Specifications

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CHAPTER 1
Introduction to
PDF Pure Data guide
This is a an exc e rpt from the textbook “Designing Sound”. Sev-
eral years a go when I discovered the amazing P ure Data so ftware
I instantly knew it would be the vehicle for a book I was planning
about sound design. Synthesis and advanced proce ssing opens up
a world of possibilities, limited only by imagination. But how can
these be taught? How can they even b e expressed? Sound design
is often la belled a ‘Black Art’, not because designers cling to secret
knowledge, but because of its ineffability, the paucity of language
and expression. Until I discovered Pure Data my repe rtoire of tech-
niques for game, TV and radio sound effects was a mish mash of
ideas spanning dozens of applicatio ns . To demonstrate them would
need volumes of scr e enshots and extended writing about proprietary
applications that would certainly change and render the instructions
worthless. Here at last was a coherent framework that could express
complex ideas in a way that anyone could read. It was like a story
teller suddenly dis covering the written word, or a mathematician
who had never seen w ritten notation before .
One massive strength of Pure Data is that it’s open sour ce software.
That means it’s maintained and updated by an army of individuals
motiva ted only by their love of the software and its value to us
all. In addition to my gratitude to Miller Puckette for the fact
that Pure Data even exists I am a bsolutely indebted to the Pure
Data co mmunity. This textbook would simply not exist without
the enormous help I have received from that community. Fro m the
start it has been my intention to return that energy. I began in
2005 to write tutorials about making sound effects using Pure Data
and publishing them on a website http://obiwannabe.co.uk/. The
website is now approaching its one millionth unique visitor.
Eventually it became apparent that the goals of documenting Pure
Data for use in sound design, and the goals of writing about sound