reactive music

Connections

(under construction)

review of Max tutorials

• messages
• message types
• message order (right to left, top to bottom)
• messages and attributes
• inlets: passive and active
• numbers (int/float)
• subpatches
• send/receive

tutorial 1

• debugging with print and message objects
• set, append, prepend (changing contents without sending out data)

tutorial 2: bang

• loadbang, loadmess
• a random thought: musicians should learn to program computers
• Max is object oriented: objects respond to messages with methods or actions based on type of input

tutorial 3: numbers and lists

• pack vs. oak
• $ gets used alot

tutorial 4: toggle metro

• time formats and the transport
• When to use Ableton Live instead of Max
• snippets
• overiding arguments using the right inlet
• hide on lock

tutorial 5:

• debugging… watchpoints / breakpoints (in the patch cords) when debugging make sure to have auto-step off!!!!
• trigger / bangbang (trigger video link)

tutorial 6:

• math operations: feedback loop to make accumulator
• how would you make a backwards keyboard?

review of Max 7 lessons

 

user Interface

Look at UI’s you have build

• backwards violin?
• piano with different arrangement of black/white or monochrome
• what would you change to improve UI of your instrument?

connecting things:

rube goldberg machines: Ok go

Using Max to connect external hardware:

• midi,
• osc,
• serial (Arduino)
• web
• hi
• externals
• camera (cv)
• microphone (pitch tracking)
• mechanical linkage?

Experiments

• Playing notes on another computer using udpsend/udpreceive and midi
• ad hoc networks, wifi routers
• feedback delay case study
• how would you make a patch that conformed everything to a pentatonic scale but kept rhythm and synchronized?

Here is a screenshot of the OSC experiment we did in class

 

 

Here is a screenshot of the reverse Midi keyboard patch

assignment:

Reverse engineer Plink. Build a prototype that allows two or more people to jam.

Design a project that will be due at the mid-term. Send me an email next week describing the project.

Write a patch to connect external hardware to Max (input or output)

news

There will be no class next week, February 10th.

notes

Andy Farnell, “Designing Sound” https://reactivemusic.net/?p=2480

useful skills

• Read and understand patches (like reading musical scores)
• Learn how to discover and research other people’s work (USB example, beatDetektor)
• Make quick prototypes
• Use externals and abstractions instead of writing everything yourself
• Get your work noticed

Case study: Adapting and transforming an interactive video performance.

under construction

Video and programming by Naoto Fushimi

Here is a case study of how you might approach an interactive video project. For example, if you had an opportunity to design a realtime visualization tool for a band.

Search

Knowing that cool video things can be designed with Max/MSP/Jitter, I opened up Google web search and typed in: jitter max

Here are the results:

The second entry looked interesting: [Share Patch] Simple Audio Reactive Set [Max/MSP Jitter]. (It is the cool video at the top of this post). There is a link to the Max patch in the video description – but the link is broken.  So I entered the title of the video into Google: Share Patch Simple Audio Reactive Set

Here are the results:

The second entry is a link to the Cycling 74 forum. https://cycling74.com/forums/topic/looking-for-share-patch-simple-audio-reactive-set-maxmsp-jitter/ Here I was able to find a link to a modified version of Naoto Fushimi’s Max patch – in a post by Giorgio. http://1cyjknyddcx62agyb002-c74projects.s3.amazonaws.com/files/2014/12/NAOTO.maxpat

Understanding the Max patch

It appears that audio input is supposed to trigger the interactive graphics. But immediately on starting the audio, it begins to feedback, and there is apparently no way to stop it. I notice there is an ezadc~ object as well as an IO abstraction – but can’t quite see how they are hooked up due to the maze of segmented overlapping patch cords.

By selecting everything (<cmd> a) you can restore normal patch cords by selecting Arrange | remove all segments. After doing this, it appears that the ezadc~ is redundant, so I deleted it. Now the patch looks like this:

Much easier to understand. In the IO abstraction I loaded an audio file and then was able to get graphic output by toggling on the metro at the top of the patch and using the 3 toggles in the center of the patch.

It works, but how?

peakamp~

jit.catch~

3 openGL subpatches

jit.gl.gridshape

rotatexyz message