Max

You can send messages to Max wirelessly from a mobile device such as iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, or Android-based smart phone or tablet, using the TouchOSC app.

The easiest way to establish MIDI connection between Max and other applications on the same computer is via the "virtual" MIDI ports Max provides. Max creates two virtual input ports and two virtual output ports that can be accessed by other MIDI applications. (You can see those virtual ports listed in Max's MIDI Setup, by choosing MIDI Setup... from the Options menu.)

You can assign input data to have a different function at different times, simply by sending it to different parts of your program. For example, if you have a control device such as a MIDI keyboard or other MIDI controller with a limited number of keys, buttons, knobs, or faders, you can assign one control element to be the mode selector that changes the functionality of all the other elements.

This is an example patch you can use to try out the delaynote patch shown in "Delay MIDI note messages." Of course, you will first have to download the patch from that example and save it with the name "delaynote".

To delay a single bang message by a certain amount of time, use the delay object. But to delay any other sort of message—a number, a list, even a group of different messages—use pipe. The pipe object dynamically allocates memory as it stores more and more messages, so it can keep track of many messages at once, even if they arrived at different times and have different delay times (unlike the delay object, which can only hold one bang at a time).

This is an example patch you can use to try out the invertpitch patch shown in "Invert the pitches of MIDI notes". Of course, you will first have to download the patch from that example and save it with the name "invertpitch.maxpat".

To invert a musical phrase around a particular axis of symmetry, multiply the axis pitch by 2, then subtract the played pitches from that. For example to invert all pitches around the axis of middle C (MIDI key 60), you would subtract the pitches from 120.

The left part of this example shows the use of the random object to make arbitrary note choices. Every time random receives a bang in its inlet, it sends out a randomly chosen number from 0 to one less than its argument. In this case it chooses one of 61 possible key numbers, sending out a number from 0 to 60. We then use a + object to offset that value by 36 semitones, transposing up three octaves to the range 36 to 96––cello low C to flute high C.

The line object interpolates linearly from its current value to some new destination value, ramping over a specified period of time, reporting its intermediate values along the way. In this example, we instruct line to ramp toward a given destination value, arriving there in 2 seconds, sending out a report of its progress (the intermediate values as it goes toward the destination) 12 times per second (i.e., once every 83.333 milliseconds).

This patch shows examples of linear mapping and linear interpolation, using the lmap abstraction described in the “Linear mapping equation” example. One could substitute the built-in Max object scale in place of lmap with the same results.