seriously, where to BEGIN with m4l...??

[Gregory Taylor]

Perhaps the problem with the whole "goal" approach to learning Max for Live derives from the attempt to create software that makes things "easy to do" obscuring things that you really need to have some understanding of when it comes to imitating or reverse-engineering something as a goal.

Wanting to make granulators is a laudable goal, but doing so without actually having a good working knowledge of what it is you actually have to do [windowing, distributing playback of small units of sound over the soundfield, modifying the pitch of said grains, etc.] is going to be very rough sledding, indeed. For this reason, lots of us encourage beginners to have a look at "The Computer Music Tutorial," which does a good job of describing those things. Once broken down into component pieces, the task becomes less daunting - you figure out the *next* bit and then move on from there.

And yeah - LOFA's dead on about learning Max being the best way to make sense not only of what you want to do, but the stuff that somes WITH Max for Live and those modifications to Max that were made for Max for Live. Really.

[technog0d]

I cannot stress enough how important it is to really go through the tutorials that come with Max. When I originally learned max, may years ago, the tutorials really helped me understand how things work. In addition, if you just want Max and midi, there is a book from around 1998 called, "Composing Interactive Music Techniques & Ideas" that i read a while back that does a good job at introducing you to the concepts. That book is not even Max5 related, but the concepts are still there.

What Greg said is good advice... Pick small areas as goals and then build upon those concepts to create bigger stuff. Most of what you see in Max/MSP/Jitter is a bunch of smaller pieces that are multiplied many times and/or built upon. So, what I am saying is start small and keep building. Create easily attainable goals and as you start using Max more and more, you will find that you have become a programmer without even knowing it.

Mike

P.S. as much as people seem to enjoy the tutorials on my site, they were really just intended to get people initially interested in Max/M4L. My intent was never to compete with the great information that is already out there.

[LOFA]

if you just want Max and midi, there is a book from around 1998 called, "Composing Interactive Music Techniques & Ideas" that i read a while back that does a good job at introducing you to the concepts. That book is not even Max5 related, but the concepts are still there.

I read this book while I was learning max. It gave a lot of useful programming theory, so I do agree. For newcomers, however, I believe the quickest approach is to go through the tutorials, and then once more- this time exploring details a bit more. The book would be better to read afterwards I feel, especially since it is dated- this way people can better distinguish between old max and the existing one.

I am looking forward to doing the JS tutorials again, now that there are more clear examples available due to M4L and the API.

P.S. as much as people seem to enjoy the tutorials on my site, they were really just intended to get people initially interested in Max/M4L. My intent was never to compete with the great information that is already out there.

With regard to your tutorials, many of us feel that your tutorials fall into the category of "the great information that is out there". I can't say how much I appreciate you efforts.