Straight to “Tape”

My previous approach to recording followed a “live to 2 track” design. I would play the piece and capture the input sounds along with whatever sounds were generated by my Max patch. The results were certainly true to life, represented my live performances well, and usually sounded fine. Occasionally, though, I’d wish for more flexibility to tweak the sounds, particularly the vocal or banjo sounds since I don’t have the luxury of recording in the world’s greatest sounding room. So I looked into ways to expand the number of available tracks.

Multitrack Multitudes

I played around with Soundflower, Rewire and Jack in various combinations and sometimes got things working pretty well. But the setups never completely gelled for me–partly because I felt constrained by the number of available outputs on my aging MOTU interface, partly because I needed as much available CPU for running my patches and couldn’t spare enough to run my DAW at the same time. So I eventually went back to recording everything in Max using a very slightly modified version of the quickrecord utility. This turned out to be a great way to break out individual tracks for further EQing during the mixing stage. One drawback was having to split the multichannel file into individual stereo or mono files. (Audacity and ProTools both do this very well. If only AudioFinder would support multichannel files…) But mostly I still felt constrained by the limited number of outputs on my audio interface; I often resorted to creating submixes of individual elements in Max in order to cram all the sounds into the available channels. With 10 outputs available I’d use the first 2 for monitoring while recording, 3 or 4 for live mics, leaving only 4 or 5 for sounds generated by Max.

Aggregrate Device – Duh!

Just the other day I had a breakthrough realization: I could use a Soundflower aggregate device to address many more output channels than are physically available on my interface. Now I’ve got channels to spare. I’m kicking myself for not thinking of this sooner. The biggest drawback? Now I’ll be spending much more time in mixing mode. I wonder when I’ll ever get this CD finished…?

In my initial tests, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how well the TrackBox nails the tube sound–a little goes a long way. And the 4-band parametric equalizer seems eminently usable. Testing it as a VST in Max 5 it used about 7% of my CPU (an aging PowerPC G4) with all the bells and whistles turned on and was closer to 4% with only the tube and EQ running.

I’m not convinced I’ll leave my tube hardware at home just yet–without a hardware limiter in front of my audio interface I  have to drop the input level significantly to avoid clipping. By the time I’ve pulled the level back up I’ve also introduced some noise. The tone-shaping potential of the EQ and compressor might be worth it, especially if I need to travel light. In the meantime, it’s nice to have another channel strip color.

Cycling ’74 and Ableton have provided a peek at Max for Live, the fruit of their partnership announced a few years ago. No specific release date or pricing information is available.

Cycling 74′s David Ziccarelli writes about the origin of the project and reasons for both Live and Max users to be interested. Read it here. My favorite quote:

Ultimately, it came down to this: my Cycling ’74 co-workers and I have come to believe the unique thing we have to offer the world is fundamentally about programming. In other words, we want to make edit buttons, and if we can put them in places where they have never existed before, all the better. It was clear to me that Ableton understood what it meant to have the Max environment work with their software. They weren’t just talking about more plug-ins.

Turns out that many of the new features in Max 5 were a result of Cycling’s collaboration with Ableton, such as the new timing system and presentation mode.

Check out the teaser video here.

I’m not a Live user but I have long admired the Live interface. So Max for Live may be just what I need to finally give it a try.

Pinball Drummer Screenshot

Download Pinball Drummer (.zip file: 11.3 MB)

I made Pinball Drummer as a birthday gift for my friend Bruce. I created it using MaxMSP. The sounds originated from Bruce’s Coney Island pinball machine. It should be a cross-platform application. I’ve tested it on Macs; no experience with running it on a PC, yet.

Happy Holidays from The Field Guide!

First the obvious change: the interface is bright and shiny–definitely not the clunky old Max look. I can’t say I’m immediately in love with it, but I do believe by the time I tweak the default settings a little I’ll be quite comfortable with the new look. I very much appreciate the options for changing the appearance of objects (even though some inspector windows are daunting when you first open them).

I love the usability features of Max 5:
• the search function
• the ability to double-click on a message in the Max window and be taken immediately to the part of the patch the message pertains to
• the keyboard shortcuts (damn, it’s so easy to get used to typing ‘n’ or ‘c’ or ‘m’ or ‘t’ or ‘b’ and having an object just show up). I suspect I’ll rarely use the gussied-up new object palette since the keystrokes are so convenient.
• support for long filenames (it’s the little things, really. OK, it’s the little, long things.)

I also love the new timing options, though I haven’t had a chance to use them extensively. I’m looking forward to creating polyrhythmic mayhem using a few transport objects all running at different tempi.

I like the idea of presentation mode, I just haven’t actually implemented it. I’ve always done something similar anyway: create a separate subpatch for just the controls I need, and since presentation mode only seems workable in a single subpatch I suspect it won’t radically change my workflow. Presentation mode would be more useful for me if any object in any subpatcher could be added to the presentation mode of a particular window. But that already sounds too complicated to manage (which object? in which subpatch? to which window?), plus the this is already possible using standard Max objects like send and receive.

I have mixed-feelings about the integrated documentation. I like the convenience of having help always at your fingertips but miss the portability of a pdf file. If you’re not running max, it’s tricky to get to the documentation. (Of course, you can always go to the Cycling 74 site.)

I’ve had a harder time with file-path issues and object conflicts in Max 5 than with other upgrades. This is likely just me and my convoluted setup. I have a bad habit of downloading almost every third-party Max object and freeware VST–not that I use them all. In fact, upgrades are often the times I evaluate the third-party objects that are essential to my work. The short list: LObjects, LitterPro, fiddle~, and a handful of others.

I’m looking forward to getting deeper into Max 5.

Exciting stuff. I’ve got a few shows right around that time, so I’ll probably wait a week or two before upgrading. But I’m looking forward to digging in to a new version!

Checking out the Lisp object reminded me of my first forays into algorithmic composition and just how fun it can be to create work using simple processes. And how hard it can be to create compelling work that way!

Garton’s lisp object also gave me an excuse to pull out my copy of The Little LISPer. The book is an excellent example of learning by doing. After a brief introduction, the reader is asked to interpret LISP commands of increasing complexity and guided by a simple process of inquiry. There are no dry explanations only concrete examples. It’s made a lasting impression on my ideas of teaching and learning. Comparable to learning/teaching/performing Zorn’s Cobra–you do it, and then you know it.

Some features that I find interesting:

Looking forward to usability improvements such as selecting a message for an object and having that message in a box connected to the object automatically. Everyone who uses Max is constantly exhuming help patches and then turning them into frankenstein monsters partly because the message boxes with appropriate messages are already in the help file.

New timing capabilities. Yeah…bring it on.

Multiple undo.

New debugging tools. Current trace is too unwieldy for large patches–and that’s when you need debugging the most.

New, readable file format and Unicode support.

Vst~ provides host sync to plug-ins: I used to wonder what the fuss was all about since Max already has timing and sequencing capabilities. But I’ve found myself wanting to use vsts that require synch more often recently, especially in my work for banjo + electronics (usually pulse-based since it’s often anchored by a traditional fiddle tune or employs traditional clawhammer techniques). Here’s hoping the sync is via a message to the vst~ object so I can sync one vst at 8 beats to the bar and one at 9!

Glad to see better previewing of media incorporated. Always seemed strange to me that out in OS X land I could get a shiny preview but not in Max. (Now if only Audiofinder would speed up it’s waveform/preview performance…)

Some features that I remain skeptical about:

Presentation Mode sounds like a fancier “hide on lock” feature. Will it really be useful?

Not enough information re: changes to preset objects. The ability to edit pattrstorage window data sounds good, but I’m not sure it’s enough to make this set of objects truly friendly.

Finally, I won’t miss the objects that are being laid to rest:

timeline, env, envi, editing window in detonate. RIP.