Getting Started - Peabody Computer Music

Overview: The Max ApplicationIntroductionThis chapter briefly describes the Max application and introduces basic terms that will beused throughout the manuals.If you have relatively little experience with computer programming or MIDI, you might notimmediately understand everything you read in this chapter. Never fear. The Tutorialchapters in the Max Tutorials and Topics manual will cover topics in much greater detail,starting from square one. Max is a complex application and we don’t expect everyone to “get”everything immediately. This overview will simply familiarize you with the application andits basic elements.Programming With ObjectsWhen you work with Max, you’ll be developing applications graphically using objects, whichwill appear on your screen as boxes that contain either text or icons. You connect objectstogether to create a working program.A simple program written graphically in MaxMax has about 200 different objects (and MSP adds about 200 more for audio processing,and Jitter adds an addition 140 objects for matrix and video/image processing), each of whichperforms one or more specific tasks. In addition, you can write your own program in Max,save it, and then use that program as an object inside other programs that you write.9