Hisham

Hi, I'm very new to the world of MAX, so as a precursor please excuse my potential ignorance and/or stupidity :)

I've had a lot of fun utilising MAX to do things by itself and followed a lot of tutorials online to build stuff like vocoders or simple patches for very basic operations.

For my masters project, I'm trying to hook up a sensor (potentially an accelerometer) and do some processing with an Arduino, and then relay these signals into MAX to do some cool stuff with the input. I was suggested to look into Maxuino for this purpose.

So I've downloaded the appropriate files, and I've watched the tutorial videos (this entire series from episodes 1-4 

 and I've now gotten to a stage where I've got something like this going. (excuse the atrocious diagram...)

potentiometer -------- arduino --------- max

I've done everything in the tutorials, and I can open the maxuino-help patcher GUI and I can see I've wired up things correctly, and the little dial moves up and down corresponding to the movement of my potentiometer. But as far as I can tell, all I have done so far is synced up which arduino pin is what, and checked its response.

My question here is, what now? I was thinking that there would be a separate maxuino object or something, which I can just utilise in a brand new patch, and utilise the different inputs as part of my own patches, but I just cannot seem to figure out how to do this.

The most basic test I wanted to do was to take readings from my potentiometer, use the scale object, link it up to a kslider, and a noteout and just play different keys as I slide my potentiometer around. But I cannot for the life of me figure out how to actually use Maxuino to utilise the things I've connected to my Arduino within MAX.

Any help is much appreciated, and I'm happy to clarify if I've been a bit unclear. Thanks guys!

I've had a lot of fun utilising MAX to do things by itself and followed a lot of tutorials online to build stuff like vocoders or simple patches for very basic operations. 

For my masters project, I'm trying to hook up a sensor (potentially an accelerometer)  and do some processing with an Arduino, and then relay these signals into MAX to do some cool stuff with the input. I was suggested to look into Maxuino for this purpose.

So I've downloaded the appropriate files, and I've watched the tutorial videos (this entire series from episodes 1-4 https://vimeo.com/89883102), and I've now gotten to a stage where I've got something like this going. (excuse the atrocious diagram...)

Any help is much appreciated, and I'm happy to clarify if I've been a bit unclear. Thanks guys!


actually-using-maxuino-in-my-own-max-patches

All help files are editable and can be copy and paste in your patch. Unlock the patch to do so. Either shortcut command e, or little lock bottom left of the patch window.

Thanks for the tip Musinou! I'm away from my laptop atm, but just as an indication, will it still require me to run all the initialisation processes before making my own patch (i.e. will I need to open the main maxiuno help patch, and set the pins etc.) before I can create my own patch?

I'm thinking of just copying the sensor testing patch which I'm getting some output on whenever I use my potentiometer and it goes between 0 & 0.66, I could potentially try and utilise this as an input to a kslider object or something after scaling right?

What you need to do is to copy whatever you need and make your own patch with it. Use [loadbang] and [loadmess] to initialise your own patch automatically. If you want so you couuld have a patch that would work without any clic when you open it.

[scale 0. 0.66 60 72] would make your potentiometer a one octave glissandi maker.

What you need to do is to copy whatever you need and make your own patch with it. Use [loadbang] and [loadmess] to initialise your own patch automatically.  If you want so you couuld have a patch that would work without any clic when you open it.

[scale 0. 0.66 60 72] would make your potentiometer a one octave glissandi maker.


So I've attempted to take bits and pieces from the help patch to make my own thing.

I've constructed some sort of frankenstein patch, and I think I've gotten the vague logic behind it. I'm telling the top right port on the [maxuino] object the port that I've connected the Arduino to, I'm telling the top left port a message of the different pinModes (i.e. pin 15 is a analogue input etc), and now here is the non-working part...

I've tried to decipher what the maxuino help patch was doing and as far as I could tell, the bottom left port on the [maxuino] object goes to a route object which separates analogue, digital, and stepper signals and then from there it gets routed again to which pin you're trying to measure.

My patcher is currently not showing me any movement if I twiddle the potentiometer. I've copied the patcher at the end of the post for reference. Any advice anyone can offer or suggestions? Much appreciated!

So I've attempted to take bits and pieces from the help patch to make my own thing. 

I've constructed some sort of frankenstein patch, and I think I've gotten the vague logic behind it. I'm telling the top right port on the [maxuino] object the port that I've connected the Arduino to, I'm telling the top left port a message of the different pinModes (i.e. pin 15 is a analogue input etc), and now here is the non-working part... 

Put a [print] after [maxuino] and see in the Max window if you have anything. If yes, your problem is after [maxuino], if no, the problem is before.

I've tried all the things I can think that are going wrong.

Latest version of the patch I've built. I've put a print object before and after maxuino and it's definitely getting a 'port COM3' message into the maxuino

and I've sent a message of the pinmode into the leftmost entry of the Maxuino object too.

In my opinion (probably wrong..), I think I've gone wrong with the output for the Maxuino.

The serial values that are coming into Max from the Arduino (which I've put into the p sensor-check patch) are getting sorted with a "route Analog Digital Stepper" object. As far as I can tell, there is nothing circulating with Analog or Digital etc. But I really don't know how to fix this, or if it's even the problem

If anyone could take a quick look at the patch and see if there are any issues jumping out at you, I'd be very grateful. Thanks again!

In my opinion (probably wrong..), I think I've gone wrong with the output for the Maxuino. 

If anyone could take a quick look at the patch and see if there are any issues jumping out at you, I'd be very grateful. Thanks again!


Did you get any further with this? I am in exactly the same boat! My built components will control the sliders in the maxuino-gui but I have no idea what I am supposed to do now! What do I paste in to my personal patch to make connections to allow them to control parameters of my personal patch.

I think it would be much appreciated if someone could write a 'DummiesGudieToMaxuino'.... The final step seems to be missing from all tutorials!

I made some progress and had to compromise a little on what I had initially intended. I was under the impression that you could make your own completely independent patch and simply insert a Maxuino object and hey presto you can recall all sorts of sensor values.

But from what I can gather, the Maxuino object has a very sophisticated set of patches that are intertwined to make the Serial information into useful sensor readings.

My setup was an Arduino with a potentiometer inserted into pin 15 (or A1) and a digital switch in pin 2 (one of the digital inputs)

So as suggested from this thread, I basically unlocked the Maxuino.maxhelp patch and copied the entire patch into my own new patch.

-I deleted the patch cords linking the 'save' message and the 'p-saved pin-modes-and-values' object that were linked to the Maxuino object.

-I created a message that said 'pinMode 2 0, pinmode 15 2' << i.e setting what each pin is, so the first number corresponds to which Arduino pin, and the second number corresponds to what type of pin it is (verify what number to use from the 'p set pin modes' object)

-I opened up the 'p sensor-values' object, and connected an outlet object to the voltage value I was interested in. So I'd connected my potentiometer to pin15, and I just connected a patch cord from the correct pin in the Sensor-Values patch to an outlet object.

Now you have a varying value coming out of the 'p Sensor-Values' object which you can connect into other patches. But this big patch you've created is basically the hub of all of your work. I'm sure there's a neater and probably nicer way of doing it, but it's what I cobbled together!

Hope that made sense. I'd copy in my patch but it's a massive mess of things atm, so I'm not able to do it just now.

My setup was an Arduino with a potentiometer inserted into pin 15 (or A1) and a digital switch in pin 2 (one of the digital inputs)
So as suggested from this thread, I basically unlocked the Maxuino.maxhelp patch and copied the entire patch into my own new patch.

The only differences are:
-I deleted the patch cords linking the 'save' message and the 'p-saved pin-modes-and-values'  object that were linked to the Maxuino object.
-I created a message that said 'pinMode 2 0, pinmode 15 2' << i.e setting what each pin is, so the first number corresponds to which Arduino pin, and the second number corresponds to what type of pin it is  (verify what number to use from the 'p set pin modes' object)
-I opened up the 'p sensor-values' object, and connected an outlet object to the voltage value I was interested in. So I'd connected my potentiometer to pin15, and I just connected a patch cord from the correct pin in the Sensor-Values patch to an outlet object.

Hope that made sense. I'd copy in my patch but it's a massive mess of things atm, so I'm not able to do it just now.


Actually using Maxuino in my own Max Patches