Tyler Mazaika

MaxMSP is a visual programming language originally created at IRCAM, an avant-garde music institution located in Paris, and now supported by SF-based Cycling ‘74.

I found out about MaxMSP after getting interested in music by the electronica duo Autechre – I’d never been very taken by any ‘classical’ experimental music using the combination of computers and acoustic instruments, but I thought the beats and textures Autechre created were very interesting and I wanted to be able to make them myself.

After spending a year or so learning the ropes of the MIDI side of the program, I embarked on making a massive utility for sequencing complex MIDI performance information. Having a lot of experience with various acoustical instruments and in orchestras, I felt individual sounds made by synthesizers frequently felt sterile and I could make instruments feel more visceral by supplying a large amount of extra performance data. For instance, a violinist can change the sound of their instrument with bow speed, bow pressure, where the bow runs over a string, plucking the string (to name just a few)… I wanted a patch which could simulate this variety of sounds and feelings from a synthesizer. All the cooler if it could be done in such a way that would eventually allow for a computer to generate sequences in real-time (like Autechre’s generative beats) that actually cultivated feeling rather than just structure.

The current working version is called Ronny Turiaf and a portion of it’s inner architecture is shown below. This version takes input of a MIDI sequence (from a sequencer such as Logic) and returns the enhanced performance. It does not yet have its own generative sequencing capabilities.

The surface of Ronny Turiaf's 'engine', this is where modulation envelopes and their effects are calculated.