Tux Paint for music?

SDL Development
1

(Also posted over at LAD .)

Hi!

My son is playing around with my little SDL based drum machine, DT-42
again. He seems to be having fun, but I suppose he’d be better off
with something more straight-forward (DT-42 is more like a MOD
tracker than a conventional drum machine), and something with more
obvious ways of creating melodies… At least, that’s what I’d
like! :smiley:

This brings up some thoughts I’ve been having for years now: A really
simple, yet somewhat useful and educational music toy. An integrated
synth/sampler/sequencer, possibly with audio recording facilities
down the road… Sort of like a tracker (Amiga MOD style), but with a
more visual GUI. Probably some sort of piano roll. A bunch of nice
sounds (I’m thinking IFFT synthesis) with some pre-wired intuitive
timre controls. Maybe a library of drum patterns… Preferably SDL
based and portable to all sorts of computers and devices.

In short: Tux Paint for music! :slight_smile:

Is there something like this already out there?

Any interest in this sort of stuff?

Ideas?

I’ll probably use EEL for all high level code, over a C engine. EEL is
probably not the most sensible choice for a Free/Open Source project,
but I’m using EEL for various stuff myself (mostly work related), and
it could use some more pilot projects to guide future development.

URLs:
Tux Paint: http://www.tuxpaint.org/
DT-42: http://olofson.net/mixed.html
EEL: http://eel.olofson.net/--
//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.------- http://olofson.net - Games, SDL examples -------.
| http://zeespace.net - 2.5D rendering engine |
| http://audiality.org - Music/audio engine |
| http://eel.olofson.net - Real time scripting |
’-- http://www.reologica.se - Rheology instrumentation --’

2

Hello !

My son is playing around with my little SDL based drum machine, DT-42
again. He seems to be having fun, but I suppose he’d be better off
with something more straight-forward (DT-42 is more like a MOD
tracker than a conventional drum machine), and something with more
obvious ways of creating melodies… At least, that’s what I’d
like! :smiley:

I don’t know how old your son is,
but as a kid nothing inspired me more
than the Music Part of Mario Paint on the SNES :

CU

3

This brings up some thoughts I’ve been having for years now: A really
simple, yet somewhat useful and educational music toy. An integrated
synth/sampler/sequencer, possibly with audio recording facilities
down the road… Sort of like a tracker (Amiga MOD style), but with a
more visual GUI. Probably some sort of piano roll. A bunch of nice
sounds (I’m thinking IFFT synthesis) with some pre-wired intuitive
timre controls. Maybe a library of drum patterns… Preferably SDL
based and portable to all sorts of computers and devices.

In short: Tux Paint for music! :slight_smile:

Is there something like this already out there?

I used to have a program that would let you compose or edit MIDIs in piano roll format. I don’t remember what it was called, and I can’t seem to find it anymore. (It was several years ago, and that computer’s HD ended up dying.)

Any interest in this sort of stuff?

It would be really great if there was something that would let you
compose .IT or S3M files with a simple, intuitive frontend like that. Tracked music is wonderful. It gives MP3-quality audio at a fraction of the footprint. Music trackers, on the other hand, tend to look like a relic from the DOS days, and we’ve needed something like this for a long time.

Needless to say, it would be a whole lot less great if it wasn’t compatible with established standard formats for tracked music.>----- Original Message ----

From: David Olofson
Subject: [SDL] Tux Paint for music?

4

Hello !

It would be really great if there was something that would let you
compose .IT or S3M files with a simple, intuitive frontend like that.

Tracked music is wonderful. It gives MP3-quality audio at a fraction

of the footprint. Music trackers, on the other hand, tend to look like

a relic from the DOS days, and we’ve needed something like this for a long time.

Needless to say, it would be a whole lot less great if it wasn’t compatible

with established standard formats for tracked music.

A way would be to change the display form of a
tracker and instead of showing the Notes in Textform,
show them as Music Notes in a graphical form like Mario Paint did.

Every sample of that tracker should then have a
unique visual icon, animals are a good thing for kids.

CU

5

we need SDL_mixer to wibble sounds about!

so note pitch and stuff can be changed on the fly!

i have no hope of ever acheiving this or any form of correct spelling and
grammer. so i just keep saying it every so often in the hope someone can do
it :wink:

but RE topic-

a fun way for kids to learn about smaples and loops, or dare i say it bars
and notes would be to have say a 32 note chunk floating past the screen and
they can add sounds to it as it scrolls by, crating thier own loop in a
click and plop type fashion

or similarly have a single loop on the screen with a bar going along it
where the notes will be played

i dont know what a paino roll is, sounds crunhcy, i’ll stick to cheese and
onion with a but of tommy K

6

i dont know what a paino roll is, sounds crunhcy, i’ll stick to cheese and onion with a but of tommy K

I believe by “piano roll” he means “sheet music” format. Like this:

http://agutie.homestead.com/files/incas/condor_pasa_sheet_music.jpg>From: Neil White

Subject: Re: [SDL] Tux Paint for music?

7

Mason Wheeler wrote:

[snip]
In short: Tux Paint for music! :slight_smile:

Is there something like this already out there?

I used to have a program that would let you compose or edit MIDIs in piano roll format. I don’t remember what it was called, and I can’t seem to find it anymore. (It was several years ago, and that computer’s HD ended up dying.)

I found MidiSwing recently, it’s freeware, Java. It has a piano
roll in the horizontal orientation.

http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/midiswing/

LMMS looks very impressive these days, and even works on Win32.
Very daunting for a musical barely-literate. (But the piano roll
in its melody sequencer is vertical.) I have been using MuseScore
a bit to prepare simple melody sheets, also Qt cross-platform,
available on Win32. But clearly, if the aim is education,
something more educational would be necessary.

Any interest in this sort of stuff?
[snip]
Needless to say, it would be a whole lot less great if it wasn’t compatible with established standard formats for tracked music.

Wasn’t there a musical app or something like that done for the
OLPC programme? I seem to remember there was some discussion about
a music app of sorts.>> ----- Original Message ----

From: David Olofson
Subject: [SDL] Tux Paint for music?

–
Cheers,
Kein-Hong Man (esq.)
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

8

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/TamTam

TamTam Jam is one of the coolest apps on the OLPC. I’ve wondered how
hard it would be to “unsugarize” it. Probably wouldn’t be that
hard…

-mattOn Wed, May 6, 2009 at 10:32 AM, KHMan wrote:

Wasn’t there a musical app or something like that done for the OLPC
programme? I seem to remember there was some discussion about a music app of
sorts.

9

In short: Tux Paint for music! :slight_smile:

Yay!

Is there something like this already out there?

Not that I know of.

Any interest in this sort of stuff?

Yes. It’s been on my list of “things to do when I win the lottery.” :wink:

Want to talk to the other Tux4Kids folks, and make it a real T4K project?
You’ll find swarms of people interested in helping. :)On Wed, May 06, 2009 at 04:45:46PM +0200, David Olofson wrote:

–
-bill!
Sent from my computer

10

Hello !

My son is playing around with my little SDL based drum machine,
DT-42

again. He seems to be having fun, but I suppose he’d be better off
with something more straight-forward (DT-42 is more like a MOD
tracker than a conventional drum machine), and something with more
obvious ways of creating melodies… At least, that’s what I’d
like! :smiley:

I don’t know how old your son is,
but as a kid nothing inspired me more
than the Music Part of Mario Paint on the SNES :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwyxaiIYv7Q

Maybe a bit more “game-like” than what I had in mind, but on the right
track. :slight_smile:

Oh, and there’s a remake for Windows and OS X:
http://www.unfungames.com/mariopaintcomposer.htm

Works fine under Wine here. :slight_smile:

Seems like the sequencer is running as part of the GUI thread, or at
least decoupled from the audio thread, as timing is slightly
unstable… Anyway, it appears to be using FluidSynth for sound.
Don’t know about the GUI.On Wednesday 06 May 2009, Torsten Giebl wrote:

–
//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.------- http://olofson.net - Games, SDL examples -------.
| http://zeespace.net - 2.5D rendering engine |
| http://audiality.org - Music/audio engine |
| http://eel.olofson.net - Real time scripting |
’-- http://www.reologica.se - Rheology instrumentation --’

11

[…]

Is there something like this already out there?

I used to have a program that would let you compose or edit MIDIs in
piano roll format. I don’t remember what it was called, and I can’t
seem to find it anymore. (It was several years ago, and that
computer’s HD ended up dying.)

I’ve seen various things like that for DOS and Win16 back in
my “between Amiga and Linux” Dark Ages…

Any interest in this sort of stuff?

It would be really great if there was something that would let you
compose .IT or S3M files with a simple, intuitive frontend like
that. Tracked music is wonderful. It gives MP3-quality audio at a
fraction of the footprint.

Actually, I was thinking of taking it a step further, by using IFFT
synthesis (very efficient way of implementing additive synthesis,
allowing tens of thousands of oscillators in real time on your
average PC), which can create pretty much any type of sound from very
little data - way more compact than the samples used in IT, S3M etc.
We’re talking a few kB for a full song, in the form of a bzip2
archive containing a MIDI file and instrument definitions.

Audiality/“The Kobe Deluxe Sound Engine” is based on a similar
approach, only using more traditional synthesis methods. ("Standard"
modular synthesis, basically.)

The IXS music format from Gizmozone was similar, but based on FM
synthesis instead of samples, and some tracker music format rather
than MIDI for the music data. Unfortunately, it seems like it’s all
dead and gone, and AFAIK, no editor was ever released. :-/

Music trackers, on the other hand, tend to look like a relic from
the DOS days, and we’ve needed something like this for a long time.

Well, some people like trackers, and I’ve spent quite a bit of time
with them myself - but after moving to sequencers and synths,
trackers are mostly getting on my nerves. I prefer recording "live"
from a MIDI keyboard (which most trackers don’t handle very well, if
at all), and my editing needs are covered fine with piano roll and
event list for the most part.

Needless to say, it would be a whole lot less great if it wasn’t
compatible with established standard formats for tracked music.

There is always the import/export route, but most trackers (and/or
their module formats) have inherent limitations, such as poor note
timing resolution (quantization to rows) and limited control
modulation (one or two generic command columns + volume and pan,
usually).

Personally, I prefer using MIDI files for the music data. Arbitrary
timing for all events, and no practical limits to parameter control.
Oh, and there are loads of various editors and other tools for it.
Maybe not as compact as some tracker pattern data formats (especially
those originating from 8 bit platforms), but there are nice tools
like Bzip2 and 7-zip (LZMA) these days. :wink:

Either way, although I’m also planning on writing some sort of serious
sequencer for my own use (with scripting and a command line interface
and other weird stuff sensible people wouldn’t want anyway ;-), what
I have in mind here is more “toy” and less “tool”. Preferably simple
and easy to get started with, but capable of doing serious stuff.
Complexity safely hidden away until you’re really looking for it.
Something you could start out with as a complete beginner at the age
of 5, and eventually use with external synths and modules, before you
take the leap into the professional audio sequencer jungle.On Wednesday 06 May 2009, Mason Wheeler wrote:

–
//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.------- http://olofson.net - Games, SDL examples -------.
| http://zeespace.net - 2.5D rendering engine |
| http://audiality.org - Music/audio engine |
| http://eel.olofson.net - Real time scripting |
’-- http://www.reologica.se - Rheology instrumentation --’

12

we need SDL_mixer to wibble sounds about!

so note pitch and stuff can be changed on the fly!

…and I keep thinking I should rip various useful parts out of
Audiality and turn that into a basic, modular sound mixer. A perfect
match for SDL_sound, which can take care of the audio loading and
music streaming - or as a backend for (the new) Audiality, or other
sound engines, synths and the like.

It’s not a huge project, but I just never seem to get around to it…

The correct order of my TODO list should probably be something like
this:
1. This aforementioned modular sound mixer.
2. That new Audiality, with IFFT synthesis and stuff.
3. Various updates to EEL.
4. EEL binding for Audiality, for instrument definitions,
real time control scripting etc.
5. “Tux Paint for music”.

[…]

a fun way for kids to learn about smaples and loops, or dare i say
it bars and notes would be to have say a 32 note chunk floating past
the screen and they can add sounds to it as it scrolls by, crating
thier own loop in a click and plop type fashion

That’s an interesting idea… Less “virtual paperwork” sequencer and
more audiovisual real time interaction. :slight_smile:

or similarly have a single loop on the screen with a bar going along
it where the notes will be played

Less resource intensive than scrolling, but also harder to follow when
it skips or wraps around. (Most “real” sequencer applications do
this.)

i dont know what a paino roll is, sounds crunhcy, i’ll stick to
cheese and onion with a but of tommy K

Right; I wouldn’t eat these either. :smiley:

This is the sort of piano roll I’m talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W65ajku67EEOn Wednesday 06 May 2009, Neil White wrote:

–
//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.------- http://olofson.net - Games, SDL examples -------.
| http://zeespace.net - 2.5D rendering engine |
| http://audiality.org - Music/audio engine |
| http://eel.olofson.net - Real time scripting |
’-- http://www.reologica.se - Rheology instrumentation --’

13

i dont know what a paino roll is, sounds crunhcy, i’ll stick to
cheese and onion with a but of tommy K

I believe by “piano roll” he means “sheet music” format. Like this:

http://agutie.homestead.com/files/incas/condor_pasa_sheet_music.jpg

Nope. :slight_smile: Most sequencers call that “Staff View”, I think.On Wednesday 06 May 2009, Mason Wheeler wrote:

From: Neil White
Subject: Re: [SDL] Tux Paint for music?

–
//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.------- http://olofson.net - Games, SDL examples -------.
| http://zeespace.net - 2.5D rendering engine |
| http://audiality.org - Music/audio engine |
| http://eel.olofson.net - Real time scripting |
’-- http://www.reologica.se - Rheology instrumentation --’

14

In short: Tux Paint for music! :slight_smile:

Yay!

Is there something like this already out there?

Not that I know of.

Any interest in this sort of stuff?

Yes. It’s been on my list of “things to do when I win the
lottery.” :wink:

Sounds familiar… :smiley:

Want to talk to the other Tux4Kids folks, and make it a real T4K
project? You’ll find swarms of people interested in helping. :slight_smile:

I’ll consider that when I’ve decided if I’m actually writing something
that would fit in. :slight_smile:

First, I think I’ll do some prototyping and see where I’m actually
going. Cobbling together an EEL/SDL GUI over some existing synth, or
something along those lines, and start playing around.On Wednesday 06 May 2009, Bill Kendrick wrote:

On Wed, May 06, 2009 at 04:45:46PM +0200, David Olofson wrote:

–
//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

.------- http://olofson.net - Games, SDL examples -------.
| http://zeespace.net - 2.5D rendering engine |
| http://audiality.org - Music/audio engine |
| http://eel.olofson.net - Real time scripting |
’-- http://www.reologica.se - Rheology instrumentation --’