Hi all,
This is not related to the "reading big sound files" thread, although that
made me remember of this question I have been wanting to ask for a long
time.
I know two ways of reading sound files in PD.
One is loading them into a table with [soundfiler], and the other is playing
them realtime from disk with [readsf].
Readsf is ok for playing big files in realtime without loading the whole of
them into ram, and also, it does not block dsp processing while loading. The
problem is you can't jump to any point of the file in an instant: you have
to allow for a few millisecond to fill the buffer or you'll hear clicks; not
to mention you can't do much more than just playing, or if you want to read
a chunk of file into a table, you will have to do it at "1x" speed.
Soundfiler, if you don't load huuuuuge files and/or have sufficient ram, is
ok...
...as far as you don't need to use it during performance!!
Being synchronous, it will block dsp processing for the time necessary to
read the whole file, so you have to pre-load all waves before you start
performing...
So my question is. Is there an asynchronous, non-blocking way to load a wave
file into a table, but faster than real-time playing?
I mean, something that loads the file as fast as it can but without blocking
dsp execution, and for example bangs when load is complete?
Thanks in advance
M.