Trying to improve my SuperCollider workflow so that when it comes time to write music I do less instrument building and more experimenting. The intended workflow consists of a dictionaries, synth factories, and pattern / midi utilities.
In SuperCollider dictionaries are key value pairs, and in these dictionaries the keys are symbols and the values are functions. Each dictionary contains some number of simple functions that can be used for a similar purpose. For instance, there is a dictionary of carrier waveforms (sine, saw, ...), any of which could be used as a source signal. There is also a dictionary of envelopes, any of which could be used to contour a signal.
Factories are the centerpiece of the workflow. A factory is a function that dynamically constructs a SynthDef and adds it to our server. Each factory is an arrangement of dictionaries and other factories that specifies the nature of the SynthDefs it can create.
For example, take our basic factory in basic_factory.sc. The user can invoke
the factory with a name and a variety of options specifying how it should
construct a SynthDef. In the basic factory, these options are carrier and
envelope. So the user can choose any carrier that exists in the carrier
dictionary, and any envelope from the envelope dictionary, and pass their keys
to the factory, and the factory will construct a synth definition using those
functions.
Once a SynthDef is generated, now we want to hear it make sound! The two main ways that happens is through Patterns (Pbind, Pmono ...) and through MIDI instruments. It's important that there are pattern utilities that encapsulate common patterns, such as linking a filter frequency to the primary frequency. It's just as important that there are reusable tools for MIDI performance such as functions that handle whether a synth should be played as monophonic, duophonic, or multiphonic, or whether it should have lowest-note-priority, highest-note-priority, last-note-priority, or first-note-priority.
Here is a good pattern reference.
It would be nice to include a standard start file and probably other things will come up that will be nice to include. If you're reading this and you're on OSX, definitely check out my scvim branch so that you can use vim as your text editor instead of the SuperCollider IDE (if you want).