I haven't looked at Volume 2, But Vol 1 has the benefit of being very recent (MAX 8 ) and very well structured with the music/sound theory interwoven with the Max programming...it's like a Uni course in a book...
Max will let you make what you need- but if you don't know the underlying theory (equations and algorithms) that would be applicable to any software you probably will just end up making stuff that's already been made!
All that said- starting is the easy part (I know, I have started this journey many times!) its keeping going that's important- so I will see if this book helps....this time!
With their Electronic Music and Sound Design: Theory and Practice with Max and MSP (...) Alessandro Cipriani and Maurizio Giri have produced a series of “interactive and enhanced books” that present the student of computer music with the finest and most comprehensive electroacoustic curriculum in the world. By “illustrating” the text with a wealth of figures and clearly explained equations, they take the reader “under the hood” and reveal the algorithms that make our computing machines “sing”. By using David Zicarelli’s incredibly powerful and intuitive media-toolkit
– Max to create hundreds of synthesis, signal processing, algorithmic composition, interactive performance, and audio analysis software examples, Cipriani and Giri have provided the means for students to learn by hearing, by touching, by modifying, by designing, by creating, and by composing. (...) I firmly believe that this series by Cipriani and Giri, these “interactive and enhanced books”, (...) set the stage for the next generation of innovators. (...)
In Electronic Music and Sound Design, Cipriani and Giri feed the hands, they feed the ears, and they feed the minds of the students in ways and to a degree that no computer music textbook has ever done. (from the Foreword by Richard Boulanger, Berklee College of Music)
You can get a nice demo of the books (Vol 1 and 2) (about 130 pages each) here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... -_volume_1
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... with_Max_8
