Building your own instrument with Pd
Hans-Christoph Steiner · 2005
Computer music performance environments have evolved greatly in recent years, allowing complex control and inter-action with sound in real time. But the interaction has too frequently been tied to the keyboard-mouse-monitor model, narrowly constraining the range of possible gestures the per-former can use. The range of human interface devices has also greatly increased, making it much easier for the com-puter musician to capture a broader range of gestures. Pd provides an ideal platform for this work, combining sound and visual synthesis and control with easy access to many external devices for interfacing with humans. Pd is a high level programming language, making it usable by people of varying technical skill. This paper provides an overview of the numerous methods of interfaces with humans using Pd.