wow, yeah i worked with MAX/MSP a bit.. its from cycling74.. great GREAT software.. and you are not limited to midi.. with MSP you can build synthesizers, samplers, granular stuff or do some cewl FFT with it.. and if you have jitter or even *drools* softvns.. you can do some cewl visual stuff.. ive performed with it.. i had a joypad, a beamer and my machinedrum(and my laptop with max/msp/jitter) .. and controlled/triggered sounds and movie playback with the joypad.. it has evolved a lot since opcode, and i do mean A LOT!! and you DONT need c++ experience or other programming experience, its made for performers who want to go that bit further in building their own sound.. autechre uses it for example :P