[PD] Random thoughts after 1 year with PD

[William Huston]

This is coming up on my first year
as a PD hacker.

Having so much fun.
I think I'm obsessed.

One thing I am really digging about PD is that after 1 year,
I feel I have a basic grasp of about 20% of the PD objects
(i think I am including extended here)
and maybe 60% of the paradigm.



* Even with this limited subset, I can build pretty much anything I want! *
I have a collection of abstractions for LFOs, Multi-waveform oscillators,
sample-loopers, basic effects, reverb and delay, sequencers, ADSR,
basic LP, BP, and HP filters, etc. Ring Modulation, I have little modules
that deal MIDI, etc.


*Here's my observation*
*which I wanted to share:*


*Each time when I want to make music, I find myself building a custom
instrument.*

So the music I make with it seems fresh and different each time.
I make music that surprises me!

Because--
I am not sitting down with any per-conceived ideas
of how to interact with the instrument.
...because it's something brand new every time!
I don't know what it does exactly,

So every session with it becomes an exploration
of the instrument, and an exploration with sounds.

Sometimes something which initially seems
like a bug with the interface,
turns out to be a creative opportunity.

(like the way a slider with a very large range
will jump around to certain discrete points.)

And you think "I wish that would move more fluidly.
I wish this controller had more resolution (etc)".

But because of this "bug",
I've discovered micro-tonal scales.

I first noticed this with Martin Neimoller's Chaos Monster,
these strange but wonderful microtonal scales.

It's really the secret to recreating the music of
India, Iran, the middle east, and also far east.

So anyway, thanks Miller
for this incredible thing.

I really think PD is the *Perfect Instrument*
from *Orson Scott Card's *short story
*Unaccompanied Sonata*.

I have dreamed about having this capability
to mangle sound like this,
for many years, since I was a young boy,

I never thought I would see anything
like this in my lifetime.

I think Pure Data has, in a way,
set my soul free...

And also thanks
to this amazingly supportive community!

Good on ye!
BH



-- 
--
May you, and all beings
be happy and free from suffering :)
-- ancient Buddhist Prayer (Metta)
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