Download MIDI Visualizer Starter Kit

This is a collection of patches I developed for doing MIDI visualization. They are a starting point for creating 3d visuals that respond to midi messages either from hardware or from Ableton via a M4L midi sender patch. It should be possible to send messages from any other program via UDP (for example, Unity or Unreal engine), but you'll have to let me know how that goes.

The control patch sets up a blank world with some basic midi responsive systems

The techniques patch contains other examples of midi responsive systems, and acts more as a test patch and toolbox to pull from, including a system for drag/drop loading and spawning instances of 3d models or images.

The midisender M4L device forwards MIDI messages from a track in Ableton to the specificed host and port.(You can edit the patch to add a preset IP address if you want).

I also included two Ableton project files (live 9 and live 12) with the midi sender loaded, so you can see how messages are sent between the programs. This setup allows the audio and visual components to be run on separate machines on the same local network.

NOTE: this is definitely not a finished product, there are some non-catastrophic bugs and inefficient processes. Let me know if you want any help using these!

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Download jit.gl.multiple examples

An incredibly useful object that I keep looking for new ways to use. Jit.gl.multiple lets you create copies of an object and control the parameters of every individual copy with jitter matrices. I'm uploading a few of my personal help/example patches that I usually start with when I have an idea. The GLparams I tend to use most are position, scale, rotatexyz (not "rotation") and texture. The texture param in particular is really useful because it lets you send different images or videos to specific instances of objects. I've used it to make some pretty basic video collage patches with videos in a grid, cube, or randomized positions. Here's a video where I talk about these techniques:

I included four patches in that download:

Step 1 - sending random positions, or grid positions using the coordinates of cells in a 4x4 matrix.

Step 2 - same position controls, adding a similar technique for scale. Check the jit.gen objects to see how I handle the incoming matrices differently.

Step 3 - Random positions constrained on the Y axis (just for variation/aesthetics), random scales (setting XYZ to the same value, again just for looks), and random rotation.

Step 4 - 3d transform techniques combined with Video texture swapping for video walls/cubes.

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Download line sketch max patch

When I started working with Jitter I tried to focus on simple lines, shapes, and movement. Most of my early experiments used jit.gl.sketch as a kind of super etch-a-sketch....You know, in a previous life I just wanted to play guitar.

The basis for most of these patches is a line object that goes from 0 to whatever value (default is 100) over whatever amount of time. You take that value and pack it into a list as the Z value of a position message, formatted (0. 0. $1) where $1 is the changing Z value. Then you prepend the symbol 'lineto' and send those messages to jit.gl.sketch so that it draws a line from its current position (which stays at 0. 0. 0.) to the current point (0. 0. $1).

You can use that changing point as the focus for other sketch objects to draw shapes around it that leave trails (until you clear the sketch).

The way I wanted to use it was to create a scrolling midi visualization, or a kind of stylized graphic score like Almamplayer or the amazing Smalin videos using Musanim. Those visualizers have a certain aesthetic that's tied to the styles of music they're used for (video game music and classical, respectively), and I wanted to try creating a system I could adjust to whatever kind of music I happen to be making (links here). Feel free to download the patches above (or on my gumroad) and let me know what you come up with.