Pfunc

Let's say you want to control some part of your Pattern from, say, a task. For example, we want to execute some block of code, then wait 5 seconds and then casue the amplitude of a Pbind to fade towards zero. We can do this by using some variables:

(
 var db, pbind, task;
 
 db = -12;
 
 task = Task({
 
  // ...
  
  5.wait;
  
  60.do({
  
   db = db - 1;
   0.1.wait;
  });
  
  "done fading".postln;
 });
 
 // ...
)

db will hold our amplitude in decibels. We're using db because it's logarithmic and will sound right if we just use subtraction to change the value.

task will hold our task. That "..." near the top represents whatever we wanted to do before starting the countdown to the fade-out.

After that, we wait for 5 seconds, then we slowly drop 60 db.

Now for the pbind:

 // ...

 pbind = Pbind(
  
  \dur,   Pseq([0.2, 0.4, 0.6], inf),
  \degree,   Pseq([0, 3, 5, 7, 9, 8, 8, 2].pyramid(1), inf),
  \steapsPerOctave, 10,
  \db,    db
 );
 
 // ...
  

In the line for degree, we see that we're sending the message pyramid to the array. It reorders the array in an interesting way. See the helpfile for Array for more information about it.

Pbinds understand the symbol \db and will convert to amp automatically, as needed. There's a message you can pass to numbers called dbamp. It converts from db to amps. -12.dbamp is 0.25118864315096. Or if you want to go the other way, there's a message ampdb. 0.25.ampdb is -12.041199826559. However, the Pbind will do this for you, so you don't need to convert ahead of time.

Now we can try running the task and the pbind simultaneously:

 // ...
 
 pbind.play;
 task.play;

And when you put this all together and try it, "done fading" prints out, without there having been any fade.

This is because the interpretter evaluates the expression db and then passes the result of that expression as an argument to the Pbind contructor. It is only evaluated that one time. In order to get the current value of db, we need a way to tell the pbind to re-evaluate it every time it comes up. We can do that with Pfunc

Pfunc is a wrapper for functions, so they can be used in patterns. It's constructor takes a function as an argument and then it evaluates that function every time it's asked for a value. Let's re-write our pbind:

 // ...

 pbind = Pbind(
  
  \dur,   Pseq([0.2, 0.4, 0.6], inf),
  \degree,   Pseq([0, 3, 5, 7, 9, 8, 8, 2].pyramid(1), inf),
  \steapsPerOctave, 10,
  \db,    Pfunc({db});
 );
 
 // ...

Remember that functions return the value of their last line. Since we only have one line, it returns that. And, indeed, the amplitude fades away to quiet. However, the Pbind keeps running even after we can't hear it. We can use an if statement to tell it to stop:

 pbind = Pbind(
  
  \dur,   Pseq([0.2, 0.4, 0.6], inf),
  \degree,   Pseq([0, 3, 5, 7, 9, 8, 8, 2].pyramid(1), inf),
  \steapsPerOctave, 10,
  \db,    Pfunc({
       if(db > -72, {
        db
       }, {
        nil
       })
      })
 );

Pbinds stop running as soon as any symbol is paired with nil. Therefore, when db gets to -72 and the Pfunc returns nil, the whole Pbind stops. If the Pbind were in a Pseq, it would go on to the next item.

You may have also noticed that we don't have semicolons everywhere they could be. This is because they separate lines of code, so it's ok to skip them on the last (or only) line in a block of code. It makes no difference to the interpretter if there is a semicolon after nil or not. If you find it easier to use them everywhere, then you should keep doing that.

We could also skip the false function for the if, since it will still return nil if we do:

Pfunc({ if(db > -72, { db }) })

The final version of this example, all together is:

(
 var db, pbind, task;
 
 db = -12;
 
 task = Task({
 
  // ...
  
  5.wait;
  
  60.do({
   db = db - 1;
   0.1.wait;
  });
  
  "done fading".postln;
 });
 
 
 pbind = Pbind(
  
  \dur,   Pseq([0.2, 0.4, 0.6], inf),
  \degree,   Pseq([0, 3, 5, 7, 9, 8, 8, 2].pyramid(1), inf),
  \steapsPerOctave, 10,
  \db,    Pfunc({ if(db > -72, { db }) })
 );
 
 
 pbind.play;
 task.play;
 
)

Summary

• Decibels can be an easier system to use when computing amplitudes
• Pbinds will convert between db and amp
• The messages ampdb and dbamp can convert number values from amps to db or db to amps
• pyramid is an interesting way of shuffling an array
• You can put a function in a pattern with Pfunc
• A Pfunc with get re-evaluated for every event
• A Pbind stops when it gets a nil value

Problem

1. Write a short piece of music where two separate Pbinds both access the same variable. They can be in the same Ppar or not.
2. Write a programme such that one Pbind sets a flag that causes another Pbind to change in some way.