It seems to me these platforms are pretty similar in these sense that they are visual programming languages based on patching. I've only had experience with Pd, which is great for my situation. However, I'm curious about Max and Reaktor though. It's hard for me to understand how they differ from Pd despite scouring YouTube videos and trying the demos. Would anyone like to share their experiences with Max or Reaktor and explain how they compare to Pd?

Found this so far:

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-electronic-music-production/500623-synthesis-reaktor-vs-max-msp-vs-max-live-differences-pros-cons.html

Anyone want to add to the discussion?

Hi,

I have never used Reaktor so I can't say anything about it except for what I heard, but as far as I know it is not in the same category as Pd or Max. My understanding is that Pd and Max are programming languages that allow you to create and manipulate sounds and video in a much more fundamental way (and using some interesting objects and libraries, you can do much more than music and video) and that Reaktor has more pre-made stuff on it (which may be great for beginners) but it is not as flexible. But I repeat, I have never used it before, so what I am writing may be complete rubbish

As for Max, I am one of those few people that made the path from Max to Pd (typically people start with Pd since it's free and get seduced by Max later on). In my view, Max MSP beats Pure Data in the following categories:

• Max has a larger community, which means more externals, more libraries, etc. Some of the libraries for Max are simply fantastic, and it is a pity we can't use them in Pd (see for instance this library here, how I wish we had something that powerful in Pd: http://www.bachproject.net/examples )
• Max has better documentation, although there are nowadays great sources on how to learn Pd.
• More active development than Pd.
• overall, Max is more polished than Pd. The GUI objects have more options and look prettier (there are also more GUI objects in Max as far as I know). The patch cords in Max are not simple straight lines, but are smoothly curved (although, if you use Linux, you can use Pd-l2Ork - is a fantastic distribution of Pd - to get prettied patch cords). But in Max you can route the patch cords around while in Pd you can't (and if we should or not implement this in Pd is subject to an eternal argument in our community, and I don't want to step there.. except to say that yes we should do it! )
• some other features that I miss: infinite undos and less buggy typing inside an object box (try hitting the home key after typing the name of an object in Pd: the cursor moves to the beginning, but as soon as you start typing you are still in the end of the word). But by the way, Pd-l2Ork solves these two problems as well.

Now why did I migrate to Pure Data? Here are all the reasons behind it:

• Pure Data runs natively on Linux and I can't bother to boot Windows any more (actually, the only version of Max you can run on Linux via WINE is Max Runtime, which allows you to load and play patches but not edit them. To edit, you'd need an iLok - an USB device that unlocks the software - and iLok does not support Linux at all, their drivers are made only for Mac and Windows)
• Pure Data is free as in freedom, and I firmly believe that open source is the way to go!
• Pure Data is free as in beer! You can install 10 copies of it in all computers you and your friends and your school and your neighbourhood have. Max costs an absurd amount of money, and if you ever lose that iLok you lost $399. I can't really come to terms with carrying around a little piece of plastic and cheap electronics that worth that much...
• did I ever mention iLok? Using it is part of an outrageous 90's mentality of how to lock your software. Look at REAPER for instance, a fantastic DAW that charges a fair $60 and has no locking system (that is, the demo is the same as the paid version and lasts forever: it's up to you to pay them after 2 months of free trial).
• The community of Pd is nicer Seriously, it seems to me that people dealing with open source software (the other one I use everyday is LilyPond) are really passionate about these programs and subjects, and will go through hell just to help you (you don't even have to answer a "thank you" back!).
• Pure Data is a better learning tool in my opinion. In Max, you have so many pre made objects that you can either get overwhelmed quickly, but also spoiled as well. It is very nice to create your own basic abstractions. Here is an example: my professor was very impressed that I created myself a 2d virtual space in Pd, when actually the logic and the math behind it was pretty simple. But in Max, he uses an external library so he never really bothered to think of how to pan sound manually (i.e., how the volume changes from one channel in relation to the other), and how to calculate distance, angles, etc.

These are all my personal opinions, but I hope you'll find something interesting here.

All the best and good luck with Pd,
Gilberto

One really nice thing about max is Gen, a max-to-machine code compiler. There is better support for 64 bit floating point, and integers are actually integers (in pd everything's a floating-point number). There are also externals to allow coding in javascript and java. (although pd has pdlua)

As far as reaktor goes, you can build a lot of the same stuff with it but I would agree it's more geared toward people that do not want to build stuff from scratch. However from what I've seen that it is possible to do most of what you could do in max/msp and pure data. I have a friend that uses Reaktor and he uses it as a plugin, which is pretty convenient when working with DAWs

I've used all three, and PD is the only one I kept on using.

Reaktor is very powerful, and being able to use it as a plugin is great. However, I find it clunky as Hell, and very inelegant. For me, it wasn't worth the time and effort it took to get usable output. I used it at college, so I'm lucky that I didn't pay out the asshole for it. I would probably use it a lot more if I did, just out of obligation to my bank account.

Max/MSP is nice, and can be very elegant. The GUI elements are nice, and the way you can organise connections is beautiful. I've recently been playing with VVVV, which also has a beautiful connection system. My biggest problem with Max/MSP is the price, which I can't justify after paying for a more standard DAW (Ableton Live). Also, I found it was all too easy to rely on premade modules, which made me lazy, and looking at some tutorials online, it seems like it's made other new users lazy, too. That's an enduser problem, obviously, and not an issue with the program. Complaining about a good ease of use is dumb.

PD, to me, is the absolute ultimate. The price, the functionality, the crowd, I love it. Literally the only thing I would change is the connection system. Playing around with GEM, it was fun for a while, but I realised pretty quickly that what I wanted it to do, it just couldn't, not without programming externals. Not being a programmer proper, I have no idea where to begin, which is why I got into VVVV, which also has a nice crowd. PD is also incredibly elegant. You can make it do complex things with very few objects, once you know what the objects are. If you don't, this forum will have the answer. Cheeto, Obiwan, Mod, everyone else, are a great bunch completely willing to post their patches for you to have a poke about and learn from.

As far as getting started, I feel like people will get from A to C through B with PD far quicker than they will with the other two.

Hi @What, thanks for sharing your experiences here. As for:

PD, to me, is the absolute ultimate. The price, the functionality, the crowd, I love it. Literally the only thing I would change is the connection system.

We can only hope... it's a pity Pd-l2Ork broke the binary compatibility with regular Pd because looks and feels utterly fantastic!

Take care,
G.

@seb-harmonik.ar

One really nice thing about max is Gen, a max-to-machine code compiler.

I didn't know what Gen was, that's very interesting!

@gsagostinho said:

Hi @What, thanks for sharing your experiences here. As for:

PD, to me, is the absolute ultimate. The price, the functionality, the crowd, I love it. Literally the only thing I would change is the connection system.

We can only hope... it's a pity Pd-l2Ork broke the binary compatibility with regular Pd because looks and feels utterly fantastic!

Take care,
G.

Yeah, that's a massive bummer. One of these days I'm gonna learn programming purely to "Fix" the connection "Problem."

@What wrote:

One of these days I'm gonna learn programming purely to "Fix" the connection "Problem."

Please do that!