Experimental electronic music, Live PA.

There are many sound designers, professional and academia, that are into software synthesis far beyond Reason and the like. MAX/MSP is one such digital modular synthesis language I have seen, it resembles the C language. I think that once you have written your blocks of code, you can combine it with other blocks ("module"?) and create your own synth or effects. I have heard that Reactor is based on MAX/MSP.

I am wondering if any of you have experience with the above programs, and if you have tried to use them for Live PA.

I've seen several classical/electronic music "concerts" at my university in the past, where they had acoustic instruments playing into a microphone, and the grad students/professors situated FOH at the mixer and computer running MAX/MSP.

Seemed a bit avant-garde to me, yet still very cool, but in a nerdy way.

I would guess that the Nord Modular and Micromodular are ways of getting that kind of sophistication and customizable sound into a slightly more convenient and presentable package.

But I've never used digital modular synths hardware either, so any advise would be great.

In particular with regards to hardware, is it possible to run a line-level signal and use the DSP to effect it?

And is it possible to combine internal and external signals, and interact, such as in a Vocoder?


Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Scott

I saw a demo last year, I think, put on by Bob Moog at UB where he had a guy playing a MIDI Theremin which was hooked into a device he built in MAX running on a powerbook.

It was recently ported to Windows so I assume at some point I'll dive into it. I haven't had the time recently  

-Craig

do you think there are any MAX/MSP cats in the 'synth' forum that won't see this here?

I don't think there are any at all on this board. Like I said before, it was Mac-only for ever, just recently ported to PC. Most of us here are PC people.

-Craig