Well, I only noticed this once, and the effect was minor, but on a mac, someone's pitch transposition patch from this forum, performed a little better when the abstraction that contained the guts was converted into a sub patch instead (i.e. copying and pasted from a new file into a [pd subpatch] object.

sorry i can't be more specific about the issue but i guess you might want to try putting it into subpatches rather than calling on new files/abstractions. you still get the benefits of modular programming this way... just not modular file organisation

1. I think you only need 2 since [svf~] is already a 12db filter , please correct me if I am wrong.

2. You might prefer to use Thomas Musil's [vcf_lp4~]

3. This nice patch demonstrates it well

http://dondo.no-ip.info/dms/doku.php?id=projects:dsp:modulario

>
You could also put _all_ effects in a sub patch three times in a row and then from the main patch control what should be on/off inside these patches, which makes it kinda modular...but it would be a cheap hack and perhaps it will consume cpu even if some effects are OFF?<

that's what i do. as long as you thoroughly [switch~] all audio and [spigot] all inputs to control calculations, the cpu won't rise TOO badly.

in my modular synth, i currently have:

8 sampler voices, 4 synth voices, 8 drum voices, 9 effects channels..

each with 5 stages of effect functions, with 25 effects in each stage.

so that's:

(8+4+8+9) * 5 * 25 = 3625 effects units!!!

all loaded at once, but only switched on when i need them.

this uses about 50% of my cpu when all effects are off, so the cpu usage is climbing by loading them...but not intolerably so.

Hi all, as a long time lurker on this board I've picked up some great hints 'n' tips on how to use Pure Data, so I thought it was time to share something with ya!

This is my first 'proper' patch, in that I mean it's the first patch I've wrote that I've actually used to make some music with!

It took me a good few months to get it working properly, but it was initially inspired by a bout of Keith Fullerton Whitman worship, in particular the 'Playthroughs' album!

I play the patch with my Yamaha EZ-AG connected to a Dell Windows XP laptop running through the YEZge program to filter out unwanted MIDI messages.

I wrote it all using plain old vanilla Pure Data so it should hopefully work everywhere.

There are no instructions included but you should hopefully be able to figure it out. You can trigger the 'strings' using the QWERTY keys.

Let me know what you all think, good or bad, suggestions for improvement, etc.

Cheers,

Steve

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/modular.zip

Since this subforum doesn't get much traffic I thought I'd post up some tracks that I've made with my pd lovechild/teaching aide, the Womanipulator(TM)

It's all sample manipulation, live and controlled by the computer keyboard without any sequencing. I'm working on a much cleaner, better, modular version of the same patch that I'll be using to build up to a live performance rig, but for now... hope you enjoy!

1st track is an ambient number I did last winter

2nd track is a simple hiphop beat I threw together recently after getting my grubby paws on some new CDs

maybe u should just send midi data from whatever sequencer you use, and then use that midi data to control anything you make in pd. ..of course this means loading two separate programs every time you want to make music, but that's probably not too much hassle.

and then u can do some funky stuff in pd to override/modify the data from the sequencer.

>Are there any pd guides out there for people that are predominantly electronic musicians?<

actually, you know what...once you get the hang of pd, you can search for tutorials on stuff like reaktor, nord modular, plogue bidule..etc,,,and just those tutorials using pd as a base.

here's a good nord modular book: http://www.cim.mcgill.ca/~clark/nordmodularbook/nm_book_toc.html

i made some good pd stuff by following the synthesis tips in that.

if you want to switch pd on and off with a midi contoller, then i think the [msgin] or [ctlin] objects will output data from your midi controller, and you can use that to turn your pd patch on and off.

also, pd is really good for doing 'switches' .. on/off whatever. so what you might want to do is use a 3rd party audio router to get the vst audio from your sequencer into pd, and then have all the vst audio and pd audio in one place.

lots of people here all the time to ask technical questions to, and i think most of us are making electronic music, so ask any questions anytime.

Hello, I'm new to this forum.

I'm not new to modular environments and music programming and have used SuperCollider and Bidule extensively. I thought I would give PD a try

I have a couple of startup questions:

Firstly, Is there a way to view what the inlets and outlets for each object are. In Max it shows the description in the status bar at the bottom. Is there a solution to this?

Secondly, Is there a way to list all the available objects that are in Pd(-extended)? Often it is easy to overlook the right object for the task and then start hassling people for info!

Thirdly, when downloading externals from the CVS repository, whats a decent third party utility for this? I'm on OSX 10.4.9. I dont have Developer tools installed nor will I be able to as I've mis-placed the original disks that came with the laptop...typical. OR is there a simpler way to download the latest externals

Any assistance would be great!

thanks in advance

Si

Thanks for the link. I tried this but unfortunately it behaves in the same manner. Also what's strange is, that I have for example 4 gate objects in one abstraction and two of them loads well while the others load badly. And it's never the same. But I'll try to find some workaround.

Also another thing is, that if I open the abstraction directly, it always loads correctly! The bug occurs only when the abstraction is loaded from the whole patch structure. Since the system is modular, I have to heavily rely on abstraction logic so I don't want to go the subpatch way.

Thanks again.

> yes, probably. but now I'll try to run it on my Atari ST

Seriously try it if you get time one day. Oddly the Atari ST is still *THE* choice for some serious techno musicians. Why? The simplicity of how the UART is addressed and clocked gives it rock solid midi timing. It's something that seems to elude complex architectures even with the best preemptive scheduling, buffering etc. I've watched top producers take a midi file on floppy disk from their $5000 super Mac/PC systems to have it play back on an Atari for final mixdown. It's one of those analog vs digital type debacles where real experience of good ears trumps what "technically shouldn't be so". The ST lacks enough grunt for useful audio DSP, but as a midi processing hub or sequencer it could be an astonishingly powerful tool with pd if you can compile it.

>mhh... this is just a anthropomorphic vision of reality...

You got me.

>what I need to ask now is where I can find reference for all objects:
>I know that there's no menu of them and i have to type their name in those little boxes, but
>I need to know, at least, what objects I can create, typing their names, is it true?

Yeah that bothers me too. Even after using for it some time I forget the name of an atom and have to go looking for it. I often do something like "ls /usr/lib/pd/externs/ | grep pd_linux$ | less" to see if I actually have something. For windows likewise search the externals directory for .dll files

>so, I would like to have a list with the object identifier (for oscs, filters etc.), their
>details (kind of filters, slopes, ripples etc. for filters, as example ), their parameters (cutoff, Q, etc.)
>is there a documentation like this?

The help files are detailed, well written and easy to use. Once you know that such an object exists. Just right click any atom and select "help". Usually there's an example case.

Check these to find common atoms
http://puredata.hurleur.com/sujet-248-suggestions-noobs
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/courses/154/pd-reference.html
http://pure-data.sourceforge.net/documentation.php

>I know... but I still feel more confortable with a traditional language (C++, pascal), also
>for writing my personal VSTs (you know, for those weirdest things...) I think it's still easier to write "algorithms" with a textual language,
>without a graphical metaphore.

Raw code is not an expedient or practical way to make music. Having used Music(N), Csound, Nyquist (LISP/SCHEME), and all that stuff I can say this from the bottom of my heart after 15 years experience. Pd gives you two really important things from a software engineering point of view. It's modularity and clarity of interface in abstracting things just beats any C++ classes hands down for it's intended purpose - digital signal dataflows. Consequently you get better decoupling and better reuse. One of the few pitfalls for a trad programmer imho is that pd is very dirty on types, in a way it's one of the most badly typed languages I've ever experienced. Ironic for a tool called "pure data", but you get used to it's lovable idiosynchrocies vis lists, messages, numbers, arrays, symbols and generic "anys". Also it's scoping rules leave a lot to be desired, everythings global within one instance of the server unless you say $0- at the head of a name.

>But now I need to teach a course on "languages for electronic music" in classical, academic shool.
>they don't know DSP matchematics or something like,
>so I need to urgently search for use a more "abstract" instrument for doing the lessons...

You couldn't wish for a more appropriate tool. For non maths/physics students you can use the power of abstraction to build "black boxes" like synths, analysis tools and sequencers and then open them up later in the course. As Claude says, it takes about 9 months or more before you really take to PureData. Electronic music is BIG, really big, not as big as space but it's a discipline that just explodes in scope once you get into it. You can waste weeks writing externals in C, or designing a synth, or creating a composition method...you can get really lost on a random walk in d>2. The best way forward is to have a context and a goal. Teaching this course sounds like an excellent vehicle to focus your scope.

>Tried also Jmax but on Windows (required OS, because > 95% students use billgatesware ) is quite unstable

I would make it "unrequired". Put your foot down as course leader/tutor that Windows is unsuitable. In order of preference I would go with Mac, then Linux, then Win. If the students only have Windows then try Dyne:bolic ( http://dynebolic.org/ ), a minimal GNU/Linux distro that runs from a CD in RAM and comes preconfigured with PureData and a smorgasboard of other digital media tools. That said, I've seen it work really well on Windows. Once. I've no hard evidence to back this up, but I feel a disturbance in the force when Pd runs on Windows, as if a million threads cried out at once and were suddenly silenced. I don't think it likes heavily loaded machines and I guess 99% certain the reason it's unstable on Win is down to *other* things running. Hint: a music machine shouldn't double as an email server and GCHQ spyware centre. Start with a clean install and nothing else running and you may have better luck, but that will probably remain stable about as long as a schizophrenic Z-boson particle if you network it.

hi all.
this is my first post in this nice forum which i recently discovered. i'd like to say hello in form of offering a track i just finished some minutes ago using my bagoftricks abstraction collection:

[url=https://www.puredata.org/Members/syntax_the_nerd/pleasehurt ]https://www.puredata.org/Members/syntax_the_nerd/pleasehurt

i know it's not really good, but maybe thats due to the fact i don't even like electro, nor listen to it usually. the drums are boring, the melodies dull, and please don't mention the bassline, but anyway, all is done in pd within about 2-3 hrs, even the sequencing (semi-live, like scheduling step-sequenced loops with keyboard commands). no samples in this one, just pure synthesis. comments welcome.

if you're interested, feel free to peek into my bagoftricks abstraction collection, offering a very compact pseudo-modular synth, a shabby physmod guitar synth, 2 1/2 drumsynths, a modular sequencer which is a pain in the ass to use, a whole bag of standard effects (from reverb to pixelator, eq to compressor),pseudo-cpu-management, some example loops, eyecandy sliders, and best of all: a (highly unfinished) tutorial. needs iemlib. no samplers here, no OSC, no nothing. just an attempt to rob all the artistic freedom from pd and push it into step-sequence sized quanta. depending on what you plan to do with it, it will need a decent cpu.

[url=https://www.puredata.org/Members/syntax_the_nerd ]https://www.puredata.org/Members/syntax_the_nerd

the track you might have downloaded earlier will be included in patch form in the next release (0.2.7) of the bagoftricks.

thank you for your patience,
stn