Do I Need To Understand Math?

Hi
This is a common concern, and something of a misconception. It is possible to program quite advanced patches in MaxMSP, with fairly limited maths skills. This is due to the software's extensive support network (here, for example). An advanced level of math's skills may make programming a little quicker, and less fraught with mundane challenges; I also believe programmers with a high level of maths tend to be IMHO somewhat more creative in some respects. But that may just be envy on my part.

I am very happy with my Max skills, I've hacked other peoples patches, pounded this forum for help, devoured the tutorials and documentation. If you have a determined creative mind and some time to spare...........join us!

There are numerous tutorials out there, some good, some excellent, and the Cycling74 site itself is starting to amass quite a collection of examples and tutorials. I recommend Peter Bachelor's and Baz's youtube vidz for beginner/intermediate; also try to get your hands on Curtis Roads' Computer Music Tutorial - a very transparent and accessible text on digital audio processing.

Like I say, programming in Max is challenging, but if you have the time also fun and rewarding.

Brendan (maths-phobe)

ps I think I posted exactly the same question about 3 years ago.

If you *do* want to brush up on the Mathematics relevant to signal processing and music, I might recomment Gareth Loy's two volumes of "Musimathics," published by MIT press. I have found them useful.

Wow. That's great to know.

I feel I could probably learn the math over time, but I don't want to have the burden on my head that's telling me "You need to know it" before you can start programming/developing.

I have creativity flowing out of my ears, that's what attracted me to Max MSP. Using my knowledge and experience as a programmer to create audio (which happens to be my only, and most expensive hobby that I'm passionate about).

Thank you for the reply.

Chances are (99.9999%) I will be making a purchase when my trial runs out.

since composing music, processing audio signals, or writing shaders for the video card is all
about math, some math will always be part of your maxmsp project.

i dont even have visited anything close to high school, but i learned what i need for maxmsp
simply by using maxmsp.

for certain tasks such as writing custom audio filters or using geometry for GUI design, you
will always find help or examples here in the forum or by browsing the web.

-110

You don't need to know much math to program in Max, just like you don't really need to know math to program in C (or whatever language.) BUT, you do need to have enough domain knowledge to program the thing you're trying to program. For example, you need to know chess to be able to write a chess program.

So, if you want to write a filter from scratch, you're going to need to know something about the math for filters, but you don't need to know that much math if you're going to slap down a biquad or two.

You absolutely do not "need to know it" before you start :)
In fact, Max/MSP/Jitter is just numbers (I think I've paraphrased Gregory correctly), so learning Max is learning Math!

Speaking personally, I (falsely) believed some years ago, that Max was an unlockable secret, with an arcane and exclusive language. I've since learned the language. By programming in Max.

Brendan

A lot will depend on what you want to do (like the advice about filter-designing above). An equivalent music-question I get sometimes is "do I need to know counterpoint?" Well, it depends...

Like Gregory, I also recommend Loy's book.

brad
http://music.columbia.edu/~brad

I would suggest to start with this excellent book :

https://cycling74.com/project/maxmsp-book/

I've almost finished it : there's in it all you need to know !

Gotta add a recomendation for F.R. Moore's great intro to the math of digital signal processing: published years ago: for sale at http://www.jstor.org/pss/3680137
I still want to read Gareth's book, I liked him so much when I met him...and it seems a larger intro.: but his friend, mentor, and co-worker FR Moore's article is excellent, and has helped more than a few musicians to discover the beauty of advanced math. I *loved* his explaination of Euler's identity..."The most beautiful formula in Mathematics"...
ymmv, pax, G'LUCK!
cfb aka j2k