About Meyer Devices

I’m Philip: a Max for Live developer, Max Certified Trainer, and computer music-maker, and I develop tools and techniques for composing music with computers. Meyer Devices is the home for the tools I make for Ableton Live.

I started making music in about 2015. I bought a Korg Electribe and swapping it out for an Elektron Octatrack soon after. I’m fascinated by sequencers, which have always been at the center of my process for making music. Working with a sequencer is a unique artistic experience. It is an exploratory process, a dialogue with the machine. Listen, altering some parameters, and repeat, until you have found music that you happy with. While the musician controls the machine, the machine’s capabilities and its design also influence the musician.

Therefore, I find it apt to think about the process of creating music with a computer as an interaction between the machine and the musician. Or even as a machine-mediated interaction between the machine’s creators and the musician.

Thinking about sequencers and the process of making sequencer-based music led me to want to make my own. In 2023, I released the Rhythm and Time Toolkit, a package of modular Max MSP objects for sequencing and computer music composition. In 2024, I released my first pack of Max for Live MIDI Tools. I also make video tutorials on YouTube, mostly about computer composition and sequencing techniques. These videos certainly are educational content for Max programmers, but they are also a sort of notebook for me: Ideas often appear first on YouTube, then reappear in functional form as a Max object or Max for Live devices.

I want my tools to help create new, different musics. A piece (or genre) of music is assemblage. When you, the artist, use my tools, you are allowing a little bit of me into your art. I honor and appreciate that privilege.

I am always eager to hear music, ideas and feedback from those that use my devices. To share yours, or for support, account help, order inquiries and all the normal e-commerce stuff: please use the contact form here. 

Philip Meyer

October 2024