Guitar Interfaces for Max

Introduction

A lot of the time, people tend think of Max as a program for laptop musicians, keyboard-focused composers and interactive video artists. But here at Cycling ‘74 we’ve noticed that there seems to be a large number of guitarists interested in using Max. How do we know? Every time we do an article or tutorial on the guitar, the click-o-meter spikes and our inboxes blow up.

For starters, it’s not necessarily easy to get your guitar connected to Max. While most audio interfaces have 1/4” jacks that let you plug your guitar into with some sort of success, a few companies out there have been building interfaces that are particularly useful for guitarists. These interfaces make it easy to plug-and-play your instrument into any audio software by providing outputs whose levels and impedance are set up for guitar and bass.

When it comes to information on the audio specs, included software and other details about the interfaces, audio magazines and websites will be your first stop. For this introduction, we are only going to focus on one question: Does this interface make it easy to use your guitar with Max? Here are a pair of possible solutions.

The IK Multimedia iRig HD

The IK Multimedia iRig HD is a super-simple device that allows you to input your guitar or bass into your computer system. It’s got one drawback - it doesn’t have any outputs at all. That means you are either depending on Max’s ability to use different interfaces for input and output, or you are going to have to create some sort of “combined” device.

I tried both the “different interfaces” and the “combined device” configurations on my Mac Mini, and found that both of them worked well as long as I wasn’t running the interface through any kind of USB hub (including the one on my Novation AudioHub). There is an initial buzzy sound when you connect up as the interface locks onto its buffering, and then it’s off to the races. Somewhat surprisingly, I found that creating a combined (or Aggregate Device) tended to work better for use in Max – the latency seemed lower, and the lock-in was more reliable.

This solution gave me an interface to Max that had acceptable latency, good overall levels, and a fine sound. Overall, I thought the iRig HD was an easy way to get things working, and it’s what I am likely to use it a lot in the studio.

The Behringer Guitar Link UCG102

The Behringer Guitar Link UCG102 is a more traditional combined input/output audio interface that seems to be focused on the home recordist. It features a single mono guitar input, and the output is a stereo headphone-style 1/4” jack. Since it’s a standard USB interface, no drivers are required and it’s easy to use on any machine.

Since this device had an output, I thought that I’d take a different approach while working with it, using my laptop as a Max-based effects processor, and feeding the output to my guitar amp. Much fun! The output – since it is a headphone output – was pretty hot, but dropping the output levels on the interface’s gain control got things working properly. The result? This guitar/laptop combo ended up being a sweet live processing rig - playing around with shufflers, loopers and quirky delay lines was a hoot!

We’re connected. What’s next?

So, since we are focused on Max, what can you actually do once you get your guitar funneled into your computer? Here are a couple of great places to get started:

• The Cycling ‘74 website includes a mult-part series on guitar processing that I wrote a number of years ago. As you can tell from the screenshots, it was written back in the days of Max 5. No problem, though - everything still works perfectly. (Let’s hear it for back-compatibility!)
  

• A little judicious googling will also turn up other guitar articles written in the subsequent years, too - like this introduction to using Max for guitar processing, for example.

• In addition, the Forums include discussions on the subject.

But I think that the doors really swing open wide with Max 7’s new ability to use Max for Live devices in your Max patch. Now, you can combine interesting pure Max functions with higher level Max for Live devices to create a rig that would be impossible to consider in any other software system. By using the wide-open programming environment of Max (vs. the rack-oriented paradigm of most other software), you can create parallel processing systems, improbable effects chains and articulation trackers that can completely open up your options for guitar performance.

Conclusion

I hope that you’ve found this quick overview to be an interesting way to think of using your guitar with Max. Look for more guitar-focused information in newsletters, blog entries and tutorial series of the future. And ROCK ON!