BC3LW version June 30, 2008 for fresh installation on Mac OSX (10.4&10.5), Windows and LispWorks 5.0/5.1 

  1. Install LispWorks Common Lisp Professional or Personal version as instructed on the web page. LispWorks Personal Edition is a free version with some restrictions of use but fully functional for BC3, and LispWorks Professional/Educational is a full-scale Lisp programming environment but not free of charge. The Personal edition is about 100 MB download for the installer. Do a complete install. You may make an alias/shortcut to desktop or other favorite place for convenient starting by clicking. With the Professional version you can make manupulation easier or create stand-alone applicatons.
  2. On Windows (not on Mac OSX) you need to install MinGW (Minimalist GNU for Windows) software in order to have a gcc compiler that BC3 is using for patch compilation (another choice is Cygwin, but MinGW is simpler.) Click the ‘MinGW-5.1.3’ (or later) installer icon (included in "Support/MinGW-setup") when you are connected to Internet, and follow the instructions to make a base tools installation. If problems appear in downloading from the default site, try others. It is assumed that you install MinGW to "C:\MinGW".
  3. You have downloaded (or need to download) "BC3LW" software distribution of June 30, 2008, from http://www.acoustics.hut.fi/software/BlockCompiler/BC3LW300608.zip to Mac OSX (10.4 and 10.5 tested, both PowerPC and Intel machines) or Windows (XP tested). Expand the zip file. Move the directory BC3LW preferably to the user documents directory (e.g. /Users/USER/Documents/ on Mac, where USER is your username). If you install it elsewhere, you need to set the pathname explicitly, see below. 
  4. Start Lisp and compile BC3LW in the following manner: Open file BC_COMPILE.lisp (in director BC3LW) and execute menu Buffers>Evaluate  on Macontosh or menu Works>Buffers>Evaluate on Windows. It should compile BC3 without errors. Exit Lisp. BC3 is ready for use.
  5. You may now use BC3 by first starting Lisp, then opening file BC_LOAD.lisp and evaluating the buffer. BC3 should start without errors, if all configurations are done properly.
  6. When BC3 is successfully running, you may open and execute the existing demo files (documented in the related report) or write and execute your own patches.

BC3LW directory management and software update

  1. If you reinstall or update the BC3LW software or parts of it, the most important thing is to avoid overwriting your user files or user settings (in file BC_LOAD.load).
  2. Subdirectory BC3 inside top-directory BC3LW includes the source files of BC3 and compiled files after compilation, as well as some runtime libraries for C and audio support.
  3. Directory “Support” includes documentation and installation instructions (this file), MATLAB interfacing support, and MinGW support.
  4. Demos are in directories "MDEMOS" (for MATLAB) and "RTDEMOS" (realtime demos).
  5. File BC_LOAD.lisp includes user-specific settings that you may change if you need.
  6. You may place your own BC3 files as you wish to manage them from Lisp, but the easiest way is to make a directory inside the top-level BC3LW directory for them. Be careful not to delete them if you update BC3 or parts of it.

BC3LW testing

  1. Start BC3 after installation, open and execute “mdemos/dsp/sinosc.lisp” in the Lisp listener. This should create a sinewave oscillator (as the value of symbol sinosc) as well as export the model as an m-file to Matlab (or Octave) to the directory specified in BC_LOAD.lisp (the default is MATLAB inside the BC3 directory). If you have Matlab (Octave) and you set a path to the directory mentioned, then you can simply evaluate bc_resp in Matlab (Octave) to see how the sine oscillator makes a graphical presentation of the waveform.
  2. To test a realtime patch and audio-I/O, go to the sine-wave synthesis case in file "rtdemos/dsp/sine-tone.lisp" as documented in the Report.pdf "Discrete-Time Physics-Based Modeling – A Block-Based Multi-Paradigm Approach with Applications to Audio and Acoustics", in chapter "Introduction to BlockCompiler".
  3. It is recommendable to check all the examples in chapter "Introduction to BlockCompiler" to get familiar with BC3 modeling.
  4. NOTICE: This is a version of BC3 under progress, and it has known and unknown bugs. Feedback of your experience and comments is welcome.

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