Re: [LAD] Something like Processing for audio

On Sun, 2008-09-28 at 16:57 -0400, Darren Landrum wrote:

> You and I are definitely not on the same page. Absynth is not by itself
> as powerful as Csound is, but its learning curve is a lot less steep.
> What I want to do is make something that makes it easier to create
> Absynth, GUI and all.
>
> The confusion seems to be on whether or not Absynth is a table saw, or
> something that was made with a table saw, to continue an analogy that
> keeps getting worse. Here's my take: making music with Absynth (and the
> others in the NI stable) are like using a table saw and a jointer to
> make a finished piece. Csound, Pd, and Supercollider are more like hand
> tools: they'll get you there, but it'll take longer and require more work.
>
> What I want to do is make a set of hand tools that can be directly used
> to make the nice power tools. There are certain features that I insist
> on these nice power tools having, though.

Sure, I agree with your analogy. It relates to the way that people have
used CSound, pd and supercollider "traditionally". The people who
developed these tools have used them to *make music*. They don't use
them (generally speaking) to *make tools*.

You want a set of people to develop a tool to make tools. Something a
bit like synthmaker or whatever its called, or the way, as you
mentioned, that max can generate a standalone version of a max patch. Or
like processing. That is, you want guys like us to make 1st order tools
to so that other people (perhaps you) can make 2nd order tools for
"musicians" to use. We've all been busy with either "straight to 2nd
order" (complete apps) or "0th order" (synthesis & processing
languages).

The problem with making that appeal in this particular tech niche is
that most of us in here are kind of happy with making the stuff we do
now. We don't see any huge benefits that arise when people get to use
1st & 2nd order tools. Actually, I'm not sure I see much benefit when
people get to use computers, period. This is like the explosion of
desktop publishing when everybody and their buddy thought they
understood typography, typesetting and graphic design. That gray haired
old dudes has just missed the boat on what new technology could do. And
wow, how utterly wrong they were :)

the thing is that about 40 years ago, the first modular synths started
to appear, and people complained about them in exactly the same way that
people complain about supercollider now. then came the minimoog, which
begat the polymoog and then the prophet 5 and the the DX7 and so forth,
until we got synths that nobody had to know anything whatsoever about
synthesis in order to use. and now things have settled down, and there
is some space for the contemporary equivalents of the DX7, but there is
also understanding of the quintessential values of the modular synth
too. and you're talking to a bunch of people who would probably be happy
building modular synths, let alone actually using them.

> I would continue to argue that Processing actually limits the domain of
> what it's designed to do, rather than "strips away all of the power."
> It's designed to be extremely good at a few related things. I see a
> subtle but important difference between eliminating capability and
> limiting the problem domain.

i.e. it was designed by coders that haven't yet learnt the first rule of
software development for others: They Will Want More Than You Offer. if
not today, then the middle of next week. more or less every piece of
software that i've seen that has taken an existing problem/solution pair
and said "we'll simplify the problem domain to make the solution better"
has ultimately regretted it or has later expanded the problem domain
back t its original size :) linux is well on its way :))

wow, this is rich material for my upcoming seminar series (*) :)

--p

(*)
http://www.ak.tu-berlin.de/menue/lehre/wintersemester_200809/building_tools_for_musicians/

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Received on Mon Sep 29 04:15:02 2008