It's difiicult to rank Max/MSP's positives, but somewhere very high on the list is the ability to convert your patches into VST plugins by way of Cycling 74's Pluggo environment. Pluggo basically puts a Max Runtime shell in your DAW, allowing you to run custom audio shredders inside your music software of choice.

Today I refined a patch I use for audio processing and whipped up Dreiheit, version 1.0.

Dreiheit takes the incoming audio and splits it into three stereo channels, plus a fourth for the original dry signal. Each of the three effect channels is comprised of this chain:

• Audio In
• 512 Band Graphic EQ
• Delay with Feedback
• Filtering by note across entire range (i.e. - only the C#s in every octave)
• Basic time-shifting delay, no feedback
• Mixer

I can specify visually all the bass/mids/highs or only thin slivers of sound, rhythmically delay these sonic slices and filter just specific notes, then shift these forward in time relative to the original. All effects have wet/dry ratio control, may be bypassed and all parameters may be automated. Mix level subsections for all three freaked channels plus the original signal are also fully automated, including mutes and solos.

Dreiheit turns extremely basic drumloops into throbbing environments like this:

dreiheitloop.mp3

Tomorrow I'll be adding midi control to the filtering, and then it's time to let the strings drive the rhythm section.