Generating Complexity in Max

Guest Contribution by Mark Durham

With this post I want to look at some strategies for generating control data in Max, or more specifically generating complex envelopes for controlling parameters. Now I expect that designing envelopes is nothing new for most Designing Sound readers; it’s been a staple technique for manipulating parameters on a timeline in most DAW’s, samplers etc for some time now. For me, learning to program the first version of Native Instrument’s Absynth was a real revelation with regard to designing complex sounds using envelopes. For anyone who has not tinkered with Absynth, it has a very well designed envelope section and it’s possible to control pretty much any parameter with an envelope. This lends itself very well to complex sequences where different parameters of the synth are being continually adjusted, with each of the parameters interacting to produce sound. Another interesting feature of Absynth is the breakpoint generation tool, which can be used to generate basic repeating envelopes with only a few controls. It’s a large influence on the device featured in this post.