RIP Max Mathews, 1926-2011

dewdrop_world · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 10:56 pm Post subject: RIP Max Mathews, 1926-2011

I just heard today that he passed away (complications of pneumonia), after a long, full and influential life. Much respect and wishes for a safe journey.

Without him, we would have none of this here on this site!

Online tribute pages haven't popped up yet, as far as Yahoo/Google know. Post links as you find them...

GovernorSilver · Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 12:10 pm Post subject:

CDM's tribute:
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2011/04/max-mathews-father-of-digital-synthesis-computer-innovator-dies-at-84/

Got to see a performance featuring the Radio Drum once...

pyrosonic · Joined: Jul 12, 2008 Posts: 383 Location: Kent,Oh. USA

R.I.P. Mr. Mathews,we owe you pretty much everything.

cbm · Joined: Oct 25, 2005 Posts: 381 Location: San Francisco

David Zicarelli has posted a nice remembrance:
http://cycling74.com/2011/04/22/max-mathews-an-appreciation/#more-10270

Max was a true pathfinder.

mosc · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 6:27 pm Post subject:

I met Max in the mid-eighties before he retired from Bell Labs. I just called him up and told him I was an electro-musician and he invited me to visit him. He spent the entire afternoon with me. I visited him a few times after that over the years. A nicer less pretentious person you could never meet. Even at a senior age he was on the bleeding edge.

The first I heard of computer music was a book he wrote. I read it in the late 60s. It was a fantastic read. When I got to The Labs, I convinced my department head to buy a stereo AD/DA converter for our department's VAX computer so I could try signal processing and computer music. (The 16bit 44.1 KHz cost $26000).

When I met Max, he was well beyond Music V. He was focusing on computer music on the new, at the time, PC. He was working on beat recognition and alternative controllers, including gesture recognition. I wasn't impressed with that stuff at the time. He was years ahead of Buchla's Lightning and the beat recognizers so common today.

He was very kind. He would always remember who I was and ask lots of questions about Bell Labs in Allentown. Max was especially fascinated that someone at Allentown was doing computer music research. The researchers at Murray Hill, NJ, considered Allentown "The Hinterlands". There was rarely original computer research coming from there because the main focus was integrated circuits. Since Allentown developed the first Digital Signal Processor chip, it was logical for people there to do research on algorithms, filter design, music, and audio processing.

Anyway, it's a sad day. He pretty much invented digital music. We owe him a lot.