Pure Data Basics & Digital Audio Fundamentals

We are about to go on an adventure in which we will learn about the art of synthesis using the open source programming environment, Pure Data. PD is a free download and is a very wide-open creative environment for artists to create all things audio and MIDI. It is a great way to learn synthesis as it allows you to build synthesizer components from the ground up to truly know what they are and how they function. This series is dedicated to teaching the fundamentals of synthesis so that one will be able to apply this knowledge to any software or even analog hardware synthesizer in the future. In this series, the learning of Pure Data and synthesis is made easy. This episode goes over some of the basics of PD so that one can become more comfortable with the software. Additionally, digital audio fundamentals are covered, specifically sampling rate. This episode shows how sampling sound is a process of converting electrical signal into digital information that can then be managed and visualized in a waveform display. Digital audio is composed of numbers that store the information of the waveform of the sound that was sampled.

This is the first step in a long journey in learning about Pure Data as well as the art of synthesis. Each step, however, is very important because one needs to have a foundation to stand upon in order to learn more material. This series focuses on fundamentals in that one can learn from this series and apply the knowledge to other software as well as physical hardware. The terminology in this series helps the viewer to understand the essential language to understanding the subject. The viewer will also truly understand the material because one has to apply the knowledge by actually building synthesizer components.