Many pieces for solo instrument or voice and electronics feature live input from a microphone picking up the sound of the soloist. This allows the software to provide real-time effects and also makes it possible to record parts of the performance for playback during the piece.

How to Do This Exercise

Working on the assignment is a two-stage process.

1. Download Exercise 9 Max Tips. This folder of Max patches shows you how to access live input, explains the concept of a buffer, and tells you how to record sound into a buffer and play it back.
2. Make a patch that records sound from a mic into a buffer and then plays it.

See the Requirements and Suggestions section below for details. The Max Tips patches explain the required techniques.

Requirements and Suggestions

• Set up your patch to receive input from a microphone. Use an ezadc~ object for this. Patch a live.gain~ or meter~ after the ezadc~, so that you can detect clipping on the meter. Control the level of the mic signal from outside of Max: at the sound input control panel for your system or a mic preamp trim knob, if you have an audio interface or hardware mixer. Use the meter to determine the right input level.
• Create a buffer~ object that holds three seconds of sound, and set up your patch to record the mic into this buffer using the record~ object.
• Play the contents of the recorded buffer~ using either the play~ or the groove~ object. Set up your patch so that you can play the buffer using a few different speeds.

  The essential difference between play~ and groove~ is that with play~, you specify how the playback “cursor” moves across the buffer, whereas with groove~, you specify a playback rate.