The idea is simple (and it was suggested to me by Ludovico Failla, brilliant musician and Max MSP hacker): downsample a generated sound and use the data to change its parameters. You can get interesting and unexpected results (the type I prefer!) Here is an oscillator which is frequency-shifted using the oscillator output as a […]
Here is a little patch inspired by a PD example: you can get a square waveform subtracting two sawtooth waveforms with identical frequency (the second one delayed by half cycle). If you give one of the sawtooths a slightly different frequency you will get a pulse width modulation (the resulting square waveform width changes continuously). […]
Hi all! Here’s how you can use the Max delay~ object to reduce a well-behaving sample to a complete mess. Have fun!
Just a little idea to make nice sounds out of two sinusoids…
Hi all, this time our “easy piece” is very easy, but funny I think. Three delay lines are randomly variated to get a sort of polyrhythmic texture. Here is the video, have fun! That’s all for now. As usual, you can recreate the patch yourself, or you can download it by subscribing to the Virtual […]
Hi all! this time we will use the [scale~] object as a wave shape distortion device and a complex ring-modulator. Take a look at this video In the beginning, I don’t rescale the sound input, but simply reshape it using the exponential parameter (sixth inlet): note the attribute @classic 0, used to give both logarithmic […]
Did you know you can use the [scale~] object to mix two sound sources at audio rate? Take a look at this video. Not bad, eh? The “trick” is you use two different audio sources as the minimum and maximum output range, then when the input signal approaches the minimum input limit you hear the […]
Welcome to the third episode of “Easy Pieces for Max”, small patches that produce strange and/or interesting sounds (here are the rules for these pieces). Time to make some nasty (and sometimes gentle) noise! First of all, listen to this (but don’t use headphones, I warn you!). Noisy, eh? Believe it or not, the subpatch […]
Here is the second episode of the “Easy Pieces for Max” series. The characteristics of these pieces are explained in the first post of the series. This time I have prepared a procedural sound design example, i.e. a simulation of a real-world sound created with synthesis techniques (and not by merely sampling it). Btw there […]
In this series I will create small Max patches to show how to generate unusual sounds or sequences; I will use non-trivial audio programming techniques, but this doesn’t mean they are complex or difficult to grasp (at least I hope so!). Here is the “Easy Pieces Decalogue” I will follow: 1 – The pieces are […]