Hey just wondering if anyone has worked with this piece of software? seen loads of videos on youtube with people using it in logic and jonny greenwood in radiohead has popularized it, get some really great glitchy results from it, but the price tag is pretty shitty, i think you can have a free trial for a month with it though. Also I think Pure Data from the same guy is free and similar to it, anyone achieve good results from it, and also it seems like a really hard program to learn
i like pd.
there will be a lot to learn either way but if you really get into and enjoy the technical masturbation it could be worth it.
i started 2 use PD and MAX in 2003, then dropped it, cuz i wanted to concentrate more on music than programming.
still use some of my (and of course others, even some from Apparat) patches nowadays, they are very helpfull when i need new inspiring sounds and stuff. so i can say my sample library is endless.
i have max msp, its decent. max msp 5 is also relatively easy to use and learn in comparison with the previous version (all the tutorials are integrated so e.g. you click an object holding alt and you get an instant explanation). there is lots of stuff i use max msp for with every track i do (along with renoise and audition).
one of the big advantages is the ability to do realtime stuff such as granular synthesis, which is highly useful for creating clouds of glitchy sounds, drones, etc. there are many high quality patches which come as examples with max msp, and you can also get other high quality fx for free from the IRCAM website (good reverbs, chorus, spatialisation etc. etc.).
its fairly easy to use these patches “out the box” for manipulating sounds, by simply attaching an input output object, feeding pre-recorded sounds in and recording the altered output. if you spend some time to learn the programme a bit more, then you can alter or combine the workings of these patches to make your own.
for example a patch which i wanted to do was a looper/switcher, which loops up to 25 different sounds and can randomly cycle between which loop is being played at any one time, and the speed of that random switching is adjustable (or you can manually control with loop with a slider). the patch then also has pitch shifter, chorus, and control over the speed of loop playback and the endpoint of the loop played. all of this is controlled in real-time, which means you can improvise glitchy noise with it, record a file of what you made and then edit that to use in a composition. this patch was relatively easy to make, since it combines the looping patch which comes with max/msp along with the chorus and pitchshifter. the switching function only really necessitates learning a few new objects and implimenting these with what was already there and some extra slider controls. its fairly satisfying to come up with an idea for something such as this and then make it and use it. even though its quite a straightforward patch conceptually you couldnt easily do this in any software i came across which didnt have the kind of flexibility of MAX/MSP or PD.
if you spend longer still to learn it, you could make your own patches completely from scratch. so it depends how far you want to get into it, the possibilities are theoretically limitless, except, MAX/MSP essentially concerns audio (and video if you get Jitter). I haven’t used PD, but as I understand it the possibilities extend significantly beyond audio, and its free? but the max/msp tutorials are pretty good, and since its geared toward audio and pretty user friendly now, i think if you’re interested in audio and you are prepared to spend some time learning how to do things then its well worth while. I don’t think its that expensive considering how powerful it is either.
max/msp also supports rewire, so you could use it with ableton live (for example) to do some interesting stuff potentially, not that ive tried it.
I think Max/MSP and PD look like really awesome ways to get messed up sounds. I tried learning PD a year or two ago and could really get a good handle on it. Luckily, my college is offering a class using Max/MSP next semester so hopefully I’ll get good with it.
As a side note, I believe Autechre uses Max/MSP for a lot of their stuff.
be sure they do. renoise too.
i think some of the autechre patches were kicking around on the net somewhere if you google it. you can install max msp runtime for free which should allow you to play with them without buying the software (but you cant edit or make your own of course)
I’ve used PD for some projects.
It’s not so hard to learn as it used to be (esp. documentation has improved).
Hmmm…that’s a pretty expensive program to teach students, when you have the free PD equivalent…perhaps the teachers have simply grown accustomed to using it?
however if you are a student you can get a 9 month license for $59, with $39 off if you later upgrade to a full license, which is also $250 for max/msp/jitter with the student discount. not a lot of money for such a powerful programme, but, more money than free 
i did a module in max/msp at uni… i think its generally the more popular programme on music tech courses at colleges and uni, whereas computer science people would look at PD since it is more versatile for doing other things. i assume this is because max/msp comes geared specifically towards music, with a solid range of tutorials for that application included in the package. perhaps if the PD tutorials have improved now its a more attractive to learn than it was, but i seriously doubt it would be as easy to learn as MAX 5 with the new instant help bubbles… but i dont know really, because i dont know PD 
they are both based on the same principles so you can certainly do the same things in PD you can in MAX, so i guess the only factors to choose would be based on cost, tutorials and examples, whether or not you are going to want to use ReWire (which is probably significantly more tricky in PD, if it can be done at all), and whether or not you are going to reach the limits of Max by wanting to do stuff on other platforms which PD would support and other things beyond simply audio?
All of the Macs on campus have Max/MSP installed, so I believe we’re supposed to use those. Probably more specifically the Macs that are hooked up to keyboards and MIDI controllers in the music building.
genfu is probably also right about music teaching preferring Max/MSP over PD because of it being more specifically geared toward music.
i have the older (4.6.3??) version of max/msp, and just last week i downloaded the demo for v5. i haven’t spent much time on the demo of v5 yet, but the older version wasn’t tooooooo difficult. it was very intimidating at first (it still is), but once you start learning a few objects it gets easier. it helps a lot if you have someone that you can ask questions to, my girlfriend took a class in it so i decided that would be a good time for me to try to learn it, and i was able to ask her a lot of the very beginner-type questions. the cycling74 forums are very helpful too. i rarely post anything in the forums but i learn a lot just by reading. i don’t know if i’m going to upgrade to v5 though, but if i had more money i definitely would.
wow a girlfroiend that is into 'max msp ’ sounds nice
which brings us to the real question: which girls do you prefer? the ones who know max/msp or the ones who know PD? 