Max is a graphical environment for music, audio, and multimedia. In use for over twenty years by performers, composers, artists, scientists, teachers, and students, Max is the way to make your computer do things that reflect your individual ideas and dreams.

Max is an infinitely flexible space to create your own interactive software. Connect Ideas Together to Create!

OBJECTS

Each object does something. Max has objects that generate sound waves, represent hardware, or provide a UI for interaction.

PATCHCORDS

Patchcords connect one object to another. This connection lets objects share their output with connected objects.

CONTROL

Connect UI objects like dials and sliders to provide control values or display results. Modulate, map and scale data to get just the right results.

Create Software Built Around You, In the Moment

Drag in your own audio clips and start manipulating them and connecting effects

Map your patcher with MIDI controllers as you go to start playing with your creation while you work

Expanded Ideas

Max patching starts on a blank canvas, free of any structure. This makes it natural to build and explore unique ideas that would be too complex to make elsewhere. The Max patcher automatically expands to fit your work as it grows, no matter how much space you take up.

Explore Sound without Limits

Design a custom synthesizer with as many oscillators and effects as you wish.

Manipulate samples in every way, including timestretch and pitch shifting.

Build up more layered sounds using MC objects to patch multichannel audio.

Make Sound with a Gesture

In Max, you can build classic synths from scratch or get lost hacking together unusual sounds. Try the XY controls below to hear some sounds you could create with Max.

You can do a lot with just a single oscillator and a filter.

Add some extra modulation and try something a little more wild.

Make Visual Music

Max includes full-featured, expandable video and graphics tools with Jitter. Jitter is optimized for realtime audiovisual work, and is easy to combine with audio, sequencing, and modulation like everything else in Max.

Take Max into the World

Max provides the tools to connect your computer to the external world, or connect many computers together. With support for a constantly expanding list of hardware and communications, Max is ready to talk to everything.

Prototype and Evaluate

Flexible access to hardware makes Max a perfect environment for prototyping. Connect your development board to Max and get instant access to sensors, knobs, and switches. Watch the data stream in as you develop the interaction.

Countless commercial products, art installations, and stage shows have relied on Max to glue together all the parts of their process.

Generate Audio, Video, Code

Use Gen to patch together fine-tuned processes for audio, matrix data, or texture processing. Gen lets you combine procedural commands with visual patching to simplify the creation of custom processes.

Gen objects can also output source code to be used elsewhere if needed.

Extended Max

Max's built-in Package Manager offers immediate access to over 50 add-ons covering everything from computer vision to support for hardware controllers including Novation, Monome and ROLI controllers.

If the feature you want doesn't exist in Max, chances are someone in the community has created it. And if they haven't, you can extend Max yourself using C++, NodeJS, Java, or javascript.

v8.5.3 Release Notes

New Features

amxd~: can have a help file

fzero~: 'quiet' attribute

RNBO: v.1.1.0 update

umenu: @highlight color used in dropdown highlight when @applycolors is 1

Fixed Bugs

Audio Scheduler timing: improved accuracy

buffer~: ‘writeraw’ file dialog is suppressed when file name is given

cascade~: works when input list contains integers

crosspatch: fixed restoration order

crosspatch: inlabel / outlabel have text editor in Inspector

crosspatch: presets/pattrstorage/snapshots connections cleared before restore

Database: fixed slow launch on Windows

GLCore: color attr of jit.gl.node can override color of attached objects

GLCore: fixed matrix context rendering

GLCore: support for distinct face drawing modes

GLCore: jit.gl.material support for two-sided lighting

hi: fixed crash with some controllers on disconnect (Mac)

jit.gl.material: fix default lighting

jit.gl.skybox / jit.gl.environment: drawn after fullscreen jit.window (Win)

jit.movie (AVF): fixed output ready/failure notifications

jit.movie (AVF): fixed texture clear

jit.movie (AVF): improved reading and disposing of files

jit.playlist: fixed issues on MacOS 13.1

line~ / curve~: end bang improvements

line~ / curve~: fixed stop after immediate output

live.adsr~: fixed decay stage when driven by a signal

live.step: parameter saved when set by dictionary input

mapping: improved 'pickup' behavior

Math fuzzy float comparision: misc improvements

Max for Live editor: tour suppressed when launched from Live

Max for Live editor: update checking suppressed when launched from Live

mc.function: fixed focus issues while changing points and values are output

mc.snowphasor~: reduced minimum allowable rate / interval to 0.1

MIDI: removed CC#0-31 restriction for 14-bit CC messages

mtr: fixed immediate output when events are inserted

mtr: saves empty track info

Packages: Package fonts are loaded on first run

Patcher Continuous Zoom: works in RNBO patcher / edited Max for Live device

path: don't return '/' if a 'boot path' fails to conform

pattrstorage: fixed ‘renumber’ message

playlist~: fixed harmless timestretching errors

plugsync~: fixed samplecount outlet when used in amxd~

Project / amxd~ / Gen: fixed crash when saving after 'open original' from bpatcher

sflist~ / sfplay~: fixed crash printing cues

snapshot~: bang message is sample accurate

Soundfile: improved mp3 loading on Windows

Standalone: fixed crashing when jit.window/pwindow is present

subdiv~: pattern cleared correctly (fixed no pattern behavior)

textedit: fixed value sync issues when setting contents via scheduler thread

themecolor: fixed notification for dynamic color human-readable names

VIZZIE: fixed bang output when texture-output enabled

vst~: hide JUCE 'MIDI CC %d|%d' parameters by default

vst~: permit 1 channel input/output

xctlin: first message not skipped with new channel

home page: