Book Image

Multimedia Programming Using Max/MSP and TouchDesigner

By : Patrik Lechner
Book Image

Multimedia Programming Using Max/MSP and TouchDesigner

By: Patrik Lechner

Overview of this book

Max 6 and TouchDesigner are both high-level visual programming languages based on the metaphor of connecting computational objects with patch cords. This guide will teach you how to design and build high-quality audio-visual systems in Max 6 and TouchDesigner, giving you competence in both designing and using these real-time systems. In the first few chapters, you will learn the basics of designing tools to generate audio-visual experiences through easy-to-follow instructions aimed at beginners and intermediate. Then, we combine tools such as Gen, Jitter, and TouchDesigner to work along with Max 6 to create 2D and 3D visualizations, this book provides you with tutorials based on creating generative art synchronized to audio. By the end of the book, you will be able to design and structure highly interactive, real-time systems.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Multimedia Programming Using Max/MSP and TouchDesigner
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Timing in Max


We have mentioned sequencers and LFOs already, so let's start giving our little synth more dynamic behavior. So far, we have only worked with milliseconds as units of time but there is more: metric timing, samples, and ticks (scheduler ticks, which is the smallest available unit of time in the Max domain). Look at the following screenshot in which our metro there has been given the argument 4n, meaning quarter notes instead of a number in milliseconds. Also, we tell it to be quantized by the same amount, so it doesn't only have the interval of a quarter note but fires on the actual quarter notes of Max's internal global transport.

The state of global transport can be viewed by navigating to Extras | Global transport by double-clicking on the [transport] object or by querying a [transport] object, as shown in the following screenshot.

We can see a very basic 8-step sequencer, the seq1.maxpat patch. By layering the two [multislider] objects in presentation mode, we get a simple...