A no-install first step into Max/MSP and Pd
Max and Pure Data teach a way of thinking: small objects, patch cords, signal on one kind of wire and control on another. VerkLabs uses the same idea for sound in a browser tab, so a student can build an oscillator, a filter and an envelope on any computer, with nothing installed and no license, and bring the habit into Max or Pd afterwards. It is a first step and a companion, not a replacement: Max and Pd can do far more, and this page says plainly where.
How the pieces map
In VerkLabs an instrument is a graph of nodes ending at one Instrument Output. Gray wires carry sound and orange wires carry control values, much like Max's signal and control cords. Each note plays its own copy of the graph, a little like a poly~ voice.
| In Max / Pd | In VerkLabs | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| cycle~ saw~ tri~ rect~ / Pd osc~ phasor~ | Oscillator | Sine, square, sawtooth and triangle, with a frequency you can wire in. |
| noise~ pink~ | Noise | White, pink and brown. |
| svf~ biquad~ / Pd vcf~ lop~ hip~ | Filter | Lowpass, highpass and bandpass with frequency and Q. A single filter node, not a full set of filter designs. |
| adsr~ / line~ | Envelope | Attack, decay, sustain, release, retriggered on every note. Wire it into a Gain or a filter. |
| *~ +~ | Gain, Mixer | Scale a signal, or add several together. |
| a low-frequency cycle~ | LFO | Can follow the project tempo (Beats), with a phase. For vibrato, tremolo and filter sweeps. |
| mtof notein | Pitch, Note, Velocity, Note→Frequency | The note that triggered the voice arrives as a value you wire into frequency or brightness. |
| metro + counter step sequencers | Sequencer, and note clips in the piano roll | A pattern of notes you can step through, or a clip you draw. |
| tapin~ / tapout~ | Delay | Time, feedback and mix. |
| gigaverb~ | Reverb | Decay and mix. Simpler than a full reverb patch. |
| overdrive~ | Distortion | Soft clip, hard clip and fold, with drive. |
| a compressor abstraction | Compressor | Threshold, ratio, attack and release. |
| sfplay~ groove~ buffer~ | Sample, SFZ | Play a recording pitched to the note, or a whole sampled instrument mapped across the keyboard. |
| adc~ | Microphone | Live microphone into the instrument. Use headphones. |
| dac~ ezdac~ | Instrument Output | Only what is connected to it makes sound. |
| expr | f(x) to f(v,w,x,y,z) | Write a formula for a control value. These run at the frame rate, not at audio rate. |
Sound and visuals in one place. The same timeline, the Runsheet, plays the instruments and drives the visuals. A shader can read the sound of any track, so the visuals can pulse to a student's own drum pattern. In Max that is a Jitter patch, and in Pd it is usually a separate tool.
No install, and shared by link. A student opens a link on a lab machine, a Chromebook or a laptop at home, and a teacher opens the same link to see the project and the graph that made it.
A coach. Four guided lessons, Your first techno track, Chords and a melody, Build your own instrument and Build your own drum kit, run inside the editor and check what the student builds. None needs music theory.
Where Max and Pd are stronger
Max (gen~, RNBO) and Pd let you write your own sample-level processing. VerkLabs has a fixed set of audio nodes, and its formula nodes only work on control values.
There is no live MIDI keyboard input and no OSC today. MIDI files can be imported, and a clip's notes can be downloaded as a MIDI file.
Decades of objects, externals, Max for Live and a large community. VerkLabs is a young tool with a deliberately small vocabulary.
Max and Pd let you design the controls, installations and standalone apps. In VerkLabs you work in the editor.
How it fits in a course
Students meet oscillators, filters, envelopes and signal flow in a friendlier setting, so the first patch is not also the first time they hear the words.
Max and Pd need an install. A student without a laptop that can run them can still practise synthesis in a browser.
For an audio-reactive piece, a student can prototype the sound and the shader in one project, then move to Max, Jitter or TouchDesigner for the performance. See the TouchDesigner path.
Try it, or talk it through
Free, in a browser tab, nothing to install. The guided lessons run beside a student's own project, so you can try one yourself in a few minutes. If you would like a short demo, example projects or a conversation about how it could sit next to your course, get in touch.
Try the lessons Teaching with VerkLabs Email education@verklabs.ai