Justin Kerobo

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Turbo Synth

Dec 2018 30

The first patch I worked on for Ableton Live and Max compatibility was Turbo Synth. Turbo Synth takes immediate audio and synthesizes it based on the MIDI input. You can affect and change the audio output by directly effecting the time and wet for the delay, with an overall effect of the sound by changing the res and the cutoff with kilohertz. The cutoff and res work through the svf~ object, which is an implementation of a state-variable filter algorithm described in the book, “Musical Applications of Microprocessors” by Hal Chamberlin. A unique feature of this filter object is that it produces lowpass, highpass, bandpass, and bandreject (notch) output simultaneously – all four are available as outlets.

It then takes that time and input which connects it to the svf~ in through the tapin~ and tapout~ signals into a delay line. tapin~ receives a signal in and copies into a delay line. Using tapout~ objects, you can read from the delay line at various delay times. You must connect the outlet of a tapin~ object to the tapout~ objects you want to use with the delay line. Note that this is not a signal connection, since no signal travels between the objects. It is merely a way to indicate that the objects share the same delay memory. It also allows the time effect to tapout to wet and change the effect with decibels which plugs out with the plugout~ object to the output that you hear. The plugout~ object sends its output to the Live application as part of a Max for Live Audio device or Instrument. It can also take it in through the notein in MaxMSP. The notein receives its input from a MIDI note-on or note-off message sent by a MIDI input device. Finally, the only reason that all those signals can happen is because of mtof which performs MIDI-note-number to frequency conversion. Frequency is reported in as a float in Hertz (Hz).