What is Max/MSP?

Max/MSP 5 combines the Max graphical programming environment with MSP audio extensions. Together you'll have close to 400 objects, the building blocks of a complete audio application development environment.

Max/MSP costs only a little more than Max alone, so if you're at all interested in audio processing, we think you'll want to consider purchasing the combined package. Our newest version, Max 5 + MSP 2, is a substantial upgrade their previous versions focusing on a new user interface and easy of use.

In Max, you build programs by connecting graphical objects together. Some of these objects perform calculations and others make up the user interface of your program. MSP adds a large set of objects that you connect together to make audio patches where signals flow from one object to the next. The concept may be familiar to you from modular synthesizers, either the real ones or the software imitations. But MSP lets you work at a level of detail that is unmatched by other software synthesizers. At the same time, its intuitive interface is far easier to learn than text-based software synthesis programs.

What is Jitter?

Jitter extends the Max/MSP programming environment to support realtime manipulation of video, 3D graphics and other data sets within a unified processing architecture.Because Jitter, like Max/MSP, is generic in nature, it offers unlimited possibilities for creative exploration. Whether you are interested in video processing, interactive art, teaching new media, or data visualization, Jitter offers both high and low level tools for working in exciting new ways.

 

Max/MSP Applications

Education

Max is a popular basis for many electronic and computer music classes at the university level. Students find they can be creative with it immediately while learning how to work with a variety of interactive media. Max/MSP can be used for teaching the basics of sound, synthesis, and signal processing. With its graphical oscilloscope, waveform editor, and filter design objects, you can see up close what you're hearing. Max/MSP users work through interactive experimentation, just as you would in a classic analog studio. The 560-page MSP manual (PDF file), with 31 interactive tutorials, can serve as a basic text in the fundamentals of audio. (Max/MSP has over 1500 pages of documentation in PDF.)

Sound Design

Max/MSP is a sound design tool that lets you experiment with techniques that other hardware and software have declared to be off-limits. Rather than accept the standard parameter ranges chosen for you by a synthesizer manufacturer or audio editing program, you can try any value and change it in any way you see fit.

Unlike a text-based synthesis language, the feedback you get from Max/MSP is immediate and intuitive. We would also argue that just as the notion of interacting with a compositional process (as in M) can be rewarding and effective, real-time interaction with an audio process you design can steer you into new universe of sounds. You could, for example, loop a disk-based audio file while adjusting how you process it. When it comes time to save your work, you can record back into an audio file. Up to 16 tracks are supported in most popular formats with up to 64-bit resolution.

Performance

Max/MSP lets you apply the power of the Max environment to the details of synthesis and signal processing. It is particularly well-suited to interactive audio performance. You can build your own custom environment for performing and tour the world with little more than a laptop. The ability to trigger and manipulate sounds and audio files in a stunning variety of ways make Max/MSP a formidable sampler.

Audio Features and Compatibility

MSP features over 170 audio objects in the following categories:

• Audio Routing: audio gates, switches, routing matrix
• Analysis: Convert audio signals to events, detect edges, zero-crossings, RMS averaging, peak detection, signal capture
• Audio File Recording and Playback: includes looping, varispeed, sample-accurate cue creation and triggering, audio file information
• Audio Visualization: filter design, signal level meter, oscilloscope, waveform display and editing
• Filters and Delays: recursive and non-recursive (FIR) filters, resonant filterbank, state-variable filter, comb filters, allpass filter, phase shifter, interpolating delay with feedback
• FFT Processing: forward and inverse FFT, manager for spectral processing applications with windowing and overlap, frame-based calucations, polar-to-Cartesian coordinate transformation
• Functions: sample-and-hold, breakpoint functions, non-linear functions, function editor, counters, noise-generators, random line-segment generators, windowing functions
• Input/Output: audio input, audio output, I/O channel remapping, host VST plug-ins, host ReWire devices, play sample-accurate digital audio direct from CD
• Modifiers: sample-word and bit-depth reduction, clipping, downsampling, distortion, phase wrapping, phase distortion, smoothing, rounding, truncation, sample-and-hold
• Operators: scaling, offset, divide, trigonometric and transcendental functions, bitwise operators, sample comparisons
• Plug-in Support: parameter management, define inputs and outputs, plug-in configuration management, preset storage, host synchronization support, parameter modulation, parameter morphing
• Polyphony: manager for making any algorithm polyphonic, control CPU resources by switching voices on and off
• Sampling: sample import and export, indexed playback, interpolated playback, recording, granular sampling, looping, extract sample info
• Synthesis: wavetable oscillators, ramp generators, oscillator banks, FM applications

Max/MSP supports a number of audio I/O standards, including:

• Apple Sound Manager
• ASIO (an audio hardware interface specification created by Steinberg), with up to 512 input and output channels
• VST (the Max/MSP application can operate as a VST plug-in, and it hosts most VST effect and instrument plug-ins)
• DirectConnect (for sending audio into ProTools)
• ReWire (for hosting ReWire device applications such as software synthesizers...Max/MSP can also be a ReWire device hosted by applications such as Cubase and Digital Peformer)
• Reads and writes AIFF, Sound Designer II, WAVE, NeXT/Sun, and raw audio file formats from 8 to 64-bit resolution
• MP3 and movie soundtrack import using QuickTime
• Non-real-time operation
• The DSP Status window lets you monitor and control all audio parameters. The fact that the DSP Status window was built in Max/MSP means you can integrate this control into your own applications.

If you can program in C, Max/MSP provides a way to write new audio, user interface, and event processing objects. If this interests you, we encourage you to look at the SDK available on our Max/MSP download page. Even if you don't program in C, our Max/MSP resource guide lists sites where you can download objects written by Max/MSP users; a full complement of audio processing techniques are represented, and many include source code.

What Is New In Max/MSP 5

Easier to Use

1. Multiple undo is available.
2. Objects interact with time in ways that are more meaningful than milliseconds.
3. The patcher is variable resolution and can be zoomed in and out.
4. A simplified and more consistent interface, identical on Mac and Windows.
5. A new object palette (with nice big resizable icons!) works as a visual catalog.

Easier to Learn

1. The documentation is completely integrated into the user interface.
2. A searchable database of objects, media, examples, and documentation integrates all of the provided material.
3. Introductory tutorials have been completely rewritten, and include integrated patches.
4. New interactive debugging tools make figuring out what your patch is doing (almost) fun.
5. Third-party object developers can now use all of our documentation tools for their products.

Easier to Deal With

1. The interface can easily be localized and customized.
2. A new file format is more readable, extensible and reliable.
3. Support for Unicode text and filenames.
4. A new interface layer -- "Presentation Mode" – provides a new way to build user interfaces without cluttering your patch.
5. The installation and authorization experience is vastly improved.

 

System Requirements

Mac

• A PowerPC Mac OS computer with System 8.1 or later, including OSX*. For Mac PPC and Intel machines running OS X 10.3.9 or later (10.4 recommended), update to at least Max/MSP version 4.6.
• 64 MB of total memory. Virtual memory is not recommended.
• 35 MB of disk space.

PC

• Windows XP (Home or Pro)
• 500 Mhz P3 or better processor
• 256 Mb of total memory
• A full install of Quicktime for Windows is required for MP3 import, movie playback, and use of image files other than PICT
• An ASIO-compatible sound card is recommended for optimium audio performance

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