Do you know CAL?

Dovdimus Prime · Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 8:29 am Post subject: Do you know CAL?

Hi all

Can anyone here program CAL, the application language for Cakewalk? I would like to use it to select sections of a piece and apply transformations, e.g. flattening the 7th or whatever. Can it be used for this sort of thing? I just don't want to learn it if it can't do this sort of thing.

Thanks

Dovder

mosc · Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 10:04 am Post subject:

Use the search function.

Or, click the link below and you'll see that Bachus is pretty much a CAL expert...

http://electro-music.com/forum/topic-2754.html

Dovdimus Prime · Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 2:25 pm Post subject:

bachus · Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 3:14 pm Post subject:

bachus · Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 3:20 pm Post subject:

Um... what do you want to do that SONAR's builtin transpose function won't already do?

Dovdimus Prime · Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 1:04 am Post subject:

Hi Bachus

I use Cakewalk 9 rather than one of the Sonar series, so it's possible that the Transpose fucntion doesn't do the same stuff. If memory serves, the Transpose function on the Edit menu does just that - transpose the selection up or down a specified number of semitones. I'll have to look into it. If you can do these kinds of transformations in CAL I think it's worth me learning how to do it, cos I'm always messing around with that sort of thing. I'm halfway nifty in other languages so it shouldn't be too hard, provided I can find a decent tutorial.

Which is what I was going to ask you. Do you know of a decent web resource for learning it? I had a look a couple of months ago and didn't find much, including on the Cakewalk website.

Just an aside. I was talking to my friend Chapman last night who is a computer programmer. I mentioned to him about CAL and that it is a cross between C and LISP and he instantly replied "Why don't they call it 'thee'?"

He's such a wag! Rolling Eyes

bachus · Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 4:36 am Post subject:

Dovdimus Prime · Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 6:24 am Post subject:

It's cool, I've found a really good tutorial pdf written by a cheery Dutch chap. Nice one, cheery Dutch chap! Very Happy

Boy, this looks like one cack language! Bizarre syntax, limited flexibility, arbitrary changes between versions. What a joy! Shocked

Think I've got far enough to have a stab at implementing the sort of functions I want to write though. Although the codec will be quite tricky...

Dovdimus Prime · Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2004 2:55 am Post subject:

Hmmm. I really want to be able to input scales to my function as patterns of intervals, e.g.

101011010101 = ionian

But CAL doesn't do binary variables, and doesn't have any data types big enough to store 12 digit denary numbers!!

Evil or Very Mad

I get the impression from the tutorial I read that frustration is a constant companion of the CAL programmer.

bachus · Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2004 3:44 am Post subject:

mosc · Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2004 6:50 am Post subject:

Errr. Hmmm. I haven't used CAL nor do I expect to, but Dovster, if you're just getting started with this, you might take a look at Keykit by our own TJT. It is a great language for doing manipulations on MIDI information. If you want to do things like transpose, invert, and rescaling it's a natural. Keykit is suitable for realtime MIDI processing too.

Keykit was written for algorithmic composition. It is more like C than LISP (fortunately IMHO). Actually, it's more like AWK. It has built in constructs for notes and phrases, The language is very well documented, there are superb tutorials, and there is an email list for support. I've used keykit for years and it is a thing of beauty.

Tim started working on that when he was at Bell Labs, which is known for the C, C++, and AWK languages. I think I'd put Keykit in that list as well, but it's not that well know because of its specialized target application - MIDI music.

It is free too. See: http://nosuch.com/keykit/

I thought I heard that the Cakewalk people are not going to continue with support of CAL. Anywho, if you are going to spend time learing something, you might as well learn something cool and imaginative, not something where you have to expand your vocabulary for more curse words. Laughing

Just my opinion, of course.

diskonext · Joined: Aug 26, 2004 Posts: 306 Location: London, UK

Hmmm,

keykit sounds... interesting. Thanks for that link, checking it out!

For MIDI-mangling you could use PD (pure data) as well, the open-source version of Max/MSP.

Of course, both these methods would force you to play a track in your sequencer, filter it through one of these programs and record to a new track, but they work Wink

If you go the PD route I can hook you up with some examples real quick.

-diskonext

mosc · Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2004 8:22 am Post subject:

CAL is dependent on prerecorded MIDI, but Keykit can process the MIDI on the fly in real time. I guess PD would be able to do that as well. In Keykit here is even a nice MIDI echo tool that Tim wrote to some design requests by me. It's great for realtime playing. I don't use it much anymore because I can use the G2 to do those things now.

diskonext · Joined: Aug 26, 2004 Posts: 306 Location: London, UK

Ahem,

and I just found out Jan has written a beatiful tool to do MIDI-mangling and generation:

midimod

http://www.iaf.nl/Users/BlueHell/ goto: Software->MidiMod

Way to go, Jan!

-diskonext

blue hell · Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2004 11:19 am Post subject: