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

[Jonathan Wilkes]

--- On Fri, 3/19/10, Roman Haefeli <reduzierer at yahoo.de> wrote:

> From: Roman Haefeli <reduzierer at yahoo.de>
> Subject: Re: [PD] Pd, Max/Msp, Reaktor, Plogue Bidule... How do these compare?
> To: "Jonathan Wilkes" <jancsika at yahoo.com>
> Cc: "Marco Donnarumma" <devel at thesaddj.com>, pd-list at iem.at, "Matteo Sisti Sette" <matteosistisette at gmail.com>, mis at artengine.ca
> Date: Friday, March 19, 2010, 8:11 PM
> On Fri, 2010-03-19 at 11:02 -0700,
> Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
> > 
> > --- On Fri, 3/19/10, Roman Haefeli <reduzierer at yahoo.de>
> wrote:
> > 
> > > From: Roman Haefeli <reduzierer at yahoo.de>
> > > Subject: Re: [PD] Pd, Max/Msp, Reaktor, Plogue
> Bidule... How do these compare?
> > > To: "Marco Donnarumma" <devel at thesaddj.com>
> > > Cc: "Jonathan Wilkes" <jancsika at yahoo.com>,
> pd-list at iem.at,
> "Matteo Sisti Sette" <matteosistisette at gmail.com>,
> mis at artengine.ca
> > > Date: Friday, March 19, 2010, 6:07 PM
> > > On Fri, 2010-03-19 at 09:58 +0100,
> > > Marco Donnarumma wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Talking about Pd It's fundamental to learn
> how things
> > > works, imho.
> > > 
> > > Pd is the fundament for learning how things work.
> That was
> > > my experience
> > > (and still is). 
> > > 
> > > Roman
> > 
> > What are you getting at?  The two aren't mutually
> exclusive.
> 
> I am actually thinking that the two are complementary.
> 
> Of course, it helps a lot to have a certain level of
> knowledge in
> dsp/math/whatsover before touching Pd. I just wanted to
> point out, that
> Pd very well supports the approach of acquiring theory
> through practice.
> Concepts such as, that every sound is composed of its
> sinusoidal
> partials (just one example of so many possible), sound very
> abstract and
> are hard to explain in words. But at the same time, they
> are often quite
> easy to illustrate with Pd (see 07.additive.pd from
> 3.audio.examples). 
> 
> Of course, it is fundamental to learn how things works, but
> how do you
> learn those things? My answer is: By using Pd. Similar to
> how a two year
> old child learns the basic laws of physics by letting
> things fall down,
> throw them away, put them on other things etc, Pd lets you
> explore the
> nature of sound. I often feel the need of telling potential
> Pd users,
> that it's not necessary to have read many books and be a
> master in math
> before doing Pd, but if they do read books, it helps a lot
> to try things
> out in Pd right away.

I see.  I took Marco's statement to mean that talking about Pd is 
fundamental to learning how things work in Pd.  It sounds like you're 
saying that you don't have to have a comprehensive knowledge of 
"how dsp works" before diving into Pd because using Pd is a way of 
aquiring that knowledge.  I agree with both.

-Jonathan