Staying Safe When Audio Programming (Don’t Look for Pure Data Reverb!)

The search for Pure Data reverb externals led to an unexpected journey...

[@SoundSimulator]

This video sometimes get misunderstood so I'll clarify the intention. I made this video to simply show new Pure Data users that loud noise can happen and let them know about precautions that they can take. Please don't ever forget that you were a beginner at one point too! And take a look at the other comments here. There are other victims of this reverb externals. And there was a comment about blown out speakers. This video is for preventing future accidents like these! Thank you for reading this and watching the video.

[@robgreenlandMusic]

this is the first comment I will make having watched a fair few of your videos, I cannot agree more with the concepts and idea of promoting safety in such an earnest way. 100% agree with everything and have had the un-nerving experience of doing similar things at 3am on my old macbook, with sleeping children...Pd programming became quite unpopular in my house after that!

[@SoundSimulator]

@@robgreenlandMusic Thank you so much for your understanding. I greatly appreciate it. And thanks for sharing your experience! I'm sure it was an awkward and loud moment...

[@benjaminquiedeville4476]

Loud noises are common things in Pure Data, the best basic thing to do is to use the [clip~ -1 1] just before the [dac~] or the final gain stage to limit the sound in a certain range. In a first place it's a verry good thing to do along a high pass at 3Hz [hip~ 3] to avoid offset that can damage speakers You can also build a subpatch that reads the output signal and spams the console if it gets above the limit fixed by [clip~] And finally put all this in an abstraction that you use every time in order not to forget it Important video about safety on Pure Data, Max, but also every DAW when experimenting

[@SoundSimulator]

Thank you so much for your insight, Benjamin!! These are valuable information. Didn't know about the [hip~ 3] precaution, and I'll definitely have to recreate that subpatch which shuts off DSP if the output goes above a threshold.

[@benjaminquiedeville4476]

I thougth about it again : You can send your master to an [env~] and test if it's above a value that is dangerous, and with a [select] object you can bang a procedure to shut off the dsp

[@OPdbx]

@@benjaminquiedeville4476 this is what I was considering after giving it more thought. This would be a simple and good approach 👍

[@benjaminquiedeville4476]

[clip~ -1 1] is a very good friend along with [trigger] Don't hesitate to go to the Pure Data Discord server, they have very good advice and help

[@woomlrweiriwueiru]

@@benjaminquiedeville4476 how could [trigger] possibly be useful in this case?

[@isweartofuckinggod]

This is why I ALWAYS have a limiter at the end of my signal chain no matter what.

[@SoundSimulator]

limiter is a life-saver. or at least it prevents tinnitus.

[@woomlrweiriwueiru]

Positive feedback loops can happen in virtually any system. Don't scare people off pd! And please continue making videos about it. I quite enjoy them.

[@SoundSimulator]

Thank you! And no worries, I'll continue making Pure Data tutorials! Working on one right now/ I don't mean to scare people from learning it, but I did want to bring awareness.

[@lotizorro]

I decided to learn Pure Data today!- thank you so much for making these tutorials, I hadn't thought this could be dangerous so it's great for me to start taking these precautions from early on Keep it up :)

[@SoundSimulator]

I'm happy to hear that you're starting the journey!!! And I'm relieved to know that this video reached you early on! I hope you enjoy learning Pure Data!!

[@CarloCattano]

My left speaker was blown broken by experimenting with kinect and max msp mappings to Audio synthesis... Still broken and didn't repair it. Stays as an annoying reminder to triple check this kind of things. Loving your videos!

[@SoundSimulator]

I'm sorry to hear about the gear damage. I have to admit, I often overlook the fact that loud Max experiments can break speakers, so it's good to know. Your experience will help others become more aware and save their gears. Thank you for sharing your story!

[@ivoryvignettes]

I want to get started with Pure Data very soon, so I'm super happy I came across this video! Almost really hurt my ear when I tried something else - good reminder. Love your passion behind these videos !

[@SoundSimulator]

I'm glad you found this video as you're starting on the journey!! Stay safe and have fun!!

[@Looki2000]

But wait. Does that mean that any software is able to bypass master system volume?

[@aliazca3999]

Well, it's important to have the audio interface or mixer nearby for avoid that a sudden loudness. I have one experience when I'm performing/practicing live coding audio, sometimes I type a wrong number and yeah all of sudden is really blow out the ear, quickly I response to shut the volume by turning down the master knob of my audio interface and mute my audio system using my default laptop keyboard system (this is for anticipating if same thing happen if I perform in online gigs). It's really important to know the safety procedure, I know sometimes when experiment on something can be so wild, but safety is number one. It's not only hurt you, it can be affecting people around you (maybe your working partner, audiences, etc). taking this note for remind my self too. thanks for sharing this!

[@SoundSimulator]

Thank you so much for sharing your experience and consideration for others! This video certainly applies to live coding too. The experience that led to this video was an important reminder to me, so I'm glad that this video served as a reminder to you as well!

[@aliazca3999]

@@SoundSimulator thank you too for sharing this! I think this video is also for people that do experimenting with audio too. It can be general too. Thanks for creating this! Keep it safe and sound! (literally) Hahaha

[@Thomas_Hogsplitter]

Great video as always! Lookig forward th next week's video, as a DAW user for years, having VST's inside pd will make it feel much closer to home, maybe having a brickwall limiter vst right before dac~ could be another solution to the loud noise problem! Edit: im just reading the comments on the clip~ object... good to know!

[@SoundSimulator]

Thank you! And I'm glad to hear that you're excited for next week's video! Definitely, using a VST limiter is a great idea!

[@eti313]

Some years back I bought volume limiting earbuds,. They're designed for kids but work for adults, too. I dug them out after seeing your warning.

[@SoundSimulator]

That sounds super useful for adult audio programmers! I need to look into them

[@paulwomack5866]

Some kind of function like the old NAD 3020 amplifier had would be helpful. It soft-clipped (effectively non linear transfer as the signal approached the set limit) AND it showed a "clipping" LED when this happened. The soft clipping not only sounded "gentler", but it also prevented a sudden transfer of power from the bass to the treble (which is a good way to blow your tweeter). Hard clipping will instantly add a massive high frequency component when it happens...

[@droussel7359]

I like that plugdata has a clip built right in and enabled by default! Would be nice if there was an option for the same in the original pd.

[@OPdbx]

I've been studying reverb using pure data as I'd like to create my own. I've fallen victim to the dreaded pd feedback goblin many times. Luckily there was no lasting damage to my gear or ears. I worry about this a lot as well and have been considering making some kind of brickwall limiter or clipper that I always keep on the output so things can't get too hot!

[@SoundSimulator]

I'm glad to hear that your ears and gears are safe! Benjamin in this comment section put helpful information about limiters! I'll have to look into it more as well. I also wonder what precautions reverb developers such as Tom Erbe take...

[@utopiavalonis]

VST's aren't safe either from feedback loops. I remember tweaking with the Native Instruments Reaktor Prism synthesizer (the full version) when suddenly audio levels peaked, and I had my headphones on. Since then I haven't tweaked the feedback function of that particular synthesizer...

[@SoundSimulator]

That's messed up. Commercial VST needs to be fail-safe.

[@juanjogarcia2956]

Thats why limiters exist. I mean , the problem you speak about can even happen with hardware when you use feedback (an output routed to its' input). The advice would be: limit (i guess clip~ in Pd) your output in any case

[@SoundSimulator]

YEP

[@allofronmastiga2025]

I mess around with complex fb loops in max and Ableton too, I also pass browser audio through my DAW. So for both those reasons I always have a limiter on my master and AUX outs, if I'm especially worried I also add a DC blocker and lowpass to avoid any screeching or brickwalling my speakers to death.

[@SoundSimulator]

Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge!! It's been really insightful reading everyone's setup for audio safety!

[@eefefefefefefefef6531]

not that long ago I wanted to make my own reverb and downloaded some patches to study code, found the exact one you used in this video and used it on an euclydian drum generator (I love ambient drum tracks) and needless to say I almost blew my brain out lol I had headphones 100% loud I quickly took em off, the presets sounded great but once a certain parameter is messed with its all auditory hell

[@SoundSimulator]

Yeah, it's unbelievably loud, isn't it?? I'm so sorry to hear that you experienced it with headphones on.

[@eefefefefefefefef6531]

@@SoundSimulator its okay got out of it safe but good lesson to keep a heads up when dealing with new patches

[@ahdziz666]

I always use a hard limiting abstraction, post fader pre DAC. You can slap one together with a env~ and a simple gain controller. That combined with DC blocking adds enough protection to allow me to experiment without worrying about damaging my speakers or ears. You can also set up a "kill switch with a threshold~ object that will stop DSP if a certain level is reached. I prefer a "super compression " setup as many of these textures that will arise from runaway feedback, are actually pretty cool sounding. Alternatively,there are many plugins that mute your output if it reaches a certain level, so if you are piping PD or Max into a DAW, you can just use one of them. Ice 9 automute is one. There are many.

[@SoundSimulator]

Thank you for your insights!! Would love to make a system that automatically shuts off when it reaches a certain level. And yeah, controlled feedback is the best.

[@LacklusterOfficial]

@@SoundSimulator hi, if you made something like that, that'd be amazing. i feel like this is the most dangerous part of puredata, just, love experimenting with feedback, but the touchbar is ridiculously hard to get to muting. btw, your 4:45 portion key for killing audio is great, but could it be modified so that the same key can be used to re-enable audio? so it'd be a mute/unmute instead of just mute?

[@SoundSimulator]

​@@LacklusterOfficial Yeah, I'll look into it. In the meantime, I would recommend watching my VST tutorial and use a brickwall limiter. I'm sure there's a free one somewhere. Yeah! It's a technique that I use a lot. It's useful for playing sounds too instead of moving the mouse to a button object every time. Definitely, you can attach it to a [toggle] and then to a [sel 0 1] and go from there!

[@taaaaaa]

I always put a limiter before the dac when experimenting, also adjust the volume to -inf and then slowly increase it.

[@SoundSimulator]

It's always good to be cautious!

[@yamburg]

I'll be sharing this video with my students. A great warning to protect your ears from hazards.

[@SoundSimulator]

Thank you so much for doing that!! I forgot to mention about [clip~ -0.9 0.9] in this video, so please do let them know that using a limiter like it will make things much less scary.

[@yamburg]

@@SoundSimulator students got the message. Again, thanks for a great video about risks of audio synthesis with Pd.

[@SoundSimulator]

@@yamburg That's wonderful to hear! Thank you so much for showing this video to them!!

[@piticarrara]

I have no idea what audio programming even is, but I really liked the video

[@SoundSimulator]

Hahaha, that's awesome. I never thought about what videos like this feels to people who are unfamiliar with the topic. Glad you liked it :)

[@rerere284]

My computer has a "Loudness Equalization" (aka volume compression) option in the playback device settings, and I just have that on in case I find some loud=funny meme on the Internet. It just makes all loud noises the same volume, as set by the main volume control.

[@SoundSimulator]

That's awesome! There are also tons of video with really unbalanced audio (guilty of it too sometimes), so it'll be helpful for that as well.

[@WARDISWARD]

I always use a tanh~ before the dac~ It gives a soft analog distorted like sound and prevents audio from clipping

[@jaffasplaffa1]

Freeverb is in my opinion really good. I use it all the time and find it safe. And it's pretty much the only implementation of Freeverb that has the stereo width parameter. There is also a Vanilla implementation of Freeverb, that does not use externals, but it can sound a bit digital. I find that one pretty safe too. There are also a few reverbs from a developer called Acreil, they are patched, not externals. His reverbs sounds really, really good, but they can be a bit "dangerous", sometimes feedback sweeps in. But quality is super nice. They works well if you just make a good, tested setting and dont touch it after that.

[@grindFish]

I have done this to my self with headphones so many times. I put a 1000 into a *~ some where and made a sound like a gun shot in my ears. i threw my set off my head so fast it might have well have been. always test at low volumes when your building in audio. mistakes happen.

[@SoundSimulator]

Thank you for sharing your experience. Thank goodness for your fast reflex!!

[@grindFish]

@@SoundSimulator I honestly think its instinctual out of the sudden shock. Definitely not the only time I've blasted my ears out in puredata, or any synths and machines really. The octatrack got me recently, full volume on the headphone out can nuke your eardrums!

[@MisterConscio]

I always use clip~ when working with delays or any feedback loop stuff releated.

[@SoundSimulator]

I wish I remembered to mention [clip~] in the delay tutorial as well as this video. I'll leave a pinned comment about it on the delay and glitch videos!

[@JenkemFactory]

Always use some limiter and preferably a brickwall LP filter before output and you should be fine, generally. I use in ears and have had my fair share of zingers and ear ringers but its not really worse than a crash cymbal och PA feedback..

[@SoundSimulator]

Thank you for your insight! There are so many things to be careful of in live music.

[@killpidone]

Does pure data have no clamp object to prohibit anything with high values?

[@killpidone]

Nevermind, looks like clip does that

[@intevolver]

Putting a limiter at the end of your chain should be standard practice in any experimental environment. Why risk gear or ears?

[@_DRMR_]

I still want to know more about building reverb algorithms in pd (vanilla) though ..

[@SoundSimulator]

Yeah same. Have you seen this Tom Erbe video btw? It's a great one! kzbin.info/www/bejne/f53CopeqhrChp80

[@_DRMR_]

@@SoundSimulator I have not, nice! I had tried some different reverb algorithms that used a bunch of allpass filters, but it seemed that it ended up cancelling out all the frequencies. Of course I'm also doing the conversion to C using Heavy so things are not 100% 1:1 equal to plain Pd (and have some limitations in which objects can be used ;) )

[@IconicPhotonic]

I know that you won't divulge what this is, but I figured I'd ask anyways, since my searches for it didn't come up with anything. I think it sounds great and I wouldn't mind taking a stab at adding some protection. And academically curious you could say.

[@SoundSimulator]

Hi, Peter! Feel free to send me a message on any of my social media (no need to follow or anything). It would be super cool to have this reverb actually fool-proof. Sure, adding [clip~ -0.9 0.9] may be good but it's still gonna create a wall of noise, probably just at less unnerving volume.

[@velvetsound]

I’d love to know the best reverb options still.

[@draconianrhythms]

oooh man, hardcore feedback in a second .. dangerous stuff!!

[@SoundSimulator]

It really was dangerously loud!!

[@draconianrhythms]

@@SoundSimulator it is definitely something one should take seriously, I’ve come unstuck before but nothing like that. Also.. for a second there I thought you were stepping down from doing videos - super glad to hear this is not the case 💪👏🍺

[@JuiceyDev]

Haha femur breaker it sounds like that one femur breaker sound in SCP:CB

[@SoundSimulator]

Hahaha I hear it now

[@JuiceyDev]

@@SoundSimulator I just heard that first time, anyways, really interesting video, I once tried audio programming and like, I wasn't smart enough to learn how to do things like music, the only type of thing I could do in audio programming was bytebeat lol

[@interferencefringes5019]

Thanks for your videos. I found some good reverbs while browsing the internet. I searched for a long time but didn't want to use VST. I am happy with the result. But i cant share the link. My comment will just be deleted :-D

[@SoundSimulator]

Glad to hear that! I'm sure there are great sounding reverb externals that are safe to use! What's the name of the reverb by the way? I'm curious to test it out!

[@interferencefringes5019]

@@SoundSimulator It is not possible. The page is out of google's index, so you can't search for it. I fished the link a few months ago from a forum. I tried to post the link here somehow, it gets deleted even if I replace the characters. This is sooo bad. Search for "reverb topologies and design - Tom Erbe". Then delete everything in the link from the pdf to get to his old wordpress page.There you search for "reverb" and come to the article "mus172 - reverb (w8 tues)" There you find a download link. With many reverb algos. Everything with examples. You will surely find something :D |*~ 0.5| :D

[@SoundSimulator]

@@interferencefringes5019 Yes!! I thought about mentioning that Tom Erbe's Pure Data patchers sound great and are safe (as far as I know) !!! I did test them out and the reverb stayed at reasonable volume no matter what. Tho, that extremely loud reverb got me paranoid, so I just wanted to focus on safety for this vid. By the way, Tom's lecture video is recommended at 2:03!!

[@interferencefringes5019]

@@SoundSimulator Oh yes, the ears should not burn, so safety first! Keep on with the PD videos, after years you made me want to build something with PD again, thank you!

[@SoundSimulator]

@@interferencefringes5019 I'm happy to hear that! It makes me glad that I made these tutorials!!

[@JimmyLem]

Limiter - that's what I do.

[@SoundSimulator]

YES

[@JimmyLem]

@@SoundSimulator There's a bit of an art to it and when I am in PD I am pretty artless, which is still ok by me. Generally, I'm looking for a meter that will tell me when I am just tipping into it. Maybe I will just grab a VST or whatever. For now, I am pretty cool with the rawness. I'll get to it one day...

[@thcdenton]

delay > reverb anyways :D

[@SoundSimulator]

We can have delay without reverb but we can't have reverb without delay/

[@granumuse7847]

I have no something new to share about feedback loops experiences. I just assure it's exactly as you say

[@SoundSimulator]

I'm sorry to hear that you experienced something unpleasant. I hope you didn't damage your ears too much. I do appreciate your sharing the experience. It's good to bring awareness!

[@granumuse7847]

@@SoundSimulator luckily both me and my laptop were fine! After that, I got used to do exactly what I say, plus I make custom tests adjustments already when I begin to code. So, nowadays nothing bad happens anymore 😊 What kind of adjustments? Simple! All amps and buffer values are low when I start coding. And never do so until I am pretty sure about the technique and that I know what I do! Thank you

[@SoundSimulator]

@@granumuse7847 Glad to hear that! And I'm happy to see that you're taking precautions! Thank you again for sharing your experience!

[@dasczwo]

Well, for live playing, always put a brick wall limiter last in chain. Having a nag riding the blade of selfoscellating fuzzes and analog delays live, i really wonder how it can be legal to bring out a pedal that can kill you when connected to a marshall stack…. Cmon developers, jut put a brickwalllimiter in your pedal.

[@seedmole]

Me, a hardware audio guy, hearing the feedback swell: Yep, sounds about right :) Also me: What? Did you say something? Speak up a bit, what was that?

[@SoundSimulator]

Tinnitus = noise show 24/7

[@matthewpublikum3114]

What's this anyway?

[@SoundSimulator]

the reverb in the video? 🤷‍♂

[@matthewpublikum3114]

@@SoundSimulator yes which reverb is this? Usually anything with feedback can do this

[@studiospiraluniverse]

Thanks for highlighting this important aspect. Protecting our ears is so important and yet often neglected. Since I‘m doing (hardware) feedback experiments since long, I got me a (hardware) limiter. Don‘t know about software solutions, but if anything available - this is an investment worth to take. I‘m now 60 years old and happy my ears still have a reasonable frequency spectrum….the idea of damaged hearing is truely horrifying.

[@SoundSimulator]

It definitely is important and it's unfortunate that it's constantly ignored. I'm genuinely happy to see that this comment section is already full of helpful tips as well as experiences and considerations for ear protection! [clip~ -0.9 0.9] is a popular approach and I'm also seeing techniques that I didn't know about as well.

[@kahahabahaha]

I just started tinkering with csound the other day, and had something similar to this happen, albeit at a much more tolerable volume. A video on different ways to stay safe with pd would be interesting, since I'm also interested in messing with pd... after I figure out how to make sure I don't blow my ears out

[@SoundSimulator]

Lot of the comments here are informative! [clip~ -1 1] is a popular solution that I should've mentioned in the video. Also, you can use a brick limiter VST too (I have a tutorial on how to use VSTs inside of Pure Data). My intent for this video is not to scare people away from using Pure Data//