Realtime Composition Library for Max

Real-time Algorithmic Composition with a Tabletop Musical Interface (Cárthach Ó Nuanáin and Liam O’ Sullivan)
in: Proceedings of the 9th Audio Mostly Conference on Interaction With Sound (New York 2014)

(...) In the classical world, Austrian composer Karlheinz Essl is regarded as one of the chief proponents of real-time algorithmic composition. He has developed an extensive library of functions for the Max environment known as the Real Time Composition Library (RTC-Lib) [6]. Essl gives frequent performances with his software, using simple MIDI controllers to interact with and direct the course of the performance. (...)

Interview with Keith Fullerton Whitman (Andrew Pask)
in: C74 blog (4 Dec 2013)

(...) When do you like to use chance or random processes?
… at almost every stage, actually. Within the MaxMSP patches I'm using these days, there are myriad stochastic processes at work. It’s no secret that I’m big fan of Karlheinz Essl’s RTC library, I still use those patches all the time. (...)

Interactive Improvisation (Robert Rowe)
in: Machine Musicianship (Cambrige, MT: MIT Press 2001), ISBN 0-262-18206-8, p. 306-308.

(...) Karlheinz Essl’s Lexikon-Sonate is an extensive Max environment and composition that has been made available by the composer on the Internet. The library supporting the composition (RTC-lib) includes many valuable and well-documented sub-patches that fit the discussion here. The Brownian sub-patch, for example, plays a prominent role in Essl’s work. One of the distinguishing characteristics of the urn object, relative to Brownian and other random processes, is that it does not repeat any value until all possible values have been output. The RTC-lib includes a small filter called anti-bis that can add functionality to other kinds of random objects as well (...)

A Música Efêmera da Internet (Fernando Iazzetta & Fabio Kon)
in: Anais do XI Encontro Nacional da ANPPOM, Campinas-SP, agosto de 1998, pp. 35-40.

Outro trabalho pioneiro é o realizado por Karlheinz Essl. O compositor criou uma coleção de objetos para o ambiente MAX chamada Real Time Composition Library com a qual tem criado composições interativas que podem ser distribuídas pela Internet. Entre essa peças estão a Lexikon-Sonate e Amazing Maze . Nessa última, Essl cria uma composição algorítmica interativa que podem ser manipulada em tempo real.O que é interessante é que o aplicativo que gera Amazing Maze contém os próprios sons utilizados na composição. Esses sons estão gravados digitalmente em um arquivo na forma de algumas dezenas de amostras sonoras feitas pelo próprio compositor a partir de instrumentos reais de percussão, sopro e cordas. A realização da peça pode ser automática, ou controlada pelo usuário por meio de uma interface gráfica ou a partir do teclado do computador. Trabalhos como o de Essl tem apontado para novas maneiras de se criar e distribuir música que estão diretamente relacionadas à expansão das redes de computadores.

Music by the Numbers (Kristine H. Burns)
in: Electronic Musician (May 1998)

(...) Though Xenakis has written software for his computer-assisted works, the software is not available for current desktop computers. However, you can experiment with controlled randomness using Karlheinz Essl's Realtime Composition Library for Opcode's MAX programming language. This powerful algorithmic system offers numerous distribution curves that can be used to generate many types of musical material. (...)

Updated: 2 Apr 2015