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Does it really take 2 developers to figure this out?

No, one developer on their own would have figured it out. It takes two developers to make it an issue. ;c)

At first, I didn't understand what all the fuss was about, because I gathered that the server functionality always behaved like a filter. If that is the case, then just treat it like a black box; don't even muddy the waters with the fact that this box is doin' its thing "out" on a server somewhere else. The stream I feed it is 'in', the stream it gives me back is 'out'. No big deal, whether I am developing the client or the server.

But if the client will sometimes send a stream off, expecting nothing in return, then maybe 'in' doesn't make sense? I dunno. It is a convention. People establish conventions so that semantics are predictable, and good conventions align with the user's intuition. If the intuition of users or developers happens to clash, then they ought to just pick something and be done with it, then get accustomed to it. If it moves things along, I am of the crowd that says, "Call one way 'TweedleDum' and the other 'TweedleDee' and get on with your lives."

Words give you power.

I have not used it, but I think that OSCgroups does some related things with passing messages and streams to disparate clients and servers, and if one roots through the codebase it is possible that there might be some interesting conventions there.

P2P: Soulseek
Real-time Audio Synthesis: Audiomulch
Modular Synthesis: SynthEdit

Audio Mulch http://www.audiomulch.com/ is one of the coolest tools for creating and mixing sounds/music I have ever seen.

It's insane what this app can do. Generate sounds and morph them 20 different ways or imput your own tracks and add a ring modulator - or whatever.

This program has kept me up many a night until 4am just because I can't stop tweaking it - have fun

On the topic of software ... and the switch interface.

There is loads of information about using a BASIC stamp as a MIDI interface.

e.g. lots of info and links here

There is lots of good software out there that will play an audio sample triggered via MIDI.

e.g. Puredata (pd) or (and this one is great fun to use!) there is Abox - Analog Box

For a beginner, I would go with Abox because it has loads of good tutorials, has a fully working downloadable demo, is cheap to buy, is FAST (written in x86 Assembler I think), and is really small (less than 1MB)

If you find FruityLoops complex, you might want to try AudioMulch -this thing is designed to be easy to play and experiment with, perhaps a bit more experimental than FL though. I think the idea is to be more like a performable musical instrument than a studio production tool.

I don't know if it's still around, but there was at one point a program called Audiomulch that worked kinda like a modular synthesizer setup. It has input and output modules, and a delay module, so you can just hook the audio out from the radio to your sound card, and connect the delay in-line between the input and output.

For general PIC support, there are a couple active mailing lists, the big one is the piclist, and there is a website that will give you plenty of (3rd party) info on the PIC and the mailing list. There is even some GNU/Linux work being done with Linux, try out Gnupic. Of course, you can always go to the manufacturer.

That program was very innovative for the time. It might have looked a bit toyish and more like a game because of all the pretty graphics, but it was quite powerful, especially considering the platform.

Was? AudioMulch has yet to reach version 1.0, and is capable of an enormous range of manual and automatable music/sound processing tasks. My piece HighBirds (Prime) for 2 electric guitars (first guitar, second guitar) and playback, premiered last year at the Ought-One Festival, was created in AudioMulch.

There aren't many apps with a full range of oscillators, granulators, shapers, mixers, delays, reverbs, filters, modulators, etc., workable as an emulated equipment console as well as a patch bay.

Stretch AudioMulch across two 19-inch screens, and it's a powerful realtime audio (and Midi) processing and manipulation system. With a HD full of audio files for sources, I can compose/improvise a whole night's concert from a single application.

As for what it sounds like, it doesn't sound like anything except the composer who's using it.

Dennis

I like that idea.

Extremely!

There is a very cool little piece of music software called Audiomulch that does something like this. It allows you to create music signal-processing systems by dragging the output of one widget into the input of another, and so forth.

Good grief. I suppose I should stay out of this, but I've been a professional composer using orchestral and electronic media for more than 30 years, and the PC has always provided the breadth of tools and configurability that I need, especially if I need to quickly build up a control device of some kind.

Look, I know those who started with Macs are happy with their stuff. That's fine. But I can't be tied to an Apple corporate stamp of approval for a product. For example, I'd not likely see an AudioMulch for Mac -- unless you consider Max, priced at 10 times the cost for similar functionality (and with Max lacking the ability to produce techno quickly, for example). And Sound Forge, Cool Edit Pro, Cakewalk, Finale, Graphire Music Press ... all (and hundreds of other programs and advanced plugins) are wonderful and flexible PC software. Finale and Graphire both started on Macs, and Finale's first PC port was terrible. But once they started writing from the ground up for PC, the results were stunning. And according to users on both platforms, the Graphire PC version leaves the Mac version behind for ease and speed of use.

As for professional results, legacy studios with Mac equipment do not a case for Macs make. My CD was produced with PCs alone, as have been thousands of others. Likewise, as an editor and book designer, I have had no trouble accommodating the needs of legacy print houses who still use Macs.

I have no problem with Macs and those who love them, but you are presenting a bogus argument from the computer world of a decade past.

Dennis

MaltedMedia
Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar
Erzsébet the Vampire

And for windows users:
AudioMulch
Which is essentially the same thing as MAX, although it is still in limited beta.

One very nice piece of software (shareware) is AudioMulch. Basically, it's a set of components (FX boxes, sample players, even a TB-303 emulator) which can be connected with patch leads. It's Windows-based, though the author said (at last year's First Iteration conference in Melbourne) that he may port it to Linux. Here's hoping...

It's more of a music environment than a music application. Along the same lines as MAX/MSP for the mac (and windows forthcoming) or PD on NT. Or (more recently) the excellent Audiomulch for Windows.