home/ atoms/ sc-pbind-pitch-specs

Pbind specifies pitch four mutually exclusive ways: \degree, ote, \midinote, and req

Pbind offers four separate pitch namespaces, and you pick exactly one. \degree uses diatonic scale steps relative to an assumed scale (default C major): 0 = middle C, negative values go below, and decimal offsets reach chromatic notes between degrees (e.g. 3.1 is one semitone above scale degree 3). \note uses chromatic semitone steps from middle C: 0 = C4, 1 = C#4. \midinote uses standard MIDI numbers: 60 = C4, 69 = A4. \freq takes raw Hz. Their numeric ranges differ enormously, so mixing types or feeding a \degree-style small list to \freq is a mistake. Two keywords only apply to certain families: \scale works only with \degree, and transposition via \ctranspose (semitones) works with \degree, \note, and \midinote but not \freq.

Examples

Pbind(\degree, 5).play;    // A4 via scale degree
Pbind(\note, 9).play;      // A4 via chromatic semitones
Pbind(\midinote, 69).play; // A4 via MIDI
Pbind(\freq, 440).play;    // A4 via Hz

Assessment

Translate A above middle C (A4) into all four representations and write one single-line Pbind per method that all play it. Do the same for E5. State which method is most natural for microtonal intervals and which keywords (\scale, \ctranspose) apply to which pitch families.

“.4Fourwaysofsp ecifyingpitch Pbindacceptsotherwaysofsp ecify”
corpus · a-gentle-introduction-to-supercollider-bruno-ruviaro · chunk 4
“accepts other ways of specifying pitch, not just scale degrees. •If you want to use all twelve chromatic notes (black and white keys of the piano), you can use oteinstead of\degree.”
corpus · a-gentle-introduction-to-supercollider-ruviaro-archive-org-c · chunk 4