-Dan

I’ve written quite a few scripts so far. It looks like I’ve committed them all to subversion so you can try checking it out to take a look.

pycdp would actually be around 90% done, but there’s a huge snag in the project: there are several dozen standalone programs that have unique functions that have unique modes that have unique parameters with unique limits, and as luck would have it there’s no documentation detailing all of this in a format I can parse into Python data structures. I’ve started doing it manually (that’s what all of the scripts are based on), but it’s incredibly tedious to build the structures by hand. I should be able to get help from the developers to get over this hurdle, but after getting the basics running I decided to use what I had to produce some music . So pycdp is on hold for a bit.

The fact CDP is commercial did put me off, especially because there’s no demo, manual, or even sound examples online. Very unexpectedly I managed to contact Archer Endrich at the company and he generously sent me a copy “for sale or return” so I could have a few months to try it out and see what it could actually do and determine whether or not I could use it. I definitely wouldn’t have investigated it further if he hadn’t done this. Aside from all of that, CDP’s environment is the epitome of “not for everyone”, I only kept it because it sounds fantastic and pycdp allowed me to use it in a comfortable way.

What I use CDP for now is running batches of samples through heavy signal chains that wouldn’t be possible to run in a realtime environment like SC3 or Max/MSP. I realize all of these other environments have non-realtime modes as well, but I haven’t used them and I’m not really sure how I’d set up a patch to do what pycdp does (I’m sure it’s possible somehow). And again, CDP’s processors sound fantastic and that really sets it apart. I’m not saying they’re positively the best, but I haven’t used anything better or gotten comparable results from SC3 or Max/MSP. I guess those are the main reasons that CDP is a valuable member of my arsenal

I was learning SC3 right before I picked up CDP and I intend to come back to it, I really enjoy the way it works, though I find sclang to be completely insane. Having to work within SuperCollider’s UI is a bit weird for me since I’m used to using vi for coding (I tried the vi and emacs plugins for SC3 and they didn’t work very smoothly).

I used Pure Data for several years, but it’s really lacking in the UI/widget department, it became very tedious to have to work around that so I eventually bought Max/MSP. As far as those two go, they’re both very powerful, it’s just much easier to interact with a Max/MSP patch… PD did teach me how to construct a step sequencer with a page full of sliders, but having a simple multislider widget like Max would have saved me a lot of pain…

I haven’t tried CSound, it seems like a very deep rabbit-hole, and I already have enough of those to deal with

I do have ChucK, but I haven’t done anything with it – I’m not sure what type of project I’d use it for, but I like the concept of it. I’ll probably cook something up with it sooner or later.

- Joseph