Introduction to synthesis with Pure Data
![jake-rayson.png](https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/resize/9c0ec531cfd82490185a8a2627df5d2f36791cba/2014/07/22/2a5985bf-1175-11e4-9732-00505685119a/jake-rayson.png?auto=webp&fit=crop&frame=1&height=192&width=192)
A shameless plug for a good man’s book!
I met Andy Farnell because he was leading an audio synthesis session at a Pure Data workshop run by Goto10 (who are purveyors of a fine multi-media Linux distribution called pure:dyne).
For those that don’t know, Pure Data is a high-level realtime audio & video programming environment, created originally by Miller Puckette who also created the similar MAX/MSP. It is a fantastic environment to create your own audio effects, instruments and sounds. And, thankfully, it is Free Open Source Software.
Andy Farnell has written a book called Designing Sound, and there is a free excerpt available to download. It is a thorough and engaging introduction to using Pure Data for synthesis (creating sounds computationally rather than from samples).
If you are interested in creating sound effects, music, synthesisers or just have a plain healthy interest in things you don’t know about, download a copy today!
For me, myself, I’m interested in creating an audio application that makes it easy to split up and save out snippets from radio shows that I download.