This is perhaps an unusual article for Cycling '74 to put on their web site, because it has to do with all the languages that Max/MSP isn't. I have to confess that I'm not really a very good Max-user. I know only a handful of objects, and I am of the text-based generation that is still a little, um, "graphical-user-interface-challenged". I basically use Max/MSP only as a window onto computer music languages that I am adept at using. More and more, though, I am also using Max as base platform for connecting these languages to each other. One of the really great decisions that the Cycling '74 design team made was to make the development and integration of external objects relatively easy. This has been a real boost for the classes that I teach at Columbia University, and it has also allowed me much more creative freedom in my compositional work.
