Volume and Articulation

So far we've seen how to write a simple melody, but the results have been a little robotic. So in this section we're going to look at ways we can vary the amplitude (also known as velocity) and articulation of notes.

Stacatto to Legato

While \dur controls the length of the note event, we can control the articulation of each note with legato:

(
// stacatto
Pbind(
  \degree, Pseq([0, 0, 4, 4, 5, 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]),
  \dur, Pseq([1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2], 2),
  \legato, 0.1
).play
)

(
// legato
Pbind(
  \degree, Pseq([0, 0, 4, 4, 5, 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]),
  \dur, Pseq([1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2], 2),
  \legato, 1
).play
)

and obviously we can vary the legato if we so desire:

(
Pbind(
  \degree, Pseq([0, 0, 4, 4, 5, 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]),
  \dur, Pseq([1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2], 2),
  \legato, Pseq([0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.1, 0.9], 2) 
).play
)

Volume

We can vary the amplitude directly with the \amp key. Amplitude is a value between 0 (silence) and 1 (maximum volume).

(

Pbind(
  \degree, Pseq([0, 0, 4, 4, 5, 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]),
  \dur, Pseq([1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2], 2),
  \amp, 0.5
).play
)

We can also vary it from note to note quite easily:

(
Pbind(
  \degree, Pseq([0, 0, 4, 4, 5, 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]),
  \dur, Pseq([1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2], 2),
  \amp, Pseq([0.8, 0.5, 0.6, 0.4], inf)
).play
)

This probably looks quite familiar except for one thing. What is this inf value. This is SuperCollider's way of defining infinity, and when used in a pattern in this way it tells SuperCollider to repeat this pattern for ever. This is useful when you have a pattern that repeats for the entirety of a piece, and you don't want to work out how many times it should repeat.

This works, if you remember, because Pbind stops creating new note events when one of it's patterns ends.

\amp isn't the only key that defines the amplitude. Pbind also supports the \db key. This value allows you to define the value in decibels.

[Explanation of decibels go here.]

(
Pbind(
  \degree, Pseq([0, 0, 4, 4, 5, 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]),
  \dur, Pseq([1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2], 2),
  \db, Pseq([-2, -4, -3, -6], inf)
).play
)