Does anyone who are pro's in music production/audio engineering wana help a wannabe out?
I'm curious as for a noobie, into computer music what kind of software/languages/theory I should get into. Do these live coding people use plugins for Ableton Live or do they write their own libraries from scratch? As for electronic music theory and improvisation, what books do you guys recommend. Do I really need to understand the theory/language well such as DSP, Max/MSP really well or could I just dive in and improvise? Thanks in advance for all the help.
Take a look at ChucK's baby brother 'miniAudicle' if you just want to try the water. It's fun ... you'll have sound in a couple minutes!
http://audicle.cs.princeton.edu/mini/
For a book on theory try "Computer Music" by Dodge & Jerse. The Curtis Roads books are v.good too.
I'd just get started improvising with whatever! and then as you get time, check out the (many!) software options and see what fits your mental/musical personality. It's always a battle not to get over-lost in the tech side at first because that can cramp your creativity ... and even your motivation.
Finally, for a DEEP course in EM try The CSound Book. CSound will let you make ~any sound you can conceive ... but it's a heavy lift. (More for studio than live.)
I have played music with Processing, Python (a cool thing called Midi Musical Accompaniment or MMA), Chuck, Lily for Firefox, and Max with some of the Monome stuff... A lot of it is done with Open Sound Control (OSC) behind the scenes sending UDP around and connecting the disparate parts. I would say just dive in!!!!
If you like scheme and can use osx try impromptu. When you google it it is the third link i think. The video below is pretty cool but the author also has a video called 'day at the triffords' (that may not be exactly correct) which is my favorite. I also really enjoyed 'a study in keith'.
