Darwin Grosse

This week we start looking into some of the cool devices that people have been creating in Max for Live, and using them within the Max environment. We start off with a fun one: a binaural beat generator, in combination with a simple file player, that will simulate the research environment that people use to test the effectiveness of the binaural beat phenomenon.

Download the patch I used in this article.

If you aren’t familiar with binaural beats, this is an area of interest where signals of slightly different frequencies are fed into separate ears of a subject, with the desired effect of a change in brain activity and/or facility. The jury is out on the effectiveness of binaural beats; some people (including people that I greatly respect) swear by them, while others consider them to be pseudo-science. If you want to do some reading, just Google the subject, or read through this Scientific American article by Gerald Oster.

Many of the studies combine two beating oscillators with the sound of a babbling brook; so that’s what I decided to simulate. But rather than synthesize this completely, I took advantage of two of my favorite resources: maxforlive.com and freesound.org.

On maxforlive.com, I found a great - as in complete - binaural beat generator called “Alpha”.

It has a simple interface, brainwave-specific frequency ranges and a basic visualizer. Drag it into a Max patch, add output routing, and you are halfway there. To create the babbling brook, I went to freesound.org and tapped one of my favorite recordists: Philip Goddard. Philip collects long-format recordings of soundscapes, and I found myself drawn to his recording of the River Teign in the UK.

This recording is in FLAC format, and is recorded at a very low volume, so I put it into my favorite audio editor, normalized it and saved it in WAV format. At that point, I could use the sfplay~ object to play it, set things up to start on launch, and I had the canonical binaural beats test patch.

My results? Mixed. I found it relaxing and stimulating, but probably more due to the quality of Philip’s nature recording and less due to the beating waves. But your mileage may vary - and you’ll at least have given it a try…

youll-either-love-it-or-not-binaural-beats-in-max-for-live

Great
The binaural beat is a very interesting phenomenon. I and my colleague C.Sommaiuolo We are carrying out a search on the soundscape of the city of Naples (Italy) napolisoundscape.com and we have built a hardware device (based on Max6) that allows you to listen to binaural beats in different ways: headphones and audio monitors. To demonstrate to younger guys like the beats may occur in the air or directly in our ears or directly in software-hardware system.
Dario Casillo


You'll Either Love It or Not: Binaural Beats in Max for Live

Gregory Taylor

One of the annual high points in my Cycling ’74 trade show life back in the day was the visit from our Japanese colleagues and distributors at MI7. Along with cool gifts, they almost always brought a recent issue of the Japanese Magazine Sound & Recording along with them (often with a post-it note marking a particularly interesting feature on Max). I usually wound up scoring the copy of the magazine after everyone else was done, and I regularly scoured it in search of pictures or ads for unfamiliar and interesting stuff (No, I don't read Japanese. I'm just curious). They still email us from time to time to keep us informed of things of interest (and we are interested. Very interested)

The magazine has been posting the DEVICE series - a group of MSP patches intended as jumping-off points for the Max-inclined. As soon I heard about this month's edition, I thought I might share it with you: an elegant looper based on the MSP 2d.wave~ object that makes use of non-phasor~ inputs to kink the looped audiofiles in interesting ways. It's the work of Makoto Kataoka, a synthesist and guitarist based in Kyoto.

I downloaded the patch, and decided right away that I'd better check out Makoto and his work a little more. To my surprise and delight, his artist website was chock-full of interesting stuff, including his own work (click on the works menu item on his main page) and a nice batch of downloadable Max for Live devices (click on the release menu item on his main page and keep your eyes peeled for links marked Free DL....). 

During the Edo period in Japanese history, the Japanese used a time system that divided the day and the night and then partitioned that into equal parts (yes, that's right - the length of hours for the day and night vary by season. It made for some very interesting clocks, as you might imagine). Although the original system was seasonal, that's precisely the sort of time expansion and compression that I associate with coming on such a treasure trove of MSP patching while trolling the web in the cool of the evening....

After the sun comes up and you're done sampling those delights, I'd definitely recommend a reconnoitering and bookmarking visit to the Sound & Recording website itself. The plucky explorer not terrified by the sight of Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana will find the Sound & Recording page that contains all 20 of the current DEVICE patches, interspersed with tantalizing Japanese interviews with Max world movers and shakers, from DUB-Russell (whose 2020 Kickstarter project generated quite a lot of buzz in the Max social media world) to Joshua Kit Clayton and Sam Tarakajian, and even David Zicarelli. While these mysterious interviews may have you calling in favors from your Japanese-speaking friends, the real treasure here is hidden in plain sight: just under two dozen "Devices" - Max patches created by a number of Japanese artists (and a few American celebs, too) to whet your appetite for more patching - just look for the word DEVICE in the listings. In addition to the lovely 2d.wave~-based looper patch for this month, you'll also find a great patch from Daito Manabe that converts 3d models to clouds of sound, a loop shifter from Carl Stone, some subtle scrubbery from Shintaro Imai, and even a chance to explore harmonics and subharmonics with David Zicarelli (yes, that David Zicarelli, thanks for asking) - all with Soundcloud examples to whet your appetite. 

So head on over to the Sound & Recording website and do some exploring and downloading. As the DEVICE series of articles regularly say themselves, 新しい音楽の制作に役立ててください (Please help in the production of new music).


some-gifts-from-japan-and-an-interesting-idea-about-time

Some Gifts from Japan (And an Interesting Idea about Time)

Tom Hall

I continue to be astonished at the collaborative nature of the Max-related Facebook groups. It’s developing into a great community of people contributing, sharing and seeking assistance.

Recently, Australian Max ninja Chris Vik posted an open call for help with the jit.gl.nurbs object:

As per usual, in less than 10 minutes, the usual suspects, Franz Rosati and Phillippe Hughes appeared – and Chris and others walked away with several powerful examples of how to use and program jit.gl.nurbs.

Some amazing patch sharing going on in the Max Jitter group at the moment! #jitter #maxmsp #max7 #opengl #graphics #physics

A video posted by Cycling '74 (@c74connect) on Apr 18, 2016 at 3:14pm PDT

Check out the thread here for the examples and be sure to join the group as it develops further.


Max nuggets of knowledge are popping up on these active pages daily, don't be afraid to get over there and join in the fun, they aren't just for <strong>Nurbs</strong>!

nuuurbs

Awesome!
any way of getting a hold of this patch without signing up for Facebook?
Please?


originally posted by matmat on this forum in 2012!
https://cycling74.com/forums/nurbssheet/

the max facebook group is definitely awesome, but your link goes to some Jitter group... hard to keep up with offshoots...

@rob_ramirez thanks for that link/patch, really beautiful rendering in that.
(what's the proper way to "@" a user who has a space in their name?)


Thank you very much. An effect I have been wondering about for a long time now. Looking forward to studying/understanding the patch.


The Facebook group is good in many ways but I much prefer the forums here. Everything is so fleeting on FB and it can be almost impossible to find a specific post that you might want to go back to. Try finding this Nurbs patch on there in four years time!


What does one have to do to become a member of this group? I requested membership but since I don't know the secret handshakes nobody responds :(


Gweilo : most probably, the administrator forgot you even asked to join it... maybe you cna resubmit  a membership request. if not, try PMing an administrator.


Vichug: Thank you for reply. I sent both admins a friendship request and that worked :)


Nuuurbs!

Recently, in the Jitter (C74) Facebook Group, a question was asked “How might I recreate this glassy texture?” with this neat gif being cited as an example.

As always with these incredibly active Facebook groups, Estevan Carlos Benson -- the person who posted the question -- had several answers to go off and investigate in Jitter in less than half an hour. Now that’s fast turn-around!

The answer being an environment_texture into jit.gl.material or if using cubes, jit.gl.cube with custom cube map. (There’s a lot of them to be found in a google search.)

There’s a lot more that can be done with shape changes and morphing, different textures, and lights and backgrounds. I’ll leave it to you to make it your own.

I have gone ahead and put together a basic example patch to get you started, that shows how to go about it.

mirror-mirror-creating-a-glassy-texture

@brendan Nope , what I see in the patch that Tom shared , all can be done in Max6.
@Tom Hall: did you use the same patch for the 1st example which demonstrates light reflection on the floor. Very slick 

@brendan - @phiol is correct, the only thing it includes that you can't do in Max6 is load very specific light settings via an included snapshot - you can set these manually in the patch.


This is great.  Learned some new useful stuff about jitter.

Had a problem getting it to open in Max.  I have some of my own stand-alones as well as some from Essl. This opened in them. Changed the extension to .zip and bingo.
Gave me additional insight into jit.world.
Thanks so much for this.


The trick to getting a really awesome finish is 90% in the lights. Here is a snapshot of another variation on the lights with reflections onto the ground surface below the shape.

Load the new snapshot into /Documents/Max7/Snapshots [folder]

Also try adding the jit.gl.pass default help patch to this patch to add depth-of-field


Thank you.
And what about the reflection in the reflection? kaleidoscope effect. If the model has a plane aimed at each other and reflecting other


Tom, I found by just using a video of the room I was in, as the material for a gl object, I got a great glassy effect. I agree with you though, lighting is everything. I just posted a quick vid on youtube in response to your piece here, showing what I did for a live music performance using jitter and gl objects. The video is called, MAX Intermediate EPS 02.


From my understanding this is just an object with the same texture applied unto it as the environment. So just an effect, not a real mirror simulation. For example if I put a shere in front of the cube, I will not see the sphere reflected. Right?

I will not see the sphere reflected. Right?

ya, (was thinking about this myself when i saw this from the facebook group), i'm pretty sure you're correct: unless you animated the environment map to show the reflected object at the exact proper positions, but that may be more trouble than its worth, and more complex things like having objects show 'reflections within reflections' i think would require 'raytracing' implemented within a shader(i've been thinking about 'raytracing' for years now and still i've not worked hard enough on learning to implement..so many things to learn 😭).

Get the Latest on Max and our Community

You'll Either Love It or Not: Binaural Beats in Max for Live

Some Gifts from Japan (And an Interesting Idea about Time)

Nuuurbs!

Mirror Mirror: Creating a Glassy Texture