Re: MaxMSP looping - was: Re: Did a quick Mobius gig today :-)

[Jeff Kaiser <loopersdelight@pfmentum.com>]

hey Andreas,

Andrew and I had another interesting discussion tonight about this. 
We've both been on and off this list over a period of time and note a 
few things (generalized here) :-)

1) There is a new piece of looping hardware

2) Then come the feature requests.....

3) Then come the flame wars for what is missing....

1) Then comes the next piece of hardware....

2) Then come the feature requests.....

3) Then come the flame wars for what is missing....

ad infinitum....so far, anyway...

I think one possible answer to this cycle lies in the flexibility of 
Max/MSP.

Maybe, rather than building a specifically featured looper (which would 
have the same problems as the hardware...it would never have EVERY 
feature everyone wanted), a specific toolkit/tutorial could be created 
that would allow users to more easily focus on this aspect of Max: live 
looping. I know there are experienced Max people on this list that will 
say it is all in the tutorials/reference (which it is) but it is spread 
out all over the place...unless there is something I have not seen, 
which is totally possible.

What is cool about this idea is that if the tutorial/toolkit could be 
set up in modular sections, so people could build their own looper 
easily and add what they needed, tutorials would teach how to modify it 
to their specific needs...and the person could ignore that which they 
didn't....Sample patches in the tutorials would get rid of the need to 
do a lot of the "programming." for example, my looper was first made by 
andrew, but then I got in it, saw how it worked, and modified the 
interface to fit my needs...the modularity and modifiability would give 
us all what we want: more!

As Lao Tzu said, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach 
him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

Well, maybe the same goes for a looper....

Anyway, this is all just in the idea stage right now.

Regarding those odd posts on the max list....man, I just hit delete, I 
have no idea what they are talking about....but I do grab some cool 
ideas for my own patches off of that list.....

best,

Jeff


Jeff Kaiser
http://www.jeffkaisermusic.com
pfMENTUM.com • AngryVegan.com


On May 4, 2006, at 12:21 AM, Andreas Wetterberg wrote:

> Hi Jeff!
>
> Jeff Kaiser wrote:
>> this is a great idea and has been discussed between andrew pask and 
>> myself.......we just haven't sat down to do it yet...I'm going to get 
>> together with rick walker later this summer and will keep you all 
>> posted.
>
> Cool. I guess as in all software the trickiest part is the 
> specification - what do we want? "More!" - when do we want it? "Later 
> this summer!" I would love to help out, perhaps draw up some 
> suggestions, and I would certainly be interested in any development I 
> could do - Macro recorder, anyone? :) If we do it right I know a few 
> people who would be very interested, I think - hello Kid Beyond! :)