[PD] PD for Audio Manipulation/Mangling

Eric Skogen eskogen at usfamily.net
Wed Jun 23 00:41:17 CEST 2004


John Potter wrote:

> Around a year ago I was looking into PD, MAX/MSP, Supercollider, 
> CSound, DSP in general etc. after playing with modular synths and 
> synths w/ large modulation matrixes for a couple years. Kind of 
> dropped all that and picked the guitar back up for a while. Thinking 
> about getting back in to it but primarily from the perspective of 
> realtime audio effects – reverb, phasing, distortion, ring modulation, 
> vocoding, gating, and 100 different things I’m sure you can think of 
> (as opposed to creating a completely virtual instrument).
>
> How does PD stack up against MSP in that regard? Is there something 
> else I should be looking at? Another thought is picking up a Nord 
> Micro Modular but that wouldn’t necessarily preclude the PD/MSP route.
>
> Thanks!
>
> John
>
I think Pd shines for realtime work. I have used it in a few 
performances with live guitar / realtime processing. Take a look at the 
examples that come with Pd to see what it's capable of. Take a few of 
them apart and modify them to suit ideas you have. Then form a design 
for how you want to control the computer during your performance and 
start building.

I have a Micro Modular as well. A computer can't match it's virtually 
zero latency, but it is limited in the effects you can produce, and 
doesn't have the options for live sampling and delay that you can get 
with Pd. The Micro Modular limits you to more or less one general patch 
at a time, since it has a limited amount of CPU compared to a laptop 
with Pd. A computer based approach will allow you to overlay more sounds 
and generally have more flexibility. But certainly you could work both 
into a performance...

e





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