Overwhelmed, M4L maybe NOT for me?

[Pasha]

Honestly, what did you expect? Max is not meant for instant-gratification make-me-the-plugin-of-my-dreams-in-1-click-or-less. The same applies for M4L.

Try getting to grips with Max first. Max comes with wonderful tutorials, that once finished from lesson 1 to the end, will give you a solid knowledge for patching in Max. It will not solve your algo design problems for you, but a lot of cool things can be done in max with subtle rewiring of patches alone. Also I have to give props to the Cycling 74 forum community - they've saved my ass with Max patching so many times already, a bunch of wise and friendly people!

To the folks who find Max too daunting to get into, just give it some time. Pretty soon the live share network will be crammed with all kinds of exotic M4L devices that you can happily use without ever pressing the edit button.

REAKTOR would never be as popular as it is if there weren't such a vast library of ready-made devices for people to use. Most people just find DIY-DSP too daunting.

(And actually, synths like Zebra/Zebrify usually offer easier solutions for things like designing custom delays / guitar synths.. No need to turn towards M4L for that IMHO)

I'll follow your suggestion. Maybe I was having big expectations build up by good marketing and video campaign made by the Abes. I felt a spark of excitement running in the forum when M4L was annnounced now I have come to terms with reality but I'll continue testing it because Max noobs like me are the ones who can click where experts would not and cause some instant crash or misbehavior.

- Best
- Pasha

[simulacreant]

This can't be reiterated enough. Start with and go through all of the tutorials included with Max, first. Then, move on to the M4L tutorials when you've spent some time dissecting Max's .maxhelp files, reference pages, etc. You need a really good sense of how Max works before you dive into M4L, imo. The C74 Max tutorials are among the best documentation or tutorial text I've encountered anywhere, ever, so you owe it to yourself to give it a chance.
Try not to be paralyzed by the possibilities -- most of us started off the same way and a lot of people cut/paste from .maxhelps, etc. -- it's all part of the learning process. Start small, baby steps, blah blah...
Did I mention the Max tutorials?

[Martyn]

This can't be reiterated enough. Start with and go through all of the tutorials included with Max, first. Then, move on to the M4L tutorials when you've spent some time dissecting Max's .maxhelp files, reference pages, etc. You need a really good sense of how Max works before you dive into M4L, imo. The C74 Max tutorials are among the best documentation or tutorial text I've encountered anywhere, ever, so you owe it to yourself to give it a chance.
Try not to be paralyzed by the possibilities -- most of us started off the same way and a lot of people cut/paste from .maxhelps, etc. -- it's all part of the learning process. Start small, baby steps, blah blah...
Did I mention the Max tutorials?

I've found some of the video tutorials invaluable to shoehorning my head into the whole thing really, I feel much more able to get into the main bulk of text based help now.

I've managed to hack together a very crude subtractive synth using one of the Baz tutorials and got it to trigger from midi notes, it works ok apart from the note offs also triggering the Bang. I'm certain that there's a much better way to do it, and that the answers are lurking in the manuals somewhere.

The point is I needed some visual signposts and somebody explaining it all before I could orientate myself properly, I'm not sure if I'll ever find anything I make useful to my music but I'm certainly enjoying myself now.

[technog0d]

This can't be reiterated enough. Start with and go through all of the tutorials included with Max, first. Then, move on to the M4L tutorials when you've spent some time dissecting Max's .maxhelp files, reference pages, etc. You need a really good sense of how Max works before you dive into M4L, imo. The C74 Max tutorials are among the best documentation or tutorial text I've encountered anywhere, ever, so you owe it to yourself to give it a chance.
Try not to be paralyzed by the possibilities -- most of us started off the same way and a lot of people cut/paste from .maxhelps, etc. -- it's all part of the learning process. Start small, baby steps, blah blah...
Did I mention the Max tutorials?

I've found some of the video tutorials invaluable to shoehorning my head into the whole thing really, I feel much more able to get into the main bulk of text based help now.

I've managed to hack together a very crude subtractive synth using one of the Baz tutorials and got it to trigger from midi notes, it works ok apart from the note offs also triggering the Bang. I'm certain that there's a much better way to do it, and that the answers are lurking in the manuals somewhere.

The point is I needed some visual signposts and somebody explaining it all before I could orientate myself properly, I'm not sure if I'll ever find anything I make useful to my music but I'm certainly enjoying myself now.

Martyn,

That's good to hear. I am glad to hear you are enjoying yourself. That is the most important thing. Keep at it. You will get to the point where you are making things that you didn't think was possible days, weeks, and months before.

Mike

[andrewbenson]

Hi Martyn,
Glad to hear you found a way to get started.
Now that you've got a little synth building under your belt, you might be ready to check out the Building FM Synthesizers Lesson, which will go through the whole process of building MIDI control and polyphony into your synth.
Andrew B.

[Martyn]

^^ Thanks for the encouragement, there's certainly a wealth of info and some very helpful people around.

@ andrew, where do I find that tutorial? it sounds like an interesting thing to look into. It's midi fx I'm most interested in but I would like to eventually be able to build devices that exploit randomness and probability, so creating crude sound generators and sample triggers might come in useful for that. I'm sure that at this stage building anything at all is very valuable.

*edit* I guess you meant the one in the Live lessons yes? I'm on it.

[Pasha]

This can't be reiterated enough. Start with and go through all of the tutorials included with Max, first. Then, move on to the M4L tutorials when you've spent some time dissecting Max's .maxhelp files, reference pages, etc. You need a really good sense of how Max works before you dive into M4L, imo. The C74 Max tutorials are among the best documentation or tutorial text I've encountered anywhere, ever, so you owe it to yourself to give it a chance.
Try not to be paralyzed by the possibilities -- most of us started off the same way and a lot of people cut/paste from .maxhelps, etc. -- it's all part of the learning process. Start small, baby steps, blah blah...
Did I mention the Max tutorials?

So you're actually suggesting to learn at first Max and then MSP?

[Tone Deft]

This can't be reiterated enough. Start with and go through all of the tutorials included with Max, first. Then, move on to the M4L tutorials when you've spent some time dissecting Max's .maxhelp files, reference pages, etc. You need a really good sense of how Max works before you dive into M4L, imo. The C74 Max tutorials are among the best documentation or tutorial text I've encountered anywhere, ever, so you owe it to yourself to give it a chance.
Try not to be paralyzed by the possibilities -- most of us started off the same way and a lot of people cut/paste from .maxhelps, etc. -- it's all part of the learning process. Start small, baby steps, blah blah...
Did I mention the Max tutorials?

So you're actually suggesting to learn at first Max and then MSP?

I think by "max" he means max, msp or even jitter. go through tutorials and learn whichever of the three happens to pop up. they all behave the same way.


Martyn - congrats on your first synth!

[Martyn]

Martyn - congrats on your first synth!

Thanks, it's like a really ugly, blind, deaf baby, but I love it all the same.

I've just been trying the Live lesson on building an FM synth and once again finding it impenetrable. For example, on the second step of the lesson half the text is entitled 'Theoretical Aspects' and waffles on about the theory of fm, while nowhere does it tell me what the various objects actually are (in enough detail) or more importantly why. I need to know how they were made, why they were placed where they are and why some objects are working but seemingly not connected with cables etc. As a side note, I'd like to know how you get all the controls to sit in the small space provided when presentation is turned off.

This is just telling me what things are called with a very brief, and too headily worded explanation as to what they do, but with no instruction as to actually make it at all.

Sorry, I have to critique these lessons because I really don't think they work very well, I'd imagine they're quite understandable for some more advanced users but then they're probably not going to need them are they?

I'm going back to t'internet for some more info before heading to the cycling74 docs. The Live lessons are probably good for snarfing bits out of once I've figured out what's actually going on in between all those distracting text boxes.

[technog0d]

I actually do recommend learning Max first and then adding MSP and Jitter aspects later. I found it easier that way. It's really up to the individual though.

Mike

[Tone Deft]

Martyn - congrats on your first synth!

Thanks, it's like a really ugly, blind, deaf baby, but I love it all the same.

I've just been trying the Live lesson on building an FM synth and once again finding it impenetrable. For example, on the second step of the lesson half the text is entitled 'Theoretical Aspects' and waffles on about the theory of fm, while nowhere does it tell me what the various objects actually are (in enough detail) or more importantly why. I need to know how they were made, why they were placed where they are and why some objects are working but seemingly not connected with cables etc. As a side note, I'd like to know how you get all the controls to sit in the small space provided when presentation is turned off.

This is just telling me what things are called with a very brief, and too headily worded explanation as to what they do, but with no instruction as to actually make it at all.

Sorry, I have to critique these lessons because I really don't think they work very well, I'd imagine they're quite understandable for some more advanced users but then they're probably not going to need them are they?

I'm going back to t'internet for some more info before heading to the cycling74 docs. The Live lessons are probably good for snarfing bits out of once I've figured out what's actually going on in between all those distracting text boxes.

idea: make a thread, something like "lets build a synth together." either post what you have and we can all hack it together or copy the tutorial over to the thread and get people to baby step through their own synth.

it'd be tricky 'cause you could have someone like hoff2k show up, turn in his a solution in one day then you could have someone else show up and take 3 weeks to get past step #1.


or just post what you have and maybe someone can help.


on learning max/msp... for me it's fun to take things apart and when I find something that kinda makes sense I study the objects in it. then I open the help for a new object, edit it and play with it, for msp objects I make awesomely awful sounds, for max objects I make lights blink in some boring (amazing) way. for the most part, over the weekend I just poked around, took a tour, played music on the Launch Pad and geeked around.

oh, the drum machines that come in the max instruments section should be a great template for synth building. they looked really simple and logically laid out.

FWIW the only synth I made sucks, I never could get polyphony down, I think it was the poly~ object that I failed on. the step sequencer was fun to make and that Looper I made for Live 6 and posted was fun but kinda broken and wonky to use. with the Live API stuff I could really clean that thing up. /rambling