jMax Released Under General Public License
July 22, 2000
IRCAM announces the distribution of jMax, its software environment
for music performance and real time digital audio processing, as free software
under the GNU General Public License.
Since its first public release for the SGI and Linux platforms in early 1999,
jMax has reached several hundred users that expressed high interest in the product
and its development. This interest, added to the rapid growth of the Linux operating
system and the effectiveness of the open development model, created the conditions
for an opening of the jMax development.
By releasing jMax under GNU's General Public License, IRCAM brings a key contribution
to the computer music community and to the adoption of Linux for the multimedia
market.
jMax is the new generation of real time systems at IRCAM, designed to replace
the Ircam Signal Processing Workstation. Based on a client/server architecture,
wherein the two components are the C written real-time engine already known as
FTS and a Java graphical user interface, jMax features a high portability level.
jMax is currently supported on SGI workstations and on Linux for Intel-compatible
processors. Porting to other platforms are under development, including Alpha-Linux,
Linux-PPC, Solaris, Apple MacOS X and Microsoft's Windows. Compatibilities with
Max/MSP (IRCAM/Opcode/Cycling'74) currently running on MacOS will be pursued.
Support, documentation, tutorials, CDROMs and musical applications for jMax
will be provided by the IRCAM Forum, the IRCAM user group accessible via a yearly
subscription. IRCAM Forum can be reached at
http://www.ircam.fr/departements/valorisation/forum/index-e.html.
jMax is currently being developed at IRCAM by the Real Time Systems team,
lead by François Déchelle, with Maurizio de Cecco, Enzo Maggi and
Norbert Schnell.
jMax is currently used in concert and in studio, at Ircam and on international
tours, for productions featuring real time audio synthesis and processing, as
well as for virtual reality interactive installations that combine image and sound
synthesis.
For more information andto
download jMax, please visit IRCAM's Web site at www.ircam.fr/jmax.
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