Looking for new wisdom and expertise on tools like the insanely deep Max/MSP/Jitter? (If you’re using Max, signs point to yes.) Cycling ’74 relaunched their site a couple of weeks ago, incorporating a variety of features that make this an indispensible resource for users of Max and other products. Since late last month, the new site has gotten rolling fast. Collective intelligence, meet Max.
For starters, there’s a relaunched forum, far friendlier than the old mailing lists while maintaining archives of years of collective wisdom on the program. There’s a rich collection of interviews with artists, and a growing selection of new tutorials. (The tutorials are especially valuable, as they’re written in a friendly, blog-like style and are more immediately practical than some of the tutorials in the software’s documentation.)
There’s a lot still to be fleshed out — several categories are a bit thinner — but what’s really encouraging here is that Cycling is taking a true community approach. Best of all are the updated user pages, where people are sharing their work. Ableton co-founder and Live visionary Monolake has a page there, for instance. (I think that may date to the old site, but grab his step sequencer, and go see if you can create the next Ableton Live and put it on your user page.)
Nor is this a closed site — there are plenty of links to external content. Speaking of which, I’ll be working on some additional Max/MSP resources here, though I don’t expect to post them until after our own redesign.
A major shout out to our friends Wallace Winfrey and Tim place for their fantastic work on the site — kudos. We’ll be spending a lot of time on this site over the coming months.