An object-oriented wrapper for the RTcmix language in Python

Oort is a library designed to help you write powerful, expressive Python code to interface with RTcmix. It is built entirely on top of the RTcmix library, and is run with the PYCMIX executable.

Oort wraps RTcmix's instruments into classes of the same name. This allows Oort (and you!) to easily extend the behavior of instruments with minimal intrusion into the syntax of the RTcmix language. In fact, any python code using the 'rtcmix' library should work equally well using the 'oort' library.

However, Oort offers a number of features which allow you to work with RTcmix a bit differently, if you so choose:

Features include:

• Lazy loading automatically loads instruments the first time they are using, meaning calling load() before your instrument call is optional in Oort.
• Parameters can be entered as either a list of arguments or a list of keyword-argument pairs, or both in the manner Python allows. For example:

  NOISE(outsk=0, dur=1, amp=5000, pan=0.5)

  If you need to know the names of the parameters, you can pull up the internal documentation

  help(NOISE)

  Or, to pull up the RTcmix docs online, just call the following in your script or on the PYCMIX or Python REPL:

  docs(NOISE)

• Each instrument has a number of default values for its parameters including outskip (see Oortian timing below), inskip, pitch, amp, and pan. This means you can call an instrument with only the parameters you find relevant, for example:

  NOISE(amp=5000, pan=0.)

• Oort code will run silently if you run it with python instead of PYCMIX. This way, you can debug your code in a Python IDE, and a "dummy" RTcmix library will be loaded to keep it from throwing errors.

from oort import *
NOISE(0, 1, 5000)

from oort import *
n = NOISE()
n.set(dur=1, amp=5000).play()
n.outsk = 2
n.play()

Oort has its own wait() function that progresses time forward, and a sprout() function which creates a thread that controls its own clock. Since PYCMIX code is preprocessed, the wait() function controls the outskip of instrument calls, but does not physically wait any amount of time.

Oort does, however, reorder the operation of the code, using a system of thread locks, so that the code always operates chronologically! This means if you set a global variable x=4 at time=3 seconds, that variable will be 4 in any other process where time > 3 seconds. This lets you organize your RTcmix scripts in a very different way.

Here's a quick example. For a tutorial on timing, check out the Quickstart guide.

from oort import *
playing = True
def play():
  w = WAVETABLE()
  w.dur = 0.5
  while playing:
    w.pitch = cpsmidi(pickrand(60, 62, 64, 65, 67))
    wait(0.5)
    w.play()
sprout(play)

def control(wait_time):
  global playing
  wait(wait_time)
  playing = False

sprout(control, wait_time=10)

For example:

from oort import *
w = WAVETABLE()
w.dur = 0.5
w.apply_behaviors(Jitter(amt=0.1), Portamento(amt=0.1), ADSR(a=0.05, d=0.1, s=0.2, r=0.5))
for _ in xrange(20):
  w.pitch = cpsmidi(pickrand(60, 62, 64, 65, 67))
  wait(0.5)
  w.play()

For example, here's a fade-in:

from oort import *
w = WAVETABLE()
w.dur = 0.5
w.amp = Ramp(start_val=0, end_val=10000, dur=10)
while current_time() < 10:
  w.pitch = cpsmidi(pickrand(60, 62, 64, 65, 67))
  wait(0.5)
  w.play()

To install Oort, navigate to the directory this file is in and call:

python setup.py install

...and you're done! If you have multiple versions of python on your machine, make sure you install setup.py with the same version used to compile PYCMIX, for example:

/usr/bin/python setup.py install

The 'oort' library can be used in python scripts in the same way the 'rtcmix' library is used. Just import the library like so:

import oort

and the entire RTcmix library–and all of Oort's extra functionality–are loaded into your script! Oort projects are also run the same way, using PYCMIX:

PYCMIX < sample.py

If you don't have PYCMIX installed, http://rtcmix.org/ can tell you how to build it.

For a quickstart tutorial on using Oort, refer to the quickstart files in docs/quickstart/.

Special thanks go to Joel Matthys for inspiring the idea and Mara Helmuth for introducing me to the world of RTcmix!