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

[Jonathan Wilkes]

--- On Fri, 3/19/10, Frank Barknecht <fbar at footils.org> wrote:

> From: Frank Barknecht <fbar at footils.org>
> Subject: Re: [PD] Pd, Max/Msp, Reaktor, Plogue Bidule... How do these, compare?
> To: pd-list at iem.at
> Date: Friday, March 19, 2010, 7:08 PM
> Hallo,
> Pierre Massat hat gesagt: // Pierre Massat wrote:
> 
> > Another thing that'd be nice to make available for new
> users would be a
> > comprehensive set of generic patches, which would
> cover the whole range of
> > DSP audio. A little bit like Puckette's audio help
> patches, only on a higher
> > level (stuff like a basic drum machine, a
> comprehensive synth, granular
> > synthesis, etc). I know that these aren't impossible
> to find, but it'd be
> > nice to have it all in the same place. 
> 
> The "rj" library developed for the creation of RjDj scenes,
> but also usable
> outside, tries exactly that. It is all abstractions, all
> run on Pd vanilla, no
> externals, not complicated -path setup needed, it has IMO
> pretty good help
> files (I wrote most, so I have to say this) and it provides
> a lot of everyday
> musician's tools plus some analysis and composition
> helpers. 
> 
> It's deliberatly minimal, so that it doesn't overwhelm a
> newbie user with
> hundreds of objects.  It's philosophy is "often-needed
> batteries included". For
> example, from [list]-abs it has a "listmap", "listdrip",
> "listreduce",
> "listfilter", "listrandom" and "listnth", but not the other
> 50 or so list
> objects. The included objects will solve about 80% of your
> everyday list-use,
> for the rest, you can still resort to the full [list]-abs
> objects. Similar
> approaches have been taken for other areas.
> 
> So far it has proven to be a successful base for many
> interesting music pieces
> written in Pd for RjDj. Check out trac.rjdj.me for details.
> 
> 
> Ciao
> -- 
> Frank

I'd just add that one could start from the end of 3.audio.examples 
and 4.data.structures to get a decent overall idea of what Pd is capable 
of doing.  

The only problem with this currently is that those patches are 
quite understandably not the most beginner-friendly ones-- something like 
doc/4.data.structures/14.partialtracer.pd probably looks fairly 
intimidating to a beginner.  But if it were organized a little and given 
some friendly controls (plus maybe a feature to write the re-edited 
tracks to a .wav file) there's no reason a beginner couldn't start there 
and other places to get some pretty interesting sounds out of the computer.

-Jonathan