max/msp

So I have ventured into the world of max/msp …;;been using it for 2 months now …;and yeah I think I got the hang of it by now …
It took me a while before I really understood …the difference between lists and separate messages…packing unpacking etc…; appending , prepending …changeable arguments in message’s etc…but once you have an understanding of how messages and lists are constructed and deconstructed things fall into place
But there’s is one thing that is still puzzling me …and that is …the ‘fromsymbol’ and the ‘tosymbol’ object .

I ain’t talking about the $1 arguments or specific message to objects not talking about columns ,semicolumns , but the objects ‘fromsymbol’ ‘tosymbol’ …
and what makes a specific sybbol between " symbol" smartquotes the manual gives absolutely no in depth info about the symbol parts .
The only thing the reference/tutorial pdf states about symbols is these are messages understood by objects
Can someone give m a real world example for the ‘fromsymbol’ ‘tosymbol’ object

O hh yeah reason why I don’t post on the cycling site…I can’t bother registering

a symbol is like a constant, or maybe more like a variable name (at least this is how symbols work in ruby!!)
so there is no real big difference, except that there can be multiple different strings with the same content “Hi”, “Hi”, and that other string called a = “Hi”
but all Hi symbols are one and the same.

If you don’t get it… well you don’t have to :D/> the difference can easily be either too philosophical or too lowlevel programming (when I was reading a Ruby progging tutorial it took me some time to grasp the symbol/string convert functions to_s and to_str)`

anyway, so you can make instruments and such with it? awesome

I’m just starting to use Max. Any place I should start?

Just got the demo of Max6. Gonna dive in when I have some more time.
I see that it now has Rewire capability, is that how people here are using it?
It’s so darn expensive though!

the manuals are pretty good.

You can get started by the manuals …they are pretty good .
Know the difference between multiple messages and lists 'multiple are separated by commas …some modules can take list as inputs , or unpack lists into separate elements …reverse is also true …pack multiple messages into one list etc…sometimes its a real head scratcher .
<then there is the variable $1 …in messages this is a changeable argument …pretty usefull .

Once you get some basics down, look up “Delicious” max/msp tutorials on youtube.

They bridge that intermediate-level chasm between “I know how to connect an oscillator to the DAC” to working creatively.

Incidentally, renoise needs tutorials at this level. There are too many “this is how you enter notes and load samples” rehashes …

I am having so much fun right now with max …
for example …made a basic step sequencer …send gates to function envelope for each note ( each note has a separate saw~ osc. ( ofcourse line~ and *~ is needed ) and delay the same gates with some amount ( gate delay …apllie different note values to the delayed gates …)
The fact that every gate has it’s own function ( envelope ) makes this super flexible …)
Say gate 1 = shotr decay , gate 2 long attack etc…
The transpose the sequence etc…
wil upoad some stuff soon .
As far as I can say max/msp is great for building experimental , but for instrument building I still preffr reaktor ( altough I really don’t like the event sysytem ) , the handling of poly~ in max is a pita …

What exactly is your question? The “tosymbol” is used for embracing a filename; you can’t have backslashes etc… Checkout “sprintf” - does wonders.

Hi! Does anyone have any experience syncing max/msp and renoise via rewire? I am interested in using max as master and renoise as slave, while using renoise to trigger patches in max. A friend of mine showed me a little patch in max that could kind of sync the two, except for some lag. Can i get rid of this lag by using rewire? Many thanks!