Slashdot Mirror

http://puredata.org/, and it's library http://gem.iem.at/ could be run on the laptop array. Building a laptop hierarchy: 1 laptop recieves the whole 1024*768 and GEM slices four 512*384 screen displays and serves them to a 2*2 grid of laptops on display. or, if you have 21 laptops, you can make a 16 laptop laptop display wall wall. The trick is farming low resolution chunks to the slower machines. The final 4*4 laptop wall only has to have a combined resolution of 1024*768, right? You're not going to get highdef out of this wall.

How come no one has mentioned pure data (pd)? You can't get much more "Pro" than that. The possibilities are endless...

Anyway, I don't understand the obsession with Reason and ProTools. People always go on and on about how much control and flexibility Reason gives you. Reason gives you the illusion of control, but always winds up making EuroDance/Trance. If you want real power, check out pd. Otherwise, don't bring up control.

Pro Tools is widely hated by audio professionals for its ridiculously bad interface -- the only reason they keep using it is that it can handle the throughput of massive mixing consoles, and there's a ton of money already invested in it. Why should Linux apps try to emulate the "Pros?" Start fresh and build something better.

-ben

From my opinion as a student of computer arts/digital arts, the first thing you have to ask yourself is how to include the computer in your artistic work.
I can recommend the Book "Composing Interactive Music" from Todd Winkler, as I found it not only interesting for re-thinking how to use Computers in artistic installations, but also how to completely rethink computer interaction.
Winkler proposes a framework of 5 stages which i think can also be adoped for any digital works, not only music.
The book is inteded for composers working with max/msp, a visual programming language where object boxes can be "patched" together; this style of working shows fast results, as this kind of software is working "realtime", meaning you get constant ouptput of the things you are doing or the parameters you are changing.
I am working with this kind of "patchable software interfaces" for more than five years now; and this is also teached on the University of Applied Arts in Vienna/Austria, where I am studying.
If it comes to interaction (sound-visual, sound-dancers, graphics-interface, whatever) in the field of artistic work, these tools such as
PD Pure Data (windows/mac/linux) - Audio/Video/3D (GEM,Framestein) -opensource-
Cycling74 max/msp (windows/mac) - Audio/Video/3D (also see Nato and Jitter) -free 30days demo-
Native Instruments Reaktor (windows/mac) -commercial, but has education pricing-
vvvv (win) -free-
are used from lots of the people around.
there are hell lots more, you might want to take a look at the audiovisualizers.com tool shack, or pawfal.org for example.

For some visual examples and also works, you might want to take a look at
http://www.harvestworks.org/maxreel/
http://puredata.info/community/ (mostly audio)
talking chair (vvvv+hardware)
http://www.realtimearts.net/

or you might also want to take a look at the department of digital art in the university of applied arts/vienna.
currently we are a group of people trying to bring opensource and arts together. there are also workshops and lots of projects going on: http://5uper.net

for sure there are also "standard" programs teached, which are good for working with business and advertising companies -- but if we are speaking about digital arts, that's going beyond the standard approach of software use. at least for me.

From my opinion as a student of computer arts/digital arts, the first thing you have to ask yourself is how to include the computer in your artistic work.
I can recommend the Book "Composing Interactive Music" from Todd Winkler, as I found it not only interesting for re-thinking how to use Computers in artistic installations, but also how to completely rethink computer interaction.
Winkler proposes a framework of 5 stages which i think can also be adoped for any digital works, not only music.
The book is inteded for composers working with max/msp, a visual programming language where object boxes can be "patched" together; this style of working shows fast results, as this kind of software is working "realtime", meaning you get constant ouptput of the things you are doing or the parameters you are changing.
I am working with this kind of "patchable software interfaces" for more than five years now; and this is also teached on the University of Applied Arts in Vienna/Austria, where I am studying.
If it comes to interaction (sound-visual, sound-dancers, graphics-interface, whatever) in the field of artistic work, these tools such as
PD Pure Data (windows/mac/linux) - Audio/Video/3D (GEM,Framestein) -opensource-
Cycling74 max/msp (windows/mac) - Audio/Video/3D (also see Nato and Jitter) -free 30days demo-
Native Instruments Reaktor (windows/mac) -commercial, but has education pricing-
vvvv (win) -free-
are used from lots of the people around.
there are hell lots more, you might want to take a look at the audiovisualizers.com tool shack, or pawfal.org for example.

For some visual examples and also works, you might want to take a look at
http://www.harvestworks.org/maxreel/
http://puredata.info/community/ (mostly audio)
talking chair (vvvv+hardware)
http://www.realtimearts.net/

or you might also want to take a look at the department of digital art in the university of applied arts/vienna.
currently we are a group of people trying to bring opensource and arts together. there are also workshops and lots of projects going on: http://5uper.net

for sure there are also "standard" programs teached, which are good for working with business and advertising companies -- but if we are speaking about digital arts, that's going beyond the standard approach of software use. at least for me.

If you want something in this style which actually delivers as good or better performance and is free, check out Pure Data with the Gem library. You can make your very own VDMX (written in the commercial version of PD called Max). Runs on Linux, OS X, and Windows.

http://www-crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/software.html/

http://gem.iem.at/

I'd go for a graphical programming language like PD or jMax . While mainly aimed at musical applications, you can do a lot of generic stuff or graphical stuff as well, and the whole concept of interconnecting "little machines" with "wires" is easy to learn.

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)

same goes for cakewalk... for pro midi and audio work you'd want cubase or logic... they're the only ones with the timing and flexability to work in a pro studio.

i've been an experimental electronic musician for years.. so i do have some experience with all this software. but, if you're really interested in audio and sound you should check out PD .. it's open source, runs on all platforms and is the most flexable and amazing audio tool you'll ever use.

anyway, just my 2 cents.

m@.