just go to the help menu and there should be an item 'max tutorials'-- go through these one at a time, without skipping anything.* Do the same thing with the msp tutes and the jitter tutes.

If you get bored with this then you can supplement this trajectory with resources such as Baz tutes-- http://www.youtube.com/user/BazTutorials?feature=watch

or dude837: http://www.youtube.com/user/dude837?feature=watch

or the hippy petchang guy for slightly obscure max secrets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEbyGLkVnrk&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PL71A2325EEEFC1923

and there's a zillion videos here: https://cycling74.com/videos

there's a 'hard-copy' (pdf file) of the max tutorials here: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/ali/arts3603/C74_Tutorials/Max46Tutorial.pdf it's for max 4, but still relevant

the guy who wrote that document also authored this web page of max examples: http://music.arts.uci.edu/dobrian/Music215S12/examples.htm

if you need to know more about specific audio synthesis techniques, psychacoustics etc (ie Waveforms, Harmonics, Additive Synthesis, Clipping, Masking, Beats, Filters, FM, AM) using max then this might be of use: https://cycling74.com/project/e-a_musicprimer5/

that should keep you going for the next year or so ;-)

*btw this might sound condescending but it is intended as salient advice

Peter Batchelor has an excellent series of videos on youtube:

www.peterbatchelor.com/maxTuts.html

I watched most of them when I was just getting started and they were very helpful.

Floating Point condescending was anything but what i thought from what you wrote. Even though I would expect it from such a newb post lol. Thank you so much mate Likewise Kjelgaard much appreciated im gonna dive right in now very excited about what people are doing with the software.

Good to know there is a community going and i will keep you posted.

All the best guys

what ? what seemed condescending in Floating Point's post ? the max built-in tutorials are more than probably the best resource there is out there for a beginner, and it is often overlooked because it is built-in, and there is so much indispensable sutff in it... you should not overlook them...

hey vichug, super6 was saying the opposite -- i just stated that it might be read as condescending (i said:"go through these one at a time, without skipping anything.") as a footnote, and he was saying that he didn't find it as such ;-] * but i was being a little cheeky about New Zealand accents (hippy pecheng)

The Christopher Dobrian and Peter Bachelor stuff will get you started quicker. But they will need underpinned by the built in tutorials. And buy Maurizio Giri's MaxMSP book. You'll be patching in no time.

Brendan

I'm just starting out too... but I've been full immersion from the get go. I have to say.. this little program has changed my life. My only regret is that I didn't get involved sooner.

The specifics listed above are great advice. Just keep in mind that there is an initial barrier that you need to break through.. so don't give up. Don't be afraid of a little brain melt. It happens. What seems impossibly complicated now, won't be before long.

It really all comes does to a way of thinking more than anything. You will never know all there is to know about Max.. nor will anyone. But if you know how to think like Max.. you can figure out what needs to be done.

Above all.. whether you want to do music, video or whatever.. it's about data. I don't mean that you use data to do this or that. I mean it's ALL data... which is a good thing.. because it means there is only one thing to learn... the flow of data. Learn to manipulate numbers, lists, floats, symbols, messages.. and eventually signals and matrices. That will allow you to do whatever you want. And then when you are doing all the fancy stuff - projection mapping, sound synthesis,whatever.. you will realize that it's still all data.

( aaaah, my bad then........ english is so difficult :/ happy maxing everyone. )