Wesley Smith

Last May I was invited by Trond Lossius to give an advanced Jitter workshop at BEK.  I hadn't given a workshop since Max6 was released, so I was super excited for the opportunity to dive into all of the fantastic new Jitter features, particularly the Gen objects.  For me, the Gen objects are like a secret ingredient that can be used to spice up a patcher in interesting ways.  They're extremely versatile objects, useful in adding a unique touch.

The Jitter Gen objects are a portal to a vast world of creative possibilities but with that vastness one can easily feel overwhelmed.  Gen patchers come with a new set of objects and operate according to a different logic than normal Max patchers.  To really understand Gen requires shedding preconceptions and rewiring how you think about composing a patcher.  As an entry point into the Gen world, the workshop curriculum focused on only a handful of Gen objects at a time, using them to explore a single visual technique:

Color Manipulation: understanding vectors and colors
Key Objects: vec, swiz, concat


Mixing Video Streams: recreate jit.xfade and jit.alphablend, mixing at the image level v. mixing per-pixel
Key Objects: mix, switch


Coordinates: generating spatial patterns using distance fields (distance from a point, from a line, from a circle)
Key Objects: norm, snorm, cell, dim, length


Sampling: image warping using sample, applies knowledge about coordinate manipulation to image processing
Key Objects: sample

Isosurface (3D distance fields): extends the previous work with coordinates to 3D, uses jit.gl.isosurface for visualization and rendering
Key Objects: norm, snorm, cell, dim, length, jit.gl.isosurface


Particles: moving points through space using vector fields, vector math and quaternions
Key Objects: dot, length, qrot, noise, jit.gl.mesh

Materials: generating textures for use with jit.gl.material
Key Objects: jit.gl.material

Surfaces: surface generation and manipulation
Key Objects: sphere, torus, etc., jit.gl.mesh


Rendering: post-processing captured 3D rendering using jit.gl.node and jit.gl.pix
Key Objects: sample, jit.gl.node


I often have the impression that the Gen objects are underutilized, particularly in Jitter.  Only one or two people who attended the workshop had ever used Gen before.  After spending some quality time with Gen and going through the curriculum, pretty much everyone had become enthusiastic Gen users.  There was just too much goodness to be had.

To spread the wealth, the patches developed for the workshop are being made available here along with the patches I made throughout the five days of the workshop itself.  Have a look at the README in the download for info on the different folders.  Feel free to borrow, steal, fork, and extend the ideas presented!

Special thanks to BEK and all of the workshop participants for an amazing week.  Credit for the images used in this post goes to:

Karl Kliem: www.dienststelle.de
Rajan Craveri: www.rajancraveri.it
Oscar Sol: electronicperformers.in


advanced-jitter-workshop-at-bek

Advanced Jitter Workshop at BEK

Lilli Wessling Hart

Cycling '74

Andrea Agostini will be leading one of nine community-driven workshops at Expo '74 in Brooklyn this October. Read on for more information about his workshop and some history of his work.

This workshop will focus "bach: automated composer's helper", a freely downloadable library of Max patches and externals for music notation, sequencing and computer-aided composition in the real-time world. Students will learn how to use bach's musical notation editors for generating and displaying scores in real time; and how to take advantage of bach's powerful list processing tools for operating algorithmically on symbolic musical data. The workshop will not focus on music theory or algorithmic composition in itself, and participants will not need to be experts in music formalization or analysis. The approach will be very hands-on, as the aim of the workshop is to provide a practical introduction to this extremely versatile set of tools.

To participate in this workshop, you will need a laptop (Mac or Windows) with Max and, if possible, bach installed. No need for MSP or Jitter.

I am a composer mostly based in Italy and France, with a strong preference for carefully planned music (whether it is rock'n'roll, western classical and contemporary music or Balinese gamelan). I have been fiddling with computers since my childhood, and at some point it was quite obvious for me to start doing computer music and music- and art-related computer programming. I have been a student, and later a composer in research, at IRCAM, mainly focusing on sound synthesis. My latest work is a new, completely electronic music for the 1925 movie "Wunder der Schöpfung", a commission from Cinemathèque du Louvre that will be premiered on September 19 in Paris.

I started in 2004 under the guidance of my former composition teacher, because he thought it was a too powerful tool for me to ignore it. Shortly after, I was offered a job by a theatre company who was looking for a computer musician, and I did a lot of Max programming for them - which helped me boost my Max skills at a very fast pace.

What technology or person's work intrigues you most right now?

About technology, I am crazy about advanced additive synthesis as it can be found in Pianoteq or Synful, and I dream of a synthesis engine of this kind, but more flexible. I'm pretty sure that when this will happen we will experience a new, great leap in sound synthesis.

And then, I'm extremely fascinated by generative music systems, such as improptu and David Cope's work. This is a world I don't know much about - which I want to fix very soon !

What is the most exciting part of attending Expo '74?

Andrea Agostini talks about his Expo '74 workshop.

bach-automated-composers-helper

Bach: Automated Composer's Helper

Our next Max workshop will be held in Los Angeles, CA, and is strictly for beginners. This workshop is specifically for new users of Max or Max for Live, and is intended to provide an introduction to Max, MSP, and Jitter together as a unit in the context of Max and Max for Live.

The workshop concentrates on the basics of working with Max users in a variety of situations including audio and image processing. The topics to be covered in the workshop include an overview of Max, MSP, and Jitter objects in their Max and Max for Live environments, basic audio and video processing techniques, strategies for patch design, user interface design, techniques for better patching, and learning & problem solving.

There is an emphasis on strategies for learning that can be applied after the workshop ends.

Participants are required to bring their own Windows or Mac laptops with the current version of Max installed, a three-month Max/MSP/Jitter software authorization will be provided with the $150 class fee. Max for Live is optional and can be purchased from Ableton.

Click here to purchase a space. Space is limited to 20 students.

date: Tuesday 22 June - Friday 25 June, 9:30 a.m to 5:30 p.m..

location: Machine Project, 1200 D North Alvarado, Los Angeles, CA 90026

location website: http://machineproject.com/

maxmspjitter-beginner-workshop-in-los-angeles

Max Workshop in Los Angeles

David Zicarelli

Eric Lyon, author of the book Designing Audio Objects for Max/MSP and Pd, will be teaching a workshop on designing your own audio objects at Harvestworks in New York City on Saturday, May 18. For more information or to sign up, visit the Harvestworks web site.


workshop-at-harvestworks

Workshop at Harvestworks

Nathan Bowen

This is a bundle of patches intended to help get you off the ground in using mobile phones to control Max.  

As I like to have several phones connecting to Max in a network setup, I use of udpreceive and udpsend so that ports can be dedicated to specific devices.  I don't know how to make use of Bonjour, so feedback is welcome!

For Android users, I have created a patch that interfaces seamlessly with the TouchOSC 'Simple' layout, so even if you cannot add custom layouts, you can still make use of some these patches.  

Currently the best setup is either an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad on TouchOSC, but hopefully this will change as Android becomes more robust.


mobile-phones-max

Mobile Phones + Max

For the first time, we are offering a three-day Max workshop only for high school students ages 15-18. It will take place at the Cycling '74 office in San Francisco, July 27-29 (10:30am-3:30pm).

The application period has ended. No more applications will be accepted at this time.

Max is a visual programming language for interactive audio and video applications used by innovative musicians, artists, and developers. It is a major component of media arts programs at leading universities worldwide. With Max, you can explore basic concepts in digital audio, video, physical computing, and create your own interactive media software, bringing art and technology together. Get more detailed information about Max here.

 Max (MIDI), MSP (digital audio), and Jitter (video processing) are all part of "Max". The students will learn the basics of each, see how Max is used in many different settings, and get hands-on experience with hardware often used in conjunction with Max. Here is an outline of what to expect:

Verbal Group Review (Why doesn't this work? What is this patch for?)

Watch short videos of C74 artists and discuss their systems.

The application should be submitted by June 5th for consideration. If you or your parent/guardian has any questions, please email us or call Erin (415-974-1818 ext. 2#) before submitting the application.

Click on the images below to learn more. (All image and video copyrights belong to the artists and organizations noted below.)

This is a free program. Up to 8 students are selected based on the application process.

Each student is responsible for his/her transportation to the Cycling '74 office, located 3 blocks south of the Civic Center BART station. Parking is not available.

After completion of the workshop, each student will receive a free copy of Max/MSP/Jitter. The software will be registered in the student's name and cannot be resold.

We will offer two 30-minute orientations for students and his or her parent/guardian. Dates to be announced. At the orientation, the Cycling '74 representatives and teachers will meet and discuss the workshop at the Cycling '74 office.


summer-max-workshop-for-high-school-students

Summer Max Workshop for High-School Students

At Expo '74, you will have a variety of events -- presentations, workshops, panels, social -- available to you. We hope you can attend all to get the most out of our short time together. 

Below you will find the list with the times. Please keep in mind, these details are subject to change. Also, you will see that workshops go on simultaneously. You can choose one (or a set when there's more than one) to attend each day. (The conference is sold out.)

See the color program. You will receive a copy at check-in.

10-10:30am David Zicarelli keynote, welcome

10:30-11:45am Cycling '74 Max 6 presentation with Joshua Kit Clatyon

Nick Rothwell (Programming with Clojure in Max)

Alex Harker (Convolution and Impulse Response Workshop using HISSTools)

9-10am Cycling '74 Gen (new code generation add-on to Max) presentation with Gregory Taylor, Darwin Grosse, and Joshua Kit Clayton

10-11:15am Education Panel with Luke DuBois

11:30am-12:15pm Brian Crabtree and Kelli Cain (monome), presentation

2:45-3:15pm Break, prepare for workshops and science fair setup

3:15-5:45pm One set of workshops and two individual workshops:


Dan Nigrin (Making A Slick Max Standalone) - 75 minutes
Nathan Bowen (Mobile Phones and Max) - 75 minutes

Scott Fitzgerald (Ins and Outs with Max and Arduino)

Cycling '74 (Max for Live) with Darwin Grosse, Matthew Davidson, and Dennis DeSantis (Ableton)

5:30-7:30pm Reception with food and drinks (open to all expo attendees)

5:45-6:15pm Science Fair setup (and a break for those not exhibiting)

6:15-8pm Science Fair (open to all expo attendees)

9-11:30am One set of workshops and two individual workshops:


Thomas Resch (Introduction to note~) - 45 minutes
Andrea Agostini (Bach: Automated Composer’s Helper) - 45 minutes
Michael Sperone (Techniques for Extending Acoustic Instruments) - 45 minutes

Jean-François Charles (Live Spectral Processing in Max)

Ben Houge (Videogame Music Prototyping in Max)

11:45am-12:45pm Group event with Geoff Morris of Cycling '74

1:45-2:30pm Philippe Manoury, an interview with David Zicarelli

7:30pm Todd Reynolds/Luke DuBois performance at Issue Project Room's 110 Livingston space (free ticket included with your expo registration)


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expo-74-2011-event-schedule

Expo '74 2011 Event Schedule

Nick Rothwell will be leading one of nine community-driven workshops at Expo '74 in Brooklyn this October. Read on for more information about his workshop and some history of his work.

Functional Programming with Clojure in Max

The workshop provides an introduction to the Clojure language working within Max. Clojure is a lightweight functional programming language designed from the ground up for concurrent programming - it features transactions and asynchronous agents - and it avoids the fundamental problems encountered when attempting to spot-weld a stateful procedural language to a dynamic, time-sensitive programming environment like Max. Clojure offers Max a safe, concurrent world of data structures and algorithmic power, and the combination lets Clojure have some fun in the world of digital media.

 As examples you'll look at asynchronously driving a MaxMSP user interface and time-based sequencing, two areas where conventional programming languages tend to have a hard time.

To participate in this workshop, you will need a laptop with MaxMSP and Java installed.

I'm Nick Rothwell, based in London, going under the name "cassiel" in situations like gigs and recording sessions where it's safer to use a secret codename. I'm a freelance composer, performer, digital artist and software engineer, working mostly in collaboration with choreographers and visual artists, and with my fingers in lots of pies encompassing sound art, video animation, scores for dance, interactive installations, live coding and physical computing. I also have a few teaching gigs (mostly MaxMSP and Jitter) and write sporadically for the music technology press.

I think I got my first version of Max late in 1991. This took several months: it wasn't available in the UK and, since this was before the Web, I had to phone dealers in the US to find a copy. (Mine finally came from Alabama.) I still have the big black Max ring binder. Within a few weeks I was writing externals in THINK C, and was gigging with Max-based performance systems (and racks of synthesisers) the following summer.

At the time, electronic music performance revolved around linear MIDI sequencers and idiosyncratic master keyboards, and I really needed something more flexible, configurable and versatile for programming and controlling MIDI gear; Max was perfect. Even now, for a lot of my own projects most of my Max patching is control systems and algorithmics.

Lemme see... In terms of software technology, Clojure - the topic of the workshop - is really sweet: it's a new take on a formal, interactive, abstract style of programming that goes back 50 years, and a refreshing break from the rather ossified procedural languages that currently dominate the scene. I'm also spending a lot of time in Marc Downie's Field, a massive sophisticated meta-environment for live-coding OpenGL visuals and animation which, if it doesn't finally kill me, will surely make me stronger.

I don't follow the music technology scene that closely, but in hardware I love the products from monome - minimal, abstract, beautifully made and inviting to the imagination - and have written libraries and applications for them, including (naturally) some code in Clojure. And, of course, there's the Arduino: a fully-fledged computer platform so cheap that the London Hackspace sells them from a vending machine.

People: most of my collaborations are with international choreographers, and I've always found dance to be a richly fertile and rewarding environment to work in as a composer - and, recently, as a software maker. I've worked with Michael Klien at William Forsythe's Ballett Frankfurt: Klien has some wonderfully focussed ideas about creative processes and systems of performance, and Forsythe's dance pieces are stunning. (Computer visualists should check out the online Synchronous Objects work at Ohio State.) I've composed sound scores for Aydin Teker in Istanbul and Shobana Jeyasingh in London - open and collaborative processes from the beginning - and am currently working in visuals for Wayne McGregor's Random Dance Company at Sadler's Wells. I could - but won't - name-drop any number of renowned choreographers whose views on creating and structuring work have been influential in my efforts with sound, image and software.

The technology-rich, creative-people-rich ecology of Cycling '74 and MaxMSP is something that surrounds Max users around the world, through social networks, video and music sites, forums, online works and frequent patcher-swapping. I can't wait to meet a whole bunch of people I've known only through their sounds, images, writings and avatar icons for years, to talk to them face to face, and to share a large number of beers.

Nick Rothwell talks about his Expo '74 workshop.

programming-with-clojure-in-max

Programming with Clojure in Max

Alex Harker will be leading one of nine community-driven workshops at Expo '74 in Brooklyn this October. Read on for more information about his workshop and some history of his work.

Convolution and Impulse Response Workshop (using HISSTools)

The workshop will present a new set of tools for working with convolution and impulse responses in MaxMSP (HISSTools impulse response toolbox). Rather than than being simply an exposition of these new externals, the aim of the workshop will be to provide participants with some theoretical background to impulse response measurement, as well as tools and practical skills to work with convolution for a range of applications (reverb, creative effects, measurement, speaker and room correction etc.).

The exact nature of the workshop would depend on the available resources, but areas to be covered include:

Impulse response measurement of real spaces / electronic systems

Speaker / room correction from IR measurements

Deconvolution and inversion of impulse responses

Participants will have a chance to investigate the objects and techniques in small groups or individually, depending on the equipment available.

Participants will require a reasonably fast computer running MaxMSP. Soundcards / mics / hardware to measure etc. also useful but non-essential.

I'm a composer and programmer based in the UK. I write music for various combinations of instruments and electronics, both fixed and live (see some recent work). As a programmer, I spend a lot of time developing externals for MaxMSP. Most of my external development has arisen out of creative projects that I couldn't realise in Max alone, but it has become a pretty serious occupation in itself. I recently released a set of 82 externals written during my PhD study at the University of York.

Currently I'm working as a Research Fellow at the University of Huddersfield, creating a set of tools primarily for MaxMSP called HISSTools. This workshop is based around the first set of objects from this work which are focussed on impulse response measurement and manipulation.

I started using Max in 2004 as part of University course I was attending during my Masters programme at the University of Birmingham. I have a fairly extensive background in music technology and I already had an interest in how audio processing worked, so using Max was a totally logical step. It probably took off a lot faster than I would have guessed, and I got into coding externals within a few months. That was partly because I was really interested in spectral processing, and it is a lot easier to do some of that stuff in C than with native objects only.

I'm getting back into the idea of sines + noise + transient modelling and returning to spectral processing (partly due to doing a fair amount of it for HISSTools). I did a whole lot of reading up on this model a couple of years back, and then it didn't really fit into the project I was working on. It was also hard at the time for me to figure out how to implement that kind of approach entirely within Max. Now I have a slightly different take on it though, as I'm interested in abstracting a "model" of a sound that can be used quite malleably, rather than getting a realistic reproduction of the original. I'm hoping to achieve what I want without the need for too much complexity.

Perhaps ironically, given that I'm presenting on convolution which for a lot of people is mostly about reverb, I'm also really into algorithmic reverb at the moment. I'm using Aether by 2caudio, which I've been really really impressed by in terms of flexibility and sheer sound quality. I'm very interested at the moment in finding really high-quality DSP tools and I'd love to know more about how to make an algorithmic reverb of this kind of quality. However, I'm aware that this is the kind of area that can become a black hole in terms of time, so for the time being I'm leaving it to the experts...

Like everyone else, I'm most excited to meet people in the community, see their work and discuss ideas. It's nice to have an excuse to visit New York for the first time also!

Alex Harker talks about his Expo '74 workshop.

convolution-and-impulse-response-workshop

Convolution and Impulse Response

Nathan Bowen will be leading one of nine community-driven workshops at Expo '74 in Brooklyn this October. Read on for more information about his workshop and some history of his work.

Mobile Phones and Max: Simple Ways to Make Interactive and Collaborative Music

This workshop aims to introduce some simple applications for smart phones that integrate very well with the Max environment.  In the days prior to smart phones, getting keypresses from phones to integrate with Max required a lot of extra programming via Asterisk or other telephony platforms. With smart phones now featuring WiFi capability, getting your phone to talk to Max via a WiFi LAN is now very simple to do.  This opens the door for the phone to serve as a controller, and via OpenSoundControl, there is a very low latency.  In this workshop we'll create a network band driven by mobile phones.  TouchOSC, OSCemote, c74, and other apps will be featured.  As TouchOSC is available for both iOS and Android platforms, this app will be highlighted.

To participate in this workshop, you will need a laptop with Max and, optionally, a smart phone (iPhone or Android phones work best) with TouchOSC app (downloaded onto your device) or comparable OSC-equipped apps.

I'd say that I am foremost a composer, but since being introduced to Max I've also become an instrument builder.  In my graduate work at the CUNY Graduate Center I began to focus on the use of mobile phones as performance devices, particularly in non-linear networked and collaborative situations.  In looking for ways to engage non-musicians in some way other than through passive consumption, mobile phones seem to have unique potential as controllers because nearly everyone has one.

As of late I've been pretty consumed with my dissertation while also teaching fulltime at Moorpark College.  Here and there I've done projects with MELD Danceworks, the Handcart Ensemble, the Intermedia Arts Group, 60x60, and have served on the staff of NYCEMF.

I started using Max in early 2006.  I was intrigued by the prospect of realtime performance being incorporated into my compositions.  At the time I was studying composition with Amnon Wolman at Brooklyn College via the Graduate Center, and he had me get in touch with Hans Tammen at Harvestworks.  I served as an intern and took classes from Matthew Ostrowski, Luke DuBois, and tried to sit in on any other activities going on there. Right from the start I was blown away by the artistic potential Max had. 

I've been pretty keen to watch what's going on both at Stanford and Michigan with their respective Mobile Phone Orchestras, so Ge Wang and Georg Essl are pretty intriguing to me.  Atau Tanaka has been very kind as a contact and I really admire his work and dedication in mobile arts.  Frauke Behrendt has done tremendous research in mobile music as has Sumanth Gopinath.  Kiri Miller's research on Rock Band and Guitar Hero is fascinating too.

I'm just now trying to get a grip on musical gesture research and how to make use of accelerometers and other sensor data in meaningful ways.  I feel like I have so much to learn, and there seems to be a large corpus of work that's been done. 

Kinect hacks also are pretty tantalizing.  I'm very excited to see what people are doing with it in the coming years.  I love the collective effort to help make digital music-making a physical experience.

I'm mostly excited to see what else is going on, in hopes of absorbing as much knowledge and inspiration as possible.  Though I don't post on the Max forum often, I have benefited so much from the wisdom of others, so  I'm hoping to contribute to the community at Expo '74. Also, Max 6 sounds great, so I'm looking forward to a solid intro.

a class="button" href="https://cycling74.com/articles/announcing-expo-74-2011/">Events and  Details


Nathan Bowen talks about his Expo '74 workshop.

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