[sc-users] controlling scsynth from python

[altern <altern2@xxxxxxxxx>]

hi all

For the last months I have been using Patricks libraries to control 
scsynth from python (http://www.assembla.com/spaces/pkaudio) to create 
some apps with Python GUI and scsynth sound engine.

Some people asked us about this and after we saw the p5-sc library for 
Processing we decided to extract the code into a library and make it 
available with some docs and examples.

We find that Patricks library is great but a bit complex for non expert 
programmers. So we decided to create a simple wrap around it that would 
hide the guts and make it easier to control scsynth from python.

At the moment it is yet an alpha version, it works but it might have 
some inconsistencies. Specially because I am not a supercollider master 
programmer and I might have included some weird structures or concepts 
from my Python based programming. It would be nice if you could point 
into things that sound weird from a supercollider point of view.

The basic usage is like this :

####
import sc, time
sc.start(exedir='usr/local') # platform dependent.
sine = sc.Synth( "sine" )
sine.freq = 444
time.sleep(5) # stay here for 5 secs while sine plays
sine.freq = 666
time.sleep(3)
sine.free()
sc.quit()
###

Like in patricks libraries sc starts up scsynth as a background process 
so there is no need to manually switch it, I think this should be 
optional because one might not want scsynth to start automatically. It 
is in the to do list. But I would not like to modify patricks code. So I 
have to consider this, what do you think about this?

There is also groups and some easy to use system to import samples into 
the server. Check the readme file that contains the API and some docs.

This is a snapshot, i hope it all works.
http://www.ixi-audio.net/alpha/sc.tar.gz
It has been developed mainly on Linux so it has been tested briefly on 
windows and not at all on mac. Please let us know if there are some 
problems using it. There are no dependencies as far as i can think apart 
from python and scsynth

thanks in advance for feedback

enrike