The Max Lab is a prototyping space for students, faculty, staff and visitors at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University. It consists of an indoor prototyping space for electronics work and an outdoor garage for messier work.
It is the portion of CCRMA where we focus on hardware and software interfaces for interacting with sound. It the hub of what we call Physical Interaction Design. It is a place for creating sound art, making test devices for experiments, and prototyping new musical instruments.
The Max Lab was started by Max Mathews when he came to CCRMA in the late 1980’s after he retired from Bell Labs and set up some of his lab equipment in a spare storage room. Along the way, it has been significantly improved upon by the people who have used it to teach various classes and workshops – Bill Verplank, Matt Wright, Michael Gurevich, Ed Bergdahl and Wendy Ju.