Hi all,

I've spent the last couple of weeks putting together a Pure Data based streaming radio station and it's finally at the point where I'm happy to let people know about it.

The system is a python script controlling PD and is able to load and fade between patches, the output of which is then streamed over the net. The whole thing is running off a cheap VPS server but it seems to be holding up well.

You can listen to it currently by going to http://radio.rumblesan.com and there are more details available on the technical stuff at my blog, rumblesan.com

One of the things I'm hoping is that I can get some other people involved in this. I have lots of ideas and things I'd like to add in future, but the first thing that really needs doing is making more patches. Lots more patches!

Over the weekend I'm going to write up how the control and interface stuff works and all the info needed for people to create patches. All the code and the patches made so far are up on GitHub if people want to have a look, links are in the blog post.

ok, website is up and not looking too bad. I've got it integrating some basic play stats and "currently playing/previously playing" info.

az, if you're still up for helping out with the webdesign then i can send you the files for the wordpress theme i'm using. currently it's functional but i;m sure it could be improved. also, your patch is now up and in the patch pool. i took the liberty of modifying it a little bit. the BPM is now randomised between 115 and 145. i'm really liking it btw, it gives a nice contrast to the more obviously abstract noisey stuff on here

lead, really enjoy this patch, it's also in the pool (currently playing as i write). i think i might have to attenuate the output volume a little bit as it seems louder than the other patches running on the radio. other than that it's running fine, no loading problems or any other issues.

edit: should probably point out the site address again. http://radio.rumblesan.com

I just checked the website, but the ogg-link didn't work, but since it's in development right now i will try again later.

In the attached pic there is a idea for a design. If you like it, i will go further in this direction. There are some more things i want to add: patch coords from the menu points and 2 outlets for current/previous. Also i thought it would be a great idea if one could use the bang on top for starting playback.

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/PatchWerk-Radio_v1.png

I've found that some in browser players can be a bit problematic with the ogg link. Chrome seems to have an issue with the Meta data being updated when a new patch is loaded. I've found VLC is the best player. I also tried the flash player plugin for word press but it left a bit to be desired. maybe I'll update it. On my phone again currently so I'll start the picture loading and tel you what I think in a few minutes once it's loaded heh.

Nice one, I really like the design. I actually also like the look of the play/bang button as a logo of sorts. The idea pf using it to launch the player is good tho it would have to be clear that's what it does and that might detract from how it looks if there's a big "listen"tag on it. I dunno, this is the sort of design stuff I struggle with so I'm happy to leave it up to you.

Short answer, I like the design, go with it

I just checked to see if the audio stream was running and found that it wasn't. so logged onto the server to find everything pretty screwy! i think i need to find a better way to daemonise the scipts

every day's a learning process eh? hehe

@tasteforreality said:

Nice one, I really like the design.

+1 looks great.

Noticed some problems with the delay lines when I was listening, so here's an update of "Tonnes".

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/lead_tonnes_redux2.zip

...and here's another one.

Hopefully not too CPU hungry, a development of the "Kalith" idea - pretty happy with the amount of variation in the output of this one.

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/lead_clickers.zip

i'll update, add, commit, test and rollout these patches tonight. cheers for the continued work.

tonight i;m actually going to sit down and try to get a patch done. feel like extending my spectral delay patches somewhat so might have a go at making some interesting drone scapes.

This is really excellent! Joe Gilmore (I think?) had a generative radio stream going for a little while 5 or 6 years ago at r4nd.org that I've sorely missed since it went down. Forked on github, when I have a chance I can't wait to try putting something together to submit - thanks for doing this!

hey hecanjog, i remember finding out bits of information about r4nd and being very sad that it had disappeared before i got a chance to hear any of it or really find much out about it.

i'm glad you want to get involved, so far lead has been leading the charge so to speak and i've been feeling a bit guilty that I've just been getting caught up in the engineering side of things and not finishing more patches myself. The site should give you all the instructions you need, there are a couple of bits that need changing but probably nothing that you'll notice heh.

lead, the changes to tonnes are testing fine but i'm afraid that clickers seems to be stretching things a bit too much and there are audio dropouts . tomorrow night i'm going to have a play with some of the audio settings in PD to see if increasing internal buffer sizes or the like might help things out.

Hey, cool - looking forward to hearing the new patches - I've revised clickers now, think I'll start emailing you patches instead so that I don't become a thread hog as I make more.

This is really cool- thanks for sharing

testing the updated version out now lead and it's all running fine. reminds me that i need to go back over some of my earlier patches and do more with the stereo field.

wow, just as i'm writing this suddenly the whole thing burst into these really complex poly rhythms that went bouncing around. very very cool. i'll push the changes into the master branch now and roll it out onto the radio proper

dubtub, glad you like it, i'm really chuffed that people are enjoying it

so hows about this, last night Create Digital Music posted about partchwerk radio!! i then proceded to spend the evening trying to fix problems with it whilst a large influx of people hit the server but it managed ok after a couple of false starts

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2011/02/turn-your-generative-radio-on-live-stream-made-from-pure-data-patches/

I'm pretty chuffed with this, it's given me even more impetus to keep pushing forward with stuff for this.

thanks again to lead and az, having people help out has made it much easier for me to be able to concentrate on the behind the scenes bits

That's awesome! Maybe the publicity will help get more patches in there, too.

@tasteforreality said:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2011/02/turn-your-generative-radio-on-live-stream-made-from-pure-data-patches/

what is the story with the picture though

a great idea, and it is fun listening. i would like to contribute too, and have made a first 'quick and dirty' patch yesterday evening, i think it is fun and i will make a few more. though i am not sure how much cpu is available on the server, and i hope the patch will run fine. (it is using about 50 percent cpu on my crappy atom netbook,
hopefully not too much?) the patch is attached
also another one (new version)

i had posted the links here since i coúld not find the email-address on the
patchwerk-radio-site. (and i dont know how to use this github-thing...)

edit: changed the links to attachements.

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/main-adding_blips2011_1.pd.zip

a great idea, and it is fun listening. i would like to contribute too, and have made a first 'quick and dirty' patch yesterday evening, i think it is fun and i will make a few more. though i am not sure how much cpu is available on the server, and i hope the patch will run fine. (it is using about 50 percent cpu on my crappy atom netbook,
hopefully not too much?) the patch is attached
also another one (new version)

i had posted the links here since i coúld not find the email-address on the
patchwerk-radio-site. (and i dont know how to use this github-thing...)

edit: changed the links to attachements.

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/main-adding_blips2011_1.pd.zip

Hey taste, I was reading your Get Involved post, and it mentions that each patch must have a unique name because of the way Pd handles the close message. There's actually a way around this. If you put a [namecanvas] object in the patch, you can send messages to the [namecanvas] argument instead of the name of the patch. So if you have:

[namecanvas myPatch]

in the running patch, you can close it from another patch like this:

[; myPatch menuclose(

So if you require each patch to have a [namecanvas $0-patch] in it, you can ensure that you close the right one. You just have to make sure you send the $0 to your main patch, which you could do with the [patchComs] abstraction.

hey mnb, i just downloaded the patches and gave them a listen, really really like them, nice work. I'll have a quick check through them just to make sure that everything that needs it has the $0 arguments and then I'll get them up and running.
if it will run on the atom then it should be fine to run on the server. I'll test it out first like I have been with lead's patches and let you know if there are any issues, thanks for helping out. I'll ping you an email so you have my address, i realise that it isn't so obvious on my website heh.

Maelstrom, I was wondering if there might be something like that but hadn't found it for some reason. thankyou for pointing it out to me, I'm testing it out now. will take a bit of rejigging as i realise the namecanvas would have to be in the top layer and cant be in a subpatch or abstraction. pretty sure i've got it tho.
currently the $0 argument of the patchComs abstraction is already being sent to the main patch as this is how the audio is routed between the patches. there are a set of send objects in the patchComs called $0-l and $0-r, python receives the $0 value and then sends messages to the master patch which sets a pair of receive objects to get their audio from those sends. means that i can do the crossfading in the main patch and not have to send too many control messages to the loaded patches.
hopefully I can have this working in the next couple of days.

audiolemon, i figured it was a picture of an old timey radio. i quite like it tbh heh.