Puredyne/Making audio

Quick intros to making good sounds on your puredyne system :)

Important: A note about Jack

On Linux there are different "infrastructures" for sound. Some of them are tailored towards everyday basic use, but some are built for professional low-latency work. JACK is in this second category and lots of the audio software described below actually uses JACK for its audio input/output.

For many of these applications it's a good idea to start JACK up first. Go to Menu > Audio > Jack control to launch a graphical controller and then press the big green Start button :)

Specific tools

DJing with Mixxx

Mixxx is free DJ software which does what most DJ software does - it lets you play and mix your music collection live using an interface a lot like a physical decks-and-mixer. So if you're familiar with DJ mixers you'll probably be able to get started straight away - but it's easy - try this:

1. When launched, Mixxx asks where your music collection is. Point it at the folder containing your MP3/Ogg/etc files. (This step is optional)
2. If you have done the above step then your files will be listed in the middle of the Mixxx interface, and you can drag-and-drop your chosen file onto the space at the top where waveforms are shown. (If not then you can use File>Open to choose a track from anywhere you like.)
3. Press the pause/play button for the track (either at the top-left or top-right, depending which of the two channels you put your track in). The music should start playing, and you should see the waveform scrolling past as it plays. (After a short while Mixxx will also try to guess the tempo and will put markers on the waveform showing where it thinks the beats are.)
4. Now with that track playing, you're free to cue up the next track on the other channel. Now you're a DJ.

Programming sound/music with Puredata

Here is a fantastic tutorial on pure data, indeed on making electronic music in general:

[Programming Electronic Music in Pd| http://www.pd-tutorial.com/english/index.html]

Programming sound/music with SuperCollider

SuperCollider is a programming language and a highly-efficient audio engine, which work together to provide a neat way to design real-time music+sound in very flexible ways.

SuperCollider on Linux uses the standard Linux text editors - maybe you're already familiar with vim or emacs or gedit.

1. Make sure JACK is running (see above)
2.  Choose the menu option Menu > Audio > SuperCollider (there's a vim option and an emacs option, choose one)
3. What will happen is that the text editor will launch, as well as a window for supercollider output (in vim it's a separate window, in emacs it's the lower pane of the main window), and also a graphical interface to start/stop the audio server.
4. Press the Boot button to start the audio server running. You should see output messages as this happens.
5. Run some code. For example, in the empty document window type:
   {SinOsc.ar(MouseX.kr(100, 1000))}.play
   Then with your cursor in the same line as that text press F6 (on vim) or Ctrl+C Ctrl+X (on emacs), which should run the command and make some audio output - a mouse-controlled sine wave.

To get further into SuperCollider see the help documentation, or search the web for tutorials...