Is it possible to get started with Pure Data when you hardly know what "compile" means?

[Gone soft]

I'm pretty sure I could dig into the mysteries of Pure Data if I could only find a proper step-by-step guide to get me started, but as I haven't done any form of compiling the instructions I find in what's supposed to be tutorials for absolute beginners doesn't make much sense to me. I'm not familiar with the concept of "libraries" in this sort of context either. Is there any such thing as a step-by-step tutorial for getting me started without much prior knowledge of such modular environments, or would I need to attempt at somehow getting some experience in compiling and other relevant concepts somewhere else first?

Sort of irrelevant for answering my question part follows:

I know my way around Vaz Modular to a certain degree, at least to the point of patching up structures slightly more complicated than the algorithms of the good old TX81z (though probably few others than myself appreciate the slightly harsh sounds that tends to produce in the end..) or multitapdelays with frequencyshifting and modulated this and that in a slightly compressed feedbackpath - perhaps with a sequencer redirecting which of several delays the signal including the feedbackpath should go to in a rhythmic fashion, some pretty basic feedback experiments with a few onepolefilters of various flavours set adrift by a little noiseburst if needed etc. I've played around a bit with a Korg MS-20 a long time ago (which was eventually stolen ), which I used to continously buy more cables and split cables for so signals could be sent to several sources and such while I dreamt of affording the luxury of a proper modular system like the ones I often read about in magazines and my Analogue syntesizers a-z books. Now that I'm taking up sonic experimentation again I've decided software is the way to go for me. There's possibly a certain tendency to be a bit, erhm, processoriented at times.. Just to give some impression of where I'm coming from, as they say. I now wish to explore other sonic possibilities, and some of the puredata patches seem just the thing. I've the impression if those are relatively tidy I can go "under the hood", so to speak, and add things or rip things out for use in other patches as I learn more.

Sorry if this post got a bit long...

[cron]

I haven't used Pure Data but I wonder if it might be a good idea to try a demo of Max/MSP. I used Max/MSP in university (back at version 4) and was told that most of what you learn is transferable to Pure Data as they're the same family of languages (based on Miller Puckette's orginal Max program). The reason I suggest having a look at Max is because its help system is possibly the best I've come across in all the time I've used software. The tutorials are excellent and really help you build up your 'vocabulary' of objects, while right clicking any object and selecting help brings up a Max/MSP patch describing what the object does with examples of it in use. Having said this, I don't know how easy it would have been for me if I didn't have the tuition too. Its really not for the faint of heart. I'd compare it more to using something like Reaktor than a modular synth. Anyway, maybe worth a demo just to get access to its help and tutorial system for a while, but try to do the tutorials within Pure Data in another window (unless someone here knows they're not as similar as I think of course).

If you live in a big city with any kind of sound art scene, you could also look at Pure Data workshops for beginners. They tend to crop up in London quite a lot.

edit: By the way, I have no idea what compile means either! Seems a bit odd that you need to compile the instructions for Pure Data!

[deleted]

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[cron]

That PD-Tutorial site looks great! Yes, it is indeed very similar to Max and the first real chapter (chapter 2) also mirrors the way I was taught. I'm looking at it and wondering how easy it would be to take in if there wasn't someone to help me though.

There's a lot to take in in that first chapter (i.e. chapter 2): Remembering the types of data you're working with (e.g. bang, int, float, message, symbol, arguments etc), what they do, the difference between messages and signals, control mode and edit mode... generally all the core principles of how Pure Data programming works. Pretty much all the core stuff is there in chapter 2. You could do some great stuff with what you learn in that chapter alone.

You don't have to learn the ins and outs of all the program's functions to get good results. I did some amazing generative music things in Max using pretty much just the line, random, and osc objects. I barely even touched the audio side of it. I was more into how it could create weird control data.

[Gone soft]

I haven't used Pure Data but I wonder if it might be a good idea to try a demo of Max/MSP. I used Max/MSP in university (back at version 4) and was told that most of what you learn is transferable to Pure Data as they're the same family of languages (based on Miller Puckette's orginal Max program). The reason I suggest having a look at Max is because its help system is possibly the best I've come across in all the time I've used software. The tutorials are excellent and really help you build up your 'vocabulary' of objects, while right clicking any object and selecting help brings up a Max/MSP patch describing what the object does with examples of it in use. Having said this, I don't know how easy it would have been for me if I didn't have the tuition too. Its really not for the faint of heart. I'd compare it more to using something like Reaktor than a modular synth. Anyway, maybe worth a demo just to get access to its help and tutorial system for a while, but try to do the tutorials within Pure Data in another window (unless someone here knows they're not as similar as I think of course).

If you live in a big city with any kind of sound art scene, you could also look at Pure Data workshops for beginners. They tend to crop up in London quite a lot.

edit: By the way, I have no idea what compile means either! Seems a bit odd that you need to compile the instructions for Pure Data!

Thank you so much, some valuable advice there. Will look into it as I advance. Appreciated. Not much of a scene here, but if I can force myself to be a bit more sosial again (had some personal issues, seems things are slowly getting better again..) I can get in touch with a very knowledgeble guy that could probably help out a lot. And I may have misunderstood the tutorials I was looking at, or stumbled upon some badly worded ones - or possibly ignorantly thought they meant compiling when they were refering to something else that made little sense to me..

Pd was ment to be used WITHOUT compiling which tutorials are you refering to?
do you know pd-tutorial.com?

This seems to be excactly the sort of thing I was looking for to get started, thanks!

[deleted]

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[Gone soft]

Oh, the first mentioned tutorial was even recommended in the program once I got the proper extended version installed. Not sure what I've been messing with, it seems sometimes Google really isn't your friend.. Surprisingly easy to get started with the basics, but yes things get pretty heavy deep as the second chapter progresses. Skimmed through the whole thing before jumping back to start and beginning to patch some basic things up, plenty of stuff that'll be relevant outside the Pd environment for understanding other software more in depth etc etc - happy to see that...

Nice that keyboardshortcuts are implemented for most things, helps to keep RSI away..

Any limitations I should be aware of, particular places Pd probably won't be able to take me? (I thought I saw some, then skimmed through the second tutorial recommended and realized I really didn't..) Or is it (as I suspect, or perhaps hope) pretty much a matter of time, dedication and to keep learning programming/patching tricks and coming up with new ways of using and combining the "old" ones?

[cron]

Good to hear you're progressing! As far as I'm aware PD can take you anywhere! It all depends on how deep you're willing to go, but don't worry, you don't need to go 'that' deep to get great results. For instance, I only really know about half of the stuff in chapter 2, and I barely know anything about synthesising audio (I'm talking about the very similar Max/MSP here).

That stuff in chapter 2 will take you very far indeed. It's a shame that there's not a chapter about what the different types of messages are rather than them being kind of interwoven throughout the examples in chapter 2 (an int is a round number, a float is a number with a decimal point, 'bang' instructs the receiving object to 'do whatever it is you do' etc).

Like I say though, you can do so much with very little in PD or Max/MSP. I used pretty much just the metro, line, and random objects (alongside your basic bang, maths operators, switches and sliders etc) and from this and very little more was able to build step sequencers, mad control systems for existing patches, a 10 partial random additive synth (by combining it with 10 ~osc objects)... All sorts!

If you have any external synths and a means to interface them, chapter 2 has all you need to devise schemes to send crazy MIDI data to them, as an example.

The early Max/MSP tutorials even have you building things like Farenheit to Celcius temperature converters to get used to how things work!

[D986321SE]

be aware that a new version of PD extended, one year in development and polishing, is close to being released (it is now in beta)

it is called 0.43.1 and is has a much much MUCH improved interface over any PD in existence. it actually had the whole interface rewritten. the most useful feature for beginners is that you have a mode in which you see the values circulating in the cables!

when it gets a stable release, i believe it will be the first version not only to compete but to be better than MaxMSP. not that it is not usable now

[ghettosynth]

be aware that a new version of PD extended, one year in development and polishing, is close to being released (it is now in beta)

it is called 0.43.1 and is has a much much MUCH improved interface over any PD in existence. it actually had the whole interface rewritten. the most useful feature for beginners is that you have a mode in which you see the values circulating in the cables!

when it gets a stable release, i believe it will be the first version not only to compete but to be better than MaxMSP. not that it is not usable now

Interesting. The one criticism that I have with MAX/PD is not so much a criticism of the tools themselves, but rather, that the communities that surround them have a peculiar academic/noise following and that tends to affect what kinds of pre-built tools are available to leverage in your own work.

I gravitate towards Reaktor because there's so much community effort that one can exploit that is of interest to people doing electronica. There seems to be much less of that with Max/PD.

So, if you're doing everything yourself, I don't think that there's any particular limitation of any of these tools, but, if you want to do things quickly and leverage the work of others, then I think that the community focus can impact and limit your progress with one tool as compared to another.

[cron]

Great little beginner's tutorial which introduces you to some important objects here (split into two parts):

[Gone soft]

Good to hear you're progressing! As far as I'm aware PD can take you anywhere! It all depends on how deep you're willing to go, but don't worry, you don't need to go 'that' deep to get great results. For instance, I only really know about half of the stuff in chapter 2, and I barely know anything about synthesising audio (I'm talking about the very similar Max/MSP here).

That stuff in chapter 2 will take you very far indeed. It's a shame that there's not a chapter about what the different types of messages are rather than them being kind of interwoven throughout the examples in chapter 2 (an int is a round number, a float is a number with a decimal point, 'bang' instructs the receiving object to 'do whatever it is you do' etc).

Like I say though, you can do so much with very little in PD or Max/MSP. I used pretty much just the metro, line, and random objects (alongside your basic bang, maths operators, switches and sliders etc) and from this and very little more was able to build step sequencers, mad control systems for existing patches, a 10 partial random additive synth (by combining it with 10 ~osc objects)... All sorts!

If you have any external synths and a means to interface them, chapter 2 has all you need to devise schemes to send crazy MIDI data to them, as an example.

The early Max/MSP tutorials even have you building things like Farenheit to Celcius temperature converters to get used to how things work!

Thanks, swell to finally feel like I'm getting somewhere with this!

Good news then, it seems, I've been interested in attempting to build some stepsequencers with various degrees of randomness and also some sort of sequenced controllable random controllsignal generators of different kinds - but there where always warnings that this was for the fairly advanced and beginners should just forget about that when entering visual programming environments..

Have ambitions of experimenting a bit with additive synthesis and building some filters that can be modulated between different states somehow - and making sequencers that morph those through various degrees of randomness and more precisely defined states, if I can wrap my head around all that.. May take years to get there though.. Oh well, plenty of mileage to be had just in the basic electroaucustic experiments suggested.

be aware that a new version of PD extended, one year in development and polishing, is close to being released (it is now in beta)

it is called 0.43.1 and is has a much much MUCH improved interface over any PD in existence. it actually had the whole interface rewritten. the most useful feature for beginners is that you have a mode in which you see the values circulating in the cables!

when it gets a stable release, i believe it will be the first version not only to compete but to be better than MaxMSP. not that it is not usable now

Looking forward to what the future will bring for Pure Data, especially anything that means stuff can be done with less clicking of the mouse to keep RSI at a certain distance while also making the whole patching process run a little smoother is especially appreciated.. Visual feedback is offcourse also usually quite helpful, especially as the structures probably will get messier and messier as I go along...

The one criticism that I have with MAX/PD is not so much a criticism of the tools themselves, but rather, that the communities that surround them have a peculiar academic/noise following and that tends to affect what kinds of pre-built tools are available to leverage in your own work.

I gravitate towards Reaktor because there's so much community effort that one can exploit that is of interest to people doing electronica. There seems to be much less of that with Max/PD.

So, if you're doing everything yourself, I don't think that there's any particular limitation of any of these tools, but, if you want to do things quickly and leverage the work of others, then I think that the community focus can impact and limit your progress with one tool as compared to another.

I like quite a bit of half-noisy stuff, so I don't feel too far from home here... Reaktor is resting in my VST folder, partially because the old version of Orion I'm running now just won't load the darn thing and partially because I found it quite different from what I expected and a bit, well, intimidating at first. As ASIO4ALL just won't behave on my system (Win7 Ultimate 64-bit) I can't get much out of the stand-alone.. Getting into Pd will probably make it a lot easier to get into Reaktor later on.

And thanks cron for the video tutorial link, might help to drill those all-important objects into my whimsical little head.. Will check out later, the mobile slowband connection crawls away at a leisurely pace here and some other stuff to do first...

[toitoi]

check these http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... ature=plcp

[D986321SE]

this is currently my favorite pd video

btw ghettosynth you are right about the general public using PD and MAX. sometimes i feel like in a big circlewank still, while the PD community is smaller, they are more focused on making stuff that can be used in a more universal manner - check out, for example, what classy things are built over at the popular PD forum ( http://puredata.hurleur.com/ )...

i am not so familiar with the MAX community but from what i have seen - some results in google take me there - they are usually interested in taming some complicated sensor/generator-to-audio problems with the fine-tuning of variables. the results are almost always in the domain of noise (or lets say ambient music). the stuff i have seen approached with PD was more oriented towards synthesizing sounds - like wavetable oscillators, samplers, loopers and filters.

btw after you go through the video tutorial (good stuff, even though it got me bored some times) get some cool sounding patches off the hurleur forum and dissect them, modify them, tweak them to your tastes, copy down interesting fragments which might look like they are often needed (after all, re-usability is the main point of programming ). i recommend you start with this: http://puredata.hurleur.com/viewtopic.php?pid=18931

good luck!

PS: almost forgot, be sure to check out Obiwannnabes website: http://obiwannabe.co.uk/ it has some great patches on sound design which also show you a great deal of the PD workflow... it is like an advanced tutorial. with these and the youtubes you will have everything covered (except externals... but the amount there is included in pd-extended should have you sorted for at least a year )