Hi,
Thanks for your help. I will try some of the suggestions you gave. The bottom line is, maybe the build I'm using is too old, but I just don't want to lose access to all the externals and I had great problems installing them individually before - until I realized the MIDI IN wouldn't work, this distribution was working the best for me. Maybe I just don't like starting from the command line...
I will say, despite my current frustration, I do think that PD, for now, is great as a learning tool. I never understood Reaktor in the past, but knowing some PD has allowed me to program incredibly fast in Reaktor! I will keep going with PD as it does certain things that Reaktor does not, and if I understood OSC, I might even be able to get the two programs to play together... I want to program Python modules for Reaktor as well (okay, I lied, I know a little programming, but not enough to understand what people are talking about on the list most of the time).
I just sometimes would like the open source community to remember that
if something is going to "catch on" with the general public, it needs to
have certain basic "out of the box" functionality. A little more work
on GUI and provision of a library of oscillators, samplers, and grain-synthesis
externals, WITH FULL DOCUMENTATION, would go a huge way towards making
PD competitive with the commercial software packages.
And, of course, a complete Windoze binary distribution which includes
the important external libraries, and works (okay I know some of you hate
it but it works)!
However I will still find uses for PD in the meantime, it is much better for testing a concept with dataflow or data manupulation than Reaktor, even if Reaktor has more tools right now to create a finished "performance".
~David
jmmmp wrote:
I'm sorry that I can't help now - I use the other distribution, and as I still have a slow connection (and now not so much free time), I can't download the other installation and try it myself. Maybe it would help to see where you got this version and ask the e-mail contact that might be there directly (that doesn't seem to be the original Puckette build), or check Help->about pd and say to the list exactly which version you have (until now I thought we were speaking about the same thing). can you open the .exe from the command window with the flags you need? (I don't know this distribution, but that would make sense)
if you had the time, you could try to install the "official" version
(which you can get in http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/software.html), and then the externals individually. it isn't that hard, and when you do it once you do it thousands of times - but if you have already too much on your mind, then leave it for later.
- Midi In doesn't work. And the Midi Setup will NOT let me fix
it! It "sees" the devices but it refuses to enable them. It says PD needs a flag on startup, which I can't supply because my PD does not start the normal way (as I'm trying to explain).
- The cheatsheet doesn't exist in my PD.
that I find strange, and doesn't make that much sense - maybe it was
forgotten somewhere. Anyway, I can send you my copy. As I said before, put it in [pd]/doc/5.reference and it should open automatically - if not, open it yourself with your text editor. Specific to my copy is that I added all the externals that I have
installed. the objects are originally divided into categories, and
somewhen comes the ";" symbol - after that are externals (which you should also have, if your version comes with everything).I'm using Reaktor for now, I wanted to do open source but I see that PD is just not developed enough yet for the "average" user. It's a shame though, as some operations I can do better with PD objects (though I wish PD had the granular samplers and oscillators of Reaktor as built-in abstractions or externals). I'm a composer though, not a programmer, and I have an August 11 performance I have to be ready for. I can't afford waste time trying to fix broken things in a program, when I can be making tools instead. And honestly, right now Reaktor adapts to "my" ideas that I imagine in my head much better than PD. PD has the potential but I think needs to be developed farther and with more attention for the "average" user needs.
well, the most important of all is that each one can go further with their work, no matter if he uses pd, reaktor or excel. I don't know Reaktor (but have always heard good about it), but the main advantage of pd is also it's biggest frustration: to work with it you must really know what's going on in all levels. it's good because you get the knowledge which will later allow you to make your own personal ideas come true, but it'll take you some time before you can get there and really do something which sounds nice. I'm also a composer and not a programmer (never had a programming class or read a computer manual). and with this kind of practice you'll also learn a lot about acoustics, electronic music, etc. if you have some free weeks in the summer you can download Puckette's book (don't have the link now, try the above mentioned site) and read through it and try out the examples in pd - that is, if pd is for you. if not, then better use what it suits you best.
when you reply, you should use the "reply to all" button. one specificity of this list is that if you do only "reply", you reply only to the guy who wrote the previous mail (that I find not so efficient, but they're used to it).
good luck,
João