Copyright © 2017-2024 Alexandre Torres Porres and others

This work is free. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License, Version 2, as published by Sam Hocevar. See License.txt https://github.com/porres/pd-else/blob/master/License.txt and http://www.wtfpl.net/ for more details

For details on authorship check the source code. Other licenses also apply for specific objects and this is also informed in the source code. For instance:

• [beat~], [sfont~], [giga.rev~] and [lua] are licensed under the GNU GPL library
• [sfz~] and band limited oscillators like [bl.saw~] are licensed under the BSD 2-Clause library
• [plaits~], [osc.format], [osc.parse] and [osc.route] are licensed under the MIT library

ELSE comes with a Live Electronics tutorial as part of its documentation written by Alexandre Torres Porres, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons (CC} License.

For copies of the licenses and the terms, please check the 'license' subfolder.

This version of ELSE needs Pd 0.54-1 or above.

ELSE is a big library of externals that extends the performance Pure Data (Pd) - Miller S. Puckette's realtime computer music environment (download Pd from: http://msp.ucsd.edu/software.html).

ELSE provides a cohesive system for computer music, it also serves as a basis for an Live Electronics Tutorial by the same author, yours truly, Alexandre Torres Porres. This library's repository resides at https://github.com/porres/pd-else/. This tutorial is also found as part of the download of the ELSE library. Look for the 'Live-Electronics-Tutorial' folder inside it and also check its README on how to install it.

ELSE is also part of PlugData by Timothy Schoen, which is a fork of Pd that loads as a standalone or VST with a revamped GUI. ELSE has received collaboration from Tim and others involved with PlugData and many objects have been included in ELSE just so they are supported in PlugData. ​See: https://github.com/timothyschoen/PlugData

This project is still in an experimental phase (currently at a 'release candidate' phase), where changes may occur and backwards compatibility is not guaranteed until a final and more stable release is available.

You can get ELSE from https://github.com/porres/pd-else/releases - where all releases are available, but ELSE is also found via Pd's external manager (In Pd, just go for Help => Find Externals and search for 'else'). In any case, you should download the folder to a place Pd automatically searches for, and the common place is the ~/Documents/Pd/externals folder. Instructions on how to install and build ELSE are provided below.

This library runs in Pd Vanilla and do I still need to say it doesn't run in the long dead "Pd Extended"? Neither its new (and unfortunate) reincarnations "Pd-L2ork/Purr Data". Nevertheless, it can run in other forks that are actually compatible to Vanilla, most notably, ELSE is included in the PlugData fork --> https://github.com/timothyschoen/PlugData and you don't need to install it there.

ELSE comes mostly as a set of separate binaries and abstractions, which work if you just add the 'else' folder to the path via "Preferences => Path" or via [declare -path else]. Nonetheless, you must also load ELSE as a library via "Preferences => Startup" or [declare -lib else].

Loading the library loads an object browsing plugin. It also registers a loader that allows Pd externals written in Lua (with the "*.pd_lua" extension) to be loaded. Some objects in ELSE are coded in lua, like the [lua] object itself. Loading the library also prints information of what version of ELSE you have when you open Pd. Check else-help.pd for more details.

ELSE relies on the build system called "pd-lib-builder" by Katja Vetter (check the project in: https://github.com/pure-data/pd-lib-builder). PdLibBuilder tries to find the Pd source directory at several common locations, but when this fails, you have to specify the path yourself using the pdincludepath variable. Example (assuming the unpacked Pd package is in ~/pd-0.54-1; for Windows/MinGW add pdbinpath=~/pd-0.54-1/bin/):

make pdincludepath=~/pd-0.54-1/src/

Go to the pd-else folder and use "objectsdir" to set an absolute path for your build, something like:

make install objectsdir=~/else-build

Then move it from there to your preferred install folder for Pd and add it to the path.

Cross compiling is also possible with something like this

make CC=arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc target.arch=arm7l install objectsdir=~/else-build

For technical reasons these objects reside in their own subdirectories of the ELSE source directory, so a normal build as described above will skip them. You cam install these separately and you can also check their subfolders for their own READMEs and instructions.

To install them with the rest of ELSE you can build from the toplevel source directory using the special 'sfont', 'sfz' 'plaits' and 'circuit' targets, such as:

make sfz plaits pdincludepath=~/pd-0.54-1/src/

make sfz-install plaits-install objectsdir=~/else-build

For [sfont~] you should do the same but you also must run a script in the sfont subfolder to copy the needed dependencies, check its readme for more details.

"EL Locus Solus" is run by yours truly, Alexandre Torres Porres, and it organizes cultural events/concerts and computer music courses (http://alexandre-torres.wixsite.com/el-locus-solus ). The course uses Porres' Live Electronics Tutorial as a main textbook. The tutorial is here: https://github.com/porres/Live-Electronic-Music-Tutorial. This tutorial solely depends on the ELSE library and is a great didactic companion to this library. Both the library and the tutorial are provided as a single download, directly via Pure Data or GitHub.

The examples from the first incarnation of this tutorial were first developed for the now abandoned Pd Extended, making extensive use of the existing objects available in Pd Extended's libraries. Even though Pd Extended had many externals, there was the need at some point for something "else" - thus, this library emerged with the goal of providing more objects to include missing functionalities in the Pd Ecosystem.

But the library grew to encompass functionalities found in other Pd objects/libraries from old Pd Extended as well, with a different design and more functionalities. This was done in order to remove ALL the dependencies of the didactic material from these other libraries - with the goal to rely on just a single library that's alive (in active development) instead of many projects that are now long gone abandoned or not receiving much attention. I'm also involved in maintaining Cyclone, a legacy library for Pd (see: https://github.com/porres/pd-cyclone). But ELSE also superseeds cyclone for the purposes of this didactic material. See below in this document a list of alternatives to Cyclone provided by ELSE.

The goal of ELSE also outgrew the didactic material as it now includes objects not necessarily depicted in the computer music examples. Moreover, even basic elements from Pd Vanilla are being redesigned into new objects. So that's it, ELSE is becoming a quite big library and keeps growing and growing. A recent addition to it is 'M.E.R.D.A' a set of abstractions inspired by EuroRack modules.

ELSE has been in active development since early 2017 for real, but it hasn't stabilized into a final version yet. The aim is to do so as soon as PlugData's 1.0 version comes out! For now, it's at a "Release Candidate" stage of development, where changes may occur and backwards compatibility is not guaranteed until a final release is available.

Flávio Luis Schiavoni helped me out in a few things when I first started coding and collaborated with the objects: [median~] and [keyboard].

I'd also like to thank my Cyclone buddies Derek Kwan and Matt Barber, cause I started learning how to code externals with them as part of the cyclone team. Other developers of cyclone need to be praised, like Czaja, the original author, as I did steal quite a bit from cyclone into ELSE. I'd like to give a special thanks for Matt Barber for developing the "magic" in cyclone that I'm using here and also collaborating to ELSE with the objects: [float2bits], [brown~], [gray~], [perlin~], [pink~] and [blip~].

Lucarda is an active tester and has helped countless times with compilation issues for windows and more. Seb shader is a tcl/tk master that helped me a lot with this (which I know next to nothing) and is responsible for the [keycode] object.

Kudos and thanks to my buddy Esteban Viveros for helping with the compilation of ELSE for other systems as well as ELSE for Camomile and libpd projects, which opened the way for PlugData by Timothy Schoen, who's doing an amazing jaw dropping job with this project based on camomile that includes ELSE. Timothy has also helped me fix many ELSE related issues and has made incredible and countless contributions to ELSE. Other folks from the PlugData gang are being very helpful like Alex Mitchell and Amy. PlugData is a fork of Pd with a revamped GUI and comes with the ELSE library. See: https://github.com/timothyschoen/PlugData.

#assorted else

#gui knob numbox~ drum.seq bicoeff pad messbox mtx.ctl biplot zbiplot pic colors function circle slider2d display out.mc~ out~ out4~ out8~ gain~ gain2~ button keyboard graph~ range.hsl multi.vsl spectrograph~ meter~ meter2~ meter4~ meter8~ note mix2~ mix4~ setdsp~ openfile scope~ scope3d~

#time chrono datetime

#fft hann~ bin.shift~

#table buffer tabgen tabreader tabreader~

#tuning/notes scales scale2freq scala autotune autotune2 makenote2 retune eqdiv cents2scale scale2cents cents2frac frac2cents dec2frac frac2dec freq2midi midi2freq note2midi midi2note notedur2ratio

#patch/subpatch management loadbanger args meter presets dollsym sender receiver retrieve dispatch var send2~ blocksize~ nop~ click properties fontsize canvas.active canvas.bounds canvas.gop canvas.pos canvas.edit canvas.vis canvas.name canvas.setname canvas.zoom abs.pd~ sendmidi

#message management format swap2 nmess unite separate symbol2any any2symbol changed hot initmess message default pack2 pick limit spread router route2 routeall routetype selector stack store morph interpolate sig2float~ float2sig~ pipe2

#list management break order combine delete remove equal group iterate insert scramble sort reverse rotate replace sum slice stream merge unmerge amean gmean list.inc

#file management dir

#midi midi midi.learn midi.in midi.out sysrt.in sysrt.out ctl.in ctl.out touch.in touch.out ptouch.in ptouch.out pgm.in pgm.out nemd.in bend.out note.in note.out midi.clock noteinfo panic mono mono~ voices voices~ suspedal

#osc osc.route osc.format osc.parse osc.send osc.receive

#math functions add add~ median avg mov.avg count gcd lcm frac.add frac.mul ceil ceil~ factor floor floor~ trunc trunc~ rint rint~ quantizer quantizer~ fold fold~ lastvalue mag mag~ sin~ wrap2 wrap2~ op op~

#math conversion hex2dec dec2hex bpm car2pol car2pol~ cents2ratio cents2ratio~ ms2samps ms2samps~ db2lin db2lin~ float2bits hz2rad lin2db lin2db~ deg2rad rad2deg pz2coeff coeff2pz rad2hz ratio2cents ratio2cents~ samps2ms samps2ms~ pol2car pol2car~ rescale recale~

#math: constant values sr~ nyquist~ pi e

#logic loop

#audio multichannel tools nchs~ sigs~ repeat~ select~ pick~ get~ sum~ merge~ unmerge~ slice~

#analog circuitry emulation circuit~

#scripting lua

#fx: assorted downsample~ conv~ chorus~ shaper~ crusher~ drive~ power~ flanger~ freq.shift~ pitch.shift~ stretch.shift~ stretch.shift~ ping.pong~ rm~ tremolo~ vibrato~ vocoder~ morph~ freeze~ pvoc.freeze~ phaser~

#fx: delay del~ fbdelay~ ffdelay~ revdelay~ filterdelay~

#fx: dynamics compress~ duck~ expand~ noisegate~ norm~

#fx: reverberation allpass.rev~ comb.rev~ echo.rev~ mono.rev~ stereo.rev~ free.rev~ giga.rev~ plate.rev~ fdn.rev~

#fx: filters allpass.2nd~ allpass.filt~ bitnormal~ comb.filt~ lop.bw~ hip.bw~ biquads~ bandpass~ bandstop~ crossover~ bpbank~ bicoeff2 brickwall~ eq~ highpass~ highshelf~ lop2~ lowpass~ lowshelf~ mov.avg~ resonbank~ resonbank2~ vcf2~ resonant~ resonant2~ svfilter~

#sampling, playing, granulation player~ gran.player~ pvoc.player~ pvoc.live~ batch.rec~ bach.write~ rec.file~ play.file~ tabplayer~ tabwriter~ sample~

#synthesis: synthesizers pm2~ pm4~ pm6~ sfont~ sfz~ plaits~ synth~

#synthesis: granular grain.synth~

#synthesis: physical modeling pluck~

#synthesis: oscillators cosine~ impulse~ impulse2~ parabolic~ pulse~ saw~ saw2~ oscbank~ oscbank2~ oscnoise~ sine~ square~ tri~ gaussian~ vsaw~ fm~ pm~ wavetable~ wt2d~ blip~ bl.osc~ bl.imp~ bl.imp2~ bl.saw~ bl.saw2~ bl.square~ bl.tri~ bl.vsaw~ bl.wavetable~ damp.osc~

#synthesis: chaotic, stochastic, noise white~ brown~ perlin~ crackle~ cusp~ fbsine~ fbsine2~ gbman~ gray~ henon~ ikeda~ latoocarfian~ lorenz~ lfnoise~ lincong~ logistic~ quad~ stepnoise~ rampnoise~ randpulse~ randpulse2~ standard~ pink~ xmod~ xmod2~ gendyn~

#control: mouse/keyboard mouse canvas.mouse keycode keymap keypress

#control: fade/pan/routing euclid fader~ autofade~ autofade.mc~ autofade2~ autofade2.mc~ balance~ pan~ pan.mc~ pan2~ pan4~ spread~ spread.mc~ rotate~ rotate.mc~ xfade~ xfade.mc~ xgate~ xgate.mc~ xgate2~ xgate2.mc~ xselect~ xselect.mc~ xselect2~ xselect2.mc~ mtx~ mtx.mc~

#control: sequencers score score2 pattern list.seq sequencer sequencer~ phaseseq~ impseq~ rec rec2

#control: envelopes adsr~ asr~ decay~ decay2~ envelope~ envgen~

#control: ramp/line/curve generators {amp~ susloop~ function~ slew slew~ slew2 slew2~ lag~ lag2~ glide glide~ glide2 glide2~

#control: random/stochastic rand.f rand.f~ rand.i rand.i~ rand.list rand.u rand.dist rand.hist histogram markov drunkard drunkard~ brown randpulse randpulse2 lfnoise stepnoise rampnoise

#control: control rate lfo lfo phasor pimp impulse pulse

#control: triggers above above~ bangdiv chance chance~ dust~ dust2~ gatehold~ gate2imp~ pimp~ pimpmul~ pulsecount~ pulsediv~ sh~ schmitt schmitt~ status status~ trig.delay~ trig.delay2~ toggleff~ timed.gate timed.gate~ match~ trig2bang trig2bang~ trighold~

#control: triggers, clock clock metronome metronome~ polymetro polymetro~ speed tempo tempo~

#analysis changed~ changed2~ detect~ lastvalue~ median~ peak~ tap range range~ maxpeak~ rms~ mov.rms~ vu~ zerocross~ beat~

(Modular EuroRacks Dancing Along)

A submodule of ELSE by Porres (this is also by Porres).

#classic adsr.m~ lfo.m~ seq8.m~ vca.m~ vcf.m~ vco.m~

#FX chorus.m~ delay.m~ drive.m~ flanger.m~ phaser.m~ plate.rev.m~ rm.m~

#oscillators gendyn.m~ plaits.m~ pluck.m~ pm6.m~

#tools presets.m sig.m~

#extra brane.m~

ALTERNATIVES TO CYCLONE

ELSE offers alternatives to objects from the Cyclone library (a library that clones objects from MAX/MSP). The objects that have no similar counterpart in ELSE (at least so far) are: anal / buddy / capture / capture~ / coll / cycle / decide / decode / frameaccum~ / framedelta~ / funbuff / funnel / flush / forward / kink~ / linedrive / prob / match / maximum / minimum / mousefilter / next / offer / peak / prob / pv / spray / substitute / teeth~ / trough / universal / vectral~

But, here are some considerations:

• maximum/minimum => [array max] [array min] (you need to set an array with the list)
• for [capture~] you can use [print~]
• for [kink~] you can use [function~] (and [function])
• [spike~] => [else/status~] + [else/detect~] => [threshold~] + [timer]
• [anal] is usually used with [prob] for markov chains, but you can use [else/markov] instead
• [teeth~] is just a comb reverberator which can be constructed with [else/ffdelay~] + [else/fbdelay~]
• [forward] => just message boxes with ";"
• [flush] => [poly] has a flush option, so does [else/voices]
• for [coll], you can use [text] which miller considers is a better design, but it's simpler.

Alternatives:

• 2d.wave~ => else/wt2d~ (sort of)
• +=~ / [plusequals~] => else/add~
• operators >~ / <~ / %~ / etc => else/op~ => [expr~]
• bitwise operators (bitand~ / bitor~, etc) => [expr~]
• accum => else/add -acos/acosh/acos~/acos~/asin/asin~/atan~/atan2~/asin/asinh~/cosh/cosh~/cosx~/sinh/sinh~/sinx~/tanh/tanh~/tanx~ => [expr]/[expr~]
• active => else/canvas.active
• append => [list append]
• atob/atodb~/dbtoa/dbtoa~ => db2lin/lin2db/db2lin~/lin2db/~
• bangbang => else/loadbanger => trigger
• borax / else/noteinfo
• average~ / avg~ => else/mov.avg~
• bondo => else/hot
• buffer~ => else/sample~
• buffir~ => else/conv~
• counter => else/count
• changed => else/changed~
• click~ => else/impseq~
• clip/clip~ => clip/clip~
• comb~ => else/comb.rev~
• count~ => else/ramp~
• cross~ => else/crossover~
• cycle~ => else/wavetable~ => tabosc4~
• curve~ => else/envgen~
• cartopol/poltocar/cartopol~/poltocar~ => else car2pol/pol2car/car2pol~/pol2car~
• degrade~ => else/crusher~
• drunk => else/drunkard
• delay~ => else/ffdelay~
• delta~ => [rzero~ 1]
• deltaclip~ => else/slew~ => slop~
• downsamp~ => else/downsample~
• edge~ => else/status~ => threshold~
• fromsymbol => else/symbol2any / else/separate
• grab => else/retrieve
• gate => else/router
• gate~ => else/xgate~
• histo => else/histogram
• index~ => else/ramp~
• iter => else/iterate
• join => else/merge
• listfunnel => else/order
• loadmess => else/initmess
• line~ => else/envgen~ => vline~
• lookup~ => else/shaper~
• lores~ => else/lowpass~
• mean => else/mov.avg
• matrix~ => else/mtx~
• maximum~/minimum~ => max~/min~/expr~ (totally unnecessary external)
• minmax~ => else/range~
• mstosamps~/samps2ms~ => else/ms2samps ms2samps~ samps2ms samps2ms~
• midiflush => else/panic
• midiformat/midiparse => midi in/out objects (else/note.in/note.out, etc)
• mtr => else/rec
• mousestate => else/mouse
• onebang => else/nmess
• onepole~ => lop~
• overdrive~ => else/drive~
• peakamp~ => else/peak~
• pak => else/pack2
• past => else/above
• peek~ => tabwrite
• phaseshift~ => else/allpass.2nd~
• phasewrap~ => else/wrap2~ => wrap~
• pink~ => else/pinknoise~
• play~ => else/tabplayer~
• poke~ => else/tabwriter~
• pong/pong~ => else/fold / else/wrap2 / else/fold~ / else/wrap2~
• pow~ => pow~ (totally unnecessary external)
• prepend => else/insert => [list prepend]
• round / round~ => else/quantizer / else/quantizer~
• rand~ => else/rampnoise~
• record~ => else/tabwriter~
• reson~ => else/bandpass~
• scale / scale~ => else/rescale / else/rescale~
• seq => else/midi
• speedlim => else/limit
• spell => [list fromsymbol]
• split => else/spread
• sprintf => else/format => makefilename
• sustain => else/suspedal
• switch => else/selector
• sah~ => else/sh~ => samphold~
• selector~ => else/xselect~
• slide~ => else/lag2~
• snapshot~ => else/s2f~ => snapshot~
• svf~ => else/svfilter~
• table => array
• tanh~ (again) => else/drive~
• thresh~ => else/schmitt~
• train~ => else/pulse~
• trapezoid~ => else/envelope~
• triangle~ => else/vsaw~
• trunc~ => else/trunc~
• thresh => else/combine
• togedge => else/status
• tosymbol => else/any2symbol / else/unite
• unjoin => else/unmerge
• urn => else/rand.seq
• uzi => else/loop
• xbendin/sbendin2/xbendout/xbenout2 => else/bend.in / else/bend.out
• xnotein/xnoteout => else/note.in / else/note.out
• wave~ => else/wavetable~
• zerox~ => else/zerocross~
• zl => several dedicated objects include functionalities from it, such as: else/group, else/scramble, else/sort, else/reverse, else/rotate, else/sum, else/slice and else/stream

GUI:

• scope~ => else/scope~ (not the same but quite similar)
• comment => else/note (actually, comment is deprecated and based on else’s [note] now.