MMJ4M 15: Audio Effects and Processing

Chapter 15, "Audio Effects and Processing" of VJ Manzo's book Max/MSP/Jitter for Music shows how to manually create some simple effects – delays and white noise, in particular – and manipulate and visualize them. To get to that point, the chapter shows how to:

• Create a umenu to give a dropdown list of effect sizes (although it may work better to provide checkboxes that allow for the selection of multiple effects)
• Create a gate~ object (the MSP audio version) to direct the audio signal towards the appropriate effect patch depending on the effect selected in the umenu
• Use the tapin~ object to store snippets of audio and the tapout~ object to delay playback
• Use the transport object to provide global control of timing and playback, as well as the ability to specify timing in samples instead of millseconds
• Create a umenu to provide a list of filter options and cascade~ and filtergraph~ objects to allow manual modification of those filters
• Create a noise~ object to generate white noise
• Use a preset object to save settings for the entire patch

My next big goal is to set up my KMI SoftStep foot controller to activate effects and possibly modify them while live looping, as both hands will be on my saxophone.

Completed:

• Max/MSP/Jitter for Music, Ch. 15: Audio Effects and Processing (10 exercises)
• Patches can be downloaded from http://db.tt/GBYLb0vY (Dead Link)
• UPDATED LINK: Patches can now be downloaded from http://j.mp/1iy19Xl

MMJ4M 14: Audio Buffers

Chapter 14 of VJ Manzo's book Max/MSP/Jitter for Music has one purpose: show how to use audio buffers for recording and playing back audio files. These buffers will be a critical component in my planned live looping exercises, so I'm excited about this chapter. I learned how to do the following:

• Create and name buffer~ objects
• Open windows to see the sound waves for the buffer~ objects
• Get information such as track length with the info~ object and use that manually resize the buffer (if desired, although Max 6 seems to adjust the buffer on its own)
• Use the groove~ object to read audio from the named buffer
• Set the buffer to loop
• Set a flonum variable to control playback speed by converting it with a sig~ object
• Record new audio into the buffer with the ezdac~ and record~ objects
• Set up a MIDI keyboard to change simultaneously the speed and pitch of the buffer playback, with middle C set for default speed (although it would be better to alter speed and pitch separately)

Completed:

• Max/MSP/Jitter for Music, Ch. 14: Audio Buffers (9 exercises)
• Patches can be downloaded from http://db.tt/GBYLb0vY (Dead Link)
• UPDATED LINK: Patches can now be downloaded from http://j.mp/1iy19Xl

MMJ4M 13: Audio Playback and Pitch Tracking

In Chapter 13, "Audio Playback and Pitch Tracking" of VJ Manzo's book Max/MSP/Jitter for Music, I learned how to:

• Playback pre-recorded sound files with the sfplay~ object (including the open message and a toggle to make it go)
• Open sound files directly by giving their full name in the open message
• Use the ezdac~ object to get the sound out and use the gain~ object to control volume
• Use message boxes to restart the sound file or jump to specific times in the file
• Set keyboard controls to start/stop/rewind the sound file
• Loop the sound file with a loop $1 message
• Have more than one sound file open and playing at a time
• Record the audio with the sfrecord~ object (and toggle it on and off, as well as specify the number of channels to record)
• Convert frequencies to MIDI values with the fzero~ object

Completed:

• Max/MSP/Jitter for Music, Ch. 13: Audio Playback and Pitch Tracking (13 exercises)
• Patches can be downloaded from http://db.tt/GBYLb0vY (Dead Link)
• UPDATED LINK: Patches can now be downloaded from http://j.mp/1iy19Xl

MMJ4M 12: Working with Audio

In Chapter 12: Working with Audio from VJ Manzo's book Max/MSP/Jitter for Music, we get to start working with the MSP part of Max/MSP, which allows audio signals (you know, actual sound waves and recordings) to be used in addition to MIDI notes or mathematical equations. The chapter shows how to:

• Get sound into Max with a microphone, at first with the adc~ object (that is, "audio-to-digital converter," where the tilde ~ means that it is an MSP audio object) and later with the more intuitive ezadc~ object.
• Create gain~ controls to keep the speakers from exploding
• Create audio meters with the meter~ object
• Output sound, at first with the dac~ object (i.e., "digital-to-audio converter") and later with the ezdac~ object
• Create sine waves with the cycle~ object and combine waves for more complex sounds
• Create a virtual oscilloscope with the scope~ object, thus creating a visual display of the sound wave
• Create a monophonic synthesizer with the ddg.mono object
• Convert MIDI to audio frequencies with the mtof object
• Use pack and unpack to combine or separate MIDI data, as well as midiparse
• Create a polyphonic synthesizer with the poly~ object

Lots of good stuff. I plan on using several of these in my final project.

Completed:

• Max/MSP/Jitter for Music, Ch. 12: Working with Audio (17 exercises)
• Patches can be downloaded from http://db.tt/GBYLb0vY (Dead Link)
• UPDATED LINK: Patches can now be downloaded from http://j.mp/1iy19Xl