Beginner's questions on learning MAXMSP
I've traditionally been an acoustic composer and now find the idea of using MAXMSP to create sounds just too irresistible to ignore. I've been watching various tutorials and on this site and others, and also reading this book called "Electronic Music And Sound Design" (it seems like a great book, but I know I'm going to have to reread it several times, if you know what I mean).
This probably sound stupid, but I've been doing all of this before I've purchased MAX 6 because I don't have a lot of dough. I feel that it's an absolute must to go in this direction, but I want to make sure that this is something I can do.
Questions: are the Max tutorials on this site different from the ones I could view after I've purchased the program (I've heard that there's a video tutorial section within the program)? And if these tutorials exist, does anyone feel that simply buying the program and using said tutorials would be enough to get going and to create works (assuming, of course that, like an instrument, over time things would get more complex and I'd be able to do more)?
I'm just itching to dive in. But I'm just wondering what the best method is for learning this program (or just getting started, that is). Thanks so much for any replies.
Hi
the single greatest obstruction to learning Max (or anything I suppose) is - option anxiety; particularly if, like me, you mistakenly believe that more = better. The EMASD book you mention IS good, but unlike the Max/MSP/Jitter tutorials, it explores digital audio and synthesis topics and instruction in parallel with MaxMSP instruction. So, the EMASD book is ideal for someone like me, who is fairly familiar with Max but wants to develop DSP chops.
The program documentation, then, is probably the best place to start; but you may well get impatient - the sign of an artist I guess. So you might want to also look at peter batchelor's excellent course here:
Don't do what I did at the start: ie, assume all tutorial sources are vital and save/bookmark them all. There just ain't enough hours in the day.
HTH
Brendan
When you are starting make sure to start with the Max rather than Msp tutorials. A lot of the fundamentals of patching and program operation are in the Max and not Msp or Jitter tutorials.
One of the things I wish I had learned a lot earlier was dealing with lists, messages and list processing. It's easy and it opens up a lot of possibilities but it was as an arts student/musician it was something I had no real previous experience of. It was not in my conceptual framework for music and I had no idea how important it really was. (ZL, Pack, Join family and Vexpr).
It is not enough to read the tutorials and look at the help files you HAVE to read the reference files for each object. It wasn't until I started routinely reading the reference files, understanding how they were laid out, and what they were saying, that I felt that I was really getting to grips with Max/Msp.
Good Luck!
Thanks so much for your replies. Those all sound like really good recommendations and will help a lot (nothing beats time saving suggestions!!). And the Peter Bachelor tutorials look fantastic!
I suppose I'm just gonna have to buy the program and get my hands dirty. That'll make any tutorials or advice more meaningful, I think. I can be patient with it; but I just hope I can figure out how to compose a short piece or two not long after I start, and then at regular intervals. That would really feed the inspiration.
Really appreciate the comments and certainly welcome more!
These are great nuggets of advice...also you really really need to know the fundamentals of the patching environment itself (shortcuts and control-keys). So many students I've seen don't read these well enough...towards the end of the semester I'm helping them patch this or that, and I do an option-drag or similar shortcut, they say "Whoa! How did you do that?" --- them not knowing this and many other shortcuts indicate many many lost hours of productivity. Get familiar with all of these FIRST, look to Max Toolbox, etc.
Check the "See Also..." in every Help file you open. Read and re-read. You'll come back to the Help files many times, that's OK...no way to absorb it all in the first reading. Take small steps where you know exactly what you're doing and modifying, see the results, take another small step, repeat until 5 am.
Interesting when you say "compose a short piece or two"...I think you will vastly expand your notion of "composition" as you learn the program, which is the point! It's never-ending and surprising..... :)
Also, EMSD is not the kind of book you read while relaxing on the couch with a glass of wine and listening to Schubert. Think of it like a traditional book on counterpoint where you would be at the piano banging out examples and writing your own. You gotta be at the machine digging into the examples and recreating them yourself. I have two folders for EMSD, one of the examples they provide and one of my versions of their examples that I've reconstructed and other patches that I've created in the process of going through the book.
Not to add to your expense but if you're an Ableton Live user you really should consider getting Max For Live as well as Max 6 (which is only an extra $99 on top as a crossgrade). The bundled lessons in Live really bring the concepts of Max to life and the bundled devices are great starting points for hacking your own patches together. Once your learnt the basic operating modes of working in Max, hacking your own patches together from the building blocks supplied with Live is a really rewarding way to deepen your knowledge and makes real some of the abstract concepts that you'll learn whilst also going through the Max tutorials and help files.
I'm also another big fan of the EMSD book, I love the way it's structured - providing you with the theory in bit size chunks before you get you hands dirty building in the patching environment. But I'd also recommend another new Max book which has recently come out:
Max/MSP/Jitter for Music: A Practical Guide to Developing Interactive Music Systems for Education and More by Vincent J Manzo - Amazon link: http://tinyurl.com/cet7z7p
The thing I love about this book is that it's written from a musicians point of view and bridges the gap between the math of music theory and how to apply it within the Max programming environment.
Enjoy your journey.
JM
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http://soundcloud.com/leftside-wobble
You guys are kind of pumping me up! Thank you, again.
"I think you will vastly expand your notion of "composition""... I hope so! I guess you can tell that I think like an acoustic composer. And it's not like I want to give that up; I'd like to incorporate the two. But I'm just so tired of hammering things out on Sibelius (or whatever) and then doing the whole routine that follows in order to hear it played back (I'm not even knocking what it is, you know.... It's just that that process is sooo tiring).
But all the suggestions are making this much clearer. Not sure why, but I just kept thinking that I was going to buy this program and it was going to be something that I frustratingly couldn't figure out at all and therefore never used.
Often in my research on MAXMSP, I'd see somebody put together a basic patch (whatever you call it) and it would be interesting; but then I'd think: how the hell do you go from that tiny example to Arne Nordheim? I'm slightly joking; but, I still really don't believe that anybody could sit down with this program and create sounds like that (like, the quality of the sound, I mean). I know that I'm wrong not to believe it. It just still seems a weird concept, to be able to present music/sounds (to anybody who cares to listen to it) in such a direct way, without going through performers and acoustic instruments, etc. (generally speaking, of course).
I just want to have fun and try to create interesting sonic sculptures.
And EMSD is definitely not my preferred book to read 'while relaxing on the couch with a glass of wine and listening to Schubert'...haha. I had probably read about 100 pages and started thinking: "what?". But it has its uses. I really enjoy the theory parts and trying to understand what sound is (at least from that particular perspective).
Thanks again for all your responses... I'm going to give everything that was suggested here a go. I feel pretty good about this now. Cheers!
And thank you, JM. I will definitely check those books out as well!
I meant, that book and Ableton Live. Cheers!
I have just started learning Max and I'm not sure it will meet your requirements. I have a moderate experience with programming and I see Max primarily as a programming environment. After 2-3 weeks I have read all the Basics and MIDI tutorials (they make a lot more sense when you have Max running in front of you). I have made two small patches (posted in this forum). I am some way from making compositions. I suggest that you try before you buy. You can get a free 30 day trial. If you want to get quickly into electronic composition then Ableton Live might be more what you need. I think they do a free trial too. Don't get both trials at once because you won't do either of them justice. Start with Live. David
I'm reading the 'Electronic music and sound design' book. It's a great place to start.
john.
In my case "compositions" typically become more "capture some improvisatory interactivity from a cool patch" rather than planning everything out. It's great and you never quite know what you'll get...you have some amount of control and some amount of non-control, everything shifts around all the time. Great stuff, you have a general plan but the specifics kind of "spin out" over time based on parameters and some randomness. Or (of course)...however you want!
I too have done many many hours on Sibelius. It's great for what it does and there are lots of ways to let it inspire, and I'm sure I haven't seen all it can do. It was indispensable for my music masters in composition degree, which probably goes without saying. But since then I haven't used it much...am really liking the generative, algorithmic, real-time-interaction kind of composition/improvisation a lot more. It also frees you from so many of those note-by-note details...much broader strokes, and a lot of the time, you don't even know what the brushes will do!
Bottom line: Max can be whatever you want it to be, more or less, and for every traditional idea or task which it doesn't do easily, there are 10 other new approaches which you can get up and running in no time...no end to the exploration and experimentation you can do. Be sure to check out the hundreds if not thousands of pre-made patches which can get you started with sequencing and synthesis...not only a great way to get going, but also a great way to learn what all those hundreds of objects can do...
Great stuff, seejayjames, thanks. I had been wondering about 'control' and the ability to replicate sounds/patterns. I'd see some tutorial where somebody creates an interesting patch, messes with it, adds stuff, etc.; and I always wondered how they'd prepare a final version for recording. That is, how do they set everything to 'playback' like a traditionally notated score in Sibelius, Finale or whatever. Not that Max has to function like those programs to be a worthy composer tool, I just mean, that's my acoustic perspective from which I'm approaching this very wonderful, but new endeavor.
And I suppose I'll find this out once I dive in, but how does one "record" a cool patch, or cool patch performance (since, perhaps, it sounds like things will vary from experience to experience)? That is, put a "composition" of sounds into a file so that it can be played back, turned into an audio file (MP3) and then shared?
Again, I hate to sound like I'm trying to "wham-bam" Max with all the 'how do I get a final product' type of questions; but it helps, in my view, at least, to have an endgame in mind.
Anyway, cheers. I can't wait to get started this week!
And I apologize to "Max" for referring to it as (merely) a 'composer's tool'...haha. I'm sure I meant that better than it came out, "Max"!!
Plenty of ways, from video/screen capture for visuals, or jit.qt.record. For MIDI, look at [seq] and [detonate], for audio (signal in your patches) look to [record~] [buffer~] etc. it's neverending :) :)
You might also look to an inter-program MIDI or audio transfer tool like Soundflower or Jack, this will allow you to (for example) send MIDI from Max to another program which has better MIDI sounds (like Kontakt etc.) You can also route the audio to and from such programs---maybe there are better instrument banks in one program, but better effects in your Max patch.
On and on!