Max/MSP

Cycling74 has a 25% crossgrade offer at the moment meaning I can upgrade my Max4Live license to a full Max/MSP AND Gen license for just over 100 quid.

 

Two questions:

1. I'm quite a newbie to Max so would this be overkill at this stage of the day ?

2. I've seen a few video tutorials but still can't get my head round Gen. What can it do that Max/MSP can't ? John Ehrlichman was mentioning being unimpressed by the FFT capabilities of MSP, so do the sample-level processing capabilities of Gen mean that you can do all sorts of spectral gubbins with it ?

Stupidly simple Max query - See the number boxes below, I can alter then by clicking and dragging up and down on the '>' icon (which increases/decreases depending on the rate I drag the mouse), but how do I enter specific numbers into them. How for example would I enter '1000' into the box on the left - Double clicking doesn't seem to do anything.

 

Make a message box with the number you want and hook it up to the number box.

Aaah, good call ! So is that the only method, are the boxes there for value type (integer, float etc.) more than to set an initial value ?

you should be able to select an int/float box and then enter a value by typing. the method psn mentioned is when you want a quick dial (by just clicking on the message box with the specific value) or to save the value for later use in a reopened patch

Edited August 26, 2014 by xox

  On 8/26/2014 at 1:45 PM, mcbpete said:

are the boxes there for value type (integer, float etc.) more than to set an initial value ?

 

afaik yes. they're also useful in displaying values

If you are just using the control functions of Max for triggering MIDI stuff you can probably get away with the tutorials. If you're looking to get into creating actual sounds within the program itself then you are most definitely going to want to learn everything dsp. However, If you are poor at physics, and you don't have an understanding of algebra and trigonometry you will have to learn those before getting into dsp. Finally, you there is a long learning curve to learn how to plan out and design max/pd programs effectively since the graphic portions eat CPU like a hog, so you will have to also learn a tiny bit of computer science techniques too.

 

Like some people said here: You are going to have to re-invent the wheel musically. It is a very long and tedious learning curve (it took me an entire year) that amounts to a very big but narrow payout. You have to ask yourself what you are wanting to do and if you have to go through that much work to accomplish it.

 

As for Max, I think its overpriced but its definitely the sleekest and most user friendly of all of the object oriented music programming languages out there.

Puredata Extended++ takes regular PD and adds nearly all of the functions from Max/Msp into it (including some nice graphic UI stuff. One user even made the same GUIs and Objects from Max.) But documentation is poor and even the best guides out there are convoluted or require some math/dsp knowledge.

 

If you want to go all the way balls out nuts I recommend supercollider just for the text coding. You will get carpel tunnel syndrome from constant mouse dragging in max and pd.

 

 

edit: max 7 coming out sounds to be super user-friendly this time around with new tutorials and help resources.

Edited August 26, 2014 by Entorwellian

  On 8/26/2014 at 6:10 PM, Entorwellian said:

If you want to go all the way balls out nuts I recommend supercollider just for the text coding. You will get carpel tunnel syndrome from constant mouse dragging in max and pd.

True, though if you have Gen (which'll be included for free in Max 7 when it's out in a few months) you can use the Codebox object -

 

Oooh. Very nice!

also everything that ryanmcallister on page 1 said is amazingly accurate.

Absolutely. I took the plunge a few days after posting the message at the top of this page and despite the (almost) year of owning the full blown Max6+Jitter+Gen package I'm still more of a hacker with loading up existing patches and tweaking bits, rather than making stuff from scratch. But I'm so loving the flexibility of it all - it's just a little overwhelming the power of it all at the moment !

 

I feel like I have a huge explosive creative potential in my software setup now - I've just got to work out where to bung the touch paper (and maybe learn exactly what it is that I need to blow up !)

Same here! I still use a few objects I built from my tutorial exercises as starters for things.

Half of the fun was just learning how everything works and being able to build anything out of nothing and slowly experiencing the iterative process of building tiny simple patches to make more advanced patches, and using those to make more advanced patches, etc... I'm getting into making some more elaborate programs with it I'm *still* learning new things and techniques with every use. Knowledge is truly power.

 

Also, Adieu: Whatever you learn in puredata you can transfer over to max since they're almost essentially the same. If you get into either feel free to PM me about any questions, resources, needing something explained or just being pointed where to begin.

Edited August 26, 2014 by Entorwellian

  On 8/26/2014 at 6:16 PM, mcbpete said:

 

  On 8/26/2014 at 6:10 PM, Entorwellian said:

If you want to go all the way balls out nuts I recommend supercollider just for the text coding. You will get carpel tunnel syndrome from constant mouse dragging in max and pd.

True, though if you have Gen (which'll be included for free in Max 7 when it's out in a few months) you can use the Codebox object -

 

 

 

okay so I watched the video up until it said:

 

you can use any kind of C code except pointers, or arrays.

 

FLOL!

 

C

 

no pointers

 

bwahaha.

That's funny!

"here, have this free helicopter, oh btw it will never flap."

Do helicopters flap?

 

I think pointers and array functionality are accessible through using java externals. The above video only applies to the codebox object within gen~

lel maybe it's the wrong word for what a helicopter does to get off the ground... feel free to replace with "rotate".

 

or, different metaphor: a boxer without arms.

 

anyway... this codebox thing seems like a rather misguided idea by Cycling...

why would you even want to use C, if you cannot have the good stuff..? let me guess, probably there's no structs either.

I definitely don't know enough about sample-level DSP coding (which is what Gen~ does as opposed to the higher-level prototyping of Max), as my question about simply connecting boxes would attest to, but maybe C is perfect for that sort of thing, maybe it doesn't need pointers and structs and all that.

Here's my quick'n'dirty (and probably very buggy) first proper Max4Live device called MultiMod - It's like a ring mod but instead of just modulating the sine with a sine you can choose the waveform as well as the arithmetic type of modulation (be very careful with the 'divide' function, it makes things very very loud !)

 

 

http://www.ilovecubus.co.uk/pete/MultiMod.amxd

 

EDIT: Now with working stereoness and toned down the scariness of the divide power

Max 7 is coming real soon -

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvRoE89VW-I

my sides

Aye, bit of a weird demographic they're going for with that one...

i like!

Yeah, yourgoodbuddySam's videos are just barely helpful enough for me to put up with all the cringing. I like that Australian guy's did you know videos better but they're pretty short and there aren't that many of them.

try this two:

 

http://www.peterbatchelor.com/maxtuts.html

 

https://www.youtube.com/user/BazTutorials