tapedeck

[infinitedigits]

tapedeck

live tape fx (saturation, distortion, wow/flutter).

this is a tape deck emulator - providing 11 ordered stages of effects:

1. preamp
2. filtering / tascam emulation
3. compression
4. color / waveshaping
5. tape emulation
6. tape distortion
7. wow / flutter
8. chew
9. loss
10. degradation
11. output amp

this script is built off the shoulders of many extraordinary feats of ingenuity - this norns engine combines the incredible plugins ported by Mads Kjeldgaard (@madskjeldgaard) (portedplugins) which are ported from Jatin Chowdhury’s ChowDSP-VCV-rack project. the key here is Jatin Chowdhury’s open-source code for physical modeling of tape machines, which is beautifully detailed in this paper.

a demo (best used with headphones, tape fx begin around 10 seconds):

Requirements

• norns
• portedplugins (see below for install)

Documentation

see the PARAMS menu for all the parameters.

parameters are accessible through the main UI too -

• K2/K3 toggles between stages (tape, distortion, wow/flutter)
• E1/E2/E3 manipulate parameters for that stage

some notes:

note 1: when starting this script it will turn your monitor down all the way to only hear the incoming sound through the tapedeck. when you exit the script, the monitor will be returned to you previous setting.

note 2: the “dist fx” (stage 2) has a lot of gain - you can either adjust the input levels (via the MIXER screen) or the wet/drive level of the effect to manipulate the effect of this gain.

note 3: the “wow / flutter” (stage 3), when activated (i.e. non-zero) will act on a delayed buffer of the live input - expect a latency of 100-200 ms when this is activated.

Install

the tapedeck engine will automatically installed the first time you run.

;install https://github.com/schollz/tapedeck

[sixolet]

I’m excited to try this out, and also I really want to read that paper but the link is broken.

Edit: https://dafx2019.bcu.ac.uk/papers/DAFx2019_paper_3.pdf which is linked from github

[24Franks]

wow! no way! i’ve been using chow tape for work on an installation that’s going up next month and this helps a ton

[toneburst]

20 characters of This looks cool!

[marcus_fischer]

You are on fire.

[vanklomk]

Love it! Just put a track I’m working on through it and it sounds great!

[Cementimental]

Been putting almost every recording thru Chow tape and/or Airwindows ToTape recently so very stoked for this

[Brett_Gershon]

You are one prolific dude.

[srogers91]

This is so great - also this is one of the nicest Strega clips I’ve heard so far!

[Glitcher]

I’m looking forward to using this. I have been using cassette loops in my experiments recently and having fun sending them into Strega. With this I could send the cassette loop audio into norns through ‘tapedeck’ and record onto another cassette loop for instant cassette player ageing
Another cool idea would be to playback ‘lithops’ loops through ‘tapedeck’ and record to cassette loop, as lithops lets you specify the length of the loop so it’s easy to make a good fit. Thanks for this infinitedigits!

[rebuspop]

Getting a small repeating error, with thread does not exist :

Summary

script clear

script load: /home/we/dust/code/tapedeck/tapedeck.lua

initializing data folder

calling: broadcast mod init

script run

loading engine: Tapedeck

reading PMAP /home/we/dust/data/tapedeck/tapedeck.pmap
m.read: /home/we/dust/data/tapedeck/tapedeck.pmap not read.
Engine.register_commands; count: 24
___ engine commands ___
amp f
dist_bias f
dist_oversample f
dist_wet f
drive f
drivegain f
flutter_amp f
flutter_fixedfreq f
flutter_variationfreq f
highgain f
hpf f
hpfqr f
lowgain f
lpf f
lpfqr f
mode f
saturation f
shelvingfreq f
tape_bias f
tape_oversample f
tape_wet f
wobble_amp f
wobble_rpm f
wowflu f
___ polls ___
amp_in_l
amp_in_r
amp_out_l
amp_out_r
cpu_avg
cpu_peak
pitch_in_l
pitch_in_r

script init

metro_stop(): pthread_cancel() failed; error: specified thread does not exist

It stalls out and hangs for quite some time, and then everything becomes treacle until I reboot norns.

Maiden shows a repeating:

Summary

/home/we/norns/lua/core/menu/select.lua:130: attempt to index a nil value (field ‘?’)

stack traceback:

/home/we/norns/lua/core/menu/select.lua:130: in function ‘core/menu/select.add_favorite’

/home/we/norns/lua/core/menu/select.lua:92: in function ‘core/menu/select.enc’

/home/we/norns/lua/core/menu.lua:113: in function ‘core/encoders.callback’

/home/we/norns/lua/core/encoders.lua:60: in function ‘core/encoders.process’

lua: /home/we/norns/lua/core/menu/select.lua:130: attempt to index a nil value (field ‘?’)

stack traceback:

/home/we/norns/lua/core/menu/select.lua:130: in function ‘core/menu/select.add_favorite’

/home/we/norns/lua/core/menu/select.lua:92: in function ‘core/menu/select.enc’

/home/we/norns/lua/core/menu.lua:113: in function ‘core/encoders.callback’

/home/we/norns/lua/core/encoders.lua:60: in function ‘core/encoders.process’

lua: /home/we/norns/lua/core/menu/select.lua:130: attempt to index a nil value (field ‘?’)

stack traceback:

Summary

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[DoS]

@Cementimental

putting almost every recording thru Chow tape

Oddly enough so have I - it’s fantastic, and this is one of those Norns scripts that makes me want to get another Shield as soon as possible.

[danbond]

@DoS

another Shield

I’m also starting to get this urge

[DAMAGR]

I’m not much of a developer and don’t understand a lot of the more technical stuff in Norns. I’m stuck on trying to get PortedPlugins installed, which I’m guessing I have to have for Tapedeck to run. Can anybody point me to a n00b beginner tutorial on getting that on my Norns so Tapedeck will work? Right now when I select TD in the menu it gets stuck on the loading… screen forever.

Thanks!
David

[stvnrlly]

Have you tried to do steps 2 & 3 here? That should take care of it

@infinitedigits

the install process requires 3 steps to properly install!

1. install via script manager, or open maiden and below the “matron” tab enter:

;install https://github.com/schollz/tapedeck

2. in the same “matron” tab install the plugins with this command:

os.execute("cd /tmp && wget https://github.com/schollz/tapedeck/releases/download/PortedPlugins/PortedPlugins.tar.gz && tar -xvzf PortedPlugins.tar.gz && rm PortedPlugins.tar.gz && sudo rsync -avrP PortedPlugins /usr/share/SuperCollider/Extensions/")

3. restart your norns.

[DAMAGR]

I did and I was getting an error on the first install command, that was another thing I was trying to diagnose but if I hit the main menu button once or twice it would show the tapedeck UI, so I thought maybe I got it working. Nothing works when it gets stuck like that, I end up having to restart norns because other scripts won’t start after that.

I thought I was missing something else because o that error.

[stvnrlly]

Ah yes, that sounds like a Thing for sure. If you wouldn’t mind sharing the error from Matron, somebody might be able to get you back on track.

[DAMAGR]

Ayyyy i got it working this morning. Maybe it was restarting my computer or just trying fresh but the commands worked this time! thanks for talking it out with me! Not really sure what’s different, but it’s working.

[infinitedigits]

@rebuspop

Getting a small repeating error, with thread does not exist :

It stalls out and hangs for quite some time, and then everything becomes treacle until I reboot norns.

the “thread does not exist” is benign I think.

how reproducible is the stalling/hanging? does it happen every time?

[rebuspop]

Have done a reset on the Shields as it seemed to be getting buggy on a few scripts, so at the moment the purge appears to be working, though did note the CPU usage was at 100 as i pushed the effect parameters. There was some lag in responding to the encoders and buttons, but no crash and no errors thrown up in Maiden.

Feel like this is appropriate to most instances.
Pilot: Something loose in cockpit.
Service Tech: Something tightened in cockpit.