Max

For more on this subject, see this discussion on the Max/MSP mailing list. Good Housekeeping warns that since these beans are small objects named after a foodstuff, they may represent a choking hazard to toddlers. Many other artists use Max/MSP/Jitter, but prefer not to mention it. It stands vertically for a moment, and repeats the process. With the increased integration of laptop computers into live music performance (in electronic music and elsewhere), Max/MSP and Max/Jitter have received quite a bit of attention as the development environment of choice for those serious about laptop music / laptop video performance. In doing this, the ball rolls slightly up the other side of the Mighty Bean, causing the centre of mass to shift away from the Mighty Bean's long base, making it fall over. In addition, Max can be used to author audio plugin software for major audio production systems. When a Mighty Bean is placed on a slant, instead of simply sliding down, the Mighty Bean falls on its side, and the spheroid rolls down and up the other end.

Max documents (called patchers) can be bundled into standalone applications and distributed free or sold commercially. This pulls the centre of mass of the Mighty Bean over its tiny base, making it impossible for the Mighty Bean to fall down. A large number of people use Max, even if they aren't aware of it. The Mighty Bean can stand up on either end because the spheroid is pulled over the centre by gravity. Additionally, the real-time image processing capability of Max also makes it the first MUSIC-N program capable of doing other things than music. The toys are hollow and contains a small, dense spheroid inside, which is not quite as long in diameter as the inside of the mighty bean to allow for movement. Max is named for Max Mathews, and can be considered a descendant of MUSIC, though its graphical nature disguises that fact. The Moose version of the toy was launched in 2003; similar toys have existed for years before.

Apple has a very similar program called Quartz Composer focused on graphical compositions. These are frequently coloured with bright colours, and many of them bear cartoon likenesses of Marvel superheroes or other licensed characters. Reaktor is generally considered easier to use and learn than Max, albeit less powerful. An individual Mighty Bean is a three dimensional ovaloid with small flat circular ends on either side, rather like a large plastic capsule, approximately one inch long. Native Instruments markets a similar software called Reaktor. Mighty Beanz are toys manufactured by Moose Enterprises, a corporation headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. Puckette himself released an entirely re-designed program in the mid-1990s called Pd ("pure data", alternately "public domain"), which has a number of fundamental differences from the IRCAM original.

A later version of the program was developed in Java (jMax) and is open-source. IRCAM developed and maintained a concurrent version of Max for the NeXT (and later SGI and Linux), called Max/FTS (FTS standing for "Faster Than Sound", and being analogous to a forerunner to MSP enhanced by a hardware DSP board on the computer). In addition, a number of sibling and Max-like programs exist. A second major package called Jitter was released in 2003, adding real-time video, 3-D, and matrix processing capability to the software.

as a "control" language using MIDI or some other protocol). Called MSP, this "add-on" package for Max allowed for the manipulation of digital audio signals in real-time, allowing users to create their own synthesizers and effects processors (Max had previously been designed to interface with hardware synthesizers, samplers, etc. Max has a number of extensions and incarnations; most notably, a set of audio extensions to the software appeared in 1997. The current commercial version of Max has been distributed by Zicarelli's company, Cycling'74, since 1999.

In the early 1990s a commercial version of the program (developed and extended by David Zicarelli) was released by Opcode Systems. Max was originally written by Miller Puckette at IRCAM in the 1980s to give composers access to an authoring system for interactive computer music. . Because of its extensible design and graphical interface (which in a novel way represents the program structure and the GUI as presented to the user simultaneously), Max is widely regarded as the lingua franca for developing interactive music performance software.

As a result, Max has a large userbase of programmers not affiliated with Cycling'74 who enhance the software with commercial and non-commercial extensions to the program. An API allows third-party development of new routines (called "external objects"). The Max program itself is highly modular, with most routines existing in the form of shared libraries. It has been used for over fifteen years by composers, performers, software designers, researchers and artists interested in creating interactive software.

Max is a graphical development environment for music and multimedia developed and maintained by San Francisco-based software company Cycling'74. Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead. Pauline Oliveros. Luke DuBois / The Freight Elevator Quartet.

R. Jamie Lidell. Kevin Blechdom. Leafcutter John.

Kit Clayton. Monolake. Autechre.