tutorials

The JazzMutant Lemur is an incredibly versatile control surface for media applications. It allows you to create an interface match your performance needs, and communicates with your computer through an Ethernet connection (using the Open Sound Control messaging system). Unfortunately, there are relatively few software packages that speak OSC natively, so “bridge” software has been required to interface between OSC and the more common MIDI communication path.

Recently, JazzMutant updated their editor software to act as that bridge – taking OSC messages from a connected Lemur and converting them into MIDI messages. This opens a number of options for software and synthesizer control, and makes the Lemur a viable control surface in many new situations.

Xcode is becoming increasing popular as an IDE to develop external objects for Max and MSP (Jitter support for Xcode is not yet supported, but is forthcoming). It offers several benefits over using Code Warrior, not least of which is that Xcode is free. However, if you've gotten used to the comforts of CodeWarrior, then Xcode can seem rather bizarre and alien.

In this article we will take a step-by-step approach on how to write externals from scratch using Apple's latest developer tools. We will not discuss the source code itself very much, as that information is well covered in the MaxMSP Software Development Kits. We will also approach this topic in a tutorial-like style. That means that we will let a few things slip in order to see what some common errors look like and how we can go about solving them.

Update [2006-1-26 8:53:54 by tim]: This article was originally written for Xcode 2.1, it has now been updated for Xcode 2.2. TAP.

Here we go:

The third installment in the inVeSTigations series added effects crossfading to our VST instrument/audio effect hosting possibilities, and demonstrated the use of the disable message that lets us load an effect and save on CPU cycles.

In inVeSTigations part 2, we looked at how we can load VST instruments using the vst~ object to load VST audio plug-ins in Max, and how to format and send MIDI messages to a virtual synth.

In this tutorial, we'll look at a new message to the vst object that lets us load plug-ins without interrupting our audio, and take a look at a novel way to mix the outputs of several VST plug-ins.

One quick way to start having fun with Max is to use the vst~ object to host audio plug-ins or VST instruments; you can load plug-ins you already have (or find some free plug-ins) and get a little experience with using Max to send messages to them while you gather the courage to write your own audio processing patches or virtual synths.

I've written the patch you see below to help you get started. It should let you explore working with audio plug-ins.

One quick way to start having fun with Max is to use the vst~ object to host audio plug-ins or VST instruments; you can load plug-ins you already have (or find some free plug-ins) and get a little experience with using Max to send messages to them while you gather the courage to write your own audio processing patches or virtual synths.

I've written the patch you see below to help you get started. It should let you explore working with audio plug-ins.

As you read the Max list, you'll probably see something that looks like this:

- by Darwin Grosse

One of the more difficult things for many beginning Max/MSP users is dealing with polyphony. So I thought I'd write up a few articles about the poly~ object, and help take some of the heat off of a new user's head.

One thing that is important to understand about the MSP portion of Max/MSP is the creation of a DSP chain. When you create a patch containing audio functions, all of the signal-rate objects are used to create a chain of DSP functions that will execute once audio is activated. In order to maintain a stable audio path, this set of functions, called the DSP chain, is compiled at runtime, and cannot be changed without interrupting the signal path.

When I started this series of short "advice" pieces to Max/MSP/Jitter beginners, I also decided to ask a number of my friends and colleagues about what their ideas of what good advice might be so that you won't be left with just my admittedly biased advice set.

You, the beginner, are living in a golden age.

I learned Max, MSP, and Jitter as a non-student, which meant that I pretty much taught myself by reading and making patches and then trying to make them work. That means that my following two pieces of advice may not pertain to you if you're taking a course that involves you needing to learn Max/MSP/Jitter. But I think they're useful to consider anyway, even if they might seem a trifle odd at first glance:

I qualify as a beginner because I've been one. Three times, in fact.

If you really are a beginner, then you'll never have to face learning Max, then learning MSP a bunch of years later, and then learning Jitter after that. You get to learn them all at once, and since they all have a lot more in common with each other than not, you needn't endure what seemed to me to be paradigm shifts with the introduction of each new bit.

I envy you, actually. And I'm about to envy you even more, since it occurs to me that I can tell you some of the things I wish people had told me that might have made my life easier.

In fact, I asked a few friends and acquaintances and some of the people whose names you see often on the Max list what they wish they'd known early on. And you'll be seeing those things periodically appearing in bite=sized chunks. There were a few bits of advice I got from other people that I don't agree with, but will pass along anyway.

Okay. The first one (drum roll):

Welcome to the beginner's corner. I will be your designated beginner for the duration of this journey. At the conclusion of your journey, I will be telling you really boring things you already know.

I have been carefully selected for this task because um...well, there are a couple of reasons. First, I have a lousy memory, so I tend to forget the things that clever people know as easily as you know your own phone number. Secondly, I've been involved in documentattion stuff for Cycling '74 for a while. As you may know, the skills required to document something and the skills necessary to use it are often very different. So I tend to know where things are rather than knowing what they are. If you're a beginner, then knowing where things are is the best place to start.

Finally, although I have forgotten a lot about using Max/MSP (stuff I'll have to figure out again in order to talk to you about, incidentally), I have a pretty clear memory of what it felt like to be staring at the big white space in a new patcher window and wondering what to do first/next, to stare at someone else's Max patch like a cow at a passing train, or to wonder if I would ever spend any of my Maxing life making something of my own rather than cadging patches from other people and feeling like I only knew enough to add one patch cord here or there.

I hope I can be of some assistance to you in overcoming that fear of white space, in learning how to "read" the work of others, and in helping you to escape a lifetime of dreary dependence on the work of other Max/MSP/Jitter programmers (you know, that old saw about giving someone a fish (so they've got a meal) versus teaching them how to fish (thusguaranteeing the promise of dinners to come)).

As a beginner, you can comfort yourself with the thought that everyone stood where you now stand (although they didn't have this set of articles to read). What is it that those whizzy power user types have that you don't?

A little good advice, some hours of experience, and the knowledge of where to look or who to ask.

Some of that good advice takes the form of a patch. Some of it appears as a list of URLs, and some of it is plain old text. I hope that what's to come will take all of those forms, and be of some assistance.

If you've got any questions you'd like me to consider discussing, you can email me and ask. It'd be easiest if you labeled your email so that I can spot it (e.g., Beginner's question) so that I can spot it easily--often, despite my overzealous spam filter. HINT: do not include the words, Rolex, Viagra, Teens, or Refinance in your email title.

Well... so much for introductions. I think that I'll start next time by telling you the things I wish people had told me when I started. See you then.

In order to maximize the potential of the built-in networking classes that are new with version 4.5 of Max, it's helpful to understand a few things about the way that modern network protocols operate. This article is intended to help you get off the ground by answering some basic networking questions.

"The following article is designed to shed some light on the different priority levels of Max events. We will cover low priority events, high priority events, threading issues related to these two priority levels, and when it is important and/or useful to move events from one priority level to the other. We will also cover the MSP audio thread and how it can interact with low and high priority events. And finally, we will touch on some additional threading issues that will be of interest to Javascript, Java and C developers."