LSka

A Max For Live device to control any Ableton Live parameter moving hands and fingers in 3D space using the Leap Motion.

device is now based on Ircam’s leapmotion external

both Mac and Windows compatible (haven't still tested the Windows version, any feedback would be appreciated)


leap-modulation

Leap MoDULAtion

Dan Nigrin

The application is written entirely in Max 6.

audio-plugin-player

Audio Plugin Player

Gregory Taylor

There has been a lot of wonderful activity in the Gen domain, and we would like even more people to experience the differences between Max and Gen programming. I originally created a set of three videos developed in Max 6 for the curious absolute beginner. Using Max 7, I developed a series of text-based "Getting Started" tutorials. (These replace the first Max 6 video which was no longer useful.) The text and video tutorials introduce the gen~ environment, explain a bit of the differences between working in the Max vs. gen~ environment, and include a few simple programs to get you started. Check them out below! 

Note to Ableton Live 9/10 Suite users: Access to Gen requires a full Max license. Get details on crossgrading!

gen~ for Beginners, Part 1: A Place to Start

gen~ for Beginners, Part 2: Similarities and Differences

gen~ for Beginners, Part 3: Counting, and a World without bang Messages

gen~ for Beginners, Part 4: Working with buffers (and data)  

gen~ for Beginners, Part 5: The Codebox Operator 

gen~ for Beginners, Part 6: Thinking Inside the Codebox 

gen~ for Beginners, Part 7: Creating Reusable Tools 

If you're ready to do even more in Gen, follow our Gen Patch-a-Day series.


This set of tutorials will get you started using the gen~ object in Max.  For more in this series: 
https://cycling74.com/tutorials/gen-video-tutorial-series

gen~ for Beginners: Working with Abstractions

gen~ for Beginners: Debugging and Signal-Rate Processing

image8.png

There has been a lot of wonderful activity in the Gen domain. In this series, I will introduce the gen~ environment, explain a bit of the differences between working in the Max vs. gen~ environment, and include a few simple programs to get you started.

gen-video-tutorial-series

gen~ Tutorial Series for Beginners

Darwin Grosse

Among the icon­-buttons available from the toolbars surrounding your Max patch, there are several that won’t necessarily ring a bell ­ even for experienced Max programmers. Two powerful tools that might be overlooked are at the top and bottom of the left toolbar: the file browser and the collections browser.

But what are collections? They are ‘virtual’ folders of your favorite... anything. You can place files, plug­ins, Max for Live devices or media files in a collection, then use these items whenever you need quick access to them. Learning to work with collections is pretty simple, and is well-explained in the Collections Guide (available within the help system just type “collections” into the search box and select that option from the Guide list).

Rather than do a walk-­through of making a collection which is covered pretty well in the Guide I just mentioned, I’d like to tell you about some of the uses I’ve made of collections. I hope that some of these ideas will stimulate your imagination, and that you’ll find ways to use collections in your own work. 

When I’m working on the BEAP module example videos, I’m often trying out wildly different patches using a relatively few BEAP modules. Rather than working with the full BEAP list, I create a BEAP VIDEOS collection that holds the BEAP modules I’m focused upon, then am able to efficiently fly modules in and out of my patch. 

I tend to get obsessive bursts of energy in different areas: live audio looping, video feedback systems or Max for Live development. In each of these areas, I’ve created a number of abstractions and subpatchers that I’m using over and over again. But when I’m working on video feedback, I don’t need to scroll through all the looper stuff, nor do I constantly want to dive into a deep set of folders or have to remember the 50 names of the variations I created for difference scenarios. Having a collection dedicated to each ‘obsession’ helps me feel connected to each project without having to manage a lot of overhead. 

For some reason, my mousing skills really fail me during live performance. Maybe it’s because I’m shaking like a leaf, or I’m too busy eyeing the audience to look at the screen. Maybe I’m looking at a projection at big scale and have trouble adjusting to the small scale of the laptop screen. How do collections help me? I make sure that all of my media players have draggable interfaces, then build a collection with the audio or video files for a specific performance. Presto­change­o, no more confusion. I’ve got one place to go for the stuff that I need, and mouse dexterity becomes much less important.


introduction-to-the-collections-browser

Introduction to the Collections Browser

Jill Hererra

Following on from our previous US events and a blazing tour of the UK and Europe, we're now venturing north. This time we are headed to the pacific north-west, visiting old friends, making new ones, and sharing our love of Max 7 and all its creative possibilities.

Whether you're a seasoned user or have only thought about downloading our 30-day demo, we want to hang out with you and talk about Max.

Come for some swag, linger for refreshments, and stay for the people. 

Vancouver: September 3 (7-9pm)Vivo Media Arts (2625 Kaslo Street, Vancouver, BC)
Presenters: 

Tom Hall ( tomhallsonics )- talking/demoing Max 7 and Modulars

Simon Lysander - Artist insight working with Max

Seattle: September 4 (7-9pm)Ada's Technical Bookstore (425 15th Avenue East, Seattle, WA)
Presenters: 

Tom Hall - talking/demoing Max 7 and Modulars

Randy Jones - Artist insight working with Max

Portland: September 5 (7-9pm)Control Voltage (3742 N Mississippi Ave, Portland, OR)
Presenters: 

Shawn Trail - Electrified Acoustic Marimba - Max/MSP // custom gesture sensors

max-connect-northwest

Max Connect Northwest

Rob Ramirez

One week across five different cities we will introduce you to Max 7 and its creative possibilities.

Whether you’re a seasoned user or have only thought about downloading our 30-day demo, we want to hangout with you and talk about Max.

Not since the introduction of Max 5 has a new release included so many updates and changes. Max 7 introduces a new video engine, quicker patching via new objects and an entirely new time stretching algorithm built from the ground up. In addition, it's now easier to drag and drop audio, video, VSTs and Max For Live devices directly into your patcher and be up and running.

Paris: April 22, 18 heuresMusic Unit (28, rue Kleber, 93100 Montreuil sous bois, Métro ligne 9, arrêt Croix De Chavaux)
Avec Emmanuel Jourdan (Cycling ‘74 / e--j dev), Manuel Poletti (Cycling ‘74 / Music Unit)Facebook event info

Los Angeles: April 27, 8pmHuman Resources (410 Cottage Home, Los Angeles, CA 90012)
Featuring Andrew Pask, Andrew Benson, Jonathan Snipes, Tom Hall and Anenon (w/ Jon-Kyle Mohr)Facebook event info

Minneapolis: April 27, 8pmSTRUM Electronic Music Studio (215 Ferguson Hall, 2106 4th St S, Minneapolis, MN 55455)
Featuring Gregory Taylor (and guests)Facebook event info

Brooklyn:  April 29, 7pmMAGNET at BxMC (2 MetroTech Center, 8th floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201)
Featuring Rob Ramirez, Merche Blasco, Blake Carrington, Joe Diebes, and Matt RomeinFacebook event info

San Francisco: April 30, 7pmObscura Digital (729 Tennessee St., San Francisco, CA 94107)
Featuring Madalyn Fernandez, Ben Bracken and Les StuckFacebook event info

cycling-74-presents-max-7-hang

Cycling '74 Presents Max 7 Hang

Andrew Benson

I spend a lot of time reading the Max forums to keep up with what's happening in the user community and to help out where I can.  The other day, along came a forum thread that seemed to blow up instantly.  It was a perfect example of the collaborative learning and problem solving that I've come to love about our users.  The combination of a provocative title, an interesting problem, a fascinating idea, and genuinely helpful posts led to a long, collaborative thread filled with cool Max tricks and ideas. After watching it develop, I thought it would be nice to get some of the main contributors to answer a couple of questions I had, and get some reflections outside of the thread.

Andrew Benson: Do you remember your first post to the Max forums? 

Rodrigo: I first joined the Max mailing list (which then became the current forum) around 2007. This was in the middle of my second serious attempt to learn Max. I mostly read the posts trying to understand how things worked, but occasionally posted some questions, and when possible tried to help people, on the rare occasion when someone knew less than me.

Peter McCulloch: I'm not sure.  I was on the mailing list probably since the early 2000s; I'm guessing maybe 2003? I did a fair amount of lurking in my mailing list days.  I do remember feeling that the community was fairly open, and there were lots of people who helped me along the way, and it didn't tend to be gear-headish.AB: How often do you read the forums at cycling74.com?

Rodrigo: I visit/read the forums daily. I do a ton of research on there when I'm stuck on something or just searching for inspiration, but in addition to research I enjoy reading what other people are working on (and struggling with).

Peter: I'm kind of intermittent with it.  To be honest, I tend to do it when I'm procrastinating or bored, but I've definitely created things for the forum that I then later use especially with my teaching (I teach Max at NYU and Vassar College), since I already have an explanation for the patch.  I use the forum in different ways.  I generally look to help out, especially with tricky problems.  I also use it to research parts of Max that I'm not familiar with, often in conjunction with one of my students' projects, or when I'm experiencing behavior in Max that doesn't match my expectations even after trouble-shooting.

AB: What sorts of patches or forum threads do you get most inspired by?  Do you think there is a logic to what forum threads become super-active and collaborative?

Rodrigo: I tend to get inspired by mid to low level components rather than full 'sharing' patches as it's much easier to see what's happening and to learn from it. Most of the time when someone is sharing a finished patch, it can be quite difficult to wrap your head around what's happening. In general I also tend to find live sampling and processing oriented patches interesting. I think the onus lies with the original poster to post follow up examples/questions. I wish more OPs posted their 'solutions' to the questions they asked once they got things working.

Peter:  I'm generally interested in threads that involve hard problems, and I really enjoy signal-rate logic problems.  I feel like almost all of the threads that I've found interesting at some point involve an experienced member of the community.  The more experienced members have a better sense of the appropriate design patterns for certain kinds of problems and also know how to polish the results.  As far as themes go, I'd say it seems to help when there are constraints.  The more I found out about what Rodrigo was trying to build, the more I could consider specific structures, and that made it easier for me to participate.  When someone wants to build a granular synth, for example, there's a million different directions that can go.  Not having to worry about certain requirements can free things up quite a bit.

If you haven't already, go read the forum thread that started this conversation, and check out Rodrigo's resulting Chocolate Grinder project.

A new app for Monome Arc2/Arc4 (or any MIDI controller). 
 
The Chocolate Grinder is a software emulation of a skipping/glitchy CD player. 
You can record (or drop a waveform) into a buffer and then define a playback/glitch window. 
 
It uses authentic skip/glitch samples at every jump point along with weighted randomness of sample choice to emulate several makes/eras of CD players. 
 
The seek/fastforward is also faithfully recreated. 
 
The Max patch (requires Max6) can be downloaded at my webpage: 
http://www.rodrigoconstanzo.com

The Chocolate Grinder (Arc app)

Read about a collaborative forum thread filled with cool Max tricks and ideas.

collaboration-in-the-forum

Collaboration in the Forum

In addition to the Max mailing list, there is now a full-fledged Max chat room on IRC.  If you haven't checked it out yet, come on by. I can't guarantee that there will be someone to talk to 24 hours a day, but we have some regulars now and also some people that pop in from time to time.

While the mailing list has its advantages in being a good place to solve problems and keep a record of the solution in the archive, the IRC channel operates on a much more personal level, and you can finally get to know the geeks who have helped you out in the past (or the other way around).

Once again, the original thread that started this is here:  http://synthesisters.com/hypermail/max-msp/Sep04/24002.html The #maxmsp channel is on the UnderNet network, which is a large, worldwide network of IRC servers. Connecting to any UnderNet server will connect you to the whole network. The most popular UnderNet servers are: irc.undernet.org - will redirect you to a random undernet server worldwide us.undernet.org - will redirect you to a random undernet server in the US eu.undernet.org - will redirect you to a random undernet server in Europe If one doesn't work, try a different one. Once you've successfully connected, just type: /join #maxmsp and you're in! Here are some webpages to get you started: http://www.irchelp.org/ -     a good site for people who have never heard of IRC  http://www.faqs.org/faqs/irc/undernet-faq/part1/ -       a very lengthy FAQ that probably has the answer to just about any question you would have about IRC.  


In addition to the Max mailing list, there is now a full-fledged Max chat room on IRC.

Search Results