This “freak out” cannot happen. Imagine if you create an awesome product that will sell to a very big but very focused niche only to find out that half of your customer support team goes sick losing you 30% of your monthly profits. Do you reallocate and reduce your effective manpower and production while not trying to fix customer relations with would-be buyers to effectively increase profits or do you flop by trying to please 100% of your customer base with so little manpower it’s not even funny?

I’m not a learned businessman, but choosing option two sounds like suicide.

Making Mistakes Gracefully

I used to (and still do, sometimes) have a really big problem with failure. Thus, success would be too far away to grasp. This seems like a gross misallocation of valuable brain waves. This is something that I work on constantly and it all stems from not wanting to let Little Bad Things happen. Mostly, these Little Bad Things are just that; little. So, I learned a great trick for the Little Bad Things.

Stop caring. This is the most direct way I can describe the act of making graceful mistakes.

First: Assess your Bad Thing.
How life changing is it? What goal will you be unable to attain were your Bad Thing to happen? There are some cases where Bad Things are Really Bad. If this is the case, letting it happen may not be the answer you are looking for. Perhaps it is other, smaller, Not So Bad Things that you can let happen to decrease the chances of that Really Bad Thing happening. I don’t recommend letting important Bad Things (something you must decide on) happen, nor do I recommend going out of your way to instigate a Bad Thing.

Second: Sort out this and other Bad Things.
I’m serious with this. Don’t worry if it seems obsessive. Figure out which of your Bad Things is the Worst and Best. Meaning, decide which Bad Things you can let happen and which you can’t.

Third: Let your selected Bad Things happen.
In a word: relax. This last step really doesn’t even need to be here, but to illustrate a point. Free yourself from the Little Bad Things you are about to let happen and enjoy the fact that you have a couple less things to worry about. This is, after all, the goal.

Conclusion

Letting small Bad Things happen is not only beneficial to your larger projects and to-do items, but it may also ease your mind greatly. This is not to say letting Bad Thing after Bad Thing after Bad Thing happen is a good idea. In fact, this is completely illogical. Rather, thinking about the consequences of each Bad Thing is key.

Hopefully this article will make it very easy for newbies to get into PDing and I encourage anyone and everyone to give it a shot. On the other hand, it will require patience and lots of active thought. Lots of active thought. In fact, background knowledge of general mathematical algorithms would be very helpful for first time Pure Data enthusiast. Pure Data is ridiculously in-depth. If you are at all familiar with programming it will make sense to you. If not, do not fret; Pure Data is simple enough (in my opinion) that one can create some really cool stuff with not very much effort or prior programming knowledge. This is not to say that Pure Data can be seriously confusing and frustrating at times, but the payoff is very, very rewarding and, at times, very surprising.

Also, this article will not focus on obtaining and installing Pure Data. The installation process is self-explanatory enough that it should be easy for most computer users to install properly. If this is not the case, there is a vast number of resources available on the Pure Data community site that can assist in this.

Anyway, let’s get on with it.

Pure Data

As stated on Pure Data’s website:

In other words, Pure Data allows you create and modify images and sounds using “objects” organized in such a way that can closely resemble a flow chart. I use Pure Data for audio processing.

Diving into Pure Data

I am going to assume that you have properly installed audio drivers. Mac OS X has CoreAudio installed by default and this is perfectly acceptable for low-latency music creation. Windows and Ubuntu are a little less fortunate right off the bat. Windows has the wonderful ASIO emulation drivers ASIO4ALL, though if this is not your cup of tea, you can get by with the basic (and slow) Windows drivers. In the Linux realm, there exists a flavor of Ubuntu made explicitly for multimedia purposes called Ubuntu Studio. I have no experience with this distribution, therefore I cannot provide support for this. Again, you can find most information you need at the Pure Data community site.

Let’s get started.

The Main Window

Upon running Pure Data, you’ll notice the main window appear on your screen.

This window will run at all times and provides valuable output related to errors and other program output.

Edit mode and run mode

As you work with Pure Data, you will be using two modes available in the program. Edit mode allows you to add, remove and modify objects, messages, numbers, etc. in your Pure Data patch. When you switch to run mode (by pressing Control-E in Windows/Linux or Command-E in Mac, or by choosing Edit > Edit mode) you’ll be able to click around your patch window.

Inlets and outlets

Almost everything we use in Pure Data has inlets and/or outlets. To connect to ‘lets, we click and drag from any in to any out, or vice versa. This is what we will call “wiring”.

Our first path

We’ll start with something fairly basic. Don’t be scared. I’ll explain everything.

This might look like a jumble of random objects, but is, in fact, a very simple oscillator. From the top, shall we?

The osc~ object

The osc~ generates an oscillating cosine wave. The signal is sent out from it’s bottom left outlet. In this case, it is connected to the top right inlet of the *~. In our example, osc~ is being used to generate our tone. In this case, it is a 440 hertz tone (the A above middle C on a piano). The 440 after osc~ is called our “creation argument”. Most objects in Pure Data have the ability to accept creation arguments, thus, affecting their attributes at the time the object is created. Creation arguments are not always required, though. In most cases, a default value is decided for the object in question.

The dac~ object

To get audio out of Pure Data and into our sound device, we use a Digital-to-Analog Converter. In this case, Pure Data’s dac~. If you have your Audio Settings properly configured, dac~ will shove anything from it’s inlets to your speakers (or headphones, earbuds, etc.). In short, this is required if you want to get anything to make sound.

The *~ object (and the * object)

Pure Data’s operations are base almost entirely around mathematical functions. Multiply (*) and signal multiply (*~) (more on what exactly a signal is later) are two such functions that allow us to multiply two (or more) numbers or audio signals. In this example, the signal multiply is being used to add two signals together. The first signal is the osc~ and the second is a volume control of sorts. Multiplying the two together controls the overall volume of the osc~. More on this later.

The vertical slider

There exists a number of types of controls that can be used to modify parameters and events used by Pure Data. One of those is the vertical slider. In this case, we are using it to control the amplitude (volume) of the osc~. The vertical slider has one inlet and one outlet.

The message

Like the vertical slider, the message exists to help modify and control parameters and events in Pure Data. I am using two messages here to help control the audio flow. Messages can be clicked with the mouse (when the patch is not in edit mode, Control-E on Windows and Linux, Command-E on Mac) to trigger events. The first message tells Pure Data to turn on it’s DSP (Digital Signal Processing) functionality. The second message… you guessed it, turns off it’s DSP functionality. In essence, this makes it easy for me to turn on and off the audio (instead of checking and unchecking the “compute audio” checkbox in the main window.

The signal

Notice how most of our objects end with a tilde? ~ This is to denote that the object in question generates an audio signal. Some objects (such as the multiply object) have control-generating and signal-generating flavors. You can also tell if an object generates a signal or a control by the style of inlets and outlets it has.

Inlets and outlets that have no fill are controls.

Inlets and outlets that have a dark fill are signals.

Putting it all together

1. When we click on the ; pd dsp 1 message, audio is started and we can start moving the vertical slider up and down. Floating-point values between 0 and 127 (you can change this by right-clicking the slider and choosing properties, then change bottom and top under output-range) are generated by the slider and …
2. …multiplied by 0.01 to make the effect volume range of the oscillator 0 to 1.27 decibels which is…
3. …multiplied by a 440 cycles-per-second cosine wave generated by the osc~ which…
4. …outputs to our Digital-to-Analog Converter which…
5. …plays a 440 hz tone on our speakers at the volume chosen on the vertical slider until we…
6. …click the ; pd dsp 0 message to stop all audio flow.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this short article gives you a bit of insight into just how simply Pure Data operates. Next time, we’ll take a look at creating some real music with Pure Data.

Usually, their attempts are futile.

Without proper breathing, relaxing can be (read: is) impossible. Breathing, though a semi-automatic function of our bodies, is often overlooked as the most effective way of relaxation.

As described by an author at Zen Habits, six seconds is all it takes to feel AWESOME.

Give it a shot.

It’s a shame that my only post in months (really? months?) is not as full-featured as a normal article, but that will change in the future.

I believe you are the possibility in a thousand pieces
The unlikely question in a dream with seeds
The idea of first impressions after a perfect world starts over
A theological Apple without poison, a glimpse into the life of the wondrous.

You are the serpent, the blood, the teeth
In a society of second-takes and misconceptions
In a box with holes containing Sweet-Tarts
An illusionist only stopping to capture the attention of lovers.

You point out the questions to be answered
While inconsistently loving the soulless
While finding things to play
You find that the seeds have been planted and the dream is over.

All silence, minus a feathered creature.
Pages of a book, turning, examined.
Skin gathers intent interest, studied.
I adjust in my seat, and continue.

A pencil, rocking to and fro;
Distraction ensues, causes for prose.
His book shifts, slightly, breathing.
More low hums, some higher.

It kicks into, idles, generating;
Cold is met with sealed door.
The last remains of thought
Protrude and examine sounds.

A bite. A bit. A slit. Some air.
A small, but quick fish recoils.
Pain probably takes over.
Then came the hook. Removed.
A man has dinner.
Holding pointedly his meal.

Logs sit in deep thought.
Winter fights at the mud. Dried now.
Blazes the fire. Crackling.
Eat your food.
I’m not hungry.
You will need it later.

The hole freezes over. Slowly at first.
Feet of snow cover and freeze.
Cover and freeze.
Small aquatics continue habits.
One escaped thousands remain.
Forgotten pole.

To whom it may concern, my letter begins.
No, no, no, that won’t do, I say.
Audio files fill my screen, blocking out a bird or something.
It looks prettily at me; just sitting there.

Dear Dr. Michaelson; my second attempt.
That sounds better, I think to myself.
Maybe the birdy will provoke thought at me or something.
It fails.

A long thought turns…

The girl runs wildly through her backyard.
Questioning things like life.
Out loud at her mother.
The guardian begins to grow weary of her adolescent’s rambling maw.
It begins to rain, the tin roof now apparent.

…into words, and then a sentence…some commas here and there.
The icons are now more distracting than ever.
“piano thing (dad)” likes to pop out at me.
More is typed.
It…

He began to feel awkwardly all knowing of everything.
A rushing feeling of wellness filled his liver, his lungs, his heart, his frontal lobe.
The turban loosened itself to the heat and the jug of water tipped it’s cap to the need for wetness, challenging the air as it rained.

Will you please be quiet? he blurted.
She stopped typing and his eyelids closed and opened and closed.
His shoulders loosened.

…ends with Thank you for your time and effort
Sincerely, Johnathan Wilings.

Okay, not really. I haven’t gone blind. BUT!

My MacBook Pro’s display has seemingly lost all ability to output video. Now, I still have no qualms with my MBP (MacBook Pro) other than the fact that it may be about 6 days before I get it back from Apple, which I’m perfectly fine with.

About three days ago I was booted into my Windows partition (using Boot Camp) playing games and whatever it is I do on my Windows partition (fapping, etc.). I decided it’d be a good idea to burn a disc so I popped an empty one in my drive. Then it froze. Sweeeeet. I proceeded to restart and go through a number of things that could possibly fix the problem (including a technique called “zapping” that clears the ROM, aka PRAM. sounds scary huh?) but no dice.

Finally, I typed up a nice little report of everything I had done and the findings I came across and drove to the Southcenter Mall Apple Store. Great place really. Very clean and organized. Popular enough, too. There was a counter in the back (the “Genius Bar”, yes, “Genius”) where some employees and customers were chatting and such. The 60″ LCD behind the counter displayed the next 9 people in line (20-minute segments for each). I was number one. My dad and I had arrived 30 minutes early so we bummed around the mall for a bit and came back in time.

When it was my turn I whipped out my MBP and the list of stuff I had assembled. The “Mac Genius” took one look at my list and said, “Most of the people that come here who’ve got working displays haven’t done a twentieth of what you’ve done…and you can’t see anything!” That sort of made my day. :3

It turned out my initial speculation was incorrect. There was a problem with my logic board (aka, motherboard for apple notebooks) that caused the connection to my display to short. So, it had to go in for repairs and should be shipped back to my house within 8 days. Not a bad turnaround, to be honest.

A little bit about me. I’m currently a college student attending Olympic College in Bremerton, Washington while I reside in Longbranch, Washington. I’m generally available via Gtalk or by email anyway.

Oh boy, worth the jump? No.