some manual work and fixed crash bug with cancel loading a session

README.md

@@ -2,10 +2,230 @@
 
 ## What is this?
 
-A custom sample granulation app designed by Aphex Twin
+A custom sample smashing/re-aggregating app designed by Aphex Twin
 
+*Basic concept*
 
+Samplebrain chops samples up into a 'brain' of interconnected small
+samples (blocks) connected into a network by similarity. It reads a
+target sample, chops it up into blocks in the same way, and tries to
+match each one with one of the sample blocks in it's brain to play in
+realtime.
+
+This, in theory, allows you to interpret one type of sound with
+another. We gradually added more and more controls until it became
+slightly out of control and difficult to explain.
+
+Quick start:
+
+1. Load a bunch of samples into the brain
+2. Click (re)generate brain
+3. Load a loop sample into the target
+4. Click (re)generate target
+5. Press play
+
+## Manual
+        
+Brain tweaks:
+
+These settings control how the block search works.
+    
+### fft / mfcc
+
+Choose whether to search using FFT (raw frequency analysis) or MFCC
+(Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients) which are higher order paramters
+that attempt to model perception of sound. MFCC is usually a bit
+better, but it depends on what you are doing, you can blend between
+them to use a mix. Setting this to 0% or 100% switches off the other
+search option, so is a bit more CPU friendly.
    
+### freq & dynamics / freq only
+
+Search using both frequency (pitch) and dynamics (volume changes over
+time), or only frequency - which uses normalised blocks. Generally you
+want the first option.
+   
+### fft subsection
+
+When using FFT mode you can select a subrange of the (100) frequency
+bins to use for scoring potential blocks, potentially allowing you to
+target a specific frequency range. Not terribly useful in practice.
+     
+### novelty
+
+One thing that tends to happen is that the same block or set of blocks
+can be overused if there isn't enough variation in the brain
+blocks. Sometimes we want to bias the selection against reuse, so
+novelty biases the selection away from similarity - if you turn it all
+the way up it will ignore the target completely and just play the
+least used ones in some odd semi-random order.
+    
+### boredom
+
+This increases the speed at which novelty wears off, creating a wider
+spread of possible blocks. Not quite clear exactly why this is
+different to increasing novelty, but it sounds different.
+    
+### stickyness
+
+If the error is under this threshold, play the next block in the brain
+rather than the closest. This will have the effect of elongating
+chunks of brain samples that you hear.
+    
+### search stretch
+
+Repeats blocks in the target a fixed amount, like a simple timestretch
+- in synaptic mode this gives the system repeated attempts to find a
+closer match.
+        
+### algorithm
+
+* basic
+
+Searches all samples in the brain, and uses the closest match.
+    
+* reversed
+
+Searches all samples in the brain, and uses the least closest
+match. In practice this needs work, as it tends to select silent or
+very quiet blocks.
+
+* synaptic
+
+As brains get larger, we get more blocks, and they get slower to
+search. This mode provides a constant search time over arbitrarily
+huge brains. When generating the brains we connect them together into
+a network via similarity (via connections called synapses). We keep a
+position in the network and only search the nearby blocks - this
+assumes that sounds tend to change gradually, or at least more
+gradually than the small block lengths.
+    
+* slide
+
+Similar to synaptic but if we can't find a close enough match (based
+on synaptic slide error) we stretch the target, repeating blocks until
+we land on a block that is close enough. This mode warps the timing of
+the target.
+
+### num synapses
+
+How many connections to check in synaptic or slide mode.
+    
+### synaptic slide error
+
+The acceptable error to consider a block as "close enought" in slide mode.
+
+## Target sound:
+
+These settings control how the target sound is broken up into blocks.
+    
+### load target
+
+Load a target sound to try and match
+    
+### block size
+
+The size of the blocks in samples. This does not need to match the
+brain block size, but it probably should.
+
+### block overlap
+
+Percentage overlap in blocks.
+     
+### window shape
+
+The shape of the window - "dodgy" is actually box.
+
+### (re)generate blocks
+
+Compute the target blocks.
+    
+### use mic input
+
+Attempts to stream blocks live from the microphone. I think this is
+broken at present.
+
+## Mix:
+
+These are settings that happen after the search.
+    
+### autotune
+
+Attempt to pitch bend the chosen brain block to better match the target.
+ 
+### normalised
+
+Mix in normalised brain blocks - removing all dynamics. Might work
+with frequency only search.
+        
+### brain / target
+
+Mix in the target blocks to the output - for cheating, or testing purposes.
+    
+### stereo mode
+
+Run everything once for left and again for right speaker.
+    
+## Brain contents
+
+These settings allow you to build a brain of samples, and switch in
+and out specific samples during playback.
+        
+### all/none
+
+You can select which samples to use without regenerating the
+brain. This selects all or none of the samples.
+     
+### load sound/directory/clear
+
+Load sounds into the brain, either individually or entire directories
+in one go.
+    
+### block size
+
+The size of the blocks in samples. This does not need to match the
+target block size, but it probably should.
+
+### block overlap
+
+Percentage overlap in blocks.
+     
+### window shape
+
+The shape of the window - "dodgy" is actually box.
+
+### (re)generate blocks
+
+Compute the brain blocks.
+    
+### load brain/save brain
+
+You can save and load brains separately to the targets.
+    
+## Lower bar
+
+General playback settings
+    
+### play/pause/record/stop
+
+Start/stop and record
+    
+### volume
+
+Global volume
+
+### load/save session
+
+Load and save the entire session.
+
+## Net tab
+
+This allows you to control multiple instances of samplebrain over the
+network all running their own brains simultaneously. This feature has
+not been tested well!
+
+# Installing/building
+     
 ## Linux install:
 
 Install libraries for the sample engine:
@@ -16,19 +236,27 @@ Install dependancies for the graphical user interface:
         
     $ sudo apt install build-essential qtcreator qt5-default
 
-Build it:
+Build $ run it:
 
+    $ cd app
     $ qmake
     $ make
-
+    $ samplebrain
+    
 ## What's here
 
 1. app:
-    main app and QT gui code
+    * main app code
 2. brain:
-    sample granulation engine code
-3. cooking:
+    * sample granulation engine code
+3. gui:
+    * qt designer project files
+4. cooking:
     * sketches and ideas
     * proof of concept written in python
     * initial attept at clojure version (abandoned)
     
+# Todo:
+
+* Write VST version?
+

app/MainWindow.cpp

@@ -101,7 +101,8 @@ void MainWindow::init_from_session(const string &filename) {
   // pull the bits out of the file to set the interface...
   // is this easier than direct access? no idea??
   ifstream ifs(filename.c_str(),ios::binary);
-
+  if (!ifs) return;
+  
   brain s,t;
   u32 version=0;
   ifs||version;

brain/replace.py

@@ -1,20 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/env python
-import re
-import sys
-
-fn = sys.argv[1]
-
-test = open(fn, 'r').read()
-
-pattern = re.compile('[A-Z](?=[a-z])')
-
-def format_term(term):
-    return '_%s' % (term.lower())
-
-test = pattern.sub(lambda m: format_term(m.group(0)), test)
-
-test = re.sub(r'(?<=[^a-z])_(?=[a-z])','',test)
-
-o = open(fn,'w')
-o.write(test)
-o.close()