Audio Synth in Python 3.4, Part II

See Audio Synth.

At first, I imagined the problem was going to be PyAudio. This package has a bunch of installers. But the installers don't recognize Python 3.4, so none of them work for me. The common fallback plan is to install from source, but, I couldn't find the source. That looks like a problem.

Once I spotted this: "% git clone http://people.csail.mit.edu/hubert/git/pyaudio.git", things were much better.  I built the PortAudio library. I installed PyAudio for Python3.4. Things are working. Noises are happening.

Next step is actual synth.

In the past, I have played with pysynth because it has some examples of wave-table additive synth. That's very handy. The examples are hard to follow because a lot of the synth ideas are conflated into small functions.

Complication: The pysynth package is Python2. It lacks even the simple from __future__ import print_function to make it attempt Python3 compatibility.

The pysynth.play_wav module could be a handy wrapper around various audio playback technologies, include pyaudio. It has to be tweaked, however, to make it work with Python3.4. I really need to clone the project, make the changes, and put in a pull request.

The pysynth.pysynth and pysynth.pysynth_beeper modules are helpful for seeing how wave tables work.  How much rework to make these work with Python3.4? And how much reverse engineering to understand the math?

I've since found pyo. Which is also Python 2. See the AjaxSoundStudio pages for details. This may be a better example of wave tables. But it's still Python2. More investigation to follow.

The good news is that there's some forward motion.

Audio Synth [Updated]

I learned about synthesizers in the '70's using a Moog analog device. Epic coolness.

Nowadays, everything is digital. We use wave tables and (relatively) simple additive synth techniques.

I made the mistake of reading about Arduino wave table synthesis:

http://learning.codasign.com/index.php?title=Wavetable_Synthesis

http://makezine.com/projects/make-35/advanced-arduino-sound-synthesis/

http://playground.arduino.cc/Main/ArduinoSynth

The idea of an Arduino alarm that uses a chime instead of a harsh buzz is exciting. The tough part about this is building the wave tables.

What a perfect place to use Python: we can build wave tables that can be pushed down to the Arduino. And test them in the Python world to adjust the frequency spectrum and the complex envelope issues around the various partials.

See http://computermusicresource.com/Simple.bell.tutorial.html

Except.

Python3.4 doesn't have PyAudio support.

Yet.

Sigh. Before I can work with Arduino wave tables, I'll have to start by figuring out how to build PyAudio for Python 3.4 on Mac OS X.

Look here: http://people.csail.mit.edu/hubert/git/pyaudio.git for the code.

Look here for the secret to building this on Mac OS X: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2893193/building-portaudio-and-pyaudio-on-mac-running-snow-leopard-arch-issues/2906040#2906040.

Summary.

1. Get pyaudio source.
2. Inside pyaudio create a portaudio-v19. Get the portaudio source and put it here.
3. Inside pyaudio/pyaudio, do ./config; make and sudo make install
4. Inside pyaudio, do python3.4 setup.py install --static-link