DevICT presentation on Pd

Still need to prepare

• keyboard demo?
• banana demo?
• color tracker demo?

Bring

• Amplified speakers
• Dongle for VGA
• Laptop and power supply
• Makey clone
• PS3eye
• power strip?

Kick it off

• Cyrille video
• polysynth with Makey?
• video scratcher?

What is Pd?

• Dataflow or patching language
• Created by mathematician/violinist: Miller Puckette
• While Miller can be credited for popularizing the idea of dataflow, Pd itself follows models of other languages intended for sound synth
• Max/MSP is the big corporate cousin, actually the older brother
• Open Source/cross platform
• Pd-vanilla vs. Pd-extended
  • Audio only vs. openGL (Gem) and friends
  • Matrix manipulation (iemmatrix)
  • Physical Modeling library (pmpd)
  • Careful: not everything in Pd follows the Pd-vanilla model. :-/
• Another alternative: Pd-L2Ork
  • Actively developed
  • Linux only

Overview of Pd-extended:

I will sloppily use the terms 'Pd' and 'Pd-extended' interchangeably unless I don't

• Pd is a dataflow language and uses the metaphor of connecting objects to each other.
  • modular synthesizer
  • another modular synthesizer
• Pd also uses the metaphor of an instrument
  • Edit and performance mode
    • Switching between the two modes (ctrl-e)
    • Know at any time which mode you are in by looking at the cursor.

Example1: audio

• Build 'A' with [osc~] and [dac~]
  • Show canvas help, then interactive object help
  • talk about tilde
  • keyboard shortcuts
  • inlets, outlets, creation arguments
• Add volume control *~, number box
• line~, snapshot~
  • audio streams (sig~) vs. control
• bang~
• add freq slider with line~
• make a note

Example2: audio

• audio scratcher
  • arrays
    • use [tabread] and [tabwrite] to show that it really is an array
    • substitute [table]

Example: video

vblank_mode=0 glxgears

• Hello World video
• 60 fps (and prove it with toggle, then a counter)
• [fullscreen 1(
• add [osc~] and [snapshot~]

Concepts

• Hot and cold inlets
  • [+ 3]
  • feed one number to 2 [+] objects
• subpatches
• abstractions
  • [s] and [r] (and [s~] and [r~])
  • numbers, sliders, etc. getting messages
• building your own objects in C

Fun Stuff

• pmpd (47 scanned synth)
• interfacing with the arduino and friends
• dynamic patching: Manuals -> pd-msg -> 1.msg_and_patch -> 1.2 create_patch.pd

Pd in the wild

• Pd is really 2 separate programs
• libPd is the sound synthesizer separated from the interface
• libPd runs on iOS, Android. There's even a book about using it on mobile devices.
• Pd vanilla is popular on rPi as an open-ended all-inclusive DIY effect box. One example

Examples

• Steve's stuff

Resources for Going On

The World

• Reference help in Pd
• http://msp.ucsd.edu/ Miller's resources] (especially the book)
• Pd email list and forum
• The weird, old Pd ring

Local

• very basic video tutorials by...wellll....modest forbids.
• Wichita Patcher's Circle and our email list
• Local demos and resources from WPC
• me me me (me)

Alternatives to Pd

not listed in any particular order

• Processing:
  • A text-based language based on Java.
  • This is great for visuals but its core does not support sound.
  • The tutorials and examples are wonderful, with tons of interactive help
  • Open Source: runs on Linux
  • My own informal experience suggests this runs slower than Pd but I haven't verified this
• Max/MSP
  • commercial cousin of Pure Data
  • Larger user base than Pure Data
  • Probably the documentation is better than with Pd
  • This is getting some attention at WSU School of Music (Aleks Sternfeld-Dunn)
  • will not run on Linux
• SuperCollider
  • Text based, powerful for sound
  • Not sure if it supports video
  • Written originally for OSX and popular with the Mac
• Csound
  • The grandaddy audio synthesis language
  • Supports some video with extensions.
  • If you miss the days of assembly language, this is your baby
• Open Frameworks
  • Probably the fastest execution?
  • Good developer community
  • Runs on everything including your phone
  • Open Source: runs on Linux