DevICT presentation on Pd

General Outline

Demo(s)

• color tracker?
• polysynth with Makey?
• video scratcher?
• Cyrille's stuff?
• Marco's stuff?

What is Pd?

• Dataflow
• Created by mathematician/violinist: Miller Puckette
• While the idea of dataflow was new, the language itself follows models of other languages intended for sound synth
• Max/MSP is the big corporate cousin
• 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. :-/

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~
• bang~
• add freq slider with line~
• make a note

Example2: audio

• audio scratcher
  • arrays

Concepts

• Hot and cold inlets
• subpatches
• abstractions
• building your own objects

Going On

• Wichita Patcher's Circle
• Local demos
• audio:

   osc~, array, volume, metro, bang
   video: 
       camera
       projector
       screen
       power
       [pix_film], [pix_video], pix_buffer read/write
   control stuff: a counter

   Pd examples at Wichita Patcher's Circle
   motion tracking
   color tracking
   pmpd
   interfacing with the arduino and friends
   Kinec
   Pitch shifting
   dynamic patching

Open Source Alternatives to Pd

• Pd's community of developers is small
• Pd performs well but there are more performant options if speed is critical
• The programming style of Pd is unique. It makes for very fast prototyping. Still, you may hate it.