I opened the C’74 Projects tab out of curiosity, and truely lost 15 hours straight due to each post having something new, unique or different, and I’ll be revisiting over half of them! At first, I didn’t understand why there were so few comments, as so many of the posts seemed jaw-dropping and cutting edge. But now I think I understand.

You all seem to have found a user-friendly, GUI-ish programming toolbox that makes it much easier to make a custom program for whatever you desire to acomplish in the audio and video realm. Am I right? Thus there are so few comments because you are all busy learning and building and pushing your own limits with your own incredible projects!

I may have zero programing skills, but this is exactly the kind of community I’ve always sought. Thanks in advance for putting up with these and future NSQs (noob stupid questions), as an inner voice tells me I really ought to give this a go.

My mega goal is to create original EDM (Electonic Dance Music) with integrated video and socially relevant lyrics good enough to change the world. Being able to make custom software for audio and video creation, recording and performance would literally be a dream come true.

My first question is what exactly is Max? Would a correct analogy be it is to computer programing what word processing was to writing and editing? It it like using dreaamweaver to make a website, rather than monkeying with HTML or CSS? Is it being able to drive fast without having to be a mecanic? I want to use tech to shorten time, not spent it learning what I don’t need.

2. Can a pre-noob non-programer learn this easily or at all? Is there anything essential to learn prior to learning Max/Jitter? Shoud I get that book early on?

3. What percent of you use Max/Jitter for an employer vs. independent projects self-direced? Any projections for employment opportunity growth?

4. How essential is Max/Jitter to the future of the digital revolution fighter, especially when tech demands seem ever increasing and life/time available diminishes?

5. Where do I start to change my life? Anyone have an “order list” for the tutorials?

Thanks and keep up all the great projects, even if you never post them. You are all changing the future. And remember, if you are the first to do something, and you document it properly, that honor is yours forever…

-kos
planet earth

1) max/msp is a graphic programing software that allows you to manipulate/create audio, work with midi and work with numbers. Imagine you had a room filled with ever piece of audio gear ever made and an inf amount of patch cables and put it all in one program. Thats max. It has a steep learning curve, but once you understand the basics you are only limited to your imagination.

2) The tutorials in max, msp and jitter are very extensive and informative. Go through all the max tutorials and you will be in good shape. Remember that if your not sure how a certain object works your can option-click or alt-click on it to bring up the help patch. In the top right of every help patch is the reference page which gives you all the details of that object.

3) I use it in the live theatre world for shows I design and engineer. I cannot comment on job opportunities with max but I know they’re out there.

4) Not to sure what your asking here.

5) Like I mentioned before, start with the max tutorials and once you get to number 10 you can jump back and forth between max and msp tutorials.

I hope that helps.
GW

Thanks!

your answer to 1) is even more inspiring than I could ever hope for. If Max can do that, and I’m REALLY only limited by my imagination, count me in! With all that as the potential, I wouldn’t care if the learning curve was a sheer cliff face miles high. The heights of the possibilities (once scalled) are simply stellar.

#4 is my acknowledgement that Einsten was wrong. Time is not a constant, but is ever increasing in passing. Thanks to decades already behind me, I don’t want to spentd the time learning how to make my own hammer. But, if it means I can make any kind of hammer I can imagine, then i’ll do it, because I don’t want to be a regular carpenter. There are already enough of those. I want to be the carpenter they call to build the sets for MC Escher’s musical.

As to fighting in the digital revolution, the freedom technology has given information is a double edge sword, and the yin/yang/love/hate/good/bad/individual/corporate pressures it creates often obfuscate non-tech needs too easily forgotten. In essence, does the time spent with Max learning and using create more time in the long run?

kos

PS Was I right about the level of creativity here?

people´s ways how to learn things are different. i usually try to follow the 110.guidelines
to max programming:

1)
find out what you want to make.
while you do it, you will also find out whats all possible and what not.

2)
very important: JUST DO IT!
you will learn from making errors, not from copying a premade solution. the more time
you spend with maxing, the faster you will progress.

3)
when you reach a point where you lack whatever knowledge: RTFM, use google, search
this forum, read books.

4)
when the FM (fanstatic manual) has no answer then ask other users.

5)
always sniff into other people work and recreate what they made. and if you ever make
something useful yourself, share it with others and help building the pool.

you can reach almost every aim with this method.

you might end up with something completely different from what was planned, but
that does not matter after all.

-110

Thanks for the input. I think I can do this. I mean if I can figure out what RTFM means just from the sentence context, then I must be smarter than the average bear.

I also just learned there are classes at my local university music conservatory. I just hope I don’t have to play an instrument to qualify to learn…

-kos

I love your enthusiasm, I wonder where you’ll go within the next year, share it with us, we’re all curious…

Welcome!

And now get going, run through the tutorials, start your own weird stuff. I bet by the end of the 30 day trial, you’ll stay with us for the rest of your life. (Sounds like a warning – is one…;-)

Good luck,

Stefan

Thanks for the feedback. I noticed you are sometimes Paris-based. It was a link or mention via the Sony music lab in Paris (after a full day of following web breadcrumbs) that lead me here to this treasure trove. Small world, eh?

As for changing my art, new tools have always done that. Without revolutionary pre-mixed oil paint in portable small metal tubes, the outdoor Expressionists would never have developed. How sad if we had been deprived of that boundary-ripping genre. But that’s what you guys have here. Clear tubes of software that you can see to paint new programs.

Besides, the most enjoyable moment in the creative process is when you rise above both the tools and the canvas, and watch from above as if a third party observer as your hands move on their own with the tools and create beauty far beyond anything you could consciously preconcieve. I’m not woried about Max taking me outside the bounds of commercial audio/video, as there are periodic waves where what is popular becomes formulaic and is washed away by leaps forward to the cutting edge.

That’s where new genres are born.

And by the way, if anyone ever needs some creative feedback (outside of programing), feel free to ask. I want to give as much as get.

I’m not sure when I’ll start this journey, although I’ve already contacted a university that uses and teaches this to transfer there. I’m considering totally reshaping my life, and it will mean selling virtually everything I own at auction in order to be free to move out of the chains of possessions. Anyone else ever done that, and were you glad you did?

kos

P.S. Just how many is “all of us”? My first impression was this is a very small user family limited mostly to academia. Is this a tool not promoted to the public, was I just lucky to find it, or was I just not looking hard enough years ago?

the level of tolerance and respect between these factions is relatively high,
but it is not unlimited.

of course those on the academic path are totally wrong.

-110

One can learn simply by doing alone; but without guidance (whether in an academic context or not) the timescale is drastically extended – though to what degree will vary from learner to learner.

My tutors are/were all academics and included Eric Lyon and Maarten Walstijn, two highly regarded MaxMSP practitioners. Without their guidance I would have randomly staggered through the Max forest for years. I have found (as both learner and teacher) academic institutions developing a more Socratic approach to instruction which requires tutors skilled in both industry and academia, theory and practice.

Follow the excellent tutorials, Max first then MSP, and experiment as you go – build a little Calculator patch, a video-looper, a numeric-keypad synth – read Christopher Dobrian, Miller Puckette, Curtis Roads, Peter Elsea; watch Peter Bachelor and Baz on youtube……….

Brendan

I know you said that with a smile. The path or paths we take are often influenced by start, desired destination, and detours found or created– and that doesn’t include the influence of guides (academics) or fellow travellers. A good academic actually enjoys your viewpoint…

Just remember it is the summit that counts, not which side of the mountain we climb.

@brendan,

Thanks for the endorsed trailmarkers. I’ll file them all away to savor. I’ve ordered in a case of duct tape for the constant headwrapping I’ve experienced for the last three days learning about so much and seeing repeated unlimited potential– which I’m sure will continue for weeks, if not more. It seems Max/MSP/Jitter is what I was looking for years ago and never found.

They say that when the student is ready, the Master appears. In this case, it sounds and looks like there are a large family of Masters, and the language they all use is known as ehm-aye-echs.

Hello all, and show me the way, so that I may show others as well.

-kos

Wow. Totally Unbelieveable. This could take a lifetime…

:)

That’s exactly the visual I had last night at 4 am. Exactly. EXACTLY!

At this rate, I’ll be able to imagine and create an app that controls audio and video via the movement of a bicycle, or a human-powered twin wheel vehicle designed and built from specs created from light and sound.

Who said Cycling ’74 does not make bicycles?

In essence, Max removes the word impossible from our vocabulary…

AAAAAAAaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… … …

1. make your way through the Max tutorials, you’ll be amazed at how far simple high school maths/design/art/music/I.T.(?) will take you.
2. make occasional forays into the MSP tutorials.
3. invent/design your own challenge patches: “how do I ….. ?”
4. early glances through Maurizio Giri’s (et al) Electronic Music and Sound Design, Programming with MaxMSP reveal a very well structured course, with a wealth of theory and practice topics*.

Apologies if you’ve been somewhat ‘overwhelmed’ by my list of resources
Brendan

*http://cycling74.com/forums/topic.php?id=29873

A couple of courses worked well for me (from Roald Baudoux who is also on these pages) with some programming background too.

Like the others say:
* The tutorials are your friend
* Keep doing it
* Figure out what you want to do as clearly as possible before programming

From an art and graphics POV you may enjoy checking out the Processing web-site, though it looks a bit more like hardcore programming ;)

Regards, Chris.

I think my severe headache stems from something closer to “posibility euphoria overload”. three days and nights of near non-stop research here is the culprit. I’m grateful for your suggestions.

@ Chris,

Hoe Lee She Yat. I haven’t even considered the hardware manipulation angle. So I make software to manipulate unique audio and video, and then use the same language to control the hardware either coming from , directed by or interacting with the audio and video.

Is there no end? Dare I ask just what/where is the Processing web site? I started out in graphics.

@Everyone,

My life is over. My life hast just begun.

-kos

but it you actually manage to build a bike using live input you might become famous.

(not as famous as me probably, as i invented the invisible UFO)

Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. Crafted no doubt using that secret beefed-up, rip-snorting Non-Beta known as N-Vizzie Bull. Hey Ro, can you resend me the PDF Manual for your Invisible UFO ? The one that came with the software when I bought it from you was totally blank. Please transmit, or return the $999, as I’m stuck on this planet not by choice. I never saw you at the conference.

As for the Bike Builder, it doesn’t seem impossible. Voice recognition lets the client chose his/her appropriate frame style and gearing, a video camera “measures” the client for proper frame sizing, and then four-color robo sprayers paint the frame according to the input of the rider’s favorite song. And voila! C74 DOES build bicycles…

Well, I’ve dried out my keyboard after officially pausing my click-and-drool info searches, and started into the tutorials. Just three deep, and I know I’m gonna get this, but good.

How cool.

-kos

With all the improvements in Max 5, it’s got a huge advantage over those platforms IMO. Of course there are pros and cons to everything, but Max really lets you make creative things which can readily go beyond just interesting toys. And it lets you make them *way faster, more powerful, and more flexible*. Oh yes. Welcome…!

I know what you mean. By just the second tutorial in Max we’re way past my best labor-intensive Flashimation.

Btw. I am still trying to sell everything, but I advance only slowly, as new things add still…
For example I have some historical Max Manuals (out of real paper) to let. One is a black file with an original 2.x Manual, and I also have a 3.x Reference as book including an 3.5 Addendum, a “Getting started” and original key disks. Who ever wants to take this burden from me, the auction is started…;-)

Stefan

Well you can control hardware from Max, and one of my interests is to port over a robot control programme from VB6 (one of these days). The Maxuino connection to the Arduino controller offers plenty of scope for interfacing with real world devices. See

http://www.arduino.cc/

For my money, having hardware controlling stuff in Max is quicker to get on board with. For example, USB PS2 game pads (or even USB joysticks) are all recognised in MAX with the HI object (for human interface devices) often without even installing a driver (in Windows-land). From this, your control gestures create streams of numbers which you can feed into anything in Max which accepts numbers (quite a lot of things). For added entertainment, you can pull your gamepad apart and turn it into a custom hardware interface with four potentiometers and about twenty switches. Ditto old computer keyboards and Mice.

For some ideas on how you can interact with Max via Jitter and a webcam, look up the Cyclops object (somewhere on the c74 site).

Processing is at

http://processing.org/

Regards, Chris.

PS I’m all excited because I’ve just discovered beatboxing and realise I don’t have to spend ages messing with Max to get funny vocal noises. Just ages practising funny noises.

Thanks for the lead to the “Replication Rapport”. I’ve already got an idea to pull together many of my skills (art, music, video, writing, promo) into a single unique project.

As for the shedding, I’ve tried the slow route, and new aquisitions seem only moderated by funds available. Did you know the U.S. self-storage industry has larger revenues than even the entertainment industry? Why aren’t there televised red carpet Storage Awards? I’d be in the running. The golden statuettes/ashtrays could be called “Junkies”. Know what I mean?

In my case, it is a combination of diminishing time alive as well as loss of permanent oversized abode. The fight is the inquisitive nature of the past that lead me in so many differet avenues of information, but now the limitation of time and energy makes concentration and specialization a goal. If all that stuff is sold at auction that we haven’t needed or even seen for 5 years, the freedom it opens far outweighs the “loss”.

The other rationale is now anything can be repurchased on ebay at a later date. I’ve also heard of others just keeping a diogital image of all those “meaningful” items, so when you need the warm memory jigger, it’s there. That’s my kind of junk storage.

Oh, and frame those Max items, and use acid free paper. Believe me, these will only gain in value. What else coud be more interesting on the wall?

-kosmik

Thanks for more great breadcrumbs to follow. Is the Processing program a sister version of Max? I read somewhere over the past few days someone from the early development of Max went away from it, and then came back later with a similar open source program. Is it accurate that Max was given up for dead long ago and was resurrected by someone with a longer vision? I love that if true.

As for the beatbox angle, will you get more YouBoob hits if you do a straight beatbox vid, or one that Max makes from animals making funny noises to wild, sound-controlled video effects and edits? Remember, uniqueness is the gas that rises most efforts to the top. (I JUST heard a wild Minnesota Snow Monkey scream from a performer on Prairie Home Companion!) Oooooh, Oooooh, Ahhh, Ahhh, Ahhh.

Let me know if you need a Creative Consultant.

-kos

Sister version of Max is PD (pure data), processing is writing code, so no cool graphic interface. I only mentioned it because of the neat graphics people generate with it.

Don’t know about a creative consultant, but there are days when I wonder if I could use a manager for the creative stuff.

Regards, Chris.