PHONOTYPE

It is like Teletype but for sound.

Useful for:

• Custom midi synths
• Effects chains of your dreams
• Fluid live-coding, changing the control flow as you go
• An entire dang modular in this box yo

To use PHONOTYPE:

• Install it onto Norns
• Restart the Norns
• Unplug keyboard from Teletype
• Plug keyboard into Norns
• Select PHONOTYPE
• Code a sound

General idea

Like Teletype, PHONOTYPE is a prefix programming language. For example:

+ 1 * 2 2.5

Is a statement that yields the sum of 1 and the product of 2 and 2.5: 6.

Every operation in PHONOTYPE is declarative. Instead of executing, like a line of Teletype code, it tells the audio engine (SuperCollider) what to connect to what. You can think of this much like patching a modular synth. The last line of your main (M) script is output to the output jack.

The IT op is special: it means “the result of the above line”.

Here is a program that outputs a FM drone:

SIN 440
SIN + 220 * 220 IT

Navigation

F1..F8 on the keyboard navigates to script 1 through 8.

F9 on the keyboard navigates to the M (main) script. This is the script that outputs sound.

ESC nagivates to the scene description.

Arrow keys choose a line to edit; enter key actually changes the line.

Ctrl- or Alt- while pressing up or down will swap lines.

Shift while pressing up or down will navigate the history of lines you have entered.

Shift-enter inserts a new “passthrough” line above the current one.

E2 adjusts the fade time of the current line.

E3 adjusts when the line will actually be crossfaded, in beat multiples. For example, choose 4 to fade the line on a barline in 4/4 time.

Mini-tutorial

Try SIN 440 in M.

Then on the next line put * IT PERC QN .5 (QN = quarter notes. .5 is our env decay)

Now add + IT * .5 DEL.F IT * .75 M 3. DEL.F is a delay w/ feedback. We delay by a dotted eigth with a 3s decay.

Then go back to the first line. Hit ctrl-enter to get a new line above. Make it say S+H SCL SIN .1 0 7 QN and change SIN 440 to say SIN N.MIN IT.

Saving and Loading

While in the scene description, Ctrl-Enter or Alt-Enter saves your scene, with the filename based on the first line of your scene description.

To load a scene, change the scene parameter (on the params page) to a file of your choice.

To load a fresh scene, press Ctrl-Shift-Escape.

Operators

Each is listed like so:

NAME <arg1> <arg2> <arg3> - description

Longer explanation, if it seems necessary

1. Arg 1 description if necessary
2. Arg 2 description if necessary
3. Etc.

Math

Unlike Teletype, PHONOTYPE operates on floating point numbers, not integers.

+ <arg1> <arg2> - Add

Mix/add two signals

* <arg1> <arg2> - Multiply

Multiply/VCA/Ring modulate two signals.

- <arg1> <arg2> - Subtract

/ <dividend> <divisor> - Divide

% <modulend> <modulo> - Mod

< <left> <right> - Less than

> <left> <right> - Greater than

1 if the comparison holds, 0 otherwise.

Oscillators

SIN <freq> - Sine wave

PSIN <freq> <phase> - Phase-modulatable sine wave

1. Frequency
2. Phase in radians

TRI <freq> - Triangle wave

SAW <freq> - Saw wave

VSAW <freq> <width> - Variable-width saw

1. Frequency
2. Width, from 0 to 1, saw to triangle to ramp.

SQUARE <freq> - Square wave

PULSE <freq> <width> - Variable-width pulse

1. Frequency
2. Width, from 0 to 1

RSTEP <freq> - Random steps

RRAMP <freq> - Random ramps

Steps with linear slew

RSMOOTH <freq> - Smooth random

Aka RSM

Uses cubic interpolation.

WHITE - White noise

BROWN - Brown noise

PINK - Pink noise

Noise is good dontcha know.

Buffers and Samples

There are 16 stereo buffers, numbered 0 through 15. They’re accessible from the “buffers” submenu in params - by default they are blank, but you can choose a file to initialize a buffer to (on the fly, even, if you wish) in the params menu.

There are two main buffer ops: PLAY and LOOP, and they differ only in whether they loop automatically to the cue point or beginning at the end of the buffer. Each of these has combinatorially many suffixes. I will list the suffixes for PLAY; all the same ones exist for LOOP. In “loop” mode, the trigger acts as a reset to the beginning or the cue point.

PLAY <bufnum> <trig> - Play the buffer every time the trigger fires.

Rate variants

PLAY.B <bufnum> <trig> <beats> - Play the buffer, beat-synced.

Assuming the buffer has the given number of beats, adjusts speed to match the current tempo of PHONOTYPE.

PLAY.T <bufnum> <trig> <bpm> - Play the buffer, tempo-synced.

Assuming the buffer has the given BPM, adjusts speed to match the current tempo of PHONOTYPE.

PLAY.R <bufnum> <trig> <rate> - Play the buffer, variable rate.

Play the buffer at the given rate multiple.

PLAY.O <bufnum> <trig> <octave> - Play the buffer, variable octave

Play the buffer at the given octave multiple: 0 is normal speed, -1 is half speed, 2 is 4x speed, etc.

Rate & Cue variants

PLAY.BC <bufnum> <trig> <beats> <cue> - Play the buffer, beat-synced, with cue.

Assuming the buffer has the given number of beats, adjusts speed to match the current tempo of PHONOTYPE. When a trigger is recieved, starts playing from the cue. The cue is a number of beats into the buffer.

PLAY.TC <bufnum> <trig> <bpm> <cue> - Play the buffer, tempo-synced, with cue.

Assuming the buffer has the given BPM, adjusts speed to match the current tempo of PHONOTYPE. When a trigger is recieved, starts playing from the cue. The cue is a number of beats into the buffer.

PLAY.RC <bufnum> <trig> <rate> <cue> - Play the buffer, variable rate, with cue.

Play the buffer at the given rate multiple. When a trigger is recieved, starts playing from the cue. The cue is a number of seconds into the buffer.

PLAY.OC <bufnum> <trig> <octave> <cue> - Play the buffer, variable octave, with cue

Play the buffer at the given octave multiple: 0 is normal speed, -1 is half speed, 2 is 4x speed, etc. When a trigger is recieved, starts playing from the cue. The cue is a number of seconds into the buffer.

Smoothness variants

The same smoothness variants exist for all rate and cue variants. I told you this stuff was combinatorial.

PLAY.BS <bufnum> <trig> <beats> - Play the buffer, beat-synced, smoothly.

Introduces a short crossfade when trigger is recieved to avoid clicks.

PLAY.BX <bufnum> <trig> <beats> <fade> - Play the buffer, beat-synced, adjustable crossfade.

Introduces a user-specified crossfade when trigger is recieved to avoid clicks or transition slowly. The fade time parameter always comes after the cue parameter if present.

Utilities and phasey phasors

SR - The sample rate.

A constant.

RD <bufnum> <phasor> - Read the buffer with the phasor.

The phasor should be in samples, thus the SR constant to multiply by if you like.

WR <bufnum> <phasor> <signal> - Write to the buffer with the phasor.

Again, phasor in samples. YMMV with a phasor with a slope faster than 1.

PHASOR <trig> <start> <end> - Make a phasor

Produces a sample-scale ramp from the start (in seconds) to the end (in seconds), looping. The trigger resets it to the start.

PHASOR <trig> <start> <end> - Make a phasor specifying args in beats

Produces a sample-scale ramp from the start (in beats) to the end (in beats), looping. The trigger resets it to the start.

LEN <bufnum> - Length of buffer

Outputs the length of a buffer in seconds. May change if the buffer is loaded to a different sample from the params menu.

PRE ops

L.MIX <low> <high>: <statement>

L.M <low> <high>: <statement>

Evaluates the statement to the right of the colon with I bound to each integer between and inclusive.

For example, this is a LFO-modulated drone of the first six partials of a low A:

L.MIX 1 6: * UNI RRAMP I / SIN * 110 I I

MIDI.1 <channel>: <statement> - Not quite monophonic MIDI

MIDI.2 <channel>: <statement> - 2 note polyphony

MIDI.4 <channel>: <statement> - 4 note polyphony

MIDI.6 <channel>: <statement> - 6 note polyphony

MIDI.8 <channel>: <statement> - 8 note polyphony

Within <statement>, you can use F, G, and V to refer to the frequency, gate, and velocity of the particular voice, and you can find the voice number (0 through number of voices) as I, in case you want to make each voice distinct in your poly synth.

PHONOTYPE will actually initialize one additional voice to allow one note to decay as it is being replaced. We use a voice-stealing allocator, and the voice we recycle is whichever is nearest in frequency to the newly allocated note.

For supercollider nerds: I wrote some code to pause the group when a voice isn’t in use. I hope it works to decrease the baseline CPU of this thing and early experimental evidence is that it does somewhat on my laptop, though of course if you’re playing every voice it’ll use all that CPU. The cost is that detecting the silence to pause the voice itself isn’t free.

Filters

LPF <signal> <freq> - Low pass filter

HPF <signal> <freq> - High pass filter

BPF <signal> <freq> - Band pass filter

Basic.

1. Signal to filter
2. Cutoff frequency. Careful with very low values.

RLPF <signal> <freq> <reciprocal-q> - Resonant low pass filter

RHPF <signal> <freq> <reciprocal-q> - Resonant high pass filter

Slightly less basic.

1. Signal to filter
2. Cutoff frequency. Careful with very low values.
3. Damping. 0.01 - 0.3 or so is quite resonant, 1 is not very resonant, 2 is very gentle.

RING <signal> <freq> <ringtime> - Ringing resonant bandpass filter

Combine these to get some basic physical modelling.

1. Signal to filter
2. Frequency
3. Resonance: Time to -60dB impulse response

MOOG <signal> <freq> <resonance> - Moog emulation filter

1. Signal to filter
2. Cutoff frequency
3. Resonance. Zero to 4. Units unknown, but higher is resonanter.

LPG <signal> <gate> - 2 - Low-pass gate

Including a little bit of emulated “slowness” so you can get little “pok” sounds by pinging it.

1. Signal to gate
2. Gain. > 1 has the filter all the way open.

DJF <signal> <slider> - DJ filter

1. Signal to filter
2. From 20hz lowpass at -1 to transparent at 0 to 20hz highpass at 1

LAG <signal> <time> - Lag/slew the same up and down

1. Singal to lag
2. Time to get most of the way

SLEW <signal> <attack> <release> - Lag/slew time different up and down

1. Signal to lag
2. Time to go up
3. Time to go down

Delay and stuff

DEL <signal> <time> - Delay

Uses linear interpolation if it senses delay time will vary.

1. Signal to delay
2. Delay time

DEL.F <signal> <time> <decaytime> - Delay with feedback

Also known as “comb filter”.

1. Signal to delay
2. Delay time
3. Time to decay by -60dB

DEL.A <signal> <time> <decaytime> - All-pass filter

1. Signal to delay
2. Delay time
3. Time to decay by -60dB

Panning

LR <left> <right> - Stereo

Makes the arguments mono, then uses them as the left and right channels of the new signal.

PAN <signal> <side> - Pan

1. Signal to pan
2. Side. -1 is left, 1 is right.

MONO <signal> - Mono

ROT <signal> <rotation> - Stereo rotate

I think you can get some mid/side translations with -.5 and .5

1. Signal to rotate
2. Amount to rotate, -1 to 1

Rhythm

There are a pile of rhythm ops, all 0-argument, that yield different places in the measure. So far we’re only supporting 4/4 time, but within that you can use:

• SN - Trigger on every sixteenth note
• EN - Trigger on every eigth note
• QN - Trigger on every quarter note
• HN - Trigger on every half note
• WN - Trigger on every whole note
• SNT, ENT, QNT, and so on - sixteenth note triplets, eighth note triplets, etc.
• BT1 - Trigger on every beat-1 of a measure. BT2 triggers on every beat-2, etc.
• BT1.E - Trigger on the second sixteenth note of beat-1 of every measure. Also BT2.E, BT1.&, BT4.A, and every combination like that.

EVERY <beats> <offset> - Do every N beats

Aka EV

1. Trigger every this number of beats.
2. Offset, in beats. All EVERY ops share the same clock, and the same clock as the beat operations above. That means that EV 16 0 will happen on the downbeat every 4 measurs of 4/4.

ER <fill> <length> <offset> <noteduration> - 4 - Euclidean rhythms

All arguments except duration round down to the nearest integer

1. Of the slots in the pattern, how many are notes?
2. How many slots are there in the pattern?
3. Offset, in slots.
4. Duration of notes, in beats (must be constant)

SN.ER <fill> <length> <offset> - Sixteenth-note euclidean rhythms

EN.ER <fill> <length> <offset> - Eigth-note euclidean rhythms

QN.ER <fill> <length> <offset> - Quarter-note euclidean rhythms

PROB <chance> <triggers> - Trigger chance

Note that, like most ops, when given a stereo signal this operates on each channel in stereo. If you are passing in a bus and don’t want weird hard-panned random notes, apply MONO to the input. Me, I kind of like the wierd hard-panned random notes.

1. Chance to pass the trigger
2. Trigger to maybe pass

DUR <trig> <duration> - 2 - Trigger to gate converter

Upon recieving a trigger, remain high for the duration.

1. Trigger in
2. Duration of gate

CDIV <trig> <ratio> - Clock divider

Envelopes

PERC <trig> <time> - Percussive envelope

1. Trigger
2. Duration

AR <trig> <time> <attack> - Attack-release envelope.

Exponential-ish shape.

1. Trigger
2. Duration
3. Portion of duration spent in attack

AR.L <trig> <time> <attack> - Linear attack-release envelope

1. Trigger
2. Duration
3. Portion of duration spent in attack

AR.C <trig> <time> <attack> <curve> - Variable-curvature attack-release envelope

1. Trigger
2. Duration
3. Portion of duration spent in attack
4. Curvature. -4 is like AR, 0 is like AR.L, and positive is funny.

ADSR <trig> <attacktime> <decaytime> <sustainlevel> <releasetime> - Attack-decay-sustain-release envelope

Pitch

All pitch ops are relative to the root: a note of 0 is always the root.

ROOT - Root, in CPS.

Default 440, set in parameters.

N <halfstep> - Half-steps to Hz.

Unquantized. N 0 is the root. Note it’s also useful for filter cutoffs.

N.QT <halfstep> - Half-steps to Hz, quantized.

N.MAJ <degree> - Scale degrees to CPS, major

N.MIN <degree> - Scale degrees to CPS, minor

N.HM <degree> - Scale degrees to CPS, harmonic minor

N.MAJP <degree> - Scale degrees to CPS, major pentatonic

N.MINP <degree> - Scale degrees to CPS, minor pentatonic

N.DOR <degree> - Scale degrees to CPS, dorian

Busses

• Busses are the one major place where the underlying Supercollider “rates” get exposed in PHONOTYPE. Busses have an intrinsic rate. Mostly this is important in that you’ll need to use the audio busses (A, B, C, D, J, `AB `) for sound, and you'll use a lot less CPU when you use the control busses (`W`, `X`, `Y`, `Z`, `K`, `CB `) for control signals.

• The result of a bus send operation is the signal being sent. This allows you to send to a bus but still use the expression in a different way.

• All busses are assumed to be “modular level” for range calculations. If you pass hz-level (3000) type numbers on them, you may end up with oscillators at the wrong rate. To fix this, and some issues with other operations that require range information to be accurate, we have provided “type cast” aliases for the busses. For most busses (other than the parameter busses), you can append a .F to the op to have PHONOTYPE assume it’s in the “sound frequency” range (20 to 20000), .U to assume it’s unipolar (0 to 1), and .B to assume it’s in the “bipolar” oscillator range (-1 to 1). This doesn’t clip the bus, it just adjusts the implicit assumptions we make about its range, for example to determine whether to use a control-rate or audio-rate generator, or for the automatic scaling operations downstream.

A - Audio Bus

B - Audio Bus

C - Audio Bus

D - Audio Bus

Global audio rate busses. Without an =, reads from the bus.

A= <signal> - Audio Bus send

B= <signal> - Audio Bus send

C= <signal> - Audio Bus send

D= <signal> - Audio Bus send

Global audio rate bus sends. Mixes on the bus.

W - Control Bus

X - Control Bus

Y - Control Bus

Z - Control Bus

Global control rate busses. Without an =, reads from the bus.

W= <signal> - Control Bus send

X= <signal> - Control Bus send

Y= <signal> - Control Bus send

Z= <signal> - Control Bus send

Global control rate bus sends. Mixes on the bus.

AB <n> - Audio bus array

CB <n> - Control bus array

Read from the global bus arrays, 16 each of audio and control indexed busses to play with.

For example, AB 2 is a read from audio bus 2.

1. The number of the bus. Must be a constant 0-20. The last four busses are aliases for A, B, C, D or X, Y, Z, W (relatively for audio and control arrays).

AB= <n> <signal> - Audio bus array send CB= <n> <signal> - Control bus array send

For example, AB= 2 SIN 440 sends a 440-hz size to audio bus 2.

1. The number of the bus. Must be a constant 0-20. The last four busses are A, B, C, D or X, Y, Z, W.
2. The signal to send to the bus.

PARAM <n> - Norns parameters

Aka PRM aka just P

PHONOTYPE is equipped with a bank of 16 general-purpose Norns parameters, mapped to PARAM 0 through PARAM 15. Each ranges from 0 to 1. 16n or similar recommended.

IT - The previous line

This is the coolest shit. IT allows you to smoothly patch in new bits in the middle of your chain. IT is the only bus operation that is flexible about its rate - it will be whatever rate the previous line was.

IN - The input

Whatever you’ve told the Norns mixer to pass to the engine from outside.

F - Frequency from monophonic midi in

G - Gate from monophonic midi in

V - Velocity from monophonic midi in

Sequencing

SEL2 <selector> <a> <b> - Select by value from two inputs

1. Selector, an integer
2. A
3. B

SEL3, SEL4, SEL5 - Select from various numbers of inputs, similarly

SEQ2 <adv> <reset> <a> <b> - Sequential switch/Sequencer

1. Advance trigger
2. Reset trigger
3. Value 1
4. Value 2

SEQ3, SEQ4, SEQ5 - Similar for various numbers of inputs

S+H <signal> <trig> - Sample-and-hold

XF <a> <b> <fade> - Crossfade

Equal-power.

1. A
2. B
3. Crossfade amount. 0 is a mix, -1 is A, 1 is B.

Scripts

You call a script by prepending its number with a $ (and no space). You can only call scripts from higher-numbered scripts; you can call any script from M. If you want to pass arguments, put a ., and the the number of arguments you want to pass. For example:

$1.3 IT SIN 1 4

Calls script 1 with 3 arguments, namely IT, SIN 1, and 4.

Within script 1, those are available as I1, I2, and I3. The first input is also available on IT of the first line in the script.

Misc

PI - Pi.

Utility constant.

SILENCE - Audio-rate zero

Literal 0 is considered “control-rate” by PHONOTYPE and cannot be output; SILENCE is an audio-rate version you can have as your output.

SCL <signal> <min> <max> - Scale

Do our best to scale the input to the given range. Note that some estimates of mins and maxes of signals are approximate, so this won’t guarantee all signals in range.

1. Signal to scale
2. New min. Must be constant.
3. New max. Must be constant.

SCL.X <signal> <min> <max> - Scale exponential

Same as SCL but the output range is exponential.

SCL.F <signal> - Scale to frequency range

Scales the input from its natural input range to the exponential range 20 to 20000 - the range of human hearing in hz.

SCL.V <signal> - Scale to volume range

Scales the input to a 0 to 1 range, but using a curve (similar to the one in the perc envelope) that better accounts for human volume perception being logarhythmic than a linear scale would.

UNI <signal> - Unipolar

Scale 0 to 1.

CLIP <signal> <min> <max> - Clip

WRAP <signal> <min> <max> - Wrap

Aka WRP

POS <signal> - Half-wave rectify

Returns only the positive part of the signal.

FOLD <signal> <foldamount> - Wavefolder

The “amount to fold” signal is chosen so an envelope is a productive thing to put into it, and 0 is “no folding for -1 to 1 range signals”. Amplitude decreases as folding increases so as to maintain a roughly consistent overall volume.

SINFOLD <signal> <foldamount> - Sinusoidal wavefolder

The “amount to fold” signal is chosen so an envelope is a productive thing to put into it, and 0 is “gentle folding for -1 to 1 range signals”. Amplitude decreases as folding increases so as to maintain a roughly consistent overall volume.

CRUSH <signal> <crush> - Bitcrusher

The “amount to crush” signal is chosen so that an attenuated envelope is a productive thing to put into it, and 0 is “sample rate like 44k” and 1 is “sample rate like 440”.

TANH <signal> - Hyperbolic tangent

Oh man the hyperbolic tangent is the most amazing thing you can do to any audio signal, and it will instantly make whatever you put through it sound gooder.