Generative Drum Machine

Hello to all,

I have just started as a Max5 user and have been plodding my way through various tutorials and help files. I am trying to make a generative music box as part of a college project, and thought i'd share what i have so far with people on here, and hopefully get any tips or help. So far, i have just GM drums playing random rhythm values from a text file in a Coll object, linked to the global transport. Its very basic, but then i'm a musician not a programmer! And Max is tough! I am going to set it up so that hopefully everytime it is switched on, it will play at a different tempo, and when i get the synth sounds in play those in a different key.

At the moment, the patterns of the drums are very similar sounding, and also havent yet implemented any velocity changes, so it still needs work. I will be looking into something better than using Random object, i have started reading about Markov chains and understand this is implemented in Max, so that might be a possibility. I'm also using Curtis Roads Computer Music Tutorial which talks about other algorithmic methods such as stochastic and deterministic - anyone used these type of methods in Max??

anyhoo, here's the patch. Thanks for looking!