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Max (software)

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A Max/MSP patch written and used by Autechre

Max is a graphical development environment for music and multimedia developed and maintained by San Francisco-based software company Cycling '74. It has been used for over fifteen years by composers, performers, software designers, researchers and artists interested in creating interactive software. The Max program itself is highly modular, with most routines existing in the form of shared libraries. An API allows third-party development of new routines (called "external objects"). As a result, Max has a large userbase of programmers not affiliated with Cycling '74 who enhance the software with commercial and non-commercial extensions to the program. Because of its extensible design and graphical interface (which in a novel way represents the program structure and the GUI as presented to the user simultaneously), Max is widely regarded as the lingua franca for developing interactive music performance software.

1 History
2 Max Mathews
3 Notable artists
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

History

Max was originally written by Miller Puckette as the Patcher editor for the Macintosh at IRCAM in the mid-1980s to give composers access to an authoring system for interactive computer music. It was first used in a piano and computer piece called Pluton (written by Philippe Manoury in 1988), synchronizing the computer to the piano and controlling a Sogitec 4X, which performed the audio processing.^[1] In 1989, IRCAM developed and maintained a concurrent version of Max ported to the IRCAM Signal Processing Workstation for the NeXT (and later SGI and Linux), called Max/FTS (FTS standing for "Faster Than Sound", and being analogous to a forerunner to MSP enhanced by a hardware DSP board on the computer).^[2]^[3] In 1989, it was licensed by IRCAM to Opcode Systems, which sold a commercial version of the program in 1990 called Max/Opcode (developed and extended by David Zicarelli). Never a perfect fit for Opcode Systems, it was released several years later. The current commercial version of Max has since been distributed by Zicarelli's company, Cycling '74 (founded in 1997^[4]), since 1999. Puckette released an entirely re-designed Free Software program in 1996 called Pd (short for "Pure Data"), which has a number of fundamental differences from the IRCAM original, and remains an attractive substitute for those who don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on Max/MSP. Max has a number of extensions and incarnations; most notably, a set of audio extensions to the software appeared in 1997, ported from Pure Data. Called MSP (short for either Max Signal Processing or the initials of Miller S. Puckette, the author of both Max and Pd), this "add-on" package for Max allowed for the manipulation of digital audio signals in real-time, allowing users to create their own synthesizers and effects processors (Max had previously been designed to interface with hardware synthesizers, samplers, etc. as a "control" language using MIDI or some other protocol). In 1998, a direct descendant of Max/FTS was developed in Java (jMax) and released as open-source. 1999 saw the release of nato.0+55, a suite of externals that brought to Max extensive control of realtime video. Although nato, which was developed and distributed by the mysterious net entity Netochka Nezvanova, became increasingly popular among multimedia artists, its development was dropped in 2001. In the meantime, Cycling '74 created their "official" implementation of video control. A major package for Max/MSP called Jitter was released in 2003, providing real-time video, 3-D, and matrix processing capability. A major upgrade to the Max / MSP / Jitter programming environment, Max 5, is scheduled for the first quarter of 2008. For the past several years, Cycling '74 has been working towards this upgrade, calling it "Max for the next 20 years" [1]. Unlike incremental software upgrades which occur frequently, usually adding a handful of new features, this upgrade is a major reworking of the environment itself. Because the Max application has such a long history, much of its evolution built upon the underlying program kernel, requiring many adjustments to keep things working correctly and smoothly while adding new features and addressing performance limitations. This upgrade promises a substantial number of fundamental improvements in the interface and program kernel itself, drawing upon the vastly increased performance capabilities of today's computers as well as the working methods and standards of modern computer users. A short list of these improvements include fully-integrated help and documentation, composited objects (allowing transparency), zoomable patch windows, redesigned Object Inspectors with more control over Object Attributes, a customizable SQL-based database for media and patches, an integrated File / Media Browser with previews, Presentation Mode, true cross-platform compatibility, and more. Read this article to find out more, and to see videos of the new interface in action. In addition, a number of sibling and Max-like programs exist. Native Instruments markets a similar software called Reaktor. Reaktor is generally considered easier to use and learn than Max, albeit less powerful. Apple has a very similar program called Quartz Composer focused on graphical compositions and there is also a free (for non-commercial use) software developed by meso called VVVV (a multipurpose toolkit) focused on real time video synthesis.

Max Mathews

Max is named for Max Mathews, and can be considered a descendant of MUSIC, though its graphical nature disguises that fact. A large number of people use Max, even if they aren't aware of it. Max documents (called patchers) can be bundled into standalone applications and distributed free or sold commercially. In addition, Max can be used to author audio plugin software for major audio production systems. With the increased integration of laptop computers into live music performance (in electronic music and elsewhere), Max/MSP and Max/Jitter have received quite a bit of attention as the development environment of choice for those serious about laptop music / laptop video performance.

Notable artists

Many other artists use Max/MSP/Jitter, but prefer not to mention it. For more on this subject, see this discussion on the Max/MSP mailing list.

References

^ Explanatory notes: Pluton
^ A brief history of MAX (with a block diagram of variant history)
^ Max/MSP History and Background — Where did MaxMSP come from?
^ Cycling '74 About Us

External links

Home Page of Cycling '74
Dac~ - Max/MSP and Jitter Wiki
RTC-lib Software library for algorithmic composition in Max/MSP/Jitter
Pd Home Page
jMax project page on SourceForge
AE Max/MSP patches and Powmod patch library
Max Objects Database This site is designed to find objects from Max universe (Max/MSP, Jitter,...)
Studiotoolz! Max/MSP standalones/patches and other experimental audio applications for Mac OS X...
Lobjects, a set of external objects developed by Peter Elsea at
lloopp a ready to use modular and experimental software built in max/msp/jitter