The Cmajor Patch Format

Cmajor patches are a format for bundling together code and other resources, so that they can be loaded into audio hosts such as DAWs, to provide instruments or effect plugin functionality.

A Cmajor “patch” is essentially a bundle of files, including:

A main “manifest” file, with the suffix .cmajorpatch. This file describes the patch’s properties and contains links to the other files in the patch
One or more .cmajor source files containing the actual Cmajor code
Some optional javascript control code for non-DSP housekeeping tasks
Optionally some sub-folders containing resources such as HTML/CSS/Javascript GUI, audio files, etc.

The `.cmajorpatch` manifest file

The .cmajorpatch file contains JSON to describe the properties of the patch.

For example, the HelloWorld.cmajorpatch contains:

{
    "CmajorVersion":    1,
    "ID":               "dev.cmajor.examples.helloworld",
    "version":          "1.0",
    "name":             "Hello World",
    "description":      "The classic audio Hello World",
    "manufacturer":     "Sound Stacks Ltd",
    "category":         "generator",
    "isInstrument":     false,
    "source":           "HelloWorld.cmajor"
}

There are a few required properties that a patch must define:

CmajorVersion - this is the version of Cmajor for which this patch was written
ID - a universally unique ID for the patch, which should be in the form of a reverse-URL that includes the company name/website.
version - a version number for your patch. This is just a string - there are no restrictions on its format.
name - a human-readable name for your patch

Other optional properties include:

description - a longer description that a host can display to its users
manufacturer - the name of you or your company
category - hosts will be give this string, but how they choose to interpret it will be host-dependent
isInstrument - if specified, this marks the patch as being an instrument rather an effect. Some hosts may treat a plugin differently depending on this flag.

Cmajor source files

The source property in the manifest tells the host which .cmajor files to compile for the Cmajor source code. This property can either be a single string containing a file path (relative to the folder containing the patch), or an array of string filenames if there are multiple files.

e.g.

    "source":   [ "src/MainProcessor.cmajor",
                  "src/Utilities.cmajor" ],

All the source files will be loaded and linked together as a single unit, so they can freely refer to definitions in the other files without needing to explicitly import them.

Selection of the patch’s main processor

One of the processors defined in your source files will be used as the patch’s top-level processor. To help the host decide which one to use, you should decorate it with the [[ main ]] attribute, e.g.

processor HelloWorld  [[ main ]]
{
    ...

Patch Parameters

Patches are designed to be used as audio plugins, and an audio plugin generally has a list of “parameters” that the host can read and write to, so that a host/DAW can record and play back automated changes to these parameters.

The list of parameters for a patch is determined by looking at the input endpoints of its main processor. If the endpoint meets the following criteria, it will be revealed to the host as a parameter:

It must be a value or event endpoint. Streams cannot be used as parameters.
Its type must have a single type which is a float32, float64, int32, int64 or bool.
It must have an annotation that declares a name (and will probably also declare some range properties).

processor HelloWorld  [[ main ]]
{
    input stream float audioIn;  // Parameters cannot be streams, so this is ignored

    // This parameter is a float called "foo" and has the range 0.5 to 10
    input event float in1   [[ name: "foo", min: 0.5, max: 10.0 ]];

    // This parameter is an int called "foo2" between 1 and 99
    input value int32 in2   [[ name: "foo2", min: 1, max: 99 ]];

The following properties can be added to the endpoint annotation in order to give the host more information about the parameter:

name (required) - the name to display to the user
min - the minimum value for the parameter. If not specified, defaults to 0.0
max - the maximum value for the parameter. If not specified, defaults to 1.0
init - if specified, this value will be sent to the parameter when the patch is initialised
step - the intervals to which the parameter value must “snap” when being changed
unit - an optional string which the host will display as the units for this value. E.g. “%” or “dB”
boolean - if this flag is set, the paremeter may be displayed as a toggle switch
hidden - if this flag is set, the parameter won’t be displayed on user interfaces
automatable - if this property is set to true or false, it will be passed to a host where possible, and if the host understands it, it may use it to decide whether to allow automation recording for this parameter
rampFrames - this property can be set to an integer to indicate how many frames it should take to ramp to a new value
group - an optional string to hint at a parent group to which this parameter belongs. Some hosts may use this to organise parameters into on-screen groups.
text - a formatting string which is used to print the value in a custom style. The string is preprocessed a bit like “printf”, supporting the following format strings:
- %d prints the parameter value as an integer
- %f prints the parameter value as a floating point number
- %[digits]f prints the parameter value with a maximum number of decimal places, e.g. %2f uses up to 2 decimal places
- %0[digits]f prints the parameter value with exactly the specified number of decimal places
- %+d or %+f prints the number with a + or - sign before it
The text property can also contain a list of names separated by the pipe | character. In this mode, the names will be used as labels for the parameter values, and the host may choose to display them to the user in a drop-down menu or other list selector. For example text: "low|med|high" will map the strings “low”, “med” and high to the value range 0, 1, 2. If a max range is specified then the values will be spread across the range, e.g. max: 9 would map “low” to 0 -> 3, “med” to 3 -> 6, and “high” to 6 -> 9. If no step is provided, it will automatically be set based on the number of items.

External variable data

Cmajor code can declare external variables whose values are supplied by the runtime environment when the code is loaded. In a patch, you should add entries in the manifest file to supply the data or the resource file that should be loaded into these variables.

e.g. In the “Piano” example, Piano.cmajor declares an external variable which is an array of 5 PianoSample objects:

    namespace piano
    {
        struct PianoSample
        {
            std::audio_data::Mono source;
            int rootNote;
        }

        external PianoSample[5] samples;

The Piano.cmajorpatch has an “externals” property which gives the runtime a JSON value that should be loaded into the piano::samples variable:

    "externals": {
        "piano::samples": [ { "source": "piano_36.ogg",  "rootNote": 36 },
                            { "source": "piano_48.ogg",  "rootNote": 48 },
                            { "source": "piano_60.ogg",  "rootNote": 60 },
                            { "source": "piano_72.ogg",  "rootNote": 72 },
                            { "source": "piano_84.ogg",  "rootNote": 84 } ]
    }

The runtime will attempt to coerce these JSON values to fit the data type of the target variable.

So in the example above, the samples variable has the type PianoSample[5]. The JSON value is an array containing 5 objects. So it then attempts to convert each of these objects into a PianoSample value.

Simple types like integers, floats, bools and strings are converted as you’d expect, and when objects are probided, the JSON objects should have members with the same names as the Cmajor struct members.

The runtime also supports loading audio data from files, as is done in this example. When attempting to convert a string to some other kind of target object, the runtime will check whether the string is actually the name of an audio resource file in the patch, and if so will load it. It’ll then attempt to copy the audio frames and sample rate into the target struct type.

In the example above, the audio files are being loaded into variables whose type is std::audio_data::Mono. This is a struct from the Cmajor standard library, which looks like this:

    struct Mono
    {
        float[] frames;
        float64 sampleRate;
    }

Because it has a member called “sampleRate” the runtime will put the audio file’s sample rate into this value. And because it has an array of floats (and the source file is also mono), the audio data will be loaded into this array.

The standard library provides a set of helper structs like this that you can use to load data from audio files, but they’re not special - the runtime simply uses duck-typing to decide whether a struct might be able to contain audio data, so you can use your own types too.

It can also load audio file data directly into a raw array, so this would also compile:

    processor MyProcessor
    {
        external float[] audioData;

and

    "externals": {
        "MyProcessor::audioData" : "piano_36.ogg",
    }

..but since there’s nowhere to put the file’s sample rate, that information will be discarded.

Patch GUIs

Specifying a custom GUI for a patch

To add a custom GUI to your patch, your .cmajorpatch file must declare a view property, e.g.

{
    "CmajorVersion":    1,
    "ID":               "dev.cmajor.examples.helloworld",
    "version":          "1.0",
    "name":             "Hello World",
    "source":           "HelloWorld.cmajor",

    "view": {
      "src":       "patch_gui/index.js",
      "width":     800,
      "height":    700,
      "resizable": false
    }
}

The view property should contain a src property providing a relative URL to a javascript module.

We expect a patch to provide a web component for its GUI, as these are the basis of all modern browser DOMs, and can be easily embedded into a hosts’s own user-interface.

To provide a web component, your javascript module’s default export must be a function that returns a HTMLElement object. When the host wants to display your patch’s GUI, it’ll call this function and add the element that it returns to its own window.

The function you provide will be given a single argument when called. The argument provides a PatchConnection object that your view should use to communicate with the patch instance that it represents.

For example:

class MyAmazingPatchView extends HTMLElement
{
    // ...etc..
}

export default function createPatchView (patchConnection)
{
    return new MyAmazingPatchView (patchConnection);
}

The `PatchConnection` object

The PatchConnection object is provided by the host and your HTMLElement class uses it to control and communicate with the running patch.

It provides a range of methods for controlling and querying the state of the patch:

Status-handling methods

requestStatusUpdate() Calling this will trigger an asynchronous callback to any status listeners with the patch’s current state. Use addStatusListener() to attach a listener to receive it.
addStatusListener (listener) Attaches a listener function that will be called whenever the patch’s status changes. The function will be called with a parameter object containing many properties describing the status, including whether the patch is loaded, any errors, endpoint descriptions, its manifest, etc.
removeStatusListener (listener) Removes a listener that was previously added with addStatusListener()
resetToInitialState() Causes the patch to be reset to its “just loaded” state.

Methods for sending data to input endpoints

sendEventOrValue (endpointID, value, rampFrames) Sends a value to one of the patch’s input endpoints. This can be used to send a value to either an ‘event’ or ‘value’ type input endpoint. If the endpoint is a ‘value’ type, then the rampFrames parameter can optionally be used to specify the number of frames over which the current value should ramp to the new target one. The value parameter will be coerced to the type that is expected by the endpoint. So for examples, numbers will be converted to float or integer types, javascript objects and arrays will be converted into more complex types in as good a fashion is possible.
sendMIDIInputEvent (endpointID, shortMIDICode) Sends a short MIDI message value to a MIDI endpoint. The value must be a number encoded with (byte0 << 16) | (byte1 << 8) | byte2.
sendParameterGestureStart (endpointID) Tells the patch that a series of changes that constitute a gesture is about to take place for the given endpoint. Remember to call sendParameterGestureEnd() after they’re done!
sendParameterGestureEnd (endpointID) Tells the patch that a gesture started by sendParameterGestureStart() has finished.

Stored state control methods

requestStoredStateValue (key) Requests a callback to any stored-state value listeners with the current value of a given key-value pair. To attach a listener to receive these events, use addStoredStateValueListener().
sendStoredStateValue (key, newValue) Modifies a key-value pair in the patch’s stored state.
addStoredStateValueListener (listener) Attaches a listener function that will be called when any key-value pair in the stored state is changed. The listener function will receive a message parameter with properties key and value.
removeStoredStateValueListener (listener) Removes a listener that was previously added with addStoredStateValueListener().
sendFullStoredState (fullState) Applies a complete stored state to the patch. To get the current complete state, use requestFullStoredState().
requestFullStoredState (callback) Asynchronously requests the full stored state of the patch. The listener function that is supplied will be called asynchronously with the state as its argument.

Listener methods

addEndpointEventListener (endpointID, listener) Attaches a listener function which will be called whenever an event passes through a specific endpoint. This can be used to monitor both input and output endpoints. The listener function will be called with an argument which is the value of the event.
removeEndpointEventListener (endpointID, listener) Removes a listener that was previously added with addEndpointEventListener()
requestParameterValue (endpointID) This will trigger an asynchronous callback to any parameter listeners that are attached, providing them with its up-to-date current value for the given endpoint. Use addAllParameterListener() to attach a listener to receive the result.
addParameterListener (endpointID, listener) Attaches a listener function which will be called whenever the value of a specific parameter changes. The listener function will be called with an argument which is the new value.
removeParameterListener (endpointID, listener) Removes a listener that was previously added with addParameterListener()
addAllParameterListener (listener) Attaches a listener function which will be called whenever the value of any parameter changes in the patch. The listener function will be called with an argument object with the fields endpointID and value.
removeAllParameterListener (listener) Removes a listener that was previously added with addAllParameterListener()

Asset handling methods

getResourceAddress (path) This takes a relative path to an asset within the patch bundle, and converts it to a path relative to the root of the browser that is showing the view. You need you use this in your view code to translate your asset URLs to a form that can be safely used in your view’s HTML DOM (e.g. in its CSS). This is needed because the host’s HTTP server (which is delivering your view pages) may have a different ‘/’ root than the root of your patch (e.g. if a single server is serving multiple patch GUIs).

Built-in javascript utility classes

The Cmajor runtime provides some built-in helper classes that your module can load and use with an import directive.

To see the files that are available, have a look through the files in the cmajor/javascript/cmaj_api folder.

To import one of these modules, use a path starting with /cmaj_api/, e.g.

import { getCmajorVersion } from "/cmaj_api/cmaj-version.js"
import * as midi from "/cmaj_api/cmaj-midi-helpers.js"

console.log (`Cmajor version: ${getCmajorVersion()}`);
console.log ("MIDI message: " + midi.getMIDIDescription (0x924030));

Building a native VST or AudioUnit from a patch

The cmaj tool supports code-generation of a JUCE C++ project that can be used to natively compile a VST/AudioUnit/AAX plugin for a patch. The resulting code doesn’t do any JIT compilation, it simply translates the Cmajor code to pure C++ so that it can be built statically.

To use this feature, run the command line app in generate mode, e.g.

% cmaj generate --target=plugin
                --output=[path to a target folder for the project]
                --jucePath=[path to your JUCE folder]
                MyAmazingPatch.cmajorpatch

It will create a folder containing some source files and a JUCE cmake project. This can be built as you would any other C++ cmake project, to produce VST/AU/AAX/standalone binaries.

Building a Web Audio `AudioWorkletNode` from a patch

The cmaj tool supports code-generation of a Javascript module which contains code for instantiating a node for use in a Web Audio API graph. This is enabled via our WebAssembly (WASM) backend. As with the plugin target, the resulting code doesn’t do any JIT compilation, it is self-contained Javascript with some embedded WASM code. Any external data declared in the externals property of the manifest is also embedded, including decoded audio sample data from audio files.

The module has a default exported function which can be used to jointly construct a Web Audio node and a PatchConnection instance. The PatchConnection instance can be used when constructing a custom Patch GUI.