[HN Gopher] Pure Data: an open source visual language for multim...
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Pure Data: an open source visual language for multimedia
Author : brudgers
Score : 78 points
Date : 2022-08-22 05:42 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (puredata.info)
(TXT) w3m dump (puredata.info)
| khitchdee wrote:
| FWIW, it's possible to program multimedia using Java via the
| ISO's MPEG-J framework. It's not as easy as PureData but it's
| very flexible and you get all the goodness of Java to boot.
| https://mpeg.chiariglione.org/standards/mpeg-4/mpeg-j-extens...
| https://www.ddj.com/jvm/the-mpeg-4-java-api-mpeglets/1844050...
| Jason_Protell wrote:
| I love Pure Data!
|
| Brian Eno used it to create the music for Spore.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Spore
|
| https://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/2007-11/056307...
| slurpmaker wrote:
| Brian Eno is somewhat of a god.
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| I love pd! I learned it in Puckette's course as a freshman and
| honestly don't remember many things as fun.
| nebyoolae wrote:
| I also learned about pd from the man himself back in college.
| When did you attend?
| prvc wrote:
| Highly recommended: "The Theory and Technique of Electronic
| Music", which is both an accessible and conceptually coherent
| introduction to the topic.
| ablanton wrote:
| PD is great, what other language is working towards a 30 year
| backward compatibility!
| WillAdams wrote:
| (La)TeX
|
| https://www.tug.org
|
| It won't change so that Knuth can finish:
|
| https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/taocp.html
| monetus wrote:
| Really, that is something that sets it apart in my mind. An
| explicit, rolling two decade+ compatibility effort.
| brudgers wrote:
| Common Lisp is almost to thirty years because it has a
| consensus standard.
| bmitc wrote:
| Pure Data is awesome. The UX could be better, but it showcases
| elements of what could be for visual programming languages.
|
| I have always liked this example:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW1haAOxWWk. I'm not sure if the
| music was also created in Pure Data. It kind of sounds like it.
| There are loads of other examples like this on YouTube.
|
| If you're interested in Pure Data, I recommend the following two
| books:
|
| * _Multimedia Programming with Pure Data_ :
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1782164642
|
| * _Programming Sound with Pure Data: Make Your Apps Come Alive
| with Dynamic Audio_ :
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1937785661
| monetus wrote:
| You can compile to vst with camomile as well, I wanted to
| mention.
|
| https://github.com/pierreguillot/Camomile
| audionerd wrote:
| ... and load a Pd environment as a DAW plugin with PlugData
| https://github.com/timothyschoen/PlugData
| buescher wrote:
| This blew my mind, a software defined FM radio demodulator in
| Pure Data: https://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-puredata-maxmsp/
| Obvious-ish in retrospect, right? Not before.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Came across this because it's been used for FreeCAD:
|
| https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=51429
|
| but couldn't manage to wrap my mind around FreeCAD so as to
| benefit from it.
| virgil_disgr4ce wrote:
| Funny seeing Pd randomly on the front page of HN! I once (a LONG
| time ago) built a browser-based GUI for a remote Pd server:
| https://github.com/t3db0t/PureeData
| honkycat wrote:
| I've dove into PD vs Max quite a bit the last few months, and
| I've found PD to be a bit... archaic in it's design and how it
| looks.
|
| Max looks much nicer, but they both have the same problem: Lack
| of community.
|
| I expected to be able to treat PureData or Max like any other
| programming language: find a book, watch some tutorials, and get
| up to speed.
|
| Additionally, there isn't really a central "repo" for PureData. I
| want to search through patches that people have shared for
| learning and re-use purposes. However, I am unable to find such a
| thing.
| xhevahir wrote:
| There's a project called Purr Data that has an HTML5 user
| interface and lots of extra libraries:
| https://git.purrdata.net/jwilkes/purr-data
| anigbrowl wrote:
| There's a community, it's just very conservative. The problem
| (especially with PD) is that the community is hostile to anyone
| who says 'hey, this is great, but hard to use.' It was true >20
| years ago when I first became acquainted with PD and even more
| so now. Any criticism or unwelcome suggestions are treated as
| an insult to Miller Puckette and the proponent is attacked,
| ignored, or advised to implement it themselves (ie to go away
| and not come back).
|
| PD's interface is stuck in the 1980s, with the monochrome
| graphics, lack of any support functionality (contextual menus
| or rearrangement/tidying functions, snapping) and idiosyncratic
| terminology (eg PD refers to module connectors as 'patch cords'
| just like on an analog modular synthesizer or mixer, but what
| synth people commonly call a pulse or a trigger is a 'bang' in
| PD). And its users mostly like it that way, the same way some
| people fetishize 8 bit videogames.
|
| There have been more accessible versions of the same idea for a
| long time (ie the mid-90s), from Clavia's Nord Modular in
| hardware and Native Instrument's software synth Reaktor in the
| commercial space to solo projects like Ross Bencina's
| Audiomulch. The latter was very obviously inspired by PD but
| iterated on every aspect of the design, making it far more
| accessible and flexible.
|
| PD's defenders (kinda like CSound's) emphasize how open-ended
| it is and that you can do anything, render any concept etc. In
| the audio synthesis world it's well understood that the more a
| manufacturer emphasizes unlimited creativity, massive patch
| storage, infinite potential etc., the less good the UI and the
| more basic the default quality of the sound engine. You _can_
| make it do anything, but unless you already have a very
| specific goals you will spend most of the time reinventing
| wheels in parameter space. If you want a mature technology
| stack for implementing an audio subsystem (eg in a game), it
| might be a very good choice. If you just want a flexible tool
| to make electronic music, it 's best avoided.
| usrusr wrote:
| > In the audio synthesis world it's well understood that the
| more a manufacturer emphasizes unlimited creativity, massive
| patch storage, infinite potential etc., the less good the UI
| and the more basic the default quality of the sound engine.
| You can make it do anything, but unless you already have a
| very specific goals you will spend most of the time
| reinventing wheels in parameter space.
|
| Nicely illustrated by reductio ad absurdum: a "naked" Epyc
| with a few sticks of RAM, an NVMe and a pair of A/D in the
| upper kHz range would score quite well in "unlimited
| creativity, massive patch storage, infinite potential etc",
| but you'd spend quite some time reinventing wheels (e.g. this
| gets less bad if you add a compiler).
| anigbrowl wrote:
| If you're not hand-rolling your own resistors are you
| really trying?
| polyterative wrote:
| > You can make it do anything, but unless you already have a
| very specific goals you will spend most of the time
| reinventing wheels in parameter space. If you want a mature
| technology stack for implementing an audio subsystem (eg in a
| game), it might be a very good choice. If you just want a
| flexible tool to make electronic music, it's best avoided.
|
| I agree so much. It's a cool tool but the curve to learn it
| is often not worth it
| monetus wrote:
| The gui really needs its own theming if you use it a lot, and
| the header file that is supposed to be the stable api is...
| Limited. Thankfully the unstable stuff hasn't been changed in
| years so -\\_(tsu)_/-.
|
| https://patchstorage.com/ has been making a pretty heroic
| effort at being a searchable hub for, pure data in the
| beginning, but now many.
|
| The forum is the most active for posting patches, but is
| terrible at indexing.
| https://forum.pdpatchrepo.info/category/2/patch
|
| Puredata.info was the historic one right? Even though I
| remember using sourceforge a lot. Some interesting things
| there, but I don't think people post patches or even plugins on
| the main site much anymore. On the sourceforge note, plenty in
| GitHub too. Sometimes, /r/puredata
| frou_dh wrote:
| > I've found PD to be a bit... archaic in it's design and how
| it looks.
|
| Pd's creator was originally a mathematician and IIRC he said
| that the look he was going for is that you start off with a
| clean sheet of white paper and draw simple figures and lines on
| it
| speps wrote:
| An amazing project using Pd: https://danieliglesia.com/mobmuplat/
|
| It's sort of a custom GUI tool for the Pd patch you create.
| monetus wrote:
| This is like object oriented c, meant for real-time mostly but I
| honestly use it most for sample processing and synthesizer
| design. Fantastic software.
|
| Fun fact: miller Puckette, pd's author, also wrote the first
| versions of max/msp, but the IP was owned by the university he
| worked for at the time. IRCAM? I can't remember, but that led to
| cycling74 spinning it off, cultivating jitter and eventually gen~
| while being bought up by Ableton.
|
| Great histories, great math, arguably great code. It acts like
| the proverbial gateway drug, addicting musicians and artists to
| programming in text. I like Visual programming, but the paradigms
| themselves are pretty transferable to event oriented
| environments.
| chresko wrote:
| MSP is Miller S Puckette. C Sound was the precursor to many of
| the visual and OO music programming languages, but needed to be
| compiled and was, well, difficult. Supercollider was heavily
| influenced by Max/MSP. David Zicarelli of C74 fame had a
| background in psychology before programming. Kit Clayton wrote
| the first version of jitter. Autechre are probably the best
| known artist for using all of the above mentioned software in
| some form.
| listenfaster wrote:
| Seeing your use of past-tense here, I have to plug: I'm a 25
| year+ Csound enthusiast. Still very happily composing with
| Csound along with the rest of the small but committed
| community. Being a lifelong programmer, I prefer it to Pd,
| Max and Supercollider, and think many HN folks would too.
|
| https://csound.com/
|
| You may find better instruction material than you had in the
| past in the excellent Csound Floss manual.
|
| https://flossmanual.csound.com/
| hecanjog wrote:
| The early history (it's a really fun story) is touched on in
| this episode of Darwin Grosse's lovely podcast interview with
| Miller Puckette:
| https://artmusictech.libsyn.com/podcast-090-miller-puckette
|
| (Rest in peace, Darwin Grosse. His work is probably familiar if
| you're a computer music person, and worth checking out
| regardless.)
| slurpmaker wrote:
| Probably one of my favorite OSS projects to date. I'm not a
| musician at all but playing with it is a lot of fun. Just make
| sure the volume isn't set too high :P
| gpcr1949 wrote:
| a quick and dirty trick to have a limiter on the signal is put
| [tanh~] between your signal and the dac
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