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Re: [sc-users] How did you learn SC? (was: Textures, drones)

Hi,

Yet one more DXARTS-er here and also ex-sonologist, couldn't help but join in.

I started making electronic music with whatever commercial software I could get my hands on around 1999, finding many dead-ends very fast, and trying to find (usually painful) workarounds. In 2003, I came to the Netherlands for the Sonology course and got heavily into Max/MSP. As far as I remember, there were only two serious Supercollider-ists back then, Jan and Zlatko, and not much 'official' talk about it. Next year, when I started my Master's, Sergio and Alo came along (hey guys :-) ), but I had started sinking many hours into Max (4.3), finishing a very big modular system with which, after thousands of hours of development, I was very, very happy. I had a love-hate relationship with Max, but I still thought the insane acrobatics I had to push it through to get things done was the norm. After I graduated I sunk a couple more thousands of hours to update to the Intel architecture and re-do the whole thing better and yet bigger, taking advantage of the java integration. However, I never got around to actually putting it all together, frustrated by Max's instabilities, slowness, and the ever-present acrobatics.
My conversion point was meeting Richard Karpen and Josh, when I was considering moving to Seattle for my PhD. It took them about 5 minutes (at the Van Gogh museum!) to succesfully plant the idea on my head that it was time to move to SC. After my first month of classes with Master Josh 2 years ago I knew I 'd never look back. (A favourite shocking moment was when trying to port a rather complex module from my Max system was told how to do it in 3 lines of code!)
It helps a lot being in a true community and having gurus around - last year I TAed for Josh and Juan Pampin, learned yet more and researched a lot getting a ton of information by reading this list and going through the archives, and ended up teaching an advanced summer class on SC, to some on the people on this list too (hello guys :-) ).

For me, there are two really great things about SC: Its community, and the fact that you can make art with it in ways you wouldn't otherwise be able even when you're a beginner.


Stelios


On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 7:14 PM, Miguel Negrao <miguel.negrao-lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi

My story:

I was into dreammy rock and post production, while at the same time doing first a bachelors in physics and latter switched to maths (physics wasn’t rigorous enough...). Then I got to know max/msp, started using it a lot. First time I heard of sc, I downloaded it, opened it and a blank window came up. I though it was the most ridiculous program I had ever seen, couldn’t do anything with it, I just closed it and didn’t touch for one year or so. Then I enrolled in the sonology course in Den Haag. 
  By chance the supercollider symposium (2007) was happening just when I got there (september, I think), and I went there. It seemed quite interesting stuff, and in fact I already knew a bit of c, c++, java. I learned the basics in about one month following the symposium, and from then on it’s the only thing I’ve used for my sound work !!!
 
There’s a lot of sc users at sonology (or ex-sonologists) like Jacob, Yota, Wouter, etc.





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Stelios Manousakis
www.modularbrains.net
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