x@stevexcraig.com

I just upgraded to MAXMSP5 with Jitter. (My demo ran out). How am I going to learn this? I have toyed around with it a bit, but it is a bit daunting...

What do you recommend to the new user? Good tutorials? Tutors for hire? Classes? (LA area).

I guess I'll just have to spend countless hours playing with it once I get my serial number...

I just upgraded to MAXMSP5 with Jitter. (My demo ran out). How am I going to learn this? I have toyed around with it a bit, but it is a bit daunting...
What do you recommend to the new user? Good tutorials? Tutors for hire? Classes? (LA area).
I guess I'll just have to spend countless hours playing with it once I get my serial number...
thanks.
-steve


beginner-woes

Exactly. And you'll probably get a deluge of replies telling you how good

the tutorials and documentation are, and they'll be right.

Do the tutorials, starting at the beginning, and work your way through.

When you start to feel confident that you can do something with what you've

It will help enormously if you have a project or idea in mind to work

towards, but in the end, there's no substitute to sitting at the machine and

> I just upgraded to MAXMSP5 with Jitter. (My demo ran out). How am I going to

> learn this? I have toyed around with it a bit, but it is a bit daunting...

> What do you recommend to the new user? Good tutorials? Tutors for hire?

> I guess I'll just have to spend countless hours playing with it once I get my

Exactly. And you'll probably get a deluge of replies telling you how good
the tutorials and documentation are, and they'll be right.
 Do the tutorials, starting at the beginning, and work your way through.
When you start to feel confident that you can do something with what you've
learned, start to play around.
 It will help enormously if you have a project or idea in mind to work
towards, but in the end, there's no substitute to sitting at the machine and
playing with it. Have fun!
Cheers
Roger

>
> I just upgraded to MAXMSP5 with Jitter. (My demo ran out). How am I going to
> learn this? I have toyed around with it a bit, but it is a bit daunting...
> What do you recommend to the new user? Good tutorials? Tutors for hire?
> Classes? (LA area).
> I guess I'll just have to spend countless hours playing with it once I get my
> serial number...
> thanks.
> -steve

you've made a good choice. i'd definitely start with tutorials. in my own learning, along the way, i discovered the examples folder and then got hooked on those. i tend to have a bit more of a childish heart, so my learning-style tends to me more ...uh... A.D.D.-like(not that children have ADD, but i digress...). if you do get tired/bored/frustrated, take a patch you like from the Max5/examples folder and alter it to your needs, or just do that with any help-file or tutorial you like. you'll find that you'll probably have several of your own different approaches to keep learning interesting... and it's not necessary, probably not even possible to retain everything at first, so you should definitely feel o.k. about getting side-tracked at any point, eventually, you'll find specifics you'd like to follow no matter what. and everyone here on the forums is always here to help whenever you've got specific patches you need help on. no worries.

Ok I just published a first step tutorial:

http://www.dance-tech.net/profiles/blogs/maxmsp-2-getting-beyond-the

Oddly enough, i learned the other way around. I did a couple tutorials - got super bored, didnt understand and quit. Then a couple weeks later wanted to make something simple like a MIDI translator and remembered from the tutorials something like this would be possible. jumped in and made that and anything else i needed up to this time.

The Point is to come up with a concept that you want to build. Then use the tutorials and help files to get you there, not the other way around. Use The forum as well. More info on the forum i think. I think people just doing the tutorials turns them off because they have no direction. People that are into the whole max thing do it because they want to explore and create...They have an idea and want to build it.

This is what I think and others will disagree...But again, come up with a concept, that other software hasn't offered, then use the documentation to get you there

Oddly enough, i learned the other way around. I did a couple tutorials - got super bored, didnt understand and quit. Then a couple weeks later wanted to make something simple like a MIDI translator and remembered from the tutorials something like this would be possible. jumped in and made that and anything else i needed up to this time.
  The Point is to come up with a concept that you want to build. Then use the tutorials and help files to get you there,  not the other way around. Use The forum as well. More info on the forum i think. I think people just doing the tutorials turns them off because they have no direction. People that are into the whole max thing do it because they want to explore and create...They have an idea and want to build it.
This is what I think and others will disagree...But again, come up with a concept, that other software hasn't offered, then use the documentation to get you there


...oh yeah, the doc in max 5 is so much more convenient...You'll love the upgrade!

Curtis Roads' The Computer Music Tutorial really helped me a lot after i had

Another thing to do is hit up Youtube.com and type in Max/msp. there are a

lot of great patches out there, and a lot of those people have their patches

for download, it's a great thing to dissect others work. Don't neglect the

Pure Data projects either, those people almost always share their patches

and it's rather easy to go between Max and PD.

Also just google the kind of thing you want to make, like Beat Slicer or

something like that. chances are someone has made something similar to what

you want to do, see if you can get a patch from them so you can dissect.

On Thu, Dec 25, 2008 at 12:55 AM, mHatsys wrote:

> ...oh yeah, the doc in max 5 is so much more convenient...You'll love the

Curtis Roads' The Computer Music Tutorial really helped me a lot after i had
hammer on the tutorials in max.

Another thing to do is hit up Youtube.com and type in Max/msp. there are a
lot of great patches out there, and a lot of those people have their patches
for download, it's a great thing to dissect others work. Don't neglect the
Pure Data projects either, those people almost always share their patches
and it's rather easy to go between Max and PD.

Also just google the kind of thing you want to make, like Beat Slicer or
something like that. chances are someone has made something similar to what
you want to do, see if you can get a patch from them so you can dissect.

On Thu, Dec 25, 2008 at 12:55 AM, mHatsys  wrote:

>
> ...oh yeah, the doc in max 5 is so much more convenient...You'll love the
> upgrade!
>

It's true, different people prefer differing ways to learn, I think theoretically there are about half a dozen learning modes. Merry Christmas everyone :)

Beginner woes....