An interview with

David Zicarelli

The subject: Max and MSP a new addition to the Max programming environment

What is your musical background?

I can play the piano, although that statement is less true with each passing year. I play a sort of fractured and wimpy free jazz. I haven't done a lot of computer music in the past few years. Writing computer programs is like cooking the food and maybe I tasted too much of the sauce in the kitchen so I haven't felt like sitting down and eating the meal. For instance, before I wrote the DX7 patch editor for Opcode I thought I was pretty good at making DX7 patches. I never made one again after I finished the editor. Just never felt like it.

When I first heard Joel Chadabe's computer program "Rhythms" when I was a freshman in college I knew what I wanted to do, and I've more or less attempted to ruin my professional career in support of that experience.

Where are your listening tastes?

Here are the CDs sitting on the top of my stack in the office-- "Spawn: The Album"; Jan Garbarek: Paths, Prints; Paul DeMarinis: The Edison Effect; Kraftwerk: The Mix; Les Paul with Mary Ford: The Best of the Capitol Masters. Apparently I like music that begins with the word "the" the most. I use Kraftwerk's remix of "Pocket Calculator" as a test for lots of things.

How much time do you currently spend working on Max?

Most of the time I spend on Max is in various support activities, because I'm not working on a new version right now. But I do a lot of Max-related things, such as consulting project swhere the clients are using it and need externs written.

Which do you feel has been more of an accomplishment, purely in terms of your own satisfaction M or Max?

It's been easier to achieve a sort of technical excellence with Max because Miller Puckette's foundation was better than the ones in the Intelligent Music programs. But they're totally different, even within this obscure side closet of music software.

From what I understand you and Miller Puckette still work together. What is the arrangement in terms of who works on what aspect of a project?

We were supposed to work together when I went to work at IRCAM in 1993 but we never really were able to come up with a new project. Then we both left after I was there a year. Currently, I am using some of Miller's new Pd project for my new program MSP, and I will be throwing back some changes I made in his code so maybe they will be incorporated. Pd has some great ideas in it and I hope to be able to do more with Miller's code in the future. Miller has taught me everything tasteful I know about computer programming.

Are you surprised at the affection that users hold for Max?

In order to get anything out of the program, you have to get into it in a way that demands a certain level of commitment. In many situations in life, commitment and affection are found together.

What version of Max is now the most stable or bug free?

I think 3.5.8 is pretty good. It never crashes on me, but that's not saying much, since my Max habits are so ingrained that if it did crash, I would have fixed it long ago. There are still a few problems with the timeline object, but a lot less than they're used to be. Its timing is much better now than in 3.5.

Given Apple's shaky condition, do you see a future port to Windows?

It's more likely than porting Max to Rhapsody, until someone convinces me otherwise.

Are you experimenting with Rhapsody or Be, either for professional or your own curiosity?

Not right now. I'm curious but I don't have a lot of time.

What can't Max do?

Well, there are specific kinds of computer applications for which external objects haven't been written, like a database program. Maybe Max could do those things, but that's not really saying much. Then there is the bias toward certain kinds of music or art-in-general that some people perceive to be in the design of the program. I don't really have a lot to say about this since, at least at the moment, I don't find the subject of the appropriate computer language for task X to be an intellectually interesting subject. Then there is the issue of polish and performance: Max is adequate for making prototypes but not necessarily for things people will buy in the store. Miller's new project Pure Data (Pd) is aimed at addressing the fact that Max isn't very good at dealing with data. Over the years I've tried to work on some of the issues related to each of these concerns, but I'll never be able to resolve all of them fully.

What exactly is the new addition to Max?

MSP adds the ability to do real-time audio--synthesis, hard disk playback and recording, sampling and signal processing--and control it with Max. It's an addition that requires Max 3.5 and consists of a "library" that goes in the Max folder, about 60 external objects, and a new version of MAXplay that includes the library. Plus drivers to support various audio cards. It is similar to the IRCAM version of Max for the Next, but the structure is based on Pd, and the design of many of the objects (and the colored patch cords) is completely new.

What are the minimum system requirements?

It will run on any PowerPC Mac OS computer, but you won't have fun until you get to about a 120MHz 604 with some secondary cache. A 300Mhz 604e running MSP will do more DSP than one ISPW card according to some recent tests.

What about RAM minimum? Is my 8500/132 with 64 megs gonna be able to get me started?

To just work with oscillators (for instance to do FM or additive) or short delay lines, you could even get away with 16MB or maybe even less. Large sample tables and delay lines start to eat up memory pretty fast but I've never needed even close to 64MB to be happy. Think processor speed, not memory. Put too many objects on the screen, and you get clicks, but you won't run out of memory. For a real-time audio program, processor speed is a constraint equivalent to memory in the old days. The faster the computer, the more stuff you can do.

In fact, the more memory you use, the worse your performance. That's the way the cache works.

You don't need a PCI sound card, but having one (or, rather, having the right one) will improve the audio quality over the jacks on the back of the computer, and also improve the responsiveness (audio in-out latency, MIDI to audio out latency).

Do you see MSP covering the ground that Symbolic Sound's Kyma System handles?

I don't really know that much about Kyma. MSP is certainly cheaper assuming you have the computer. And, it's much easier to write new DSP code in C than it is in assembler for a DSP chip. This is what's driving all the audio software that runs on the host that you're starting to see. Cubase VST has been an incredible success, and I can tell you that every other sequencer company is scrambling to catch up to them. There are some OK things in MSP now, but given all of the development activity I'm starting to hear about just with the beta sites, there's going to be a lot of cool stuff available in a few months. The people who are doing it would never bother to learn how to deal with a multiprocessor DSP architecture. It's just too much of a pain.

I'm assuming that you have looked at other products while working on MSP, would you like to talk about any of them?

I didn't really do a lot of research. I trust the opinions of the people who were early users, and I tried to give them what they said they wanted.

Is there a tentative release date for MSP?

December 15th.

How will it be distributed?

The first step is to download it, either from my web site (www.cycling74.com), or from the IRCAM Forum site. Then you can try it out and see if it's something you can use on your computer. If you like it you can purchase an authorization either from me or IRCAM to enable unlimited use. This way, I don't need to answer the question, "how will it perform on my 3400c with XYZ"--people can find out for themselves.

Certainly software distribution is heading in this direction. What will the "authorization" allow, save enabling?

You can "compile" a DSP patch once every time you launch Max. If you authorize, there's no limit. So someone who couldn't afford to pay for MSP could still use it, although in a very inconvenient fashion.

What is the expected price?

I'm selling the authorizations for $295, IRCAM hasn't set an exact price but it will be similar.

How long do you see Max continuing to be upgraded and supported?

It's always been tenuous whether there will be any support for Max in the future. Opcode is being pretty reasonableright now, but they are concerned because, like all Mac software, Max sales have declined substantially over the last few months. I'm not sure what people are buying instead. Some lame Windows program I guess.

To the best of my knowledge there really isn't anything PC or otherwise that can do the same things. Is there?

Not unless you count the Max-related software IRCAM is developing,or the forthcoming Windows NT port of Miller Puckette's Pure Data.

Are there any new pieces of music software that you've been playing with lately, anything you wish you had thought of?

Everyone should see MetaSynth by Eric Wenger. It's the most thought-provoking program I've seen in a long time.

What's next for you and for Max?

MSP is the first of a series of new Max-related projects I'm going to do. I say Max-related because they won't necessarily affect the version of Max you can buy, but they are additions to the world of Max that will make it more interesting and applicable to more situations. If that's not cryptic enough I can try saying it another way.

Fin