Max/MSP JavaScript distortion possible?

Question

I'm trying to help a friend to figure out if it's possible to implement DSP algorithms in Max/MSP javascript. He was told so in class, and he asked for my help but I can't find any way to process actual samples.

TL;DR Is it possible to get samples in and return them out in Max/MSP using javascript? Thanks

Answer 1

No, it's not, as it's made only for processing messages and not signal vectors. Probably you mixed JavaScript with Java — there is a mxj~ object which allows you to use Java 6 (not higher!) for developing signal processing algorithms. Check out the tutorial, which everyone starts to learn how to use Java with: http://pcm.peabody.jhu.edu/~gwright/stdmp/docs/WritingMaxExternalsInJava.pdf

Answer 2

You can write DSP algorithms using Max’s gen~ and codebox, the syntax for which resembles JavaScript or C.

DSP in Max runs at high priority to avoid audio dropouts, which the js object does not, but it is possible to generate code using JavaScript and load that into a gen~ instance. You can find an example of this bundled with Max itself: search for a file called gen~.dynamicexpr.maxpat

Answer 3

They released a node.js API with Max 8. You can now.

Answer 4

Though not using javascript, like delucis said you can now use gen~ to write dsp code.

Here's a distortion gen~ function using tanh for my own project:

    tanh_dist(input, amp, offset)
    {
        pass1 = input + offset;
        pass2 = pass1 * amp;
        pass3 = tanh(pass2);
        return(dcblock(pass3));
    }

I also made a sample patch to show you how to use it (in the codebox). Just copy the following text and paste into an empty max patch window:

----------begin_max5_patcher----------
1168.3ocyW8tbiZCD+y3mBF9TROWOHAXG2qsyzGf9Db4FOxfLVWAACH74bYx
8r2U+ALXv13j3zlOPFu+jzt6uc0tZedhky5r8zRG6ey9K1VVOOwxRIRJvx7a
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w9q2ZZJnOMgOPdCvSnkKj4.uy7zh+C3IN86fp6cgH7ovD5OsQv0ryvBttGxV
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3B8KwtgTA5+MTA9BTA1Cci4B7GHWDBsojqrkF6TQ+2+anNqpKUzeNtbDrhX7
dPOWmbvtSSMdGo1i6xLZJy6RT1QJZf1cp9x.anNSAgucUDqTbGz+rRL0Flic
psdn76ej+7iba3ubfEQ1+gsZM1exf+4CfX.TuneQdBsP7.DoRtSsr6MHET3w
D76hBWK6lqv7tWB9xiEOxA+BY1VssglBJGK+3c+mc9Xti.lwEqWfVndyhO5g
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qX22jhQiPw98XVcB5QSxJUwQSvdzzq8mb8zSsd7DqpoUGZRUYCjIuL4eArSi
FpB
-----------end_max5_patcher-----------