How to change Sonic Pi's sound card boot settings

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1

Hi all ,
I am trying to change some boot settings in sonic pi , I would like to use soundflower64 as a default boot device and specify certain channels (9-15) to use as output.
The idea is to send sonic pi audio to reaper and capture split tracks in it.
I would also like to know if it is possible c=to see and change supercollider’s port number so I can use tidal and sonic pi together without conflict

Thanks in advance

Sebastian

2

You can assign the audio output device that Sonic Pi uses, but you have to do it manually in the code that boots Sonic Pi’s ‘embedded’ SuperCollider server. In particular, look for the boot_server_osx function that’s located in the ‘scsynthexternal.rb’ file (not sure of the exact path for that on a Mac system, but relative to your SonicPi installation path, it should be in /app/server/ruby/lib/sonicpi).

You’ll need to add a line for the ‘-H’ switch, then indicate the name of your audio device (Soundflower, in this case-- I would get the exact device name by booting up SuperCollider and looking at the devices it finds, but if you don’t have SC up and running, that info might appear in the Sonic Pi logs?).

Bryan

3

Thanks so much for your help.
I found boot_server_osx in the context pasted below.
Sorry about my ignorance but I am not sure what you mean by “You’ll need to add a line for the ‘-H’ switch” but this is the way SC lists it as an output :

“Soundflower (64ch)” Output Device
Streams: 1
0 channels 64

this is the osx boot looks like in scsynthexternal.rb

def boot
if booted?
server_log “Server already booted…”
return false
end
puts “Booting server…”

  @osc_server = OSC::UDPServer.new(0, use_decoder_cache: true, use_encoder_cache: true)

  @osc_server.add_global_method do |address, args|
    case address
    when "/n_end"
      id = args[0].to_i
      @events.async_event "/n_end/#{id}", args
    when "/n_off"
      id = args[0].to_i
      @events.async_event "/n_off/#{id}", args
    when "/n_on"
      id = args[0].to_i
      @events.async_event "/n_on/#{id}", args
    when "/n_go"
      id = args[0].to_i
      @events.async_event "/n_go/#{id}", args
    when "/n_move"
      id = args[0].to_i
      @events.async_event "/n_move/#{id}", args
    else
      @events.async_event address, args
    end
    p = 0
    d = 0
    b = 0
    m = 60
    @register_cue_event_lambda.call(Time.now, p, @scsynth_thread_id, d, b, m, address, args) if address.start_with? "/scsynth/"
  end


  case os
  when :raspberry
    boot_server_raspberry_pi
  when :linux
    boot_server_linux
  when :osx
    boot_server_osx
  when :windows
    boot_server_windows
  end
  true
end
4

Sorry, about that-- so, you’ll need to add another line in this section (‘boot_and_wait’)
where all the server options are being passed:

image
image953×757 45.5 KB

So, something like "-H", "My Audio Device"

Bryan

5

In fact, here’s a list of other server switches that may come in handy:

supercollider_synth  options:
-v print the supercollider version and exit
-u <udp-port-number>    a port number 0-65535
-t <tcp-port-number>    a port number 0-65535
-B <bind-to-address>    an IP address
-c <number-of-control-bus-channels> (default 16384)
-a <number-of-audio-bus-channels>   (default 1024)
-i <number-of-input-bus-channels>   (default 8)
-o <number-of-output-bus-channels>  (default 8)
-z <block-size>                     (default 64)
-Z <hardware-buffer-size>           (default 0)
-S <hardware-sample-rate>           (default 44100)
-b <number-of-sample-buffers>       (default 1024)
-n <max-number-of-nodes>            (default 1024)
-d <max-number-of-synth-defs>       (default 1024)
-m <real-time-memory-size>          (default 8192)
-w <number-of-wire-buffers>         (default 64)
-r <number-of-random-seeds>         (default 64)
-D <load synthdefs? 1 or 0>         (default 1)
-R <publish to Rendezvous? 1 or 0>  (default 1)
-l <max-logins>                     (default 64)
      maximum number of named return addresses stored
      also maximum number of tcp connections accepted
-p <session-password>
      When using TCP, the session password must be the first command sent.
      The default is no password.
      UDP ports never require passwords, so for security use TCP.
 -N <cmd-filename> <input-filename> <output-filename> <sample-rate> <header-format>   <sample-format>
 -H <hardware-device-name>
 -V <verbosity>
      0 is normal behaviour.
      -1 suppresses informational messages.
      -2 suppresses informational and many error messages, as well as
         messages from Poll.
      The default is 0.
-U <ugen-plugins-path>    a colon-separated list of paths
      if -U is specified, the standard paths are NOT searched for plugins.
-P <restricted-path>
      if specified, prevents file-accessing OSC commands from
      accessing files outside <restricted-path>.

You’ll note there is a switch for the server port-- I believe you had mentioned in your original post that you had wanted to know how to have Sonic Pi use a different SC port…

(btw, this info can be found by running: <sonic pi dir>/app/server/native/scsynth -h.

Bryan

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