The Post-Logic Saga Part 3: Pure Data

2025-12-24

Well as you may have seen, I released an album recently, Peace And Love In Planet Earth. I am disappointed in myself for "giving in" and creating that album using logic, but that disappointment has filled me with determination to move beyond that software. I have often been vaguely fascinated by max msp and puredata, but it's very intimidating. If you don't know what those are, they're basically visual programming languages for sound. This time, I decided to stick with it, helped out by doing a lot of the sequencing in orca and sending midi to pure data. Sequencing inside puredata is very much possible, but IMO it's not what it's best at, whereas orca is designed just for all kinds of strange and wonderful sequencing and nothing else. I was just using very basic stuff in orca though, because I just wanted to focus on figuring out pure data. So far, I'd say it's very similar to working with a modular synth in general, if you understand the principles of synthesis and have worked in modular before, it's mostly just a matter of learning the names of things and the nitty gritty of how they work, but I'd say the skills are pretty transferable. So my time spent in VCV rack was well spent.

This "it's kind of like a modular synth" thing is also a problem though. That is, it's very easy to make "modularcore". If you've ever been on electronic music forums and stuff like that you know exactly what i'm talking about. It's very closely related to "livecodingcore". Modularcore, when it sounds good, sounds like some AFX analord shit, and livecodingcore, when it sounds good, is autechre or gabor lazar. But it's very easy to get lost in the sauce. Shitty livecoding or modular synth jams are way more fun to make than they are to listen to, they're overly repetitive because it takes physically too long to change variables, but also they have way too much probablistic or random variation contrasting with the repetition so you get something that lacks any sort of structure. But not in an interesting way. Another thing is generally poor mixing, since it's much more of a hassle to actually deal with levels and EQ than it is in a DAW. Finally, despite the fact that people get into this stuff because they want to get more creative with sound design, it's really easy to end up with synths that sound like stock plugin presets that come with your DAW because doing anything interesting is way more complicated when you can't just let vital do all the work for you.

Just in summation, what I said earlier, these things are way more fun to make than they are to listen to, it's like the electronic music version of a jam band. And that's fine, but I do actually want a recording as an end product which I can release and sounds good.

This is just a thing. Trackers "want" to make jungle, fl studio "wants" to make trap, tidal cycles "wants" to make pretty bad techno or generic generative ambient, guitar "wants" to make bluesy stuff, etc etc. Your tools will make certain directions easier, and it requires active effort to push against what's easiest, or to mix-and-match your tools such that each component of your workflow is playing to it's strengths. IE, if you want to make 90s jungle, you could just open up your regular DAW and probably get there, but you could also just use the software they used in the 90s when the music was invented, and suddenly, things like pitch sliding snare rolls make sense as intuitive effects which come naturally as a result or the way trackers work, rather than just blindly recreating something you've heard devoid of the context surrounding it's production. Use the right tools for the job is pretty much what I'm saying here, not exactly a revelation.

Well, I'm going to keep experimenting, I've only been using pure data for like 2.5 days so it's not like I've exactly explored all the possibilities. Another idea, something I believe is fairly common, is to just do sound design in pure data then sample the audio do the arrangement it in some other program. I'll have to give that a try as well. There's definitely something here, I am having a lot of fun, it's like the fun of tinkering with a tech project combined with the fun of making music, so I'm sure I'll end up with something cool given enough time. Well, here's a little grime inspired beat I made today using orca and puredata.

Hats are just noise with an envelope going into delays on the left and right channels respectively, with the delay time set super short and randomised each time the signal is received to get that glitchy resonant sound. Then the kick I just found on youtube, sounds pretty sick. The clap is a sample with randomised reverb. The main synth / bass is 3 fm synths, one center then a left and right one each slightly detuned to give stereo effect, with certain parameters of the fm being modulated by the envelope, and a little bit of distortion with the clip~ object. Oh there's also just a basic sine wave as a sub in there too, but it's too quiet. The clap is also too quiet. Well it was just an experiment really. All being controlled with super basic orca sequences because I'm lazy. You might be surprised that I went with this grime / trap inspired type beat, well this was after making a lot of "shitty autechre ripoff without any of the skill or creativity of autechre vaguely ambient vaguely generative" sounding stuff that was fun to make but did not sound good. The basic structure of the FM synth I also found on youtube, that channel has by far the best pd tutorials btw.

Well, the quest continues.