis.

When I was working on Wing Pinger in last year’s CNY, factories were closed during the holiday, so I learned a bit of SuperCollider to kill time. That’s how Ping Garden was born.

Ping Garden makes rain falling sounds with gesturally controlled density. Here is a small video of me playing it. Hope you enjoy.

Install SuperCollider And git :
https://supercollider.github.io/download
https://git-scm.com

Open Terminal. Input these line by line :

 xcode-select --install
 git clone https://github.com/batuhan/tongsengmod.git
 cd tongsengmod
 make
 sudo make install

From now on, all opeations are in SuperCollider. Open this file in SC.
Meng Qi - Ping Garden.scd (4.0 KB)

Put cursor in the line “Quarks.Install(“MultiTouchPad”);”, press Command + Enter;
Put cursor in the line “s.reboot();”, press Command + Enter;
Put cursor in the section below line 27, press Command + Enter;
Put cursor in the section below line 85, press Command + Enter. Now the software interface should appear and you can start playing on the Touchpad.

Enjoy!

corpusjonsey · February 15, 2021, 2:47pm

Thank you and Happy New Year!!

glia · February 15, 2021, 2:51pm

hey @shreeswifty you and i were gonna chat about supercollider standalones the other day

here’s an interesting one!

ktnsft · February 15, 2021, 2:51pm

Thanks and Happy New Year to you!

slowkindjal · February 16, 2021, 9:11am

This would make a very interesting grid+norns synth.

Stephano.Music · February 17, 2021, 1:52am

Thank you, and Happy Chinese New Year! I added MIDI IN to play notes along with the Ping Garden using the following code:

s.boot;

(
var notes, on, off;

MIDIClient.init;
MIDIIn.connectAll;

notes = Array.newClear(128);    // array has one slot per possible MIDI note

on = MIDIFunc.noteOn({ |veloc, num, chan, src|
    notes[num] = Synth(\default, [\freq, num.midicps,
        \amp, veloc * 0.00315]);
});

off = MIDIFunc.noteOff({ |veloc, num, chan, src|
    notes[num].release;
});

q = { on.free; off.free; };
)

Similar Steps:

Save a Copy of the Ping Garden .scd file and name it MENGQI-PINGGARDEN-MIDI, and Open it.
Copy/paste this whole code to the end of the existing Ping Garden window.
Place cursor at the end of s.boot; line, press Command + Enter.
Place cursor at the beginning of var notes,on,off; line, press Command + Enter.
Enjoy!

MengQiMusic · February 18, 2021, 1:46pm

Thank you for the contribution!

marcus_fischer · February 18, 2021, 3:16pm

Beautiful work. This would be so cool on Norns w/ a grid or sensel morph

unicity · February 18, 2021, 3:54pm

Thank you! Love this.

giorgio · February 18, 2021, 6:18pm

Thank you for the wonderful gift!

mei · February 18, 2021, 11:07pm

so beautiful - happy new year!

lilskullymane · March 5, 2021, 7:59pm

thank you @MengQiMusic! getting some really beautiful sounds out of this. makes me wish i had a touch sensing yoga mat to pair with it

oh yesss

yams · March 23, 2021, 8:09am

Getting Ping Garden rolling this morning and ran into this error! It appears when I execute the final step of the process (CMD + Enter on line 85).

I should say that I have only installed SuperCollider this morning, for the purpose of running Ping Garden, and so there’s a chance this is a broader SC issue and not a Ping Garden issue (although I’m not sure how to test that idea).

If anyone could lend a hand in troubleshooting this, I’d really appreciate it.

code

  in interpreted text
  line 8 char 17:

  if (MultiTouchPad.guiOn, {"Touch Pad GUI On".postln}, {MultiTouchPad.gui});
                   
  
-----------------------------------
ERROR: Class not defined.
  in interpreted text
  line 8 char 68:

  if (MultiTouchPad.guiOn, {"Touch Pad GUI On".postln}, {MultiTouchPad.gui});
                                                                      
  
-----------------------------------
ERROR: Class not defined.
  in interpreted text
  line 11 char 14:

  	MultiTouchPad.stop;
                
  	oscDict.collect { arg item; item.free };
-----------------------------------
ERROR: Class not defined.
  in interpreted text
  line 77 char 13:

  MultiTouchPad.resetActions.start;
               
  
-----------------------------------
ERROR: Class not defined.
  in interpreted text
  line 79 char 13:

  MultiTouchPad.touchAction =
               
  {
-----------------------------------
ERROR: Class not defined.
  in interpreted text
  line 93 char 13:

  MultiTouchPad.untouchAction =
               
  {
-----------------------------------
ERROR: Class not defined.
  in interpreted text
  line 100 char 13:

  MultiTouchPad.setAction =
               
  {
-----------------------------------
-> nil```

secretrow · March 23, 2021, 1:51pm

Looks like you need to install the MultiTouchPad Quark. In the editor, type:

Quarks.install("https://github.com/supercollider-quarks/MultiTouchPad.git");

Or go through the Language menu. After installing, re-compile the class library, also in the Language menu.

yams · March 23, 2021, 8:00pm

That did it, thanks so much

Update: I’ve just had this running while I go about my day, breaking out into spontaneous rain drop jams intermittently. Hope for scattered showers the rest of my life

corpusjonsey · April 2, 2021, 11:01pm

In case anyone wants to use their external trackpad I added:

MultiTouchPad.setDevice(\external);

at line 160

Zeke_B · May 8, 2021, 9:43pm

I finally got a laptop and installed SuperCollider for the first time. I followed all of the steps above with no issue and the trackpad window and other window pop for me and I can see where my fingers are touching the trackpad, but I’m getting no sound… any idea what I might have messed up? Thanks!

corpusjonsey · May 9, 2021, 1:11am

Double check you ran the synthdef at lines 27-81

Zeke_B · May 9, 2021, 1:21am

Thanks. I thought I did, but will go back through. I appreciate your response! Will check back later if I can’t figure it out.

petesasqwax · July 21, 2021, 9:48pm

I’ve never used Supercollider and somehow I missed this before now but the YouTube clip is more than enough justification for me to figure out how to get it going! Thank you so much for this, the sound is simply beautiful

EDIT: I suspect Windows is not the ideal environment to run this… Will fire up the Macbook when I get chance