Cycles and pulses - maturing stepwise UI

[yaxu]

The stepwise functions are useful but need some rationalisation.

I propose:

• Rename all references of 'tactus' to 'pulse'. They're synonymous but the latter is less obscure.
  • setTactus could become pulse or maybe pulseAt.
  • s_expand could become pulseBy, as it does the same as pulse but with a factor change rather than absolute value
• Renaming steps to cycle. Then it should be slightly less ambiguous, as a function for changing hap density and therefore the number of pulses per cycle. Other potential options are cycleAt, or recycle.
  • The difference between above pulse and cycle is that pulse just sets the pulse, whereas cycle both sets the pulse and changes the pattern density (i.e. via fast) to match.
• Rename s_extend to cycleBy, as it does the same as steps but with a factor change rather than absolute value for the tactus/pulse.

old	new	hap density	pulse	absolute/factor	use case
fast	fast	x		factor	Used when you want the pattern to be faster relative to the pulse. This is usually the case, otherwise in e.g. sound(s_cat("bd sd".fast(2), "cp")), the bd sd would repeat twice but each hap would have the same duration as cp
steps	cycle	x	x	absolute	Used when you want to change the speed of a pattern to match a given 'pulse'. Useful e.g. where you have two patterns with different pulses and want to align them 'stepwise' so they have matching meters.
s_extend	cycleBy	x	x	factor	Used when you want the pattern and pulse to be increased along with the pattern speed. This is basically ! in mininotation.
setTactus	pulse		x	absolute
s_expand	pulseBy		x	factor	Increases (or decreases) the pulse density, thereby reducing (or increasing) the hap density per pulse. Equivalent to @ in mininotation.

[yaxu]

Or maybe..

old	new	hap density	pulse	absolute/factor
fast	fast	x		factor
steps	pulse	x	x	absolute
s_extend	pulseBy	x	x	factor
setTactus	pulsate		x	absolute
s_expand	pulsateBy		x	factor

fast = maintain the pulse, while speeding up/down the pattern
pulse = speed up/down the pulse and pattern
pulsate = set a new pulse without changing the pattern

[yaxu]

Or given the use cases above..

old	new	hap density	pulse	absolute/factor	mininotation equivalent
fast	fast	x		factor	*
steps	pulses	x	x	absolute	{}%
s_extend	repeat	x	x	factor	!
setTactus			x	absolute
s_expand	expand		x	factor	@

[yaxu]

What if as an alternative to setting the cps, you could set the pps, i.e. pulses per second. Then when you did that, you'd be in 'pulse mode' and all patterns would automatically align pulsewise.. polymetric heaven.

[felixroos]

I generally like the renaming scheme, better than s_* . fwiw i mildly prefer typing steps over pulses , maybe they could be aliased?

[yaxu]

I think best to just pick one name as it's all quite confusing and seeing multiple names for the same thing could make it worse.
It could just be pulse rather than pulses.
I'm not not keen on steps as the concept is quite different from the use in step sequencers.

[matthewkaney]

As a minor point, I prefer pulse to pulses just because it reads elegantly as infix Haskell notation:

8 `pulse` s "bd ~ ~"

Also perhaps s_polymeter could become something like polyStack so the relationship to stack is explicit? In this context, "poly" would properly mean something like "poly-cycle" because of how multiple cycles would be shifted and combined in order to be pulse-aligned. I do also like polyrhythm/polymeter as an alternate pairing. These would still make a lot of sense as synonyms or as the proper function names if we were willing to demote stack to more historical status.