I'm having a page built for an album that I'm wrapping up. The page looks like a sequencer and I want to make it functional.

It is an 8 beat sequencer and the GUI for the page is programed in flash. Is it possible to build the pd sequencer and make it run on a web server receiving OSC messages from the flash client (probably using flosc or some other translator.) All of the samples on the sequencer will be chosen by me and not changeable.

The final step would be to make it render one repetition of the 8 bars. This would allow people to make different mix ups and complete songs with the web page itself.

Here is an idea of what the flash page will look like. there are only three channels here but it will open up to 8 when you go into play mode.

http://synaesthesiaband.info/webcontroller.png

Thanks for feedback and suggestions.

Jessey

I don't think that sort of thing is possible with Pd, without the user having Pd on their local system. It is, however, possible in flash. If you were doing something simple, as you described, i'd think you could do it with the existing audio implementation in flash. Their are libraries that make more advanced stuff easier, but from what I've seen, are somewhat hack-y. Additionally, you could control an applet generated in Processing via xml socket, but that involves learning yet another language....

@nestor said:

I don't think that sort of thing is possible with Pd, without the user having Pd on their local system.

Actually a PD browser plugin was developed by the Music Technology Group of UPF: http://www.iua.upf.edu/~malonso/pdplugin/ But now development seems quite dead. Pity because it's a really good idea.

I hadcreated an FM experiment for this plug-in some time ago.

Regards,
Lorenzo.

yeah i was hoping that pd browser plugin would get a proper release. damn.

Yes, sadly the state of audio work in the web world is not satisfactory. Of course, we must realize that Pd is an outlier even among desktop options. I've looked into audio synthesis and sampling via flash and processing/java. The latter is the best bet if you want total control and low level libraries that aren't hack-ish. What I'd like to see is an API for a modular patching language that could be compiled into web connected widgets which in turn could form a network instrument, to be embedded in social networking sites and iPhones and such.

Edit: Sorry, the post turned out a little long, it's just I got carried away by the very interesting topic

@nestor said:

we must realize that Pd is an outlier even among desktop options.

Nestor, I can agree with that, but I think that if a solid Pd web plug-in were developed for the final user it would be much behind the scenes because you can control the patch with javscript/flash etc.

In a similar way you can develop very user-friendly and nice-looking apps with layers such as GrIPD. Maybe it would make sense to create a kind of easy-to-setup Pd "runtime" like for other languages.. but maybe that would take away some of the magic, I don't know.

I guess this somewhat fits into what obiwannabe calls "procedural sound models" (see http://puredata.hurleur.com/sujet-1416-inside-rainy-day and his book here:http://obiwannabe.co.uk/html/sound-design/sound-design-all.html).

I think this model could be extended to audio on the internet and desktop, especially the former is still heavily bound to sampling, streaming etc. This could be the case also for real-time musical interaction over the web.

Bests,
Lorenzo.

Oh yeah, no doubt. A Pd-like plugin for the web would be great. I don't know about you, but my current Pd installation is 125mb. That is a little large for a plugin. I'm thinking something like a virtual machine for audio. The problem is that we are on the cusp of a media-aware communications cloud, which will rely on distributed content and computing. Right now, the primary methods for embedding media in webspace are kinda bullshit, and its all flash, which is a private company( although, I love adobe[don't tell apple]). Why is that? HTML isn't private property, nor is CSS, java, jscript, ajax..... HTML 5 is trying to fix that, but really only succeeds in playing 'catch-up', adding tags and features that should have existed YEARS ago. The distinction between the www and your desktop will soon disappear, information and interaction will be provided by some object oriented opensource framework that will provide low level access to hardware, acceleration for vector graphics, FFT, whatever. An audio toolkit certainly needs to be apart of this, and Pd has the one-up. But; how can we get it on the web?

@nestor said:

I don't know about you, but my current Pd installation is 125mb. That is a little large for a plugin.

Indeed... But I'm sure that could be reduced selecting a core chosen for web applications.
@nestor said:

The distinction between the www and your desktop will soon disappear

I am not totally convinced of that, and not really sure what magnitude the "soon" should fall into. I feel that in many parts of the world the physical accessibility to broadband is still too weak. Also there is still a great problem in "IT-literacy", even in so-called "developed" countries like the one where I live.
I do see a potential in open source, an example are countries who have decided to adopt it and foster it for public services. It looks like the new US presidency might mark a change in this direction, but nothing concrete to be seen yet.
@nestor said:

An audio toolkit certainly needs to be apart of this, and Pd has the one-up. But; how can we get it on the web?

Good point! First of all I think a nice, even minimal but stable cross-plaform cross-browser, free plug-in would be a good drive... One would then start with the more "niche" communities, and neighbour ones (I once heard rumours of a MAX/MSP web plug-in), and then spread, and so on...