Cycling 74's Max is a really good way to get into audio (and visual) programming. It introduces the concepts of programming and DSP whilst still keeping things beginner friendly.
It's a lot more beginner friendly that something like JUCE which, while super powerful, has a much steeper learning curve and requires you to know C++. Major downside is that it's not suitable for making full audio plugin products, rather I would use it to prototype a plugin, the DSP logic and even the UI before writing any text-based code for a VST/AU.
You can absolutely make a nice synth that takes input from pretty much anything you can attach to a computer.
And as everyone else has said - theAudioProgrammer is good too.
(Edit) - Pure Data (PD) is an open source alternative to Max which is free. I've heard people recommend it but never used it myself.
You can absolutely make a nice synth that takes input from pretty much anything you can attach to a computer.
And as everyone else has said - theAudioProgrammer is good too.
(Edit) - Pure Data (PD) is an open source alternative to Max which is free. I've heard people recommend it but never used it myself.