Changes in Tidal 1.0.x

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Under the hood, Tidal 1.0.0 is a major rewrite. If you're used to previous versions, this will mostly be evident in terms of new functionality. But there are some breaking changes too.

Below is a growing list of changes and additions. I (User:Yaxu) have tried to thank people who have done/contributed towards things, apologies to those I've missed. Things not marked are probably entirely my fault.

Name changes, new functions, changed behaviour

  • The old scale has been renamed to range
  • scale is now used to specify musical scale
  • protate and friends has been replaced with rot
  • New function fix for manipulating control patterns with matching control values
  • New function mono for making a pattern monophonic (thanks bgold)
  • New function smooth for turning a discrete/digital numerical pattern into a continuous/analog one, by interpolating between the values (thanks bgold)
  • Chord names can now be put into numerical patterns, e.g. n "c'maj e'min". The old chordP has been removed.
  • discretise is now known as segment
  • e is now known as euclid
  • breakOut is now known as arpeggiate
  • Functions generally standardised into being 'slow', e.g. scan n will work over n cycles, not squeeze the whole buildup into a single cycle.
  • Functions that only worked on one numerical type generalised to work on any where it makes sense, e.g. rand can now be used as a pattern of time/rational values as well as double/floating point values (thanks msp)
  • select functions for choosing between patterns with a pattern of floats
  • wchoose weights no longer have to add up to 1
  • weave' is now known as weaveWith
  • New arp function for arpeggiation
  • Easy ways to send Custom OSC to systems other than superdirt
  • The meaning of stut and stutWith parameters have changed to match each other.

Interaction

  • solo now does a 'true' solo. I.e. there is now also unsolo.
  • You can now run a cycle immediately, once, with once
  • Experimental transition interpolate for merging between new and old values

Other new features

https://talk.lurk.org/channel/tidal

  • Tidal now takes input from OSC and MIDI - see Controller Input
    • This means you can send numbers and strings into tidal to be used as control values, function parameters, or parsed sequences
  • 'Show' instance for patterns (and control patterns) is now more readable
  • If you treat a control pattern as a number, you'll be manipulating the n control, e.g. (s "bd" # n "1 2") + 3 will add 3 to both 1 and 2.
  • More parameters are patternable, e.g. sometimesBy
  • The parser can now produce binary (boolean) patterns where euclidean rhythms produce true and false values not, true and silence. Useful for use with e.g. sew and struct
  • Configuration is done via a boot script and not environment variables

Documentation

  • Documentation has moved to the wiki you're looking at right now (thanks to many, including kindohm)
  • What we used to call a 'param pattern' is now called a 'control pattern'

Tempo and scheduling changes

  • setcps is now used to set a fixed tempo
  • Tempo can now be patterned, using cps as a control pattern

Pattern structure

The way patterns are combined has been reworked:

  • The old 'structure comes from the left' adage no longer applies - you can now control where structure comes from
  • The behaviour of |+|, |*| has changed.
  • # works the same as before, but is now an alias for >|, rather than |=| (which no longer exists).

Regressions

  • tidal-midi is not currently working (but midi is still working great via superdirt)
  • tidalink is not currently working (should be fixed soon)
  • classic dirt is not currently supported (should also be fixed soon)

See Combining pattern structure for full info.

Internal and dev changes

  • Switched to system.random for random number generation (thanks d0kt0r0
  • MiniTidal moved into core tidal repo (thanks d0kt0r0)
  • Started on a unit test suite (thanks vivid-synth, msp, nini-faroux and co)
  • More lawful Applicative and Monad instances for Pattern
  • Definition of <* and *>, that work like <*> but using the structure on the left or right
  • <*> now uses structure on both sides
  • innerJoin and outerJoin for 'flattening' patterns of patterns - works like join but taking structure from the inner or outer pattern respectively.
  • Patterns are now flagged as either analog or digital
  • Tidal is generally a single process, multithreaded thing, rather than multi-process as before
  • The websocket tempo protocol has been replaced with an OSC based one
  • The modules have been extensively reorganised, e.g. Strategies no longer exists, but Pattern, Core, Control and UI do.
  • Compiles without warnings
  • Better stack support (thanks tonyday567)
  • Fleshed out datatype structure (thanks tonyday567)
  • Tidyier travis builds with more haskell versions tested (thanks tonyday567)
  • New function inv for inverting a binary (boolean) pattern
  • Calculation is done based on hZ rather than calculations/cycle. By default it tidal runs at 20 calculations per second.