Hello all

I think I am fairly proficient with Pd now and can build the synth, fx and sample manipulators that fit my needs, but when it comes to building entire pieces it all becomes a bit unstuck.

I'm interested - how do people 'score' their compositions in Pd? With so many different ways of doing this, I still find it confusing which techique is best for the job.

Is there something akin to a timeline, by that I mean triggering an automation at a certain point. What are the best practices?

look forward to hearing from you

Hi boonier,

I think you should definitely check Iannix. It gives you a visual environment which is very flexible that allows you to create any kind of score you want. It's connected to Pd through OSC protocol, thus allows you to send any kind of data you want to be controlled; pitch, velocity, timbre, accents, and so on. Please have look at the screenshot attached. It is one part of a huge score that I have prepared for a live performance. Pd reads the score in real-time, while I improvise over it by using my electric guitar, which actually controls the score itself!

Try, I think you're gonna love it!

http://iannix.la-kitchen.fr/

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/Iannix.jpg

In absence of a timeline system like the one i used to work with in flstudio, i find myself jamming and improvising a lot. More ad hoc (per patch) systems of storing patterns and short bassline, in the style hardoff is talking about i guess. I'm currently more thinking about making patches that manipulate combinations of other patches.

However, before discovering pd, i'd always been looking for ways to perform live with the computer. I made hundreds of songs in flstudio, but when it came to performing them live, it felt like i could just as well put on a pre-recorded cd of my tracks, whereas improvising with my self-built pd instruments and fx make me feel more of a musician instead of some kind of half-dj.

Oh well, that's maybe not really an answer to your question of course. I've already tried a couple of times to make a polyphonic keyboard recorder, and always realize at some point that this is not really the strong point of pd (but i could be totally wrong of course). It seems to me that if you're looking at a timeline system, it could be a better option to look outside pd and link that to your pd stuff. Just like the iannix project, which looks interesting enough.

Just my 5 cents of course,

Domien

SOme really enlightening stuff coming in here , thanks folks!
I guess that I too was thinking along the lines of creating patterns and stitching them together based on a timecode. Sort of like the way Obiwannabe did for his compositions..

Just looking at that Iannix now it looks bonkers. It certainly does open the doors a bit wider. Now Im thinking that the stored pattern ideas could still work but still scored using this. I'm not into a totally random thing all the time, somehow I think that is easier to do initally when starting Pd, even tho it sounds shite most of the time (well, atleast mine did!)

suppose its just about nailing down one method of working and going with it. I just need to clarify a system in my head rather than thinking about the whole lot at once....

...cant see wood for the trees! so the saying goes.

thanks again

Iannix is compiling here... Qt4 just took 2 hours!!

I really think the OSC method with an external composition tool is the best way to go.

Either Alberto or Cesare once siad to me that composing in Pd is just too much hassle and I think
that's right now.

What I like the look of is Blue for Csound.... if that could somehow be integrated more closely with Pd it would be cool.

If I get IanniX working I'll write something new (if I can understand it)
andy

@obiwannabe said:

Either Alberto or Cesare once siad to me that composing in Pd is just too much hassle and I think that's right now.

i guess even Autechre don't totally compose in MAx. They bounce down stems and arrange in DP.

What I like the look of is Blue for Csound.... if that could somehow be integrated more closely with Pd it would be cool.

yeh totally, though from first impressions Iannix is that it can do this, and also in a more non-linear way

If I get IanniX working I'll write something new (if I can understand it)
andy

somehow, i don't think you'll find it a problem

@boonier said:

i guess even Autechre don't totally compose in MAx. They bounce down stems and arrange in DP.

Well, talking of autechre, i've long been wondering how they create their music and what acutally is going on. Because they always seem to take you out of time, but nevertheless you always feel a rocksolid pulse throughout all the madness.
I guess this is done by not following a timeline but working with divisions of a [metro]-like pulse which can be different for each patch. So it's easy to have for instance sixteenth notes for one patch and triplets for another, but all following the same master pulse. Trying to do this with DP or Logic or Cubase or whatever classic sequencing environment is not evident. But then there is pd !

exactly, so they have each pattern varying in time signature from 4/4 to 3/4 to 5/8 etc. but always mapped to the consistent clock. THen they import it all to a daw and apply compressors and quality EQs or whatever additional fx to really shine it up.

I often generate the material in other apps and trigger within Pd but if I'm generating material solely in Pd I tend to use a metro, counter, select combination to send out messages that alter the patches performance over time.

I've got a quick demo up here of a tone row patch being manipulated but will post some more when I get round to it!

http://www.algorithmiccomposer.com/2011/09/tone-rows-puredata-and-max.html

I do a lot of algorithmic composition. Usually there's a fairly rapid [metro] as the master clock, and I divide it with various counters. It's easy to make polyrhythms this way. These drive different sequencers that do something or other. Usually I'll record each part to its own .wav file and arrange it with a DAW, export and then reprocess through Pd for effect processing. Or I'll make some chaotic or drone patch and just record some length of that, and arrange later. I never really do "one patch per entire piece". It's too much of a headache.