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Re: [microsound] Using PD for microsound (newbie)



Hallo,
David Powers hat gesagt: // David Powers wrote:

> I am a PD newbie, and very interested in making tools with which to
> create microsound.  Though I am subscribed to the PD list, I must admit
> I have little idea what most of the posts even mean at this point!  

Be patient, it will come with time. You should play with the example
patches and change them. A good trick is to replace every [line~]
object with a [*~ 1] object which immediately leads to Microsound. ;) 

> I have managed to create some basic patches that do a few things, and
> of course I'm slowly working through tutorials.  What I'm wondering is,
> conceptually, what kinds of patches have people designed using PD?  I'd
> like to hear plain English descriptions of the kinds of patches people
> are building - specifically to create "microsound" type work, because I
> still haven't wrapped my mind around how all these little components
> will add up to an exciting performance environment.

Well, that's exactly the hard thing in learning Pd or any other
modular environment. You can read docs on Max, there probably are more
than for Pd and most of the stuff can be done in Pd as well. But
explaining "What do people create with Pd?" is a bit like asking "What
do people create using paint?" 

After you get a grip of the basics and of a bit advanced Pd techniques
(how to do that, is off-topic on this list) the real artistic problem
is: What do you want to achive? How can you be creative with Pd? And
is Pd the right tool for you? (It is for me, but just because Pd is
cool doesn't mean, it's for everyone.)

If you are interested in Microsound, you probably know the
"Microsound" book (if not, get it). Books like this (or Dodge/Jerse
"Computer Music") are the real tutorials for a software like Pd. They
can give you ideas and create the urge: "I want to see how this Pulsar
synthesis thing could be done in Pd." or "I want to check out FM
synthesis." or "I want to play samples by dancing." 

How to organize your patches and how to avoid spaghetti is something
which will evolve naturally over time. I now organize my patches
rather formally in regard to inter-abstraction communication and
shared state saving in a project I called RRADical, which is as well a
collection or library of patches as it is a guideline on how to make
patches Rapidly Reusable. However I only arrived at my current
solution after 4-5 years of using Pd, thinking about patch
organization, reading geeky software design books etc. Additionally I
seem to have left the realm of "plain English description" in this
paragraph singlehandedly, so I'd rather stop. ;)

Some Pd patches are on em411.com, but not too microsoundish, and
really a lot of Pd patches are on puredata.org/info. For microsoundish
sound Derek Holzer's Particle Chamber is wonderful: 
http://www.puredata.org/Members/derek/Particlechamber.zip/view

My version of PONG for Pd is here: http://footils.org/cms/show/27 

And you might want to ask your same question over on pd-list.
Questions like this are not considered off-topic.

Ciao
-- 
 Frank Barknecht                               _ ______footils.org__
             
          _ __latest track: "scans" _ http://footils.org/cms/show/41

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