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Multimedia Programming Using Max/MSP and TouchDesigner
A step-by-step guide to designing, building, and refining immersive audio-visual applications and performance environments using Max and TouchDesigner
404 pages, Paperback
First published November 26, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 19, 2015
There is so much value in this book, I will try to highlight a lot of what I felt shined through for me. This review is more about the audio and synthesis side of this book.
The book seems to be aimed at readers with a level of knowledge that stretches from an advanced beginner through intermediate skill levels. Going through Max example patches and the related reference docs has always been the best thing to do as a beginner. The documentation is great and has gotten better over the years. Even so, once one has put the time in with the docs, it is very helpful to have someone who is an experienced patcher to show some of the often unfamiliar visual programming patterns. This book fills that role very well. Though there is a lot of dense technical information, the author clearly elucidates how it all works together. Each chapter brings the reader step by step into the labyrinths of knowledge that is visual programming in Max.
The early chapters present an indispensable discussion of foundational information for anyone who needs to get up and running with visual patching paradigms in Max. The author's techniques are not only useful in general, but also inspire the kind of thinking that visual programming really requires. Throughout the rest of the book, the subpatches / abstractions in his examples teach a lot on their own. For a motivated learner, there is a lot of time to be spent learning and understanding these. There is so much detail presented in patcher form alone, I recommend one keeps the chapter projects' windows open in Max as you move through the author's instruction. I know I will be digging through and experimenting with these for some time.
There is an in-depth debugging discussion, which rounds out the practical programming methodologies presented for the individual topics. If one comes from a non-visual software background, some software paradigms are related to the patching environment. For instance an MVC approach is covered in the section for designing and scripting interface elements.
The sections that deal with audio describe all the parts of a synthesizer and sampler that one might be interested in creating. There is an overview of the essential synthesis foundational information. The author shows everything from feedback, FM, filter theory, polyphony, sample accuracy, loading audio into buffers, and creating advanced samplers.
If you are into effects, you don't go home empty handed, the author also shows some mixing and effects creation like tape delays. The techniques shown in the examples for the more advanced and non-user-facing aspects of building instruments are holistic best practices that can simply be used to solve problems without having to get too down and dirty. Along with all the components themselves, the way that they feed into and mix together is shown. This all makes for a concise and refreshingly complete learning path for the budding synthesist. I will now highly recommend this book because of these sections alone.
The author speaks about his topics with an emphasis on clarity, but keeps the high level perspective in view throughout. He utilizes the max environment to create a well illustrated and in depth discussion of the various synthesis and sampling techniques.
There is also a totally amazing section about reverbs and impulse responses and convolution, does it get any better?! yeah because then advanced fft effects are discussed. I learned a lot here and feel like I have somewhere to go from in order to get into all kinds of audio processing. I think the later parts of the book are where it is really up to the reader to be following along and studying the project patches as they read. This is laborious work, cause the urge to get creative is
There is a high level overview of gen, jitter matrices, and Max for Live. There are some cool examples of how to do things like implement karplus-strong synthesis and creation of filters in Gen. The author moves into some advanced physical modeling and further more advanced acoustics discussions ensue. I see this as part of the great mix of topics that define different levels of challenge for intermediate-level programmers.
Some of the information, like the max for live section and the initial intro to jitter, are simply more wordy overviews of what the docs cover. These simpler sections are good for the unfamiliar though fewer compared to the depth of awesome presented everywhere else. The book provides a steady, deep dive into the subject matter with the author's great experience and smooth writing as a guide.
The book seems to be aimed at readers with a level of knowledge that stretches from an advanced beginner through intermediate skill levels. Going through Max example patches and the related reference docs has always been the best thing to do as a beginner. The documentation is great and has gotten better over the years. Even so, once one has put the time in with the docs, it is very helpful to have someone who is an experienced patcher to show some of the often unfamiliar visual programming patterns. This book fills that role very well. Though there is a lot of dense technical information, the author clearly elucidates how it all works together. Each chapter brings the reader step by step into the labyrinths of knowledge that is visual programming in Max.
The early chapters present an indispensable discussion of foundational information for anyone who needs to get up and running with visual patching paradigms in Max. The author's techniques are not only useful in general, but also inspire the kind of thinking that visual programming really requires. Throughout the rest of the book, the subpatches / abstractions in his examples teach a lot on their own. For a motivated learner, there is a lot of time to be spent learning and understanding these. There is so much detail presented in patcher form alone, I recommend one keeps the chapter projects' windows open in Max as you move through the author's instruction. I know I will be digging through and experimenting with these for some time.
There is an in-depth debugging discussion, which rounds out the practical programming methodologies presented for the individual topics. If one comes from a non-visual software background, some software paradigms are related to the patching environment. For instance an MVC approach is covered in the section for designing and scripting interface elements.
The sections that deal with audio describe all the parts of a synthesizer and sampler that one might be interested in creating. There is an overview of the essential synthesis foundational information. The author shows everything from feedback, FM, filter theory, polyphony, sample accuracy, loading audio into buffers, and creating advanced samplers.
If you are into effects, you don't go home empty handed, the author also shows some mixing and effects creation like tape delays. The techniques shown in the examples for the more advanced and non-user-facing aspects of building instruments are holistic best practices that can simply be used to solve problems without having to get too down and dirty. Along with all the components themselves, the way that they feed into and mix together is shown. This all makes for a concise and refreshingly complete learning path for the budding synthesist. I will now highly recommend this book because of these sections alone.
The author speaks about his topics with an emphasis on clarity, but keeps the high level perspective in view throughout. He utilizes the max environment to create a well illustrated and in depth discussion of the various synthesis and sampling techniques.
There is also a totally amazing section about reverbs and impulse responses and convolution, does it get any better?! yeah because then advanced fft effects are discussed. I learned a lot here and feel like I have somewhere to go from in order to get into all kinds of audio processing. I think the later parts of the book are where it is really up to the reader to be following along and studying the project patches as they read. This is laborious work, cause the urge to get creative is
There is a high level overview of gen, jitter matrices, and Max for Live. There are some cool examples of how to do things like implement karplus-strong synthesis and creation of filters in Gen. The author moves into some advanced physical modeling and further more advanced acoustics discussions ensue. I see this as part of the great mix of topics that define different levels of challenge for intermediate-level programmers.
Some of the information, like the max for live section and the initial intro to jitter, are simply more wordy overviews of what the docs cover. These simpler sections are good for the unfamiliar though fewer compared to the depth of awesome presented everywhere else. The book provides a steady, deep dive into the subject matter with the author's great experience and smooth writing as a guide.
January 23, 2015
As a multimedia developer, actively involved in user communities and tech/geeky forum, I recently come across this interesting publication by Patrik Lechner, from Packt Publishing.
Max/msp and Touchdesigner are 2 massive pieces of software, for sure at the forefront in terms of audio generation and visualization for a wide range of real time performances.
Getting started with them anyway, is not always a piece of cake, and might require perseverance.
This book is aimed to take the user by hand and give him a step by step path into the platforms.
Obviously is not intented to substitute the official documentation but surely it is a great complimentary tool which provides examples and tips that will clarify things and avoid a lot of troubles.
The first part is dedicated to Max, and will introduce its basic concepts, signal processing, jitter and how to handle streams of data followed by a chapter fully dedicated to setup and basic settings.
After a "hello world" patch, things start to get fascinating, and the reader will find advanced programming techniques, an extremely detailed section about audio, and one part about jitter and interaction with third parts (plugins, midi, api).
Touchdesigner section, from my personal point of view,is even more exciting, because of the incredible potential of this framework.
Touchdesigner is flexible, expandible and highly compatible with a lot of third parts which makes it very efficient for real-time video processing, 3d rendering, prototyping and realizing interactive interfaces and installations.
However it might need a little time to understand and get used to his visual nature that in my opinion will eventually become his strenght.
The book starts by illustrating the basics components divided in 6 categories depending on their functionalities and features (ui components, texture, signal, surfaces, materials and data) and after an explanation of the way they work and interact, it goes thorugh python scripting, animation and timing.
It offers a detailed section that illustrates 3d, rendering techniques and a chapter about interfacing with other programs (max), hardware (arduino) and controllers (midi, osc).
To sum up this book it is ideal both from beginners and advanced users, and a variety of professionals and enthusiasiast with both a technologic or artistic approach.
Beginners will follow a linear itinerary that will guide them from basic to advanced, while more expert users can skip directly to specific techniques they are interested in.
Definitely recomended!!!
Max/msp and Touchdesigner are 2 massive pieces of software, for sure at the forefront in terms of audio generation and visualization for a wide range of real time performances.
Getting started with them anyway, is not always a piece of cake, and might require perseverance.
This book is aimed to take the user by hand and give him a step by step path into the platforms.
Obviously is not intented to substitute the official documentation but surely it is a great complimentary tool which provides examples and tips that will clarify things and avoid a lot of troubles.
The first part is dedicated to Max, and will introduce its basic concepts, signal processing, jitter and how to handle streams of data followed by a chapter fully dedicated to setup and basic settings.
After a "hello world" patch, things start to get fascinating, and the reader will find advanced programming techniques, an extremely detailed section about audio, and one part about jitter and interaction with third parts (plugins, midi, api).
Touchdesigner section, from my personal point of view,is even more exciting, because of the incredible potential of this framework.
Touchdesigner is flexible, expandible and highly compatible with a lot of third parts which makes it very efficient for real-time video processing, 3d rendering, prototyping and realizing interactive interfaces and installations.
However it might need a little time to understand and get used to his visual nature that in my opinion will eventually become his strenght.
The book starts by illustrating the basics components divided in 6 categories depending on their functionalities and features (ui components, texture, signal, surfaces, materials and data) and after an explanation of the way they work and interact, it goes thorugh python scripting, animation and timing.
It offers a detailed section that illustrates 3d, rendering techniques and a chapter about interfacing with other programs (max), hardware (arduino) and controllers (midi, osc).
To sum up this book it is ideal both from beginners and advanced users, and a variety of professionals and enthusiasiast with both a technologic or artistic approach.
Beginners will follow a linear itinerary that will guide them from basic to advanced, while more expert users can skip directly to specific techniques they are interested in.
Definitely recomended!!!
January 24, 2015
The book by Patrik Lechner provides a very resourceful insight on how to integrate visual and aural media in a performance situation. The way it is written encourages experimentation and self-learning as opposed to related literature where one finds himself with mere fast-cook solutions to problems without a deeper understanding of what is really going on. It is however a book that I would not recommend for absolute beginners in the subject since it can be challenging to follow the logic of the structures without a prior background on the basics of digital signals and protocols. Of particular interest is the section of good practices for OSC communication since it provides a good framework to integrate not only MaxMSP with Touch Designer but every other environment or even programming language out there. The projects and the sections explored cover most of what one would expect when building a project from the ground.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
January 28, 2015
This book is one of a few books that really helps someone that wants to get hands on with fast-prototyping flow based programming languages, without the steep learning curve of text-based programming languages. Its really well structured and designed to get you going on with the two main flow based visual languages (i'n my opinion): MAX and Touchdesigner. It's filled with great up-to-date information and tips for the interactive developers, both novice and experienced ones. A bit more extensive on the MAX side, it gives you the tools to program an interactive, audio-visual, reactive, multimedia installation, with some advanced techniques on audio signal processing, image synthesis, realtime 3D rendering, physical computing outputs (like arduino), and a lot of other great ones.
I totally recommend this book to anyone who is interested in this subject, all levels of expertise.
I totally recommend this book to anyone who is interested in this subject, all levels of expertise.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews