[PD] Pd, Max/Msp, Reaktor, Plogue Bidule... How do these compare?

[Lorenzo]

Hi Didit,

Sorry for long post.. but the topic is ever so fascinating :)
> Sorry for bringing this old thread up, I find Alex's opinion very 
> interesting. Actually I kinda feel that using Pd, I'm stuck in the 
> process of "making the instrument instead of the music" kinda situation.
I guess this comes up frequently in 'computer-based' music discussions. 
I think it depends much on the type of music/artistic project/vision you 
have... I find making the instrument for the music extremely fascinating 
and much related with the musician's nature... I recently found an 
article (unfortunately it's not publicly available online but it's on 
Jstor music) of 1980 by Gareth Loy with the title 'The Composer Seduced 
into Programming' which I guess is pretty explicative as a title per se. 
I will only cite a small piece from the beginning of the article where 
he is explaining the title which I feel pretty close to: "It is 
important to note just what the seducing agent in these cases really is. 
It is certainly not carpentry or programming, or we would have ceased as 
artists and become tradesmen. It is really the will of the composer, 
expressed through the discipline of the art form itself which, in all 
cases, not just the ones under discussion here, causes the artist to 
stray into these seemingly distant fields."

> Even though at first, I can custom made an instrument specific to what 
> I want, I ended up exhausted at building the instrument first, and 
> find myself resting for several moments before finally finishing a 
> composition.
It can be an exhausting activity, yes.. But so is(was) preparing a 
performance-ready score for 'traditional' music right?

> I recently tried Reaktor, and one thing that's best is the interface, 
> that features definitely makes me interested in learning deeper into 
> this tool. I also tried Max/MSP, and yes I love the interface, kinda 
> more engaging to patch things. I also recently acquired Launchpad, 
> (with all the monome emulations build using Max/MSP, I become slowly 
> adapt to it). But either way, I kinda stuck with Pd because this is 
> the first audiovisual environment programming that I know and dig. So, 
> I think, probably it will all go down to which tool we are comfort 
> with (ugh, sounds so diplomatic, hate it).
>
> But anyway, I feel that Max/MSP produce a smoother audio than Pd, is 
> it me or does anyone feel this too?
I guess everyone should use the tools that work best.. although I'm not 
sure what you mean thtat the audio in MAX is 'smoother'.
My two cents: I started with Max and then switched to Pd. Eventually I 
found that although initially a little 'harder' Pd, because of the much 
less frills than Max, especially Max 5, and is much 'lower level', helps 
you maintain focus (for example no hiding mechanism means that when a 
patch is too full it's probably time to modularise.. in max you often 
end up with hidden spaghetti :).. and at the same time experiment in 
much more unplanned directions. But this is my very personal view.
>
> Regards,
>
> Didit
All the best,
Lorenzo.
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