processing audio input

Pixilang programming language
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leondustar
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processing audio input

Post by leondustar »

Hi wonderful pixilang users,

What is the best approach to process audio (line-in/microphone) input?
There's some examples using audio input, and some audio-processing (examples/sound/16bit_sine.pixi) and some sunvox-player examples.
As far as I know:
  • pixilang can access audio-in
  • pixilang can play/process audio on a lowlevel (examples/sound/16bit_sine.pixi)
  • pixilang can play sunvox files (and sunvox support audio processing)
  • pixilang cannot feed audio into the 'input'-module or any module inside a sunvox module
So that leaves me to process audio input using the native `audio_callback`-approach.
Is this approach fast enough? Or does pixilang interpreter introduce too much latency for serious audio processing?

hope all is well
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NightRadio
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Re: processing audio input

Post by NightRadio »

Hi!
pixilang cannot feed audio into the 'input'-module or any module inside a sunvox module
It's possible too :)
See the file examples/c/test5.c (using SunVox as a filter for some user-generated signa) in the SunVox library archive.
Pixilang-version of this example will look very similar.
Unfortunately, I don't have time yet to port this example to Pixilang, but I will definitely do it soon.

So that leaves me to process audio input using the native `audio_callback`-approach.
Is this approach fast enough?
No and yes :)
It will not be very fast (with a lot of CPU usage, especially on the mobile devices) if you write signal processing in the "bare" Pixilang, using built-in operators. For example:

Code: Select all

$i = 0 while $i < $frames
{
  $out[ $i ] = $in[ $i ] * $volume
  $i + 1
}
Such code will be translated to the Pixilang bytecode, which will be executed in the Pixilang virtual machine.
Pixilang bytecode speed is much slower (from 10 to 150 times) the speed of the same code generated by the C/C++ compiler.
But...
You can use the block data processing functions, like op_cn, op_cc, op_ccn, sampler, fft, apply_filter, etc.
In this case, most of the load will fall on these built-in functions, which will execute at the native speed of machine code.
And the execution speed will be close to the speed of the same C/C++ code.
Example:

Code: Select all

copy( $out, $in, 0, 0, $frames )
op_cn( OP_MUL, $out, $volume, 0, $frames )
Block data processing functions:
https://warmplace.ru/soft/pixilang/manual.php#dataproc

List of data processing operations for op_cn(), op_cc() and op_ccn():
https://warmplace.ru/soft/pixilang/manual.php#cdproc
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leondustar
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Re: processing audio input

Post by leondustar »

Thanks for the extensive answer.
See the file examples/c/test5.c (using SunVox as a filter for some user-generated signal) in the SunVox library archive.
Pixilang-version of this example will look very similar.
Unfortunately, I don't have time yet to port this example to Pixilang, but I will definitely do it soon.
Im looking into test5.c as we speak.
Does this mean the Input-module actually works (with the default hardware audio-in device) when using the API?
Just to confirm, if I would run the pixilang-version of:

Code: Select all

int mod1 = sv_new_module( 0, "Input", "Input", 96, 0, 0 );
would it open the audio-in device on android?
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NightRadio
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Re: processing audio input

Post by NightRadio »

would it open the audio-in device on android?
Yes. Here is a more complete code:

Code: Select all

int mod1 = sv_new_module( 0, "Input", "Input", 96, 0, 0 );
sv_update_input();
sv_update_input() - handle input ON/OFF requests to enable/disable input ports of the sound card (for example, after the Input module creation). Call it from the main thread only, where the SunVox sound stream is not locked.
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leondustar
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Re: processing audio input

Post by leondustar »

THank you for answering.
sv_update_input() - handle input ON/OFF requests to enable/disable input ports of the sound card (for example, after the Input module creation).
understood, thanks.
Call it from the main thread only, where the SunVox sound stream is not locked.
Aha, so pixilang a multithreaded environment by using callbacks.
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