Hello everyone !

I tried several ways to do a successful install of pd-extended on my Ubuntu 14.10 (64 bits) but each time it failed.

At the moment, if I run pd-extended, i get the following errors :

$ pd-extended
oops: ALSA cards not reported in order?
oops: ALSA cards not reported in order?
open: /etc/pd/gem.conf: No such file or directory
open: /home/klaus/.pd/gem.conf: No such file or directory
open: ./gem.conf: No such file or directory

And if I try to test sounds by clicking on the tab "Media" > "Test Audio and MIDI", on "Test tones", I hear some sounds. But, I’m not able to hear some Midi sounds… I made a simple pd file with one osc and one dac but I can't hear anything ):

Any idea why ?

Hi Klaus, welcome to this forum.

if I try to test sounds by clicking on the tab "Media" > "Test Audio and MIDI", on "Test tones", I hear some sounds

By this you mean you hear a regular sinusoidal sound or do you hear cracks in the sound? If you hear a sine wave, then that's what it's supposed to happen

I’m not able to hear some Midi sounds

I don't know how familiar you are with audio on Linux, but unlike Windows you can't simply play MIDI files on Linux, you need a synth and some sound fonts to do so. In my case, I use Qsynth and a piano sound font, and I connect it to Pd via JACK.

I made a simple pd file with one osc and one dac but I can't hear anything ):

If you heard that sine wave in the "Test tones" but you don't hear your patch, then it could be a problem with your patch itself. Try something as simple as:

[osc~ 440]
|  \
[dac~]

Take care,
Gilberto

Hello Gilberto ! When I tried to solve this issue, I installed jack, qjackctl and qsynth (based on some of your answers on this forum !) but I don't really know what to do with these packages. Could you give me more informations about it if it’s necessary ?

Because when I tried your example, it worked ! So, I guess my example wasn’t good. Here it is :

[osc~ 440]
|
[ *~ 100]
|
[osc~ 440]
|
[ *~ 30]
|
[dac~]

What do you think of it ?

Hi Klaus,

Basically you need to open Qsynth, load some soundfont ("Setup...", "Soundfonts") and that should be it. Then in Pd, go to "Edit", "Preferences" and where it is written "startup flags" add the following: -alsamidi. Restart Pd and open Qsynth. Now in Qjackctl, go to "Connect" then "ALSA". You should see Pure Data as an output port in the left pane and Qsynth (it may be written FLUID synth) as an input port in the right pane. Click on both, then click connect, and that should be it! Now all MIDI information generated from Pd will be sent to Qsynth. Also note that you may need to manually connect Qsynth and Pd every time you need to use MIDI.

As for your algorithm above, what exactly are you trying to accomplish? Basically, the first [osc~ 440] is oscillating between -1 and 1 at 440 times per second. When you connect it to [*~ 100], it is now oscillating between -100 and 100 with the same frequency. Then you are using this numbers to change the frequency of another [osc~], so it is trying to go from -100Hz to 100Hz, which should generate some crazy glissandos. But then you still connect it to a [*~ 30], which will generate some really really really really loud sound and clipping and distortion. When using simple oscillators, I normally multiply them by [*~ 0.3] or [*~ 0.4] to make sure the sound is not that loud, because the default range of -1 to 1 is way too loud.

I hope this helps, let me know if the explanation above was understandable.

Take care,
Gilberto

Thank you so much for your answer Gilberto, it really helped me. I do realize that I need to learn a lot from pure data but now that I am sure that pd-extended is working perfectly on my laptop it will be easier !

See you soon on this forum,
Klaus

No problem Klaus, my pleasure. And if you are looking for some source to learn pure data from the very beginning, nothing beats Kreidler's book Loadbang, in my opinion. You can either buy a physical copy of it (which is totally worth it) or also access it for free online at: http://pd-tutorial.com/

Take care and good luck with pd!
Gilberto