[microsound] recreating electronic music

Mon Apr 11 15:17:25 EDT 2011

As re: live visuals it's perhaps worth noting here that SuperCollider
appears to be making, and MAX already has made, inroads with the Field
project http://openendedgroup.com/field/
http://openendedgroup.com/field/wiki/MaxPlugin

The environment is graphics-oriented but also a useful way to create
GUIs, http://openendedgroup.com/field/wiki/EmbeddingGui and certainly
to create visualizations.

It does suck up some CPU. Recently ported to Ubuntu Linux after
starting life deep in more proprietary OSX toolchains.
http://openendedgroup.com/field/wiki/FieldNews

The SuperCollider or ScalaCollider effort could use some help and
interest I think.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/field-development/65EGxIYBmyA

Not an afternoon's undertaking but, you know, what is. -Al

On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 1:17 PM, David Powers <cyborgk at gmail.com> wrote:
> What you are saying makes sense... I actually used PD mostly for
> either visuals, or to process midi received from me playing a keyboard
> and controllers with knobs and faders, and then send MIDI or OSC
> events into some host that contains either some modular setup or a
> bunch of VST's and sampled instruments... It worked great for those
> applications.
>
> So I have to admit that I wasn't actually doing much in the way of
> proper synthesis, not was the user interface much of an issue for the
> things I was creating. But I certainly can't think of any way I could
> have created the visuals except with Max+Jitter which is quite
> expensive as has been pointed out. For doing straight DSP I do think
> PD can be a bit cumbersome.
>
> ~David
>
> On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 12:00 PM, isjtar <list at isjtar.org> wrote:
>> I used to be pretty heavily into max-msp, sorta made a living with it.
>> I ditched it, because I found it cumbersome for some things, same as PD really and the closed nature also annoyed me.
>> For ease of use and combining media it's really good. People make crappy patches in PD as well and you can program in good or bad ways in any environment, I don't think PD has any basic objects Max doesn't have, a couple are slightly different. What I dislike it for is the combination of a horrible interface (in a graphical environment that just doesn't make sense) the obscurity of docs (which have come a long way) and external libraries.
>> Now I do SuperCollider and it kicks the pants off both of those for sound work, sucks for hand-built interfaces though and the learning curve is steep...
>>
>> to get back on topic, I made a piece for 15 SE/30's, running Max 3.5 on system 6 or 7. Cycling only gave us 2 (!) licenses after a friend of David Z contacted them for us, they didn't want to at first.
>> In the end we're very happy with that and with the runtime we still got up on the old machines, but clearly this sort of thing is a problem for a project of this nature.
>>
>>
>> On 11 Apr 2011, at 18:37, David Powers wrote:
>>
>>> Can I inquire as to what would give you such strong feelings on PD?
>>>
>>> I wouldn't suggest it for everything, but it can really do amazing
>>> things and as a dataflow language it is far superior to Max/MSP due to
>>> the fact that it allows for a much more logical programming style
>>> where Max/MSP has many objects that behave in bizarre ways, leading to
>>> people creating really messy / nonsensical patches.
>>>
>>>
>>> ~David
>>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 8:15 AM, isjtar <list at isjtar.org> wrote:
>>>> i agree, I dislike pd with a passion, but such a project has all the reasons to be written in free software.
>>>> why not do it in SuperCollider?
>>>>
>>>> On 11 Apr 2011, at 03:37, Justin Glenn Smith wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I think it is salient here that pd was written by the very same Miller S. Puckett that the MSP part of Max/MSP is named after. And it was made in a large part for this very reason of being able to preserve tools and techniques of creating electronic music for posterity. Implementing your work in a closed and proprietary platform is embedding a self destruct mechanism into your work. It isn't guaranteed to go off, but historically it pretty much always has.
>>>>>
>>>>> If you don't care about history or preservation of artistic work then why are you even trying to recreate things from the past?
>>>>>
>>>>> Michal Seta wrote:
>>>>>> On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 6:12 PM, Samuel van ransbeeck <thinksamuel at yahoo.com
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hello Michal
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> interesting point you raise there. I have thought of using PD personally
>>>>>>> but always I think: what about support? I know PD has a large user-base but
>>>>>>> still I think that Max is superior;
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> *
>>>>>> *
>>>>>> *Superior* is a very strong word...  let's see...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Why? 1) A large user base as well
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Ok, so Pd is equal in superiority,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 2) You buy a pretty expensive product, so you are entitled a good
>>>>>>> functioning program.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Have you ever read the MaxMSP license agreement?  By using the software you
>>>>>> agree to use it "as is".  No one can guarantee good functioning of a
>>>>>> software (and in my experience, MaxMSP has its flaws and bugs, enough to
>>>>>> look up the updates change logs).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Cycling HAS to respond your emails, while PD has not a full time support
>>>>>>> staff.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, cycling74 will respond to emails but only for a limited time and *only* if
>>>>>> you are a license owner (i.e. will they support me trying to get something
>>>>>> running with a runtime version of Max?  Will you answer my emails and help
>>>>>> me run your patches in runtime?).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Now, I think that is it only natural that we (artists) take other people's
>>>>>> (artistic) work and we get inspired, we decompose, recompose, mashup etc.  I
>>>>>> could, for instance, download the Pd repertory project, install Pd, look at
>>>>>> the patches, decompose, get inspired and come up with some composition +
>>>>>> patch that is somehow derived from a piece I liked.  If I wanted to that
>>>>>> with something that was provided as MaxMSP patches, I would also need to buy
>>>>>> either a new computer or a new operating system (because I run linux) and
>>>>>> buy MaxMSP license.  What if, later, I change my mind and do not want to be
>>>>>> inspired anymore...  do I get a refund?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This is all assuming (perhaps wrongly) that your intention is to "port"
>>>>>> electronic music *and* make it available for study,  deconstruction and the
>>>>>> like.  Because maybe you will simply make   runtime binaries of that stuff
>>>>>> and not share the patches at all, which is fine, and in that case all my
>>>>>> points are invalidated.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If you are thinking of open-source software, I would suggest looking to
>>>>>>> Faust (Faustworks). You program your audio stuff in C++ and then you can
>>>>>>> export it as an external or VST and additionally, it makes a mathematical
>>>>>>> abstraction of your program.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes.  You can.  I only mentioned Pd because it is "syntactically" similar to
>>>>>> MaxMSP.  It could be any programming language.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In general, every language becomes obsolete one time. We have to work with
>>>>>>> the current language and in 10, 20 years, there will be a new 'recreation'
>>>>>>> of the music.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, that's my point, actually.  The music that was done with CSound 15
>>>>>> (maybe more?) years ago, can still be parsed and rendered today.  There are
>>>>>> still people today using such obsolete languages as Lisp and Forth
>>>>>> (sometimes even for music!).  In any case, you are free to use whatever
>>>>>> software you wish, I was just curious about the choice of software.  I think
>>>>>> that using an expensive software because the company's full-time staff is
>>>>>> obliged to answer support emails is a rather weak reason to choose one
>>>>>> software over another*.  *Perhaps there are other reasons?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>> ./MiS
>>>>>> *
>>>>>> *
>>>>>> *
>>>>>> *
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>
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-- 
Al Matthews