Ableton Mappings and Control Scripts

Looks like we’ll be using the very awesome and powerful Ableton Live in conjunction with Max/MSP. To that end we’ve been trying to create midi-mappings in Live. This post about control mappings should be damn helpful.

I’ve been dabbling with ableton control surface scripts about one year ago (some people may have seen the FCB1010 control surface script: http://bl0rg.net/~manuel/fcb1010-mappings/ , which I don’t really have the time to support at the moment). Btw I have a new version of the mappings, but they’re not really documented, but if you’re a bit into programming you may be able to get the mappings from the consts.py file: http://bl0rg.net/~manuel/FCB1010-mappings.zip . In the following, I assume you know how to use remote control surface mappings inside ableton (the whole Midi Devices Input Output thingie)

Resource: Games Sound Max Video Tutorials

There’s a great series of tutorials for Max 5 by Dr. Karen Collins for her site Games Sound.

Lesson 1: Making a sound. PDF file here. Video here.
Lesson 2: Making a chord and a sub-patch. PDF file here. Video here.
Lesson 3: Arpeggiating a note. PDF file here. Video here.
Lesson 4: Select object: Decision making. PDF file here. Video here.
Lesson 5: Basic Max Math. PDF file here. Video here.
Lesson 6: Metro and Counter objects. PDF file here. Video here.

The only problem is that you can’t actually hear the notes she’s playing due to limitations in the screencast software. I recommend them anyway.

Resource: Midi Note Scale

Over on UNSW’s site I found this handy chart. It’ll very useful when using the makenote object in Max (makenote in Pd). As they say:

The musical interval between two notes depends on the ratio of their frequencies. An octave is a ratio of 2:1 and, in equal temperament comprises 12 equal semitones, which therefore have a ratio of 21/12. By convention, A4 is set at 440 Hz. These data were used to calculate the table below, which gives the frequency of any standard keyboard note or MIDI note number. To convert from any frequency to pitch (i.e. to the nearest note and how far it is out of tune, go to the frequency to note converter.

I knew to look for this scale after watching this basic Max Tutorial.

Object: Folder

I found an external Max object from Maxobjects

Folder:
List all the files of a certain type in a certain folder
Folder can fill a menu object with the names of files in a folder. You can specify the folder as an argument or by sending a symbol with the name in it. The forward-slash character / is used as a path delineator. An initial slash at the beginning of a path indicates the boot volume. The Max application folder is referred to by using period-slash (e.g.: “./max-help”). On Windows a path may be preceded by a drive letter (e.g.: “C:/Documents/joe/Desktop/phase_vocoder.pat”).

Sounds handy to me.

Resource: loadbang, a book on PureData

PureData (Pd)is an open-source equivalent to Max/MSP. loadbang is a German/English book on Pd.

Pd was initiated by American software engineer Miller Puckette, who previous co-developed the well known and similarly structured software Max/Msp. Pd is not commercial software; i.e., it was not developed by a corporation and is not for sale. Instead, it is “open source”: its source code is not the (patented) property of a corporation, but is rather freely available to all. One drawback to this is that a detailed operating manual for users who lack programming experience has not existed until now. In contrast to a corporation— which has a monetary interest in ensuring that first-time users can easily operate new software—the open source movement lacks such a driving force to make itself accessible. This book is an attempt to fill that gap.

This tutorial is designed for self-study, principally for composers. It begins with explanations of basic programming and acoustic principles then gradually builds up to the most advanced electronic music processing techniques. The book’s teaching approach is focused primarily on hearing, which we consider a faster and more enjoyable way to absorb new concepts than through abstract formulas.

You can read the tutorial online at http://www.pd-tutorial.com/

Library: Lobjects

In my initial scan of Maxobjects I found Lobjects. It’s a library of Max objects that support number manipulation (like absolute value, count, and repeat). It looks very powerful. Lobjects was very kindly created by Peter Elsea of University of Santa Cruz. As someone who is just getting started I can appreciate why Peter was inspired to create this library:

The Lobjects were born in a composition class. I was teaching the students how to use probability in Max algorithms. The table object works well for this, and I told my students to convert the list of possible notes to a table. Someone raised his hand and asked “how?” The resulting explanation took about 5 minutes and used up all of the rather small white board. I realized during this experience that it is difficult to use Max to teach general issues because we keep getting distracted by trivia.

The point of the Lobjects is to provide a set of high level abstractions that are powerful and obvious- obvious meaning that when you look at a patch and see something like Ladd, you understand it’s something to do with adding lists. By looking at the rest of the patch, you probably can figure out how, even without using the help file.

Download via FTP
Lobjects Documentation PDF

Resource: Maxobjects.com

I just found the Max Objects Database. It’s an online repository of add-on libraries and objects for Max/MSP, Jitter, and Pure Data. It looks like an amazing, searchable resource. I wish that you could leave comments and ratings on objects and libraries so that people could share their experiences. Almost as handy would be download and page popularity. I’ll share any libraries or objects I find.

Tip: Open MAX/MSP Help Files in Safari

The Help Files in MAX/MSP are quite excellent. They have a page for each major object and a series of very thorough tutorials.
The standard viewer however is just a very basic XML viewer. It won’t let you have more than one topic open at a time. You can’t increase the text size and you can’t use keyboard shortcuts to navigate. Because of all these limitations on my Macbook Pro I use Safari to view the files.

Here are the file locations for a Mac install of MAX.

Max Index
file:///Applications/Max5/Cycling%20′74/docs/tutorials/max-tut/maxindex.maxtut.xml

MAX Individual object files
file:///Applications/Max5/Cycling%20′74/docs/refpages/max-ref/

MSP Index
file:///Applications/Max5/Cycling%20′74/docs/tutorials/msp-tut/mspindex.maxtut.xml

MSP Individual object files
file:///Applications/Max5/Cycling%20′74/docs/refpages/msp-ref/
One downside of using Safari is that you can’t launch the tutorial patches from the browser so I keep a Finder window open to this directory:
file:///Applications/Max5/Cycling%20′74/docs/tutorial-patchers
Firefox throws an error when I open the files.

Why MAX? Why this blog?

I am working on a generative music project for Burning Man. We’re going to let people control the music via lasers. Max/MSP is going to handle the music.
I am going to be learning Max/MSP and perhaps Jitter along the way. I’ll be sharing my thoughts, tips, and findings on this blog.