116 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
116 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Orca"
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date: "2023-09-09T15:59:21+02:00"
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author: "$HUMANOID"
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tags: ["orca", "audio"]
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description: "Rambles on Experiments with Orca"
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---
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# Brainy Music
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There's something I really like about the idea of mathematically and
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programmatically making music. As a result, I've harboured an interest in
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trackers for quite some time, but never got into attempting to actually use one.
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In a similar vein, I've looked at [Hundred Rabbits'
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Orca](https://100r.co/site/orca.html) every now and then, but once again
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couldn't be bothered to figure it out.
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That was until recently, due to unrelated circumstances, I got access to Ableton
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Live. This piqued my interest in Orca again and I decided to grit my teeth and
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learn the syntax. The result is that I have now produced some blobs of
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characters that -- when paired with the right software -- produce some really
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interesting noises.
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I won't go into detail on how everything works as the documentation is easy
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enough to read. The syntax is the biggest hurdle.
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# Patterns
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My favourite operator so far is `U` -- the eUclidian rhythm operator. It takes a
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left and right argument -- lets refer to them as `X` and `Y` respectively -- and
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then attempts to produce a bang -- that is to say pulse on `X` out of `Y`
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frames. So `3U8` attempts to produce 3 equally spaced bangs in 8 frames, which
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will fail. As a result, it spaces the bangs as close to equal as possible. This
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can lead to some really interesting patterns and rhythms.
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Here's an example of when I wrapped my head around it for the first time:
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{{< audio src=/audio/orca/plinkinator.flac audio=flac >}}
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And the Orca code:
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```orca
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..nVC...........
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................
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5U9..Vn..4U9..Vn
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.*:04C....*:03C.
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................
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3U5..Vn.........
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..:05C..........
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................
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3U8..Vn.........
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.*:06C..........
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```
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Here's a variant with a different synth and where I've been messing around with
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the note being played while recording:
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{{< audio src="/audio/orca/varied_plinkinator.flac" audio=flac >}}
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# Numbers and stuff
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Because I suck at basic calculus and have been half arsedly learning BQN, I
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wrote a function to get a list of numbers to produce potentially interesting
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patterns for the `U` operator:
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```bqn
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OrcaList ← {1↕(⊢⋈¨𝕩⊸÷)1+↕𝕩}
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```
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This function requires a number and returns a list of all possible divisions
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from that one up up to the given number.
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```bqn
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Orcalist 9
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┌─
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╵ ⟨ 1 9 ⟩
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⟨ 2 4.5 ⟩
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⟨ 3 3 ⟩
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⟨ 4 2.25 ⟩
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⟨ 5 1.8 ⟩
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⟨ 6 1.5 ⟩
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⟨ 7 1.2857142857142858 ⟩
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⟨ 8 1.125 ⟩
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⟨ 9 1 ⟩
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┘
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```
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Rough Haskell equivalent for readability's sake:
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```haskell
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orcaList x = map ((,) <$> id <*> (x/)) [1..x]
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```
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# Recording from LMMS
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Since LMMS puts whatever MIDI notes it gets into a grid (by default at least),
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most of the intricacies of timing are lost. As a result, when using LMMS, I use
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`pw-record` to record the live audio output with timing still intact.
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This audio journey has also lead me to appreciate Pipewire a lot more. In that
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regard, I have the following audio stack on NixOS:
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```nix
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{ config, ... }: {
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sound.enable = true;
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hardware.pulseaudio.enable = false;
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services.pipewire = {
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enable = true;
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alsa.enable = true;
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alsa.support32Bit = true;
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pulse.enable = true;
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jack.enable = true;
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};
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}
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```
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And I use `qwpgraph` as patchbay.
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