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What's new in Somax2 V2.6.1

This latest version includes brand new features to enhance dynamic control of your environment and to reach new forms of interaction.

For the first time you will be able to record audio corpora in real-time into a somax.player, handle multi-region control on different areas of the corpus and synchronize events to beat phase alignment.

The documentation, tutorials and helps has been updated for the entire package to guide you through these new functionalities.

Detailed list of add-ons includes:

  • Real-time Corpus Recording: A new object somax.audiorecord (and corresponding GUI object somax.audiorecord.ui) has been added, which allows recording new audio corpora directly (and in real-time) into a somax.player. This module also allows extending existing audio corpora by recording new material. The module is by default integrated in the somax.player.app interface. In addition, there’s also a new Max tutorial and video tutorial on real-time corpus recording. See the somax.audiorecord maxhelp for more details.

  • Corpus Region Filter: you can now edit and select any among 6 regions from the corpus in a player’s interface. A new object somax.regions has been added, which gives more detailed control over the different regions of the corpus. It’s now possible to inidividually control up to 6 regions of the corpus, and the regions can be set exactly by time, in addition to relative proportion of the corpus. See the somax.regions maxhelp for more details.

  • Beat Alignment: The somax.player's algorithm for beat (phase) alignment has been rewritten to be able to more strictly adapt to an external or internal beat, and a number of new parameters for more precise control of the beat alignment have been added.
  • Windows Compatibility: Somax is now available on Windows! Download the Somax-2.6.0-win64.zip file and follow the installation procedure in the readme / user guide.
  • Apple Silicon Compatibility: For Mac users, all externals have been updated to universal binaries, running on both Intel and ARM-based machines. Therefore, it’s no longer necessary to run Somax under rosetta on ARM-based machines.
  • Various Bug Fixes: A number of bug fixes and clarifications have been added, as well as documentation updates

Goto to Somax2 Forum page for installation

See more at Somax2 Project Page

Somax2 is an application for musical improvisation and composition using AI with machine listening, cognitive memory activation model, multi-agent architecture, full application interface to agent patching and control, and full Max library API. Somax2 is implemented in Max and Python and is based on a generative AI model to provide real-time machine improvisations coherent both with the internal selected corpus styles and with the unfolding external musical context. Somax2 handles both MIDI and audio input, corpus memory, and output. The model can be used with little configuration to let its agents autonomously interact with musicians (and one with another), but it also allows a variety of manual controls of its generative process and interaction strategies, effectively letting one use it as a fully flexible smart instrument.

This release contains a number of small but important fixes related to real-time corpus recording, as well as a new tutorial for app users.

  • Recording Latency Correction: The somax.audiorecord object will now automatically adjust the recorded slices based on the latency of the associated audioinfluencer in order to achieve better segmentation. This parameter can be controlled in the corpus recording settings.

  • Audiorecord Sample Rate Mismatch: The somax.audiorecord object now provides explicit warnings when the user tries to record into an existing corpus based on an audio file with a different sample rate than Max’s. This release also fixes a number of bugs related to issues with underlying buffer sample rates. See the “sample rate mismatch” tab of the somax.audiorecord maxhelp.

  • Real-time Corpus Reloading: When using multiple record-enabled players, it’s now possible to load a corpus into either of the players without causing audio glitches or interrupts to the other players while loading.
  • "Script your Environment" Tutorial: A new tutorial on preparing your Somax2 environment and controlling the parameters of any .app-object using scripting messages has been added.

  • Various Bug Fixes: A number of bug fixes and clarifications have been added, as well as documentation updates.

Goto to Somax2 Forum page for installation

See more at Somax2 Project Page

Somax2 is an application for musical improvisation and composition using AI with machine listening, cognitive memory activation model, multi-agent architecture, full application interface to agent patching and control, and full Max library API. Somax2 is implemented in Max and Python and is based on a generative AI model to provide real-time machine improvisations coherent both with the internal selected corpus styles and with the unfolding external musical context. Somax2 handles both MIDI and audio input, corpus memory, and output. The model can be used with little configuration to let its agents autonomously interact with musicians (and one with another), but it also allows a variety of manual controls of its generative process and interaction strategies, effectively letting one use it as a fully flexible smart instrument.