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As someone who studied computer music in the mid 2010s I can second that! All the composers in my generation who use live electronics do it themselves. The dev

As someone who studied computer music in the mid 2010s I can second that! All the composers in my generation who use live electronics do it themselves. The devide between composer and programmer has disappered for the most part and I think the main reason is that both hardware and software has become so affordable and accessible. Back in the old days, you needed expensive computers, synthesizers and tape machines and people who could assist you with operating them. Today, anyone can buy a laptop and learn Pd / Max / SuperCollider! That being said, institutions like IRCAM still have their place as they allow composers to work with technology that is not easily accessible, e.g. large multi channel systems or 360° projections. They also do a lot of research, too.

RossBencina 2y ago
> Today, anyone can buy a laptop and learn Pd / Max / SuperCollider! And anyone can buy a laptop and contribute to the development of Pd, SuperCollider, Chuck, et al. Not sure how much overlap there is between those two groups. Arguing against my earlier point: there still seems to be a separation between music systems users and music systems developers.
- spacechild1 2y ago
  > there still seems to be a separation between music systems users and music systems developers. That's true, but just like a pianist typically doesn't need to build their own piano, computer musicians rarely need to build their own DAWs or audio programming languages. However, computer musicians do build their own systems on top of Pd, SC, etc. and these can evolve into libraries or whole applications. So the line between computer musicians and audio application developers is blurry. That being said, I can tell for sure that only few computer musicians end up contributing code to Pd, SC, etc., simply because most of them have no experience in other programming languages and are not really interested in actual software development. Of course, there are other important ways to contribute that are often overlooked, like being active on forums, filing bug reports, etc.

RossBencina 2y ago

> Today, anyone can buy a laptop and learn Pd / Max / SuperCollider! And anyone can buy a laptop and contribute to the development of Pd, SuperCollider, Chuck, et al. Not sure how much overlap there is between those two groups. Arguing against my earlier point: there still seems to be a separation between music systems users and music systems developers.

spacechild1 2y ago
> there still seems to be a separation between music systems users and music systems developers. That's true, but just like a pianist typically doesn't need to build their own piano, computer musicians rarely need to build their own DAWs or audio programming languages. However, computer musicians do build their own systems on top of Pd, SC, etc. and these can evolve into libraries or whole applications. So the line between computer musicians and audio application developers is blurry. That being said, I can tell for sure that only few computer musicians end up contributing code to Pd, SC, etc., simply because most of them have no experience in other programming languages and are not really interested in actual software development. Of course, there are other important ways to contribute that are often overlooked, like being active on forums, filing bug reports, etc.