The elves at Cycling '74 are running a text/video interview with me, using the Daevl.Plugs as its centerpiece. I created the Daevl.Plugs using Cycling's brilliant graphical programming environment, Max/MSP/Jitter, and released them on 31 October, 02006. It's been a rocket ride and appears headed to escape velocity.

The interview experience was wonderful. My interviewers, Media Maven Marsha Vdovin and Master Video Manipulator Ron MacLeod, also live in San Francisco and we moved every direction through this fair city during the course of filming, questioning, answering. Marsha and Ron were fabulous, even when they had me riding antique toy cars ten sizes too small. We spent time talking at Ritual Roasters, and I had a blast synth-ogling during the segment we filmed at Naut Humon's Asphodel compound. Mmmmm... Korg Mono/Poly.

Without Max/MSP/Jitter I would have stepped down a musical path very different from the one I'm on. Max/MSP/Jitter is deeply woven into almost every aspect of my creative flow, from raw sound design to chaotic experimentation to Monome interfacing, Droid-3 thought processes and Ableton Live mind-melds to the Daevl.Plugs, which I use every day. I accomplish easily with Max what would take months in other environments... if it could be done at all.

In the video image below I am demonstrating for Cycling staff how to properly whistle so only dogs, cats and teenagers can hear you. Correct intonation and resonance is very dependent on the shade of eyeshadow one wears.

The interview was more about me as an artist and Max user than about their products, so here are a few points I'd like to make about Cycling '74 which didn't come across:

- Cycling '74 themselves sell a line of plug-in products built in Max/MSP/Jitter: Pluggo, Mode, Hipno, Octirama and UpMix. The fact that I have created a set of plug-ins (the Daevl.Plugs) using their product (Max/MSP/Jitter) and now am able to sell my plug-ins with Cycling's blessing even though I'm overlapping some of their marketplace turf, is very cool... Scooby Doo cool.

- Cycling '74 not only permit me to sell these plug-ins, they do so without any royalty or restrictive licensing arrangements. Masters of the Universe cool.

- To ice the cake above, Cycling '74 interviewed me to promote the fact anyone (I'm looking at all of you with Max open behind your web browser right now) may create plug-ins in Max/MSP/Jitter and freely share or sell these creations in any way they wish. Transformers cool.

- Lastly, Cycling '74 loves cats. Cats show up everywhere: in documentation, in help patches, in the website, in application logos. You will see Maminka the Black Cat in the first image of the interview, telepathically prompting me during the tricky parts. She was even in the splash image Cycling ran on their home page, at right. She's purring on my lap right now, as I type, reminding me we need to get back to creating in Max.

Thundercats cool!