On Sun, Jul 29, 2018 at 4:29 PM, jonetsu <jonetsu@teksavvy.com> wrote:
On Sun, 29 Jul 2018 16:20:22 -0400
Paul Davis <paul@linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:

> you could do the same with Pure Data or CSound or SuperCollider,
> without the requirement for a GUI.

> VCVRack is awesome, but for the sort of context you're describing it
> seems like the wrong tool.

Not so sure.  The very first important aspect would be the quality
of the drones it can generate, how it can vary dynamically in a almost
random manner while still be relaxing. 

I would be very very very very skeptical of claims that there is anything you can do in VCVRack that cannot be done in any of the three tools I mentioned.

CSound has a nearly 40 year history of "module development", and while CSound opcodes are not at the same semantic level as the modules in VCVRack, the former are the building blocks of the latter.

SuperCollider is an insanely rich synthesis environment, which fails to get anywhere near the respect or interest that it deserves. The "live coding" buzz has given it a bit more room, but seriously, SC is one of the richest environments for sound generation ever created.

and Pure Data? what can I say?

What you're admiring, really, is not "the drones it can generate" but the complex modulation of tones. That's mostly a function of clever/lucky/responsive patching, which is the one thing that a visually-patch-cord-based system like VCVRack wins with over the afore-mentioned tools. It encourages "playing" in a way that the previous three tend not to (even though PureData is actually a visual patching language). This increases the chances of a sensitive user discovering/creating/encountering aesthetically pleasant results that are "novel". Put differently: people just don't tend to use CSound, SC or PD in the same way that they use a visually patched modular, even though there's nothing about how they work that prevents more or less identical patches from being developed within them.