#1

I was surprised to see that no separate thread for ppooll had been made. I couldn’t find one when searching.

For those who don’t know it: https://ppooll.klingt.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

ppooll is an audio and visual networking system created from Max and Jitter patches.
ppooll itself is an architecturally refined version of the earlier software lloopp .

I’ve been using it myself on and off since about 2015. It’s endlessly fun to patch around in and explore. I used to just run it via the max 6 runtime, but for some reason that broke, so I tried Max 7, but couldn’t really get it work, so now I’ve got a monthly subscription to Max 8, mostly to use ppooll.

I’ve used it live a few times, really good for sample manipulation and playback stuff.

Lately I’ve returned to it to do software feedback, which I’ve never really found particularly interesting, but suddenly I seem to have found something interesting. It primarily involves the xfilter object, a compressor (and now the Melda spectral dynamics) and other objects to alter the sound. I’ve found that using convolution reverb plugins will result in some surprisingly tactile sounds. Especially if you modulate the settings of the xfilter heavily, record and then manipulate the samples even further. I use the free Melda one, EZ convolution. It’s got some great unusual ones under “sound design”. Highly recommended for this sort of thing.

If you’re interested in hearing what it can do, send me a message.

Oh, and the ppooll mail help list is great. Klaus and co. really do a great job at helping out, clearing out bugs and updating it.

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#2

[I have removed the tracks]

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#3

what I heard was great, but it made my dog very mad (which basically never happens with music, he’s always sitting behind me)

I remember reading somewhere that Tim Hecker uses/used pooll a lot around the time love streams came out

#4

Weird timing! I had just been thinking of reinstalling ppooll just the other day. I used it as my primary tool for guitar processing a few years back, and really loved it. Has anything really changed?

Also, while the mailing list is very helpful, I do really wish that it all migrated to a discourse board or something instead. I’d love to have things searchable and easily accessible. For a newcomer, it’s a pretty intimidating piece of software, so having a community that was a little easier to get into would have really helped me when I was starting.

That second track is great, by the way.

#5

It’s still basically the same. Some objects gone, some added. I really liked the spectral objects, but the core of the object hasn’t been updated, so it has been removed.

Yeah, searchable help is definitely the way to go.

and thanks.

#6

Love this setup. Been using for more than a decade now? Was always a useful tool to abstract my normal process. Sending field recordings into it and then trying to wrangle that into something beautiful. So fun. I came to it via Jim O’Rourke or Fennesz years ago… Would love to hear what you’re making with it.

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#7

I think I came to it via Fennesz as well. I didn’t know O’Rourke used it, but I always thought something like the “I’m Happy…” record might have been through ppooll or some similar Max patch.

I’ve got an external harddrive with tons of ppooll jams. Sometimes I go back and use some material.
I can share some Bandcamp things were I’ve used ppooll.

This is mainly composed of feedback jams.

Short violin recordings, spectral objects, etc.

A rework. A lot of ppooll jams cut together with tape manipulation. Apparently this is from 2014, so I must have used ppooll some time before doing this. Lots of re-amping into a small room as well.

Either feedback recordings or just old recordings completely mangled for all three pieces.

Same goes for this.

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#8

This might be the one little thing you read :slight_smile:

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#9

this is cool

somehow never seen anything about it before (or mistook it for another app)

#10

ah so wonderful. gonna go deep on these!!!

#11

Halfway through second track you posted, so nice. Thank you for sharing.

#12

So to recap my reading of this thread and like 10 mins of Google research:

  • ppooll is an environment that runs inside Max;
  • it’s an environment for DSP on various axes;
  • it’s modular-ish in terms of UI

…is that about right? It sounds attractive, but I’m wary of the axiomatic regex situation of “now you have 2 problems”

#13

I love Ppooll. Found out about this in Tim Hecker’s AMA on Reddit and in his Red Bull Music Academy video. It helped me so much with my ambient/abstract experiments, expecially about stepping out of the traditional DAW/Sequencer/Loops paradigms. I think gg.rainer is one of the best granulators ever made, and I’ve tried a lot of those. Did I say I love it yet? Well, I love it.

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#14

having a ton of fun lately with ppooll. exactly what i’ve been looking for in a modular/es-8 companion. have a few questions - does anyone have a working update of gg.rainer/kk.rainer that works with max 8? does anyone know where to find the ppooll_extended package? looks like parts of the website haven’t been updated since 2009 so I’m not sure how viable of a resource that is. and is lloopp@klingt.org a working way to get in touch with the developers? the mailing list email returns an address not found but some of the posts above make it seem like a mailing list still exists. looking forward to diving into this some more and would highly recommend it to anyone working in max.

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#16

for reference, i’m using the latest ppooll mirror posted here (somewhere) a few weeks ago.

I found this on the cycling ‘74 forum and was wondering if anyone had any more info on the current network of info while I wait to hear back from the OP!

#17

Hi! I’m glad you are enjoying it! I made the mirror a few weeks ago when I needed a fresh install of ppooll but noticed the website was broken :frowning: I’m not in contact with the ppooll creators or anything. That being said, I’ll have an investigation on the problem you’re having and try to see what can be done :slight_smile:

@lilskullymane if you get a fix from the OP on cycling74 let me know! Would be good to keep the mirror as up to date and working as possible :slight_smile:

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#18

not sure if this is part of the same problem but I was trying to use ppool recently - specifically to use the gg.rainer to granulate a sample, but couldn’t get audio out from it. Other modules seem to work ok, just gg.rainer. Was emailing with the developer but he hasn’t replied for a while!

#19

thanks! will definitely post any updates I find here. found an alternate email for klaus, as well as this on the website - will check it out tomorrow and see if it changes anything

saw a post somewhere saying all of ppooll works well with max 6/ppooll 2.9 but hopefully we can get it sorted in max 8

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#20

I heard back from klaus this morning (klaus@klingt.org if you need to get in touch about ppooll - posted on his website so hopefully it’s okay to share) a full working version is here -

won’t have time to try it out until later but hopefully it works!

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#21

The download link does not seem to work for me right now, I get an 404.