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Tabla and input representation

Hello,

I’m new to the forum, but I’ve used Antescofo previously to track violin, flute, and cello. I am curious as to the possibility of tracking tabla. I’ve seen examples of pitched percussion following, and saw that Antescofo was being extended to encompass non-pitched instrument sounds such as bass cavity noises.* Would a tabla signal be able to be followed? If so, what would the ideal MIDI representation be (as notes wouldn’t be representative of pitch)? Thanks in advance!

*http://forumnet.ircam.fr/user-groups/antescofo/forum/topic/tracking-non-pitched-sounds/?lang=en

If you can upload or point me to a sound example I can tell you immediately whether it’d be plausible or not.

Antescofo is currently limited to “pitched” sounds (we are working on extensions) but even in its current form it can be used to detect/synchronize to non-pitched sounds which have inherent pitch structures (such as bass cavity noises or many wind instrument extended techniques).

Another (advanced) option if your signal is completely non-pitched is to use “user defined inlets”: http://forumnet.ircam.fr/user-groups/antescofo/forum/topic/user-defined-inlets/

Hi Arshia,

Thanks for the quick reply (and the excellent software!). I’ve attached a short excerpt of a performance. There is certainly some pitch associated with many of the notes. I suppose a way forward would be to associate these notes with the closest MIDI pitches, coupled with a tight tempo requirement, as there will not be much tempo deviation.

tabla_performance.mp3 (434 KB)

Attached to this post, you can download a Max patch using Antescofo, and a small Antescofo score/program that can work on your Tabla performance audio and ANY percussive sound!

This post is also my second long awaiting reply to @magnetophon previous post. Also replies to previous feature requests by Marco Stroppa (@marco) and @hackbarth.

It shows the usage of the whenever language element of Antescofo (new since v0.5) hooked to an external variable (can be any audio descriptor). In this example we use Antescofo’s internal “calibration” signal (a very nice, smooth and normalized envelop signal) to detect PEAKS. Just load the score and see what’s inside!
And here is a video of the demo (also on youtube):

Let us know if you have any questions!

Antescofo_Percusive.zip (1.2 MB)

Thanks for that Arshia! Quite cool. :slight_smile: I guess my question now is that once these events are found, is there a way of associating them with “true” score events? I assume that because many of these sounds will be in a similar pitch, it will be difficult to identify which event is associated with a particular score event. The score for this music is in a relatively quite simple format (reducible to ~7 or 8 notes, but not associated with the common notation pitch—I’ve attached an 4 measure example), however sometimes there are additional strokes for embellishment.

Paran_Amad_4meas_test.zip (446 KB)

In the Tabla example, if you want to associate the detection with true score events, the only thing you’d need to do is to REPLACE the action in the whenever code-block corresponding to peak-detection (the click bang line) with a antescofo::nextevent.

antescofo::nextevent is the internal equivalent of sending a “nextevent” to Antescofo from max/pd (or tapping the score!).

I didn’t do it for the example since I didn’t have a “score” so to speak on your Tabla example. :slight_smile:

@echeveste made a nice patch using the same demo patch posted here to create Steve Reich’s Clappings with a score. Maybe he should share it here? :wink: