Pure Data as a plugin, with a new GUI • Hacker News Board

Re: Pure Data as a plugin, with a new GUI

#21

Post by singingfish » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 2:36 AM UTC

musesum wrote: post #18

throw_m239339 wrote: post #11

For those who don't know, Pure Data or PD is a visual audio programming language that can be used to develop software synthesizers. It's open source, the commercial version by the same creator is called MAX-MSP.

To be honest, I've spent many hours in PD and Max and didn't realize that Miller Puckette was behind both. Super cool! Next week, I travel to Bali to focus on developing a data flow based visual music synth. I can't understate how big an influence that Puckette's work has been on my thinking.

Pukette got the shits with the conditions of his grant from the french government that allowed the development of Max, because it disallowed him to use the same techniques to do visual synthesis. So he quit and reimplemented the whole thing. Except this time he used an open source license.

The other advantage is because these things were implemented in the 80s when real time audio was a really big ask for computers, they are very computationally efficient.

Re: Pure Data as a plugin, with a new GUI

#22

Post by codedokode » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 2:45 AM UTC

PureData is an interesting tool, but it is very low-level. You have to reimplement from scratch things that are present in most DAWs or synths, for example: there is no GUI-controlled equaliser, no reverb. No oscilloscopes and FFT displays.

If I am not mistaken, there is even no primitive for modulating frequency of one oscillator with another.

The filters are very primitive and limited. The user is expected to learn the theory themselves. As far as I remember, there is no filter that can be modulated with audio frequency (without artifacts) and it is difficult to find information how to create one. Does anybody know how to do it, by chance?

Re: Pure Data as a plugin, with a new GUI

#23

Post by nilslindemann » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 3:23 AM UTC

PureData has a very outdated looking GUI. Actually, it even looks as if the elements are rendered wrong. This has always driven me away from using it. This new thing has a much more pleasant looking GUI. Promising.

Re: Pure Data as a plugin, with a new GUI

#24

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 3:31 AM UTC

singingfish wrote: post #21

musesum wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I've spent many hours in PD and Max and didn't realize that Miller Puckette was behind both. Super cool! Next week, I travel to Bali to focus on developing a data flow based visual music synth. I can't understate how big an influence that Puckette's work has been on my thinking.

Pukette got the shits with the conditions of his grant from the french government that allowed the development of Max, because it disallowed him to use the same techniques to do visual synthesis. So he quit and reimplemented the whole thing. Except this time he used an open source license. The other advantage is because these things were implemented in the 80s when real time audio was a really big ask for computers,…

[deleted]

Re: Pure Data as a plugin, with a new GUI

#25

Post by patrakov » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 4:28 AM UTC

nilslindemann wrote: post #23

PureData has a very outdated looking GUI. Actually, it even looks as if the elements are rendered wrong. This has always driven me away from using it. This new thing has a much more pleasant looking GUI. Promising.

Have you looked at PurrData, an Electron-based GUI?

Re: Pure Data as a plugin, with a new GUI

#26

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 5:04 AM UTC

Flipflip79 wrote: post #10

I am only on mobile right now and travelling so can’t actually test this. But boy is it exciting to see a potential OSS alternative to max4live. I think Max and m4l are well worth the price if it’s something you do all the time, but as a more casual user something with a lower cost of entry would be highly welcomed.

This is not an alternative to Max4Live. M4L's integration with Live goes way beyond what any JUCE-based plugin is going to be able to do.

This will be handy for some things that overlap with what M4L can do. But there's lots of things people do with M4L in Ableton Live that you will not be able to do with PlugData in any plugin host.

Re: Pure Data as a plugin, with a new GUI

#27

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 5:05 AM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #22

PureData is an interesting tool, but it is very low-level. You have to reimplement from scratch things that are present in most DAWs or synths, for example: there is no GUI-controlled equaliser, no reverb. No oscilloscopes and FFT displays. If I am not mistaken, there is even no primitive for modulating frequency of one oscillator with another. The filters are very primitive and limited. The user is expected to learn…

All of this is, in some sense, the entire point of PureData.

Re: Pure Data as a plugin, with a new GUI

#28

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 5:06 AM UTC

augustuspolius wrote: post #5

daguava wrote: post #3

I'm going to ask the dumb question here - how is this at the top with zero discussion? If I need to get dunked for asking that's fine, but I don't understand, since HackerNews is suppose to be a place for high quality discussion on tech.

This plugin could potentially be a big deal. PureData has been around for decades but fell behind Max and/or MaxMSP mostly (IMO) due to usability limitations. If more people will be able to incorporate PureData organically into their workflow, it could create a real alternative to Max4Live in DAWs other than Live. I could fantasize even further. A PureData plug-in could kickstart a VCVRack type effort - an open sourc…

VCV Rack is already open source. What would be the benefit of duplicating the 2000+ modules already present in Rack with PureData?

Re: Pure Data as a plugin, with a new GUI

#29

Post by rmnclmnt » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 5:38 AM UTC

This is the kind of project you now is doable but never take the time to start. Great initiative!

Re: Pure Data as a plugin, with a new GUI

#30

Post by augustuspolius » Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 5:41 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #28

augustuspolius wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This plugin could potentially be a big deal. PureData has been around for decades but fell behind Max and/or MaxMSP mostly (IMO) due to usability limitations. If more people will be able to incorporate PureData organically into their workflow, it could create a real alternative to Max4Live in DAWs other than Live. I could fantasize even further. A PureData plug-in could kickstart a VCVRack type effort - an open sourc…

VCV Rack is already open source. What would be the benefit of duplicating the 2000+ modules already present in Rack with PureData?

The advantage of this PureData plugin and Max4Live over VCVRack is that you can edit the patch on the fly right in the DAW (in addition to the fact that visual programming is way more accessible than a compiled language).