Preparing for the Max workshop has been a hassle. At BEk I knew the system it was a small organization and to me at least easy and fast to do what had to be done. At KHIB I’m amazed at the number of people I have to get hold of in order to know what room to use make sure there’s funitures power supply computers projector headphones you name it. I’ve spent several days trying to organize the workshoop and I’ve been very frustrated in particularly when I didn’t get admin passwords for the Macs so that I could install Max. So far onle the tech staff has known passwords for the computers. In my opinion the teching staff has to be able install programs in the Application folder system folder etc. Installing and updating programs is part of preparing for this kind of workshops.
I’m doing a quiet revolution though (well there’s a bit of shouting and yelling involved). As I get hold of passwords I’m changing to the same one for all the computers and forward to the rest of the teaching staff. I was so mad yesterday at 23:00 when I had still not managed to set up the computers. No-one dared refuse me anymore….
Topics covered for the first day:
- simple example of adding two numbers. introducing concepts of objects patch chords inlets outlets argument and a faint taste of the right to left order principle of Max.
- basic audio example gradually evolving:
- cycle~ and ezdac
- adding gain~ and meter~
- stereo volume fader with linked gain~ objects. This you use all the time.
- using two cycle~ objects in order to test it out
- Use a number box to controll frequency. Multiply by 2 for the second cycle~ object kind of linking the first and second example.
- Connect MIDI keyboard controller and use MIDI to play this really simple monophonoc synth.
We also talked about:
- The history of Max/MSP/video modules (Nato Jitter SoftVNS)
- What is Max and what is MSP?
- Learning more about objects from the help files
- Substituting a keyboard controller for other kinds of sensors
The problem about the current Max/MSP documentation is that it’s aimed at musicians. Art students don’t have the musical knowledge nor the will to work their way through 45 MIDI-based max tutorials and then on to MSP and/or Jitter.
