Pure Data

Is learning pure data worth the hours its takes to understand it? I find it super interesting but I feel there's no real world applications.(USER WAS WARNED FOR THIS POST, You should always elaborate on your opinions rather than just spilling the soykaf.)

inb4. Don't just spill the soykaf Wtf is pure data?

Just use AWK, bro. What else do you need? ALso first time I read about that thing.

sure, learn pd for the fun of it i have never met anyone irl who had heard of it tho you're better off learning max/msp. if you're really a foss die-hard you can try porting patches from one to the other as exercise

It's been a while since i last used pd, but learning how to program in it was definitely a fun exercise. I don't think it's really useful for the kind of music I like to make or listen to though, because making anything sonically pleasing with it felt really difficult. It's probably better used as a means to control other instruments, though that's really only possible with plugdata (a fork of pd with a more modern UI, that can be used as a VST3/AU/whatever plugin). Of course it depends on what kind of music you wanna make, but if it feels like there's no "real-world application" to you, then it most likely doesn't.

>>13336 I use SuperCollider myself, and it took a while to get the hang of it, but now I use it almost exclusively. Pd absolutely has real world applications, you just need to mess around with it long enough before you can develop an artistic direction with it. If you think it doesn't, see Mark Fell's music. Also, read his book Structure and Synthesis (second edition came out recently), it'll give you philosophical tools for approaching computer music. The Computer Music Tutorial is also really helpful, it got revised recently. You got it! If you ever need help, hang out on ##dataflow or maybe it's called #dataflow on Libera. I'm not on there since I don't use Pd, but those folks are great.

>>13336 pd is very capable, I find it the most well rounded of the synthesis DSLs and is even fairly capable for general computer tasks, I use it for many of the things I used to use the terminal for and even used it to make a system monitor/task bar/launcher as well as making many utilities for random common computer tasks. As to if you should learn it, depends on where your interests lie in music making. If you are the sort who likes to meticulously compose each and every note and nuance, you would probably be better served with Csound. If live coding and programmatically creating your sounds is more you interests, then SuperCollider will better suit you. If neither of those situations applies to you then there is a good chance that pd will be a good fit, but one of the others may still suit, there is a fair amount of overlap. Pd's strengths are in creating complicated compositional systems and that it has no concept of an instrument or voice which makes it easier to have all of your instruments interact and inform each other. If you do decide to learn pd it would be wise to spend the first few months with vanilla pd and avoid externals, put in the effort to learn the language and the sense of dataflow. There are few things which you actually need externals for these days and doing it vanilla means you get access to the inner workings which is a very powerful thing. Don't move on to using externals until you know enough to determine if you should use an external for a given task. >>13347 They are pretty much the same, minor differences but not many things exclusive to one or the other. MAX was originally designed by the same person who designed and the audio/synthesis extension (MSP) for MAX is just a slightly reworked version of pd. MSP being the initials of the creator of both MAX and pd, Miller S. Puckette. MAX being Max Mathews who design the MUSIC family of languages which both MAX and pd (and Csound and many others) developed from. >>13791 Pd speaks both MIDI and OSC so it is perfectly capable of controlling most any other instrument. Being a plugin does not make that possible, it just changes how you make the connection between pd and what ever it is you want to control. Pd can also be used as a plugin with pure-vst. Those who are more interested in making plugins for their DAW will be better served by PlugData, those who are more interested in using pd and may want to occasionally use a patch as a plugin would probably be better served by pd.

Just came across Artiom Constantinov while browsing the pd forum, so I will leave a few here. https://youtu.be/qYe-haKvv8w https://youtu.be/CjpJt47EMf0 https://youtu.be/5lYEmGzOnJM This one has Lain in it, and Ed: https://youtu.be/97Z9uuvcrq0

>>13336 Are you talking about a music composer/editor program?

>>13336 In terms of algorithmic stuff, my favorites are Tidal/Strudel, in terms of modular, definitely VCV Rack. Not a fan of PD at all, but there are some cool patches you can find on YouTube. Also there is modular system built on top of PD called Automatonism.