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Max Overview

Max users are people who want to do things that go beyond the limitations of normal software. Max is a visual programming language -- you connect objects together with patch cords to design what you want. For a short movie showing how this process works, click here.

While people have used Max to create a wide variety of applications, it's primarily designed to handle the basic elements of media: time, interactivity, and control.

Time

Working with time is easier in Max than traditional programming because you use objects to create visual "timing machines" whose behavior you can see, hear, and modify as they operate.





In Max, the basic unit of time is milliseconds, but you can also use metrical time (for example, bars and beats). In Max, everything you create runs at the same time, something that is very hard to do in a traditional language. In addition to the metro object shown above, Max features timing objects that delay, quantize, measure time intervals, and perform time-based filtering. Max's unified notion of control based on numbers and events permits you to work with time in an intuitive and consistent way.

Interactivity

Working with interactivity is easier in Max because you can design interfaces visually, and the interfaces are then part of the program itself. For example, controls the timing and transport of the timing example above.

Max contains a rich set of user interface tools, including dials, buttons, menus, and text editors. At a deeper level, it's possible to control the entire user experience with cross-platform support for full-screen interfaces, HI devices, Quicktime video, and an embedded web browser. You can even script Max to construct interfaces dynamically.

Control

In Max everything can be connected to everything, because everything speaks numbers. Another way to say this is that modularity is a core design principle of everything in the software.

Max can control MIDI devices, serial devices, send data over a network, and handle user input devices. Any source of control is easily connected to anything you want to control. Most commonly, however, Max's powerful control features are applied to audio via MSP and visual media with Jitter. And MSP and Jitter offer their own control possibilities, from audio signal analyzers to video tracking and device support.

Extensibility

Max is powerful, but it might not do precisely what you want right out of the box. That hasn't stopped Max users from extending the environment in every possible direction. As a by-product of their work with the software, passionate Max users have contributed thousands of objects written in C, Java, or Javascript back to the user community.

Educational Resources

We'll be the first to admit that learning programming, even with an environment as interactive and thoughtfully designed as Max, doesn't necessarily happen instantly. Cycling '74 is committed to making learning our software as rewarding as possible, and we've recently put an enormous amount of effort into integrating our documentation into the software. You'll learn Max, MSP and Jitter using over a hundred step-by-step tutorials, plus a variety of other resources including interactive help files, examples, and reference materials you can access directly within the software.

Max/MSP/Jitter is taught at universities and other educational organizations all over the world, and has become the lingua franca of creative people working with interactive media. If you want a hands-on learning experience, Cycling '74 and many other organizations offer workshops in Max/MSP/Jitter.

MSP and Jitter

Max is the foundation on which we constructed our support for audio and visual media. MSP is a complete set of audio objects that work seamlessly within Max, and Jitter provides a robust architecture for video and matrix data processing. For historical reasons, we often refer to Max, MSP, and Jitter separately, but we develop them as a completely integrated environment.

Educational customers are offered the Max/MSP/Jitter bundle, while we offer retail customers choice of Max, Max/MSP, or Max/MSP/Jitter.

System Requirements

Visit the download page for a current list.