At the Jamoma workshop last December (at iMal in Brussels) we began work on a library of dataspaces. The dataspaces define a set of ‘units’ that can be used to represent a value of a particular class. For example, the value of a volume control can be expressed as linear gain, in MIDI units, using deciBels, etc. Over the past year we have been integrating more and more of this initial work on the ‘DataspaceLib’ into Jamoma’s parameter and messaging system.

Now that we have been working with it for a while we were able to diagram a way to make it work that will be usable and convenient. The implementation of this diagram should hopefully happen by the end of the year. The main ingredients are:

• A ‘native’ unit: this is what the internal algorithm uses (linear gain, for example). This unit is static, and does not change dynamically.
• An ‘active’ unit: this is the unit in which the user is specifying the value, and this unit can change dynamically as the user sees fit.
• A ‘display’ unit: this is what the user interface displays. This potentially can also can be changed on-the-fly by the user.