Re: [Hive 76 Discussion] Max/Msp

[Sean McBeth]

Oh yeah, absolutely drop by. "Open" house is open to anyone. Especially if you bring beer.

On May 3, 2011 8:32 PM, "JB" <jonba...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I just signed up for the discussion group in hopes of meeting people
> into Max/Msp and maybe building controllers or designing sound
> installations?? I would like to come to the wed nite open house... Is
> it by invitation or can I drop in?
>
> --
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[Daniel Toliaferro]

Hi JB,

By all means drop by tomorrow night. All open houses are free to the public. It starts at 8 PM.

You're in luck, I am interested in Max/MSP (although I don't own it). We've started doing more

electronic music stuff lately and we're bound to delve into it more deeply. I have a friend who

is possibly coming to the space in a few weeks that is heavily into synthesizers and sound design

so you may have some fruitful conversations with him.

- Dan

[Rob Jefferson]

On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 8:39 PM, Daniel Toliaferro <d.toli...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi JB,

By all means drop by tomorrow night. All open houses are free to the public. It starts at 8 PM.

You're in luck, I am interested in Max/MSP (although I don't own it). We've started doing more

electronic music stuff lately and we're bound to delve into it more deeply. I have a friend who

is possibly coming to the space in a few weeks that is heavily into synthesizers and sound design

so you may have some fruitful conversations with him.

I'm also interested in Max/MSP (and Pure Data). I'm honestly not much of a musician, but I'd like to get more involved and perhaps work with other people interested in making electronic music.

Rob

[JB]

Great. I will be there wed nite.

[Daniel Toliaferro]

Yes, Pure Data is cool as well. Have you heard of Supercollider and ChucK? They're

textual audio programming languages.

I am also interested in Max for Live (which is a Max plugin for Ableton Live), and Reaktor.

- Dan

--

[Jon Barrios]

I started with Pd and Supercollider but didnt get into Chuck.
I think Chuck is interesting but I focused on Max/Msp/Jitter which
takes much of my time. I also use Max for Live sometimes.
I like the graphical environments compared to textual but I have to
say Supercollider sounds really good.
Csound is another textual/object based environment that I have heard
before, sounds good too.
Don't know much about Reaktor.
I know Max isnt cheap but I would like to compare patches and try to
midi clock over wifi with other laptops running max.
Pd is the closest to max/msp but I think Sc, Chuck and Csound can all
sync via wifi which would be cool too, maybe even a.live?

Jon

[Rob Jefferson]

On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 12:21 AM, Daniel Toliaferro <d.toli...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, Pure Data is cool as well. Have you heard of Supercollider and ChucK? They're

textual audio programming languages.

I've used SC and ChucK, as well as Nyquist (Roger Dannenberg's music language written in Lisp). All of these I've worked with at a basic level (and I've written a few horrible compositions in Nyquist several years ago).

My problem isn't the lack of products I can use, or figuring out which product is the best. It's the more fundamental issue of a lack of ideas I find interesting enough to explore. :)

Also, regarding Jon Barrios's question: I've gotten my Android phone to interact with Ableton Live via wifi using TouchOSC.

Rob

[Sean McBeth]

I was playing around with ChucK the other night and was able to get a basic random song player going. The programming language itself is interesting, the chaining of events is pretty cool, though I don't understand why they had to invent an operator for it. The standard library is organized a little strangely, and their naming conventions aren't very consistent, which is annoying coming from a .NET or Java background where such things are brutally enforced. It's pretty neat from a programmer's perspective, but from a musicians perspective I don't know if it's really usable. The lack of UI makes it pretty tedious to test out your scripts, so there is a lot of context switching from jumping back and forth between editor and command line that makes rapid dev difficult.

That's where I think something like Nyquist, built on top of a language with a REPL, would be much better in the text-interface sphere. With the Lisp family of languages and Python and Ruby, you're not so much as programming in files as you are editing a living program, with the ability to save your progress as you go.

I snagged PD a little while ago and started pushing through the tutorials, but it spent way too much time trying to explain it's custom UI. I kind of wonder what the point is of some of the features of its UI, as it just seems to create a learning overhead for something orthogonal to the desired task. I need to get back to it, because after a couple of hours I still wasn't in to actual programming yet.

--

[JB]

Looks like this will be great for me!!

I would like to learn more about the programing side of things as im
coming from the perspective of a musician.
I started working with JavaScript in max which is cool but im still
learning slowly as far as arguments, functions and strings, etc..
Most all of the programming I have learned, minus html is because of
Max, Supercollider and PureData.
So, im slow in realizing ideas, specially when using Jitter.
I have some compositional ideas and many drum machine patches to
share, I like drum machines(sequencers).

I was commissioned for a dance piece a few years ago and I used
TouchOsc on an iPhone to control max/ableton while I had to be on
stage and play a guitar.
The composition/choreography chemistry turned out to be not so
interesting (not so fun) but I learned alot and enjoyed using the
wireless midi controller/cell phone and also using the accelerometer
was cool. I have yet to connect several laptops slave to one master
midi clock via wifi, so they are all firing to one pulse.
Looking forward!

On May 4, 10:18 am, Sean McBeth <sean.mcb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I was playing around with ChucK the other night and was able to get a basic
> random song player going. The programming language itself is interesting,
> the chaining of events is pretty cool, though I don't understand why they
> had to invent an operator for it. The standard library is organized a little
> strangely, and their naming conventions aren't very consistent, which is
> annoying coming from a .NET or Java background where such things are
> brutally enforced. It's pretty neat from a programmer's perspective, but
> from a musicians perspective I don't know if it's really usable. The lack of
> UI makes it pretty tedious to test out your scripts, so there is a lot of
> context switching from jumping back and forth between editor and command
> line that makes rapid dev difficult.
>
> That's where I think something like Nyquist, built on top of a language with
> a REPL, would be much better in the text-interface sphere. With the Lisp
> family of languages and Python and Ruby, you're not so much as programming
> in files as you are editing a living program, with the ability to save your
> progress as you go.
>
> I snagged PD a little while ago and started pushing through the tutorials,
> but it spent way too much time trying to explain it's custom UI. I kind of
> wonder what the point is of some of the features of its UI, as it just seems
> to create a learning overhead for something orthogonal to the desired task.
> I need to get back to it, because after a couple of hours I still wasn't in
> to actual programming yet.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

> On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 9:54 AM, Rob Jefferson <techs...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 12:21 AM, Daniel Toliaferro <d.toliafe...@gmail.com

[JB]

It was great to actually see Hive76 at the open house last night.
I didn't read the website too much so I could see it first hand and go
from there.
Not exactly what I imagined as far as learning Max/Msp but im def.
into building midi controllers, getting into arduino and mike's 430
usb device(sorry, I forgot what its called). It was a little
overwhelming because im a musician and not a programmer but I was
really into the vibe there, the 3d printer is mind blowing and I was
digging on the amp suitcase and the toy table.

In the mean time I will try to learn a programming language so I can
hang and learn at Hive76.
Any recommendations?
A language that would helpful with Max/Msp would be ideal, I read that
max externals
are written in C and learning C ++ wouldn't be too much of a stretch
if needed down the road.
Im also using very light java-script right now, which is very useful
in max.
I use a mac and im playing with unix in terminal.
So im wondering which would be a good one to get into, to start with?

Until then, if anyone gets a copy or knows of anyone practicing max/
msp, I would really be into getting together.
Feel free to email me or send them my email.

[illovich]

I think if your goal is to learn Max/MSP you're better off learning that to start - I'm pretty comfortable with C-like languages and have never felt that they helped with Max.

Javascript is maybe a little more useful, because theoretically you copy a sketch as javascript (or is it just json?) and "read" it that way, but Max has its own approach that isn't well described by textual coding systems.

Unfortunately, I've also found that other so-called similar patch-based environments are as different from Max as Pascal is to C++ -- sure, at first they both have semi-colons, but try copying & pasting code from one to the other. In other words, even though Quartz Composer is cool, almost the only thing it has in common with Max is that it looks like boxes connected with lines. After that it all falls apart.

If the issue is price (understandable, cycling74 is a boo-teek operation!) of admission, you could check out Pd (http://puredata.info) or JMax (http://www.jmax-phoenix.org/) which are open source forks of Max and so similar (but not identical) to Max/MSP. Actually, Pd is probably the better choice.

If you're also interested in Arduino, working in that or Processing is going to teach you programming that will be a good foundation for doing Max externals in the future.

[JB]

thanks illovich
I guess my goal was to collaborate with others using Max/MSP and jam
basically.... and learn like that, but like you said it's expensive,
so I guess PD is more common. I bought a copy of Max/MSP/JITTER so im
pretty committed to working on it like I would a musical
instrument(chops). I guess my next step is working with Arduino and
Max/MSP. I used javascript to make toggles appear/disappear and re-
arrange on the fly for a drum machine patch and I've have seen patches
as text at Cycling 74's site, so you can open them from clipboard,
maybe that's json? I will keep an eye out for a class at Hive76 and
look into buying an Arduino or MSP430?

[Spencer Russell]

I've been pretty involved with PureData for a couple years and have
gotten very comfortable in the environment, but there are a lot of
ideas that are just much more difficult to express in a dataflow
language (Pd, Max, LabView, etc.).

What I've ended up doing is building Pd objects in C and then using Pd
to describe the overall application. It's been a pretty productive mix
for me.

-s

[Jon Barrios]

Thanks Russell. I will look into making my own max/MSP objects.
I may try that using javascript at first and I found this:
http://cycling74.com/docs/max5/vignettes/js/javascriptinmax.html
Would you or anyone else be into getting together sometime and
exchanging ideas? Looking at how we make our patches? Pd is very
similar to Max and much of it will translate.
I would like to eventually attempt group meetings with other laptop
musicians, try midi clocking via wifi and other sort of things.

Jon

[Daniel Toliaferro]

Hey Jon, sorry that I didn't get a chance to talk to you last Wednesday. Will you be at Hive this Wednesday?

- Dan

[Spencer Russell]

On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 9:31 PM, Jon Barrios <jonba...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Russell. I will look into making my own max/MSP objects.
> I may try that using javascript at first and I found this:
> http://cycling74.com/docs/max5/vignettes/js/javascriptinmax.html
> Would you or anyone else be into getting together sometime and
> exchanging ideas? Looking at how we make our patches? Pd is very
> similar to Max and much of it will translate.
> I would like to eventually attempt group meetings with other laptop
> musicians, try midi clocking via wifi and other sort of things.
>

If anyone's interested in writing objects for PD or Max/MSP, check out
Flext, from Thomas Grill. It's a C++ framework that wraps both the PD
and Max/MSP APIs so you can write an external once and compile it for
either PD or Max/MSP, and on OS X, Windows, and Linux.

I'd definitely be interested in some Philly dataflow meetup action.
OSC messages are a good way to get data across platforms on a network.

-spencer

-s

[Rob Jefferson]

I'd definitely be interested in some Philly dataflow meetup action.
OSC messages are a good way to get data across platforms on a network.

I would also be interested in a dataflow language meetup. Especially if there were tutorials/howtos for relative beginners at these things.

rob

[Jon Barrios]

> Will you be at Hive this Wednesday?

I will try to make it this Wednesday for sure.
Last Wed. I had a super long/intense day at work and I was really
spent by the time I got to there.
Hope to talk to you this wed.

> Flext, from Thomas Grill. It's a C++ framework that wraps both the PD
> and Max/MSP APIs so you can write an external once and compile it for
> either PD or Max/MSP, and on OS X, Windows, and Linux.

Im looking into Flext and also into C++ subsequently, thanks Spencer!!

As for meet ups, I know a couple more people that are into getting
together, should be awesome.
I have some ideas in the works for group projects in various spaces,
later down the road. A network(dataflow) within a network(people)
within a network(spaces)....

>Especially if there were tutorials/howtos for relative beginners at these things.

One great thing about both Max/MSP and PD is that they have really
good beginner tutorials/howtos.
http://puredata.info/docs/tutorials/
The Max/MSP tutorials that I use are in the software.
Also there are BazTutorials on YouTube that start from the ground
up(for Max/MSP but it should translate to PD, mostly).
As well as many PD tutorials and iv'e seen some good step sequencing
videos for PD.

- Jon

[Sean McBeth]

Just saw this come up on the Hacktory's site

http://www.thehacktory.org/?p=737

[Randy]

Hi all,

 

Years ago I cam upon an awesome example of synchronized synth music that floored me, had to buy the DVD right away, and of course have been a fan since. 

 

This may not be in the same category you guys are interested in, but it is cool anyway, in a virtual sense.  :-)  Check it out.

 

http://animusic.com/

 

 

---

From: Sean McBeth <sean....@gmail.com>
To: hive76-d...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, May 11, 2011 1:24:36 PM
Subject: Re: [Hive 76 Discussion] Re: Max/Msp

[JB]

Never hear that before....thanks Randy!
That video reminds me of this one, also off topic but cool as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEzGHg-JBZU

Hope to meet some dataflow enthusiasts in the flesh tonight at the
open house!

cheers!

On May 11, 2:48 pm, Randy <wuchen...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Years ago I cam upon an awesome example of synchronized synth music that floored
> me, had to buy the DVD right away, and of course have been a fan since. 
>
> This may not be in the same category you guys are interested in, but it is cool
> anyway, in a virtual sense.  :-)  Check it out.
>
> http://animusic.com/
>
>  
>
> ________________________________

> From: Sean McBeth <sean.mcb...@gmail.com>

> To: hive76-d...@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Wed, May 11, 2011 1:24:36 PM
> Subject: Re: [Hive 76 Discussion] Re: Max/Msp
>

> Just saw this come up on the Hacktory's sitehttp://www.thehacktory.org/?p=737

> ><d.toliafe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> Hey Jon, sorry that I didn't get a chance to talk to you last Wednesday.
> >> Will you be at Hive this Wednesday?
> >> - Dan
>

> >> On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 9:31 PM, Jon Barrios <jonbarr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>> Thanks Russell. I will look into making my own max/MSP objects.
> >>> I may try that using javascript at first and I found this:
> >>>http://cycling74.com/docs/max5/vignettes/js/javascriptinmax.html
> >>> Would you or anyone else be into getting together sometime and
> >>> exchanging ideas? Looking at how we make our patches? Pd is very
> >>> similar to Max and much of it will translate.
> >>> I would like to eventually attempt group meetings with other laptop
> >>> musicians, try midi clocking via wifi and other sort of things.
>
> >>> Jon
>
> >>> On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 10:45 AM, Spencer Russell
> >>> <spencer.f.russ...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> > I've been pretty involved with PureData for a couple years and have
> >>> > gotten very comfortable in the environment, but there are a lot of
> >>> > ideas that are just much more difficult to express in a dataflow
> >>> > language (Pd, Max, LabView, etc.).
>
> >>> > What I've ended up doing is building Pd objects in C and then using Pd
> >>> > to describe the overall application. It's been a pretty productive mix
> >>> > for me.
>
> >>> > -s
>

> ...
>
> read more »

[Randy]

Holy crap, almost the real thing, too cool!

Thanks

cheers!

--