Setting synth/sample defaults from list provided by current_synth_defaults / current_sample_defaults

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1

Okay, I’ve dived down another rabbit hole.
I’m looking to save any previous synth/sample defaults, manipulate them in a function, and then restore the previous settings.
When I run current_synth_defaults (after setting some defaults), I get this:
(map amp: 1.5,
release: 0.25)
What is this? Is it a hash? An array? How do I programmatically work with it?
And when I have the default/value pair, how do I restore them to their previous value (short of building a command string and using eval)? How do I feed these param/value pairs back to use_synth_defaults or use_merged_synth_defaults?
For a little background, I came up with a method to arpeggiate a chord, then I thought it would be nice to have more control over each note, so I want to pass in an array of param values to be applied note by note, then restore any previous defaults.
Any ideas how to approach this?
Thanks!

2

I’ve done it like this. Hopefully this will get you started:

sd = get(:new_synth_defaults) || {}
  sd.each do | k, v |
    puts "Setting key #{k} to #{v}"
    use_merged_synth_defaults k => v
  end

My use case was to change the synth_defaults in another live_loop; this approach applies those new values within this live_loop.

3

It looks like current_synth_defaults returns an object of type SPMap. This can be converted into a hash by calling .to_h on it, and then that can be passed to the *_synth_defaults functions.

Also, there’s no need to explicitly set synth defaults back to their previous values, as there is the with_synth_defaults function to do that for you:

define :updated_synth_defaults do
  # Calculate some new synth defaults based on the current values
  defaults = current_synth_defaults.to_h
  
  defaults[:amp] ||= 1    # Set amp to 1 if it was not already set
  defaults[:amp] *= 2     # Double amp
  defaults[:cutoff] = 74  # Set cutoff value
  
  defaults
end

# Setting up initial defaults
use_synth_defaults amp: 2

# Look at the initial synth defaults
puts "Before:", current_synth_defaults

with_synth_defaults updated_synth_defaults do
  # Here we have the modified defaults
  puts "During:", current_synth_defaults
end

# Now they should be back to what they were initially
puts "After:", current_synth_defaults
4

Thanks so much for the help, folks. This clarifies things quite a bit.
I was also delighted to see you illustrate the ||= operator. I hadn’t come across it before, and it’s super cool!
What a great community! So smart and so helpful!

5

Oh, one more question.
Is there a way to wipe out all synth defaults previously set? An unset method? I couldn’t find it.
Thanks!

6

There are a few more operators like ||=. In general for each operator (e.g. **) there is another version followed by = (e.g. **=) where e.g. variable **= 2 is equivalent to variable = variable ** 2. This can be useful to reduce typing, especially when you have long variable names.

Just calling use_synth_defaults on its own with no arguments seems to work to wipe out all existing defaults.

7

Yeah, I know about *=, +=, etc., for arithmetic operations. I just didn’t realize that logical operators also worked. Cool!
Also cool to just call use_synth_defaults with no args. Very useful to know.
Thanks!

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