FTM - Complex data structures for Max

cote interne IRCAM: Schnell05a; None / None; National audience; This article presents FTM, a shared library and a set of modules extending the Max/MSP environment. It also gives a brief description of additional sets of modules based upon FTM. The article particularly addresses the community of researchers and musicians familiar with Max or Max-like programming environments such as Pure Data. FTM extends the signal and message data flow paradigm of Max permitting the representation and processing of complex data structures such as matrices, sequences or dictionaries as well as tuples, MIDI events or score elements (notes, silences, trills etc.). The consequent integration of references to complex data structures in the Max/MSP data flow opens new possibilities to the user in terms of powerful and efficient data representations and modularization of applications. FTM is the basis of several sets of modules for Max/MSP specialized on score following, sound analysis/re-synthesis, statistical modeling and data bank access. Designed for particular applications in automatic accompaniment, advanced sound processing and gestural analysis, the libraries use a common set of basic FTM data structures. They are perfectly interoperable while smoothly integrating into the modular programming paradigm of the host environment Max/MSP.