2Second(fuse) - MaxMSPJitter 22

Overlap Max/MSP/Jitter/Live Salon @ GAFFTA
7/25/09 17:26 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

What a night! Overlap's Max/MSP/Jitter/Live Salon last Wednesday, July 22, is still unleashing sonic booms here in San Francisco. We had a packed house of 60+ at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts thanks to the powerful convergence and collaboration of Overlap.org, BArCMuT and a goodly-sized chunk of the Dorkbotsf posse.

Overlap.org Max/MSP/Jitter/Live Salon @ GAFFTA

It was an extraordinary Salon of wonderful presentations and excellent community interaction. Lots of old friends were gathered, many new ones made. The community discussions spontaneously arising between presentations were equally fascinating: Lidar data sharing, custom controller building, the difference between 3, 6 and 9 over 4-on-the-floor and the Past, Now and Future of electronic music/visuals as an indicator of cybernetic merger.

I've put a recap post of the Salon up on Overlap with links to sites and software presented: the [mattbot.euclid] Max external by Matt Ridenour aka VJ Mattbot, the Ohm64 synthesis patches and control applications by Peter Nyboer of Livid Instruments and the Max/MSP/Jitter Depot repository by Michael Zbyszynski and all the elves at CNMAT.

I've also created a Flickr set of the evening.

We're working on the Salon for August now, more details soon. Visit Overlap.org for other good stuff in the mean.

LoveTech Presents LearnTech
6/19/09 23:43 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

Who: Electronic Musicians, Noisicians, Controllerists, Visualists, Hardware Hackers, Circuit Makers, Breakers and all those dealing lightning from their fingertips

What: LoveTech Presents LearnTech, a discussion oriented music technology salon

Why: To demonstrate our flow of sound wave magic and discuss incantational methodologies with others of the wizarding kind.

Where & When: 020090623, Tuesday, 19:00 to 23:00 at Space Gallery in downtown - 1141 Polk Street, San Francisco, CA 94109

How: A great line-up of musical performances with associated presentations, demonstrations and discussions.

Moldover - guitarist versus controllerist, traditional instrument techniques on Instruments from the future

Nonagon - on performing live with MIDI controllers

Preshish Moments - building custom MIDI controllers out of wood, nails and Max patches

Timeline85 Productions - presenting ColorSynth Hallucination Technology - MIDI driven LED Lighting effects

Vlad Spears - I'll be expanding on my presentation at the last Overlap.org event: speaking about controllers in general, the need for and superiority of modern controllers for making modern music and playing an in-progress Wolf Interval track or two with Live, the Snyderphonics Manta and my Max/MSP/Jitter tonal mapping app, Honeycomb.

If you're interested in creating live electronic music with technology, this promises to be both an entertaining and informative event.

Music + technology + freaks = fantastic.

Update: LearnTech was a blast. Large, enthusiastic crowds of everyone across the spectrum, from lovers of electronic music as an experience to those with deep experience in its creation.

Wolf Interval @ LearnTech San Francisco - 020090623

Above I'm playing a new Wolf Interval track, Tir Na Nog, using the Manta. Honeycomb is in action on the projection.

Overlap Salon 06 - Max/MSP/Jitter/Live
6/3/09 00:00 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

Overlap Max/MSP/Jitter/Live Salon 06 - 020090603

Who: New media mavens, Electroacoustic elves, Audio activists, Visual vixens of all skill levels

What: Overlap.org's sixth Max/MSP/Jitter/Live Salon

Why: To cast technological spells of shifting light and sonic magic in a shared conceptual space for sharing and learning. The focus is on Cycling '74's Max/MSP/Jitter and Ableton Live, but general friendliness is to be had toward other patching environments like Pd and Plogue Bidule.

Where & When: 020090603, Wednesday (today!), 19:00 at SoundArts in the Mission - 520 Hampshire Street, Suite 206, San Francisco, CA 94110

How: We start off with a round of introductions, followed by a short Max/MSP/Jitter/Live related presentation. After this, we generally tackle the Project Of The Day collectively. This can be anything: working on a new or existing Max patch together, a musical session or discussing concepts and methods for future works. Other talks and impromptu performances can also break out at any time.

I'll be holding down the presentation slot this month, showing off the Manta and my new tonal mapping app for it, Honeycomb. Barry Threw continues his role as Overlap MC Extraordinaire. Other attendees bring all the soul power and, if we're both hungry and lucky, there's an excellent food stop somewhere after the Salon filled with even more conversation and idea swapping.

Update: Overlap Max/MSP/Jitter/Live Salon 06 was a roaring success. People loved the Manta and had many questions about both it and Honeycomb. Barry rocked out a noise performance while demoing the K-Bow and its software.

Note Barry is sporting both the archaic and new school versions of the Cycling '74 logo. Max/MSP gangsta for life.

Honeycomb
5/31/09 15:57 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

When I first encountered the Manta at Expo '74, my immediate thought was "It's tónová mrízka as hardware."

I set out to make a Max app that would map tónová mrízka onto the Manta. The tonal relationships seemed complicated on first glance, then I realized the entire chart could be created by a simple pattern of four intervals repeated twice on each row with note staggering at row start points. Once I had this puzzle solved, mapping the Czech akordu diagrams to the Manta turned out to be surprisingly easy. A dollop of royal jelly was applied to allow a wider working range of octaves without repeats, but from overlapped simplicity came very natural seeming complexity.

Honeycomb is the result.

Honeycomb interface. Honeycomb is a tonal mapping app for the Snyderphonics Manta.

The attribute I love most about this mapping is the creation of chord inversions by specific shapes. Example: a minor chord can be played anywhere on the Manta with three notes in an inverted triangle arrangement. The root note of the chord is always in the upper left point.

Below is Honeycomb's About pane, where you can see a chart showing spatial interval relationships along with some of the chord shapes created by these relationships, playable everywhere on the Manta's surface.

Honeycomb About pane. Honeycomb is a tonal mapping app for the Snyderphonics Manta.

Honeycomb is released under the QYBL-NC (Question Your Beliefs License - Non-Commercial). Manta users can download here:

honeycomb_v04.zip (575k, Max patch with supporting image files)

It requires the [manta~] Max object from Snyderphonics.

I'll be at the next Overlap.org Max/MSP/Jitter/Live Salon with the Manta and Honeycomb. Stop by if you're of the "making noise with blinking lights beneath your fingers" crew.

Cycling '74 Doesn't Sell Bicycles
4/29/09 00:15 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

Last week I attended the very first Expo '74. While I would have travelled anywhere in the multiverse to take part in this confab of Cycling '74 citizens, programmers and patch masters, it was held right here in my faerie kingdom on the bay, a scant skip and two jumps from my home in Potrero Hill.

From the opening night party at Cycling '74 headquarters to the first email I picked up on my return from the wild and wonderful closing concert at CNMAT, it was an intense and thoroughly energizing experience. The rush of the week seems to have printed a lasting effect. I'm altering routines to bring more camaraderie and interplay of ideas into my working methods, finding ways to be open and connect by default rather than need to consciously push outwards.

The high percentage of audience members familiar with the tools we all use was the absolute best aspect of the entire Expo. When you're an artist using electronic media and programming to accomplish your goals, when you create tools for yourself and other artists to use, it is genuinely difficult to explain yourself to people. The Expo put ~120 Max lovers plus Cycling '74 staff together for three days and four nights, and all of us speak the same language, swim in the same technological flow. You could tell someone about the custom musical system you have created and not just expect them to understand... you could expect them to be genuinely interested in the details.

I'll be posting more on the amazing presentations. I was so inspired by each and every one of them a short synopsis cannot do it justice. Cycling '74 captured footage of the entire event, so perhaps it will surface online for those who could not attend. For the time between, here are a few important things I saw, learned, re-learned, remembered or was reminded of by, from and with my co-attendees:

- Typing on a French keyboard is difficult, even for a native. (Olivier)

- Everyone loves massive granular synth patches. (Clifton and Mike)

- It's cool to use the term "...back at the turn of the century". (Peter)

- Art is created between the artist and the experiencer. (Seon)

- It is almost possible to make Max 4 look entirely like Max 5. (Barry)

- An mlr control page for loop lengths is a wonderful necessity. (Kevin)

- Sometimes your friends must push you into the arms of love. (John)

- Metadata is where "it" is at. (G. Craig)

- You can walk on the sky. (Freida and Robert)

The evening party at CNMAT was an exceptional Friday finale: food, friends, musical technology everywhere. Many of us were downstairs in Adrian Freed's edification field learning about manufacturing alternate controllers from various off-the-shelf toys when the ceiling literally began to throb. We raced to the main room to find Bob Ostertag and Pierre Hébert creating an incandescent world of audio and video. I slid into a prime seat next to their working area and was almost as fascinated by the on-screen Max machinery as the creations pouring out of it.

Returning home, I found a sent link to a spectacular video awaiting my eyes. There is a sign outside Cycling '74's San Francisco office telling the world they do not sell bicycles. This video is not about Cycling '74, but rather the bicycles they claim not to sell. For me, it summarizes the Expo experience perfectly. Cycling '74 may truly not sell bicycles but it sure as hell feels like they come along with every Max patch I build. Watch the whole video and you will know what it felt like to attend Expo '74.

Galvanic Skin Response
7/27/08 02:45 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

Take one dark, strange basement space deep beneath the Li-Po Lounge in China Town and mix with super-fine electro DJs spinning in the key of bone-break and sternum rattle evening long. When I say super-fine, I mean every DJ in the dungeon was unbelievably good. It was the best mix of musical re-imaginings I've ever heard. My neck hurts from the impossible to avoid head bouncing.

Now add VJ Mattbot and Wolf Interval to the room for the first public beta run of our embryonic audio/video framework. Extra props to Grey, a mad scientist on the decks who also kept us both in liquid video courage.

Lastly, thread in a small group of wonderful dancers, designers, visualists, musicians and other highly colorful representatives of San Francisco's nightlife. At this point in the narrative you should have a good idea what the first evening of Tickle Me Electro was like. Spirits running high everywhere, a wonderful time was had by all.

Our video sequencing machinery in Max worked a charm, and we used the evening as a live-patching laboratory, concocting more methods of visual mayhem for next time. Max 5 + Jitter smoothly pumped out our abstract stylings all night long with nary a hiccup.

This post brought to you by my friend Steen's notice this weblog's update schedule roughly coincides with every other new moon. That's about to be rectified.

Max 5 In The Pipeline
1/14/08 20:11 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

I recently attended a swank session of the Bay Area Computer Music Technology Meetup group. A crowd of ~40 rolled into Pyramind in San Francisco for software presentations and performances of interest to musical hackers, interactive technology nerds and all varieties of electronic freaks.

In the first of these, Cycling '74's Andrew Benson gave a look inside the almost-released Max 5 to a very appreciative audience of patchers. Here's a small, quick list I gathered of some Max 5 grooviness coming soon from the Cycling elves:

- Goodbye [prepend set]! Message boxes have a right inlet specifically for this function.

- Lots of Maxers love the enhancements provided to 4.6.x by Nathanaël Lécaudé's Max Toolbox. Max 5 has new and requested shortcuts and key combos built right in.

- Taking a cue from Ableton's Info View in Live, there's a new Clue window which displays information on mouse-over. An annotation attribute allows you to add your own custom clues.

- The new UI is gorgeous, vector-driven goodness, courtesy of Raw Material Software's Juce. Resolution independent resize is sweet.

- Multiple live views on the same patch, at different magnification levels. As someone who often builds patches which spill beyond the bounds of a screen, this is fantastic. Changes update in all views simultaneously.

- Object name auto-completion. To quote Andrew, "Several of our developers bought iPhones during development and fell in love with auto-completion." It shows. Arrow through the drop-down list of auto-complete object choices and the Clue window shows information and arguments for each. Pow! Instant answers to "What does [somefunkyobject] do again?"

- Color schemes. The entire application is default color customizable. Sets of colors can be saved and recalled instantly, for say, "dimly lit performance" view or patching in the "well lit lab" view. Different background colors for locked and unlocked patchers.

- Mouse over the left edge of an object with an inspector and a small spot to click appears. Click and, viola! the inspector opens. Inspectors used to be Max patches themselves, but the new method has inspectors created on-the-fly if I understand Andrew correctly.

- Drag and drop audio files directly into [buffer~]. *throws double devil sign*

- I know most Max users are already aware of the new Presentation Mode, but to see it in action is to love it.

- New debug tools = excellent. Watchpoints will seriously change the way I track down problems. You drop Watchpoints on patch cords and they auto-number. Open the Watchpoints window and you'll find a numbered list display of all your Watchpoints with their data changing realtime as it zips through the cables. There's a floating audio meter for hovering over signal patch cords, too.

Andrew also mentioned most third party external packages have been tested and are working well. So the various quick-patching favorites like Peter Elsea's LObjects, Emmanuel Jordan's Ejies and Peter Castine's Litter Power suite should be there from go. I generally only use third-party objects for proof of concept or if there's something I absolutely want potentially greater efficiency in, but it's nice to know they'll be available from the start. The only third party externals which will likely need complete rewrites are those with graphic interfaces.

Cycling have paid great attention to usability in Max 5, with the majority of changes aimed at improving user experience and providing a consistent and modern framework for programming in Max. It's not really an upgrade in the sense of providing new toys for making noise... it seems more the foundation for future development, a new beginning taking the best of the past 20 years and making it space-worthy for a new era of exploration. I'm excited, and very impressed by the way they've balanced familiarity with improvements to workflow and environment. Presentation Mode alone is a workflow gift from the gods. Add in a common interface across platforms and the possibility of an eventual Linux port and you realize this is the real deal.

Lastly, Max 5 will live on the same partition as Max 4.6.x. Excellent news... now I won't need to buy a new machine while I'm waiting for the next Pluggo build based on Max 5. I seriously cannot wait to take advantage of the new interface capabilities for a new wave of Daevl.Plugs.

Cycling '74 Loves Cats
9/27/07 09:36 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

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.

Vlad shows Cycling '74 staff how to whistle... you know how to whistle, don't you?

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!

Balron_40h
11/9/06 23:25 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

Balron_40h is a Max/MSP patch I whipped up to interface the Monome 40h with the rest of my MIDI gear and software as a controller instrument.

The Monome's main limitation as melodic controller is the number of interaction points per row: 8 pads versus the 12 keys we're accustomed to in the Western scale. It makes a great rhythm grid, but you can't squeeze accidentals in where there are no places to press.

Turning lemons into magical drinks is a prime creative activity, so I built Balron_40h to lay a multitude of 8-tone scales over the 8 x 8 grid. A side benefit: because the grid then uses a refined system of notes, everything automagically sounds good!

Utilizing 4 cell-shifting MIDI delays, repeating patterns and transposing chords can be created. The potential for discovering interesting progressions is high. Sending patterns of low notes into a monosynth can create instant acid basslines.

After a few days of using Balron_40h in serious song building, I'm amazed and surprised at what one hand can accomplish with such a densely packed controller: finger spans of over 8 octaves give acrobatic rolls and unexpected melodies from thin air. The tight pad layout imparts abilities closer to a guitar or Chapman stick than keyboard.

Version 1.0 is running well on both MacBook Pro and PowerBook G4 under Max/MSP 4.6.2.

Released, of course, under the QYBL-NC (Question Your Beliefs License - Non-Commercial):

Balron_40h.mxb.zip (228k, single Max/MSP patch version)

Daevl's Stretch
4/8/06 22:39 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

The major plugins in the Daevlplugs suite are complete. I'm coming down the mountain, and it's a good feeling to effortlessly pick up speed. I've used a variation on my favored rounded grid interface aesthetic, with the controls for each major plugin a different color. They're simple, beautiful and completely lacking faux knobs: digital controls for digital processes.

I'm working on the About panes for the suite tonight, and sizing up installer technology. It's a toss-up between Apple's own PackageMaker and the upstart MacInstallerBuilder from SDE Software.

I'm not really interested in binding an install to single user machines, so I've all but decided on serial-based authorization. So far, I've found little info on including serialization as part of the PackageMaker install process, while MacInstallerBuilder has it built-in. SDE's offering is also cross-platform, which would make it easier for me to distribute the Windows version of the Daevlplugs after the initial OS X release.

It's wonderful to perceive the finish line. Soon I'll have time for music (and more weblogging) again. I'll be making my noise using these evolved and refined versions of my favorite tools. In fact, I've already accumulated almost a gigabyte of raw source audio grabbed while testing.

Surfacing
3/20/06 14:08 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

Two weeks of marathon patching sessions, and I've almost reached the mountain peak.

Six of the nine major plugins I'm readying for commercial release are in beta form, with the final three simply waiting for a good interface make-over and some depersonalization tweaks... meaning that I know what "gritch" means as sonic description, as I built the patch, but it's not sufficiently explanatory for someone unfamiliar with my madness.

The last three plugins should join the beta party this week. After that, it's a simple matter of separating out smaller components from the major nine, like the pitch extraction filter from daevl.triptych, a single channel of unstable pitch shifting from daevl.threep, the envelope followed and filtered white noise channel from daevl.noise. The completed collection will probably weigh in at around 20 plugins.

These are not your clockwork engineer's audio effects. I'm as excited to release these as I was to build them. The original Max/MSP patches came into being to make it easier for me to create organic mayhem and outside-the-mainstream audio for my own music. Placing them into the world is like releasing any other creation to live a life independent of my immediate person: it extends my art, creating bridges between myself and others communicating via sound, then crossing over to those listening to the sound these others will create.

SixCylinder
2/24/06 21:30 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

One recipe for very strange sound-

Stack six oscillators in two columns of three. Each oscillator node provides a range of waveforms: sin, triangle, saw, triangle/saw composite, stairstep, sample & hold, pulse, bipulse. Each oscillator will spin out any frequency from LFO range upwards, and has selectable drift. Drift can be jump-started by a control signal based on amplitude in the source material. Since peaks will kick off new drift, it works a charm on rhythmic material.

Pass left and right signals through each columnar chain, oscillating the amplitude progressively with each node.

Here's where it gets fun. Create a ladder of variable recirculating feedback connections between the nodes. The signal flows back and forth between the columns and upon reaching the base... rolls through a delay and heads right back to the top of the ladder.

This short demo clip was made with all six oscillators in the chain set to sin wave. First is the dry loop, then a solo of the amplitude modulation effect, then a mix of both wet and dry.

SixCylinder Hood_Modulator (0:42, 44.1KHz, 128kbps, 668k).

Triptych
2/15/06 21:47 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

Triptych is my latest Max/MSP madness. Another in a line of plugins designed to stave off sterility, Triptych is an organic, triple pitch shift.

Triptych - a portion of the raw Max/MSP patch.

First, I split the incoming audio signal out into three discrete pitch shifters.

Each pitch shifting abstraction ranges +/- one octave. In addition to transposition, each shifter also has its own gain, pan, instability range and duration until next instability event. The instability values are randomly chosen within the specified range and change smoothly from one value to the next over the course of the chosen duration.

Mix the pitched signals to taste with original signal and endlessly samey-samey drumloops are set free to wobble as they wish. The effect can range from very subtle pitch blurring to drastic, wild swings. It sounds great on everything, and layered beneath the original audio changes a static mix into something more unpredictable. Automating the parameters in Live creates serious sonic chaos.

This demo clip has been treated with moderate, quick pitching. The original loop is a classic Roland CR78 preset I recorded direct from the machine.

Triptych CR78 Pitch Twizz (0:18, 44.1KHz, 128kbps, 292k).

I'm working on a slicker interface for Triptych next, then some standardized components to speed up the plug-in writing process. Parts like stereo submixers with channel soloing and mute functions are very similar in every plugin I've written over the past year, and can be abstracted easily.

Bi-Phase
1/21/06 22:08 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

Tonight I discovered processing a signal with two serial phasers can, given the proper settings, sound remarkably like wow, flutter and rhythmic physical manipulation of magnetic tape. I also discovered I can take this effect much farther.

I've always been spellbound by the sound of phasers, particularly the Pink Floydian flow of the Mu-Tron Bi-Phase. Until I sat down and patched one up in Max/MSP, I had no idea how far the effect could stretch.

When I drive one or both of the frequency sweeps at audible sonic rates, strange textures appear... almost like a form of synthesis I've not heard before. In this sound clip, I'm driving the first sweep at 200Hz, and the second at 1Hz:

Black Strings (0:35, 44.1KHz, 128kbps, 552k)

I'm wrapping my patch up as a plugin tomorrow.

I can't get this sound out of my head.

Dreiheit
1/3/06 21:07 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

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.

Max Search Engine
11/3/05 17:30 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

Dan Winckler has created a swanky Max/MSP/Jitter search Engine for Mozilla/Firefox/Netscape browsers. I've kept a site:synthesisters bookmark to Google in my toolbar for easy searching of the Max list archives, but Dan's plugin is the cat's whiskers.

Dan Winckler's excellent Max/MSP/Jitter search Engine.

For you Max/MSPing IE users out there... if the fact 2Second(fuse) doesn't render properly in Internet Exploder because Microsoft broke the CSS standard isn't enough, here's yet another reason to make the leap to Firefox. Do it, already!

vs.xoxbox.js
9/8/05 20:16 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

Another Daevlbox graphic controller! I found myself making my 500th custom matrixctrl pictstrip and monkeying up state logic for it, so instead I hatched a replacement jsui: vs.xoxbox.js.

Born specifically for traditional xox-grid style rhythm programming (patching some chaos-driven beat machines inspired its creation) it has four states:

0 off / 1 on / 2 accent / 3 beat

with configurable parameters for each: background, frame and facing colors, gutter and frame width, display time ms for the beat indicator.

Clicks toggle off/on, and command-clicks toggle accent. Send a bang to vs.xoxbox.js and it outputs current state for rhythmically triggering a sound or video source.

As the latest Max/MSP allows the creation of custom inspectors for jsui controls, I have yet more fun in store tonight.

vs.asquare.js
9/2/05 08:23 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

I whipped up this new jsui controller during my layover in Phoenix:

So far it's only about 500 lines of messy code, but works well for the basics. Assigning the side values to various softsynth parameters is great fun, and will be even better once I get a central drag point coded. It also functions as a horizontal/vertical slider, range control or combo volume/duration control. A few more bells and whistles and I'll roll it into the Daevlbox tools release.

It's named after the central character of Edwin Abbott's Flatland, which I read (yet again) while in the rust red wilds.

Max/MSP 4.5.5 + Jitter 1.5
8/5/05 11:13 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

Software updates are falling out of the sky. I bumped up to Max/MSP 4.5.5 and Jitter 1.5 simultaneously yesterday. The elves at Cycling '74 are so deserving of fame and fortune.

Max/MSP 4.5.5: The utility update from stratospheric reaches of the firmament, this is the one I've been waiting for. My patching efficiency has just been improved half again, and I'm already a fast patcher.

Templates - Just what it sounds like: save a patcher as a preset starting point. I do this already with a specific workbench file, but my command/ctrl-s enthusiasm has overwritten it on more than one occasion. No longer a worry.

Shortcuts - User-editable shortcut text allows me to create small text names which expand to commonly created objects with very long names.

Clippings - I can paste the contents of often-used patchers directly into my current work from a contextual menu. I will never again recreate sfplay~ with a loop message plus bang.

Prototypes - Customized gui objects can be saved as prototypes and recalled without all the cut and paste craziness. It's library development time. Can I get an "Iya Cthulhu" here?

Encapsulate/Decapsulate - Select your grouping for a subpatcher, hit command-shift-E and watch in wonder as your selection transforms into a subpatcher with its connections preserved. The reverse is flawless, as well.

New from Clipboard - Copy the text of a patch from email, the many back and forths on the Cycling '74 Max list or the web, flip to Max and hit command-shift-N. There's your patch, in all its reconstituted-from-ascii glory.

mxj~ - Signal processing externals in Java. This is going to be a blast.

Jitter 1.5: Multiprocessor support, compressed RTSP streams and Java/Javascript support. I've been working mightily with js externals of late, and am thrilled by the promise of the Java/Javascript addition to Jitter.

Perhaps because I'm currently deep in the wilds of Max/MSP/Jitter land this update hits me with the power of one thousand years. Yesterday I sorted out the license for the tools release as a variation on the Creative Commons Share-Alike with a twist. With hard work and luck, daevlbox will pop at Daevlmakr's relaunch along with everything else.

OldSchool
7/16/05 16:17 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

I was pulling out bits and pieces of my Max/MSP/Jitter work, abstracting and purifying and making nice for a release to the community, when I came across this:

If you've ever used a Palm III or earlier, or one of the ancestral monochrome Macs, these controller images should take you way back. Surprisingly all of my original Photoshop files for them were intact, so I'm going to clean them up a bit, render out some nice black and white versions to go with the green-blue dazzle and include them all in the upcoming tools.

This gives me an idea to fake up some even olderschool Apple IIe green on black gui works now.

Ley Lines
6/21/05 17:02 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

Creative funk busting 101-

Re-read Brian Eno's creative strategies on studio as meta-instrument
Listen to Eno's tape-delay work with Robert Fripp on No Pussyfooting
Time-travel almost 20 years, listen to Adam Schabtach's excellent Max/MSP delay-line created Elephant Island
Check out Cycling 74's delay bank Wash plugin from the Mode package
Be led, as a horse to cool water, to delay-based compositional approaches.

That quickly, it's an excellent Solstice.

I've always been fascinated by delay line writing. You're the creative input and manipulator, but you're not in control. You're working in real-time, performing with the changing context of yourself. As Eno puts it, you're "riding on the dynamics of the system."

This time I'm doing it properly, an updated take on the concept.

Thus far, aided by the ejies new ej.function object, I have four massive, filtered delay lines created in Max/MSP, with variable amounts of interplay between them. Ej.function drives multiple line~ objects, providing two stages of visual enveloping for each delay line: one micro for the specific repeating events, one macro to adjust gain across long sweeps of time. A sweet feature of ej.function is the ability to layer function envelopes, so I can see overlays of all long envelopes at once. All envelopes can be free or bpm synchronized, and I'm working on adding a little chaos to various parameters today.

From here, I'm adding-

a range of input possibilities: line in, mic, synced audio file, perhaps rewire
control via Edirol PCR-M1, Doepfer 64, Logitech GamePad
a slew of channel effects: tapped delay, granular processes, distortion, reverb

Lastly, direct-to-disk recording as five individual stereo tracks (one for each delay line plus master channel) for re-import or chopping up in Live and Digital Performer.

Just in testing as I build, the sounds are huge and organic, clouds of changing rhythm and tonal clusters flying everywhere. This is going to be all over the upcoming blueDeceiver and Sky Break Blue work, and may even find its way into some of my work on Chris Martinez' tracks.

Damn, it feels good to be a Max/MSP gangsta.

Pirate Video
5/18/05 11:45 - permalink - email - category: MaxMSPJitter

Final mixing can be an intense process. For brain breaks while maintaining clinical attitude and creative levels, I occasionally switch into Max/MSP/Jitter and work on my current obsession in that domain: developing an app called Pirate Video for the creation of live atmosphere. I'm connecting control ranged by MIDI and frequency input now, to guide the algorithmic and chaos formulae.

The goal of Pirate Video is processing live video feeds from audience and stage, point of focus and effect parameters determined by the songs being played. At present I have a nice mix of generative and processing, with limited control.

The stills above can't convey the pure hypnosis of these patterns in motion. It's amazing how swiftly complexity can be built from basic forms and a little recombinant math.