Max/Msp for guitar

damonjewel

I was wondering if there any guitarists that use MAX/MSP out there. I've been asked to work on a project and was thinking of using MAX/MSP as part of it. I like the sounds it can get but it seems very complex to program, and as it will be used for live performance, its reliability and stability is important.

Would like to get some pointers from anyone who may have used it.

Cheers

damo

rcaz

I use Pure Data a good bit, but mostly for controlling MIDI-assigned controls in other software. I do sampling stuff in Ableton Live and control it from Pd. Haven't, as of yet, been able to successfully make a sampler patch purely in Pd, but it's on my to-do list

I think it's a bit of a learning curve, but it's a standard at professional level music stuff, especially in really sophisticated academic stuff (I'm studying music in NUIM and my composition lecturer works with it), so I don't think reliability will be an issue once you get the hang of it.

If you'd be starting fresh with it, you might look at some other options too? I've heard great things about SuperCollider, but I think the learning curve would be even steeper as it's open source and code-based.

Max/MSP is a hell of a lot easier to use than Pd but I can't afford it yet

I'll be watching this thread, sounds super interesting. Care you tell us what you're working on? :cool:

Jagle

honestly unless you have alot of time, or know youll be good at it, AVOID it, seems to be way beyond you, and trust me its a serious skillset you need to learn, you cant just start and an hour later be done.

you mention you like the sounds it produces, it doesnt produce any sound, not until you program it to, so the end result is a direct result of what you do, so if you cant use it properly you wont like the sound it produces

it is very reliable and stable, if you patch is built well and programed to be streamlined, using 5 objects when 1 would do would hurt the stability and could begin to slow it down if your machine running it isnt fast enough

basically what do you wanna do with a guitar, and max/msp? might be easier to answer and give you tips if you tell me what you wanna do exactly

damonjewel

I'm simply using it for processing the guitar signal and seeing what i can achieve with it. I can't give too much away but I have been asked to compose, and probably perform a solo lengthy guitar piece for an 'avant-garde' piece of work. I'm quite comfortable with my playing and my set up which is very basic (wah, fuzz, delay, phase, loop). But was hoping to use the opportunity to explore new ground and give the audience something different and think that MSP/MAX might just be the ticket.

Ok so the reliability seems to be professional.

The cost and time input is what puts me off. (might take a look at super collider)

I assume the set up would go something along the lines of guitar signal chain into my laptop interface, into Max/Msp for processing, and back out of the interface to the amp. Is there anything else needed here?

I don't know what I want exactly, I have heard/seen some clips and it seems to have enormous scope. But searching around and there doesn't seem to be too many users willing to share their patches, which is fair enough.

Does it come with off the shelf/preprogrammed patches? are they any use?and can they be edited/adapted?

Jagle

damonjewel wrote: »

I'm simply using it for processing the guitar signal and seeing what i can achieve with it. I can't give too much away but I have been asked to compose, and probably perform a solo lengthy guitar piece for an 'avant-garde' piece of work. I'm quite comfortable with my playing and my set up which is very basic (wah, fuzz, delay, phase, loop). But was hoping to use the opportunity to explore new ground and give the audience something different and think that MSP/MAX might just be the ticket.

Ok so the reliability seems to be professional.

The cost and time input is what puts me off. (might take a look at super collider)

I assume the set up would go something along the lines of guitar signal chain into my laptop interface, into Max/Msp for processing, and back out of the interface to the amp. Is there anything else needed here?

I don't know what I want exactly, I have heard/seen some clips and it seems to have enormous scope. But searching around and there doesn't seem to be too many users willing to share their patches, which is fair enough.

Does it come with off the shelf/preprogrammed patches? are they any use?and can they be edited/adapted?

if you feel you cant give too much away, pm me with maybe some examples wof what processing you wanna do and i can help you if you nee to know if itll be easy/[ossible

the cost of it is large, but if you intend to use it for others things, well then maybe not so much, yes the time spent learning it can be a huge cost

there are tutorials within max/msp that teach you certain things, adn yes they have demonstration patchs you can use and adapt, and the help files you can adapt too, so dont worry about that

and yes to manipulate your guitar that equipment list is spot on

the only preprogramed patches are the tutorial ones, and wouldnt be enough to be able to throw a massive guitar fx's processor together no problem.

think you need to decide what signal processing you wanna do, until then i dunno if i can tell ya how hard itll be
also sorry one more thing, maybe link clips to what youve seen/like about it

rcaz

The scope isn't enormous, it's practically unlimited, if you can imagine it you can probably make a patch with it. It's how good that patch will be that's the question

I reckon if you get it with the idea that you 'want to do some processing', you'll get nothing done 'cause you'll be blinded by the possibilities. You have to have something in mind to work towards, to make you want to put all that time and effort into making a good patch.

I know Christian Fennesz uses it live, but he doesn't even use his own patches. He uses lloopp, which I think you can download here http://ppooll.klingt.org/index.php/Main_Page

Jagle

i have to agree with el pron there, max/msp is a piece of software for doing anything

if you can give us ideas of what you want, might have a few patchs lying around that can help you, very glad to help a beginner

damonjewel

Hi Guys

thanks for the information so far, i really appreciate it.

Its difficult to say exactly what I want, i do have an idea of what I want and the best way I can explain is that, I want the guitar signal to be barely recognisable, corrupting the signal, stretching it bending it reversing it. It should sound random but I want to have an idea to map out different signal processing and put them side by side. Lets say for example the signal goes through some kind of phasing period, the next period ring modulation, the next period stuttering the signal a la Jonny Greenwood, the next period pinging harmonics etc Try to create a sonic fireworks display. Where each next patch is as interesting and explosive as the past, ending in some complete corruption of the signal.

I might also check out its ambient capabilities, using drones and harmonics. But it wouldn't be my main focus.

I have a few weeks off in April and might download the 30 day demo version and try give it plenty of time. Although its daunting I think it GUI is more user friendly than what I can see on the opensource stuff.

I cant give details of what the project is as there are various rights/funding/bureaucratic issues that the producers and writers are dealing with, and I don't want to compromise their work by posting up what the idea is exactly. But will keep you updated as events happen.

I know what my brief is, to write a musical accompaniment piece on guitar. my job is to make it fit and make it interesting. And I can see MAX/MSP having a role in it, if just briefly for the overall piece. But hopefully the research and work will open doors for me musically. You are both right in saying its limitless

I'll do more research and post up ideas as they occur and try and post up a few links for discussion as I find them. Also would be interested to see\hear any links\clips you have.

Many thanks

damo

Jagle

well sounds like your gonna be using max/msp then, you eem very keen on it, if you are a student id recommend getting the student discount.

ya il post up examples of work ive done with it later

damonjewel

Just checking out Pure data, it seems a bit more user friendly than super collider and is open source.

http://puredata.info/

Any opinions on this software?

Cheers

Damo

Jagle

damonjewel wrote: »

Just checking out Pure data, it seems a bit more user friendly than super collider and is open source.

http://puredata.info/

Any opinions on this software?

Cheers

Damo

open source version of max/msp made by one of the same creators of max/msp, its very similiar just slightly different for certain objects

rcaz

Pd is great! It's a little more complicated because it's open source - there's no incentive for a business to make it user-friendly and all - but it's just as powerful.

Start looking through this and it'll get you started! http://www.pd-tutorial.com/english/index.html

I'm getting really into it lately - when you start getting something to work it's such a good buzz

damonjewel

Hi all, ok I have got pure data up and running and got some of the basic tutorials done. I have my presonus interface working. My next goal is to start building but I'm finding it hard to get information on setting up simple guitar patches, there are plenty of patches out there but they are quite advanced for a beginner to understand the logic involved.

Has anyone got a simple easy patch for guitar to begin with

Thanks

Jagle

sorry im a max/msp head so im of no help, but try the pd forums maybe, there is a way to convert max = pd and vice versa but i dont know it, good luck and if you try max/msp which you can get a 30day demo for free a 9 month student license if your in education for about 50quid then let me know ill sort you some max patches

rcaz

damonjewel wrote: »

Hi all, ok I have got pure data up and running and got some of the basic tutorials done. I have my presonus interface working. My next goal is to start building but I'm finding it hard to get information on setting up simple guitar patches, there are plenty of patches out there but they are quite advanced for a beginner to understand the logic involved.

Has anyone got a simple easy patch for guitar to begin with

Thanks

A 'patch for guitar'.... What do you want to do to the guitar?

I guess start out with a sampler, they're simple enough and a lot of fun, and probably the starting point for a ton of other stuff. Have a read here http://www.pd-tutorial.com/english/ch03s04.html

Setun

As regards the learning curve, it can be steep but it does really depend on what you want it to do. To me, its functionality makes perfect sense as it is very logical. In fact it has a clearer relationship to what you're probably doing already with your guitar than supercollider does in the way you use "patch cables" and "objects" - just think about how you plug your guitar [signal generator] into a pedal [effects processing] and then your pedal into your amp [dac~].

As an aside it's very useful to have a good audio interface for stable signal processing.

If anybody is interested in learning PD and wants some of my patches (in the spirit of open-source ), feel free to give me a PM.

EDIT: Actually for some starting guitar projects you could build a very simple ring modulator, you can take your audio input with [adc~] and modulate it through a [*~] with a [phasor~] or [osc~] if that makes any sense... Also you can use the fft objects to analyse the frequency of your guitar signal and then use this to control harmonics.

Happy patching!

damonjewel

Yay, just managed to hack a chorus and delay together

Very pleased but the signal latency is difficult to deal with!

Setun

Excellent, sounds like you're off to a great start

How bad is the latency? It should be nearly real-time I would have thought?

damonjewel

Daddio wrote: »

Excellent, sounds like you're off to a great start

How bad is the latency? It should be nearly real-time I would have thought?

Thanks, I had a couple of days work and really threw myself into it

The latency is at default 70milisecs, and I'm using Inspire Asio (because of the presonus interface), i've tried pulling the time down but it creates a fizzy noise.

Jagle

there will be a certain point where latency has to be traded off for sound quality, tho 70ms sounds very high for your interface, what system are you using and are all drivers up to date?

damonjewel

I use a presonus inspire which has a firewire connection. It works well with my other laptop applications (reaper, Guitar rig). I'll look into any updates for the drivers. But I guess I'll just have to google about for any answers out there, or live with it. Using windows probably doesnt help either and maybe I should look into running it on Linux.

I would assume MAX/MSP has little or no latency issues?

Jagle

indeed very lil latency i get with max/msp

rcaz

damonjewel wrote: »

I use a presonus inspire which has a firewire connection. It works well with my other laptop applications (reaper, Guitar rig). I'll look into any updates for the drivers. But I guess I'll just have to google about for any answers out there, or live with it. Using windows probably doesnt help either and maybe I should look into running it on Linux.

I would assume MAX/MSP has little or no latency issues?

How would you get your interface working on Linux? I'd love to have a separate laptop for Pd stuff, running it on Ubuntu or something would be great but I figured I'd have to learn to write a driver for the interface myself or something, which I'm not able to do at all :pac:

Jagle

El Pr0n wrote: »

How would you get your interface working on Linux? I'd love to have a separate laptop for Pd stuff, running it on Ubuntu or something would be great but I figured I'd have to learn to write a driver for the interface myself or something, which I'm not able to do at all :pac:

look for linux drivers already written, or write them, or get an interface that someone has already written drivers for no?

rcaz

Jagle wrote: »

look for linux drivers already written, or write them, or get an interface that someone has already written drivers for no?

Well I'm looking at getting a Presonus Firestudio Project soon, which seems to be one of the best interfaces available at that price, I was wondering if the OP had any other experience using Presonus gear with Linux.

damonjewel

El Pr0n wrote: »

How would you get your interface working on Linux? I'd love to have a separate laptop for Pd stuff, running it on Ubuntu or something would be great but I figured I'd have to learn to write a driver for the interface myself or something, which I'm not able to do at all :pac:

Hadn't thought that one through, there seems to be firewire drivers at ffado.org

damonjewel

El Pr0n wrote: »

Well I'm looking at getting a Presonus Firestudio Project soon, which seems to be one of the best interfaces available at that price, I was wondering if the OP had any other experience using Presonus gear with Linux.

Unfotunately the firestudio is not supported at ffado.org

rcaz

Yeah, I just did a few searches around there. Looks like my old Alesis interface might work...

Jagle

sorry to bring this back on topic haha

OP, you might wanna look at the computer music tutorial by curtis roads, or computer music by dodge jerse
2 very helpful books

theory and techniques of electronic music by miller puckette is handy too, availble for free online if you google a bit

rcaz

Jagle wrote: »

sorry to bring this back on topic haha

OP, you might wanna look at the computer music tutorial by curtis roads, or computer music by dodge jerse
2 very helpful books

theory and techniques of electronic music by miller puckette is handy too, availble for free online if you google a bit

I've seen that Computer Music Tutorial Book in the library in NUIM, might take it out next week... Thanks for the suggestions!

Found Miller Puckette's book;
http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/techniques.htm

Edit; I'm not the OP... still thanks though...

Jagle

ya the curtis roads one is brilliant, very big but great if your seriously into messing with stuff, and yep thats millers book, i know your not the op but sure if it helps you too how bad
if you get into the curtis roads one check out his others, very good

damonjewel

Thanks for them links,

I'll probably check them out when I'm done with the tutorials.

Here are some links I found useful for anyone interested;

This site is just great for beginners

http://www.pd-tutorial.com/english/index.html

The puredata community page

http://puredata.info/community/projects/software

This is a glossary\reference for PD

http://www.flexatone.net/docs/pdg.pdf

This guy is a moderator at the puredata forum, his page is interesting

http://obiwannabe.co.uk/html/music/music.html

A nice tutorial to build a synth

http://en.flossmanuals.net/PureData/SimpleSynth

And I have attached my favourite patch that I've found so far; unzip and open main.pd to run

Jagle

very annoyed, i have loads of max/msp patchs, damn you pd haha

Setun

Most max/msp patches could be translated into pd and vice versa relatively easily - then again there are things that max does with one object that would require you to work hard to replicate it in pd.

I've heard that pd is due a GUI update for a long time at this stage - see example screenshots here: http://puredata.info/dev/PdGuiRewriteScreenshots It looks pretty much the same at first glance, nice that it integrates the edit/interact modes from max/msp though - you can select certain objects to disappear into the background when in interact mode so you have a cleaner GUI to play with

Jagle

most software applications for transfering max to pd and vice versa are awful, and as daddio said, you would wanna do it manually, tho he is right some object functions will be similiar others wont, shame,

i hate having 2 standards, and yes what with pd being freeware updates are slow to arrive, one of the reasons i stuck with max/msp, that and i got the student discount so it was much cheaper

Setun

Yeah I used max/msp when I was a student, then my license ran out, and now I'm poorer than a student so I must stick with open source stuff like PD, Processing, and Arduino :P I really wish they'd update the GUI - if I had the chops I'd love to get stuck in and just get it done! It's been long enough already, and the interface frightens off a lot of potential new users.

flyswatter

To be honest, apps like PD and CSound are just as powerful as Reaktor, Max/MSP and the likes.

But they are free and don't cost a ridiculous amount of money to use.

So I'd try the free ones first, sure these programs can be very difficult to learn, but youtube and the likes have great resources. I have a programming background so I understand them well enough.

I'd use these apps first until you can afford the commercial ones. You might end up comfortable with the structure of them and then save yourself a lot of money and time learning to use a hugely expensive product.

Hope that helps!