[LAD] Something like Processing for audio

[Darren Landrum]

Paul Davis wrote:
> if you use a language edited with text files and text editors, you're
> going to have learn skills and concepts that are not directly related to
> making organized sound.
> 
> if you use a visual language (pd, max etc), you will give up a little
> bit of power, but not much. you will have learn quite a lot about the
> fundamental concepts of those languages to be really powerful with
> them. 
> 
> i would equate either of those two tasks to learning to use a table saw.
> and i say this as someone who lost half of his right thumb on a table
> saw :)

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.

I've now officially descended into analogy hell.

> what processing does (or so it appears to me) is to strip away some
> significant elements of what pd or max offers but in turn makes the
> learning curve less steep and high. if thats a good tradeoff for some
> people, then rock on processing.

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.

-- Darren Landrum