Synth cannot play G# (G-sharp)

chris_olivers

Hi, using Synth to play sounds. It works fine except it refuses to play G-sharp (g#). Using OS4

Calling my_sound = Synth(osc=u'sine', freq=u'g#1', length=200, attack=0, decay=20) results in a crash with the following message:

UnboundLocalError: cannot access local variable 'f' where it is not associated with a value

Octave does not matter. g0# and g2# also fail.

Other tones, like f# are fine (I have tested them all, only g# fails)

my_sound = Synth(osc=u'sine', freq=u'f#1', length=200, attack=0, decay=20)

Also replacing g# with its frequency (861 Hz) works fine:

my_sound = Synth(osc=u'sine', freq=861, length=200, attack=0, decay=20)

So I have this workaround, but I thought it's still worth reporting this quirk.

Also, what is the symbol for flat, as in B-flat, if there is any?

thanks, best,

Chris

eduard

Hi Chris,

Yes that's a small bug in the source code. Thanks for spotting. I suggested a fix and probably it is going to be resolved in the next maintenance release.

Also, what is the symbol for flat, as in B-flat, if there is any?

Flat is just a b .

So, gb for g flat. In case you wanted to replace g# with ab, that is not going to work at the moment, as the bug affects that one as well.

Octave does not matter. g0# and g2# also fail.

Small note here, the # must be before the octave. So this order would not work for any of the tones.

Thanks,

Eduard

sebastiaan

@eduard Thanks for fixing this!

chris_olivers

@eduard @sebastiaan

Thanks guys! I seem to hit another snag:

    my_sound.volume(0.5) results in "TypeError: 'float' object is not callable"

my_sound is defined as a synth object, and is playing. other functions work fine, like my_sound.play() and my_sound.wait().

eduard

Hi Chris,

I don't think this is how you set the volume. You probably want to use the set_config() method or pass it as keyword argument to play.

Synth objects are essentially Sampler objects for which the sound is generated first. So, check out the the sampler docs to see some usage examples.

Eduard

chris_olivers

Hi Eduard,

Thanks, but while sampler accepts a volume key word, synth does not.

what does seem to work is:

synth_object.volume = .5

best

chris

eduard

Hi Chris,

Doing it like this works:

my_sound = Synth(osc=u'sine', freq=u'f1', length=200, attack=0, decay=20)
my_sound.set_config(**{"volume":0.1})
my_sound.play()

However, I realized that using the psychopy backend no sound is played, whereas for legacy and expyriment it is. @sebastiaan are you aware of this?

Eduard

sebastiaan

Hi @chris_olivers and @eduard ,

The standard way to change the volume is by setting the volume property, as Chris already found out:

synth_object.volume = .5

Alternatively, you can pass the volume keyword when initializing the Synth or Sampler or when calling the play() function. (However, there is indeed a bug in the Synth object such that it doesn't accept this keyword during initialization. I'll fix that shortly.)

See also:

• https://osdoc.cogsci.nl/4.0/manual/python/sampler/#playback-keywords

The set_config() function is mainly for internal use. It works, but I wouldn't use it because it's not very readable.

The set_volume() function (and other similarly named functions) were already deprecated for a long time and were finally removed in OpenSesame 4.0.

However, I realized that using the psychopy backend no sound is played, whereas for legacy and expyriment it is. @sebastiaan are you aware of this?

I suspect that this is specific to your system. Are you missing some of the libraries that psychopy uses for sound playback?

— Sebastiaan

eduard

Hi Sebastiaan,

Thanks for clarifying.

The standard way to change the volume is by setting the volume property, as Chris already found out:

My bad! I misread Chris' post, thinking that this didn't work.

Eduard