Max Mathews

[Al Bregman <al.bregman@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

I'm sorry to be the bearer of sad news but our friend and colleague,
Max Mathews,  passed away on April 21, 2011, at the age of 84, a
victim of pneumonia.  Max was an inspiration to all of us, with his
collegiality, his competence and creativity which were still going
strong when he was in his eighties.

Max was best known for the development of synthesis software based on
the notion of unit generators, which could be patched together by the
user to create arbitrarily complex sounds and sound patterns extended
over time.  Working at Bell Labs, he developed a series of powerful
software systems,  Music 1, Music 2, Music 3, etc. based on this idea.
 The MAX software system, authored by Miller Puckette, a powerful and
popular graphic implementation of the unit generator concept, was
named after Mathews.  William Henke's MITSYN is another
graphic-oriented system for signal processing that makes use of Max's
idea of unit-generators that can be patched together to achieve signal
processing -- analysis, synthesis, modeling and editing.

Googling "Max Mathews" will bring you to some biographies that
describe his career and his various inventions.

Best to all,
Al
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Albert S. Bregman, Emeritus Professor
Psychology Department, McGill University
1205 Doctor Penfield Avenue
Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 1B1.
Office:Â Phone: (514) 398-6103, Fax: (514) 398-4896
http://webpages.mcgill.ca/staff/Group2/abregm1/web/
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