Cycling '74 (also known as "C74" and stylized as '74) is an American

software development Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invo ...

company founded in 1997 by David Zicarelli, headquartered in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

and owned by

Ableton Ableton AG is a German music software company that produces and distributes the production and performance program Ableton Live and a collection of related instruments and sample libraries, as well as their own hardware controller Ableton Push. ...

. The company employs the

digital signal processing Digital signal processing (DSP) is the use of digital processing, such as by computers or more specialized digital signal processors, to perform a wide variety of signal processing operations. The digital signals processed in this manner are ...

software tool A programming tool or software development tool is a computer program that software developers use to create, debug, maintain, or otherwise support other programs and applications. The term usually refers to relatively simple programs, that can ...

, Max.

History

Cycling '74 (C74) was founded in 1997 by David Zicarelli to serve as the distributor for his various collections of

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consist ...

. The company's website states that ''"the name Cycling '74 comes from a 1974 bicycle catalog from which some of the images that decorated our original site were inspired"''. The

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...

provides a
archive of the website
from December 1998. C74 began producing the MSP extension to Opcode Systems's 1990 program "Max" in the mid 1990s, and in 1998 started distributing the products together. there is no longer a version of Max without audio processing.Sound on Sound Magazine, August 2008: "Cycling 74 Max 5 - Graphical Programming Environment For Audio & MIDI" In June 2017,

announced they had acquired Cycling '74.

Products

Max

C74 is the distributor and developer of the Max/MSP

environment. The company has published the program since 1999, and in 2008 released Max 5, a major overhaul. A

Sound on Sound ''Sound on Sound'' is an independently owned monthly music technology magazine published by SOS Publications Group, based in Cambridge, United Kingdom. The magazine includes product tests of electronic musical performance and recording devices, ...

article (August 2008) covered its new software

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

. The new interface was designed using Juce. Aside from re-designed graphics, the development of the new system concentrated on the original

code base In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communica ...

, and provided integrated documentation and

debugging In computer programming and software development, debugging is the process of finding and resolving '' bugs'' (defects or problems that prevent correct operation) within computer programs, software, or systems. Debugging tactics can involve i ...

. With the release of Max 5, MSP and Jitter were included in the package.

MSP

MSP is a DSP plug-in for Max, allowing realtime

audio synthesis A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and f ...

Jitter

Jitter is a plug-in for Max released in 2003 that allows

realtime ''RealTime'', also known as ''RealTime Arts'', was a free Australian arts magazine, published by Open City in print from 1994 until 2015 and online from 1996 to December 2017. History The free national arts magazine ''RealTime'', also known as ...

manipulation of

3D graphics 3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for th ...

and

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) sy ...

Pluggo

Pluggo was a Max extension that provided capabilities for VST design. Pluggo was required to export Max "patches" for use in

digital audio workstation A digital audio workstation (DAW) is an electronic device or application software used for recording, editing and producing audio files. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software program on a laptop, to an integr ...

(DAW) host environments, but was discontinued after the release of Max for Live.

Max for Live

Max was integrated into

Ableton Live Ableton Live is a digital audio workstation for macOS and Windows developed by the German company Ableton. In contrast to many other software sequencers, Ableton Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool ...

, developed by

and Cycling ’74, to build unique synths and effects, create algorithmic composition tools, or fuse Live and controller hardware into new music machines. Unlike Pluggo, the device created with Max for Live can be edited directly from

Live Live may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Live!'' (2007 film), 2007 American film * ''Live'' (2014 film), a 2014 Japanese film *'' ''Live'' (Apocalyptica DVD) Music * Live (band), American alternative rock band * List of album ...

by pressing the edit button.

Record Label

Founded in 2000, c74 Music was created to release music produced using Cycling '74 technology. The same year, the label released its first record - a live compilation album by the Freight Elevator Quartet.http://www.cycling74.com/c74music C74 Music The artist roster is: *DR.OX *Amoebazoid *Gregory Taylor *Crater *

John Shirley John Shirley (born February 10, 1953) is an American writer, primarily of fantasy, science fiction, dark street fiction, westerns, and songwriting. He has also written one historical novel, a western about Wyatt Earp, ''Wyatt in Wichita'', and ...

*Leslie Stuck * Sarah Peebles *William Kleinsasser * Tetsu Inoue and

Carl Stone Carl Stone (born Carl Joseph Stone, February 10, 1953) is an American composer, primarily working in the field of live electronic music. His works have been performed in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the ...

Kim Cascone Kim Cascone (December 21, 1955) is an Italian American composer of electronic music who is known for his releases in the ambient, drone, industrial and electro-acoustic genre on his own record label, Silent Records. Biography In 1989 Casco ...

* Amnon Wolman *

Interface Interface or interfacing may refer to: Academic journals * ''Interface'' (journal), by the Electrochemical Society * '' Interface, Journal of Applied Linguistics'', now merged with ''ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics'' * '' Int ...

*The Freight Elevator Quartet

References

{{reflist Music technology Companies based in San Francisco