Cycling '74 (also known as "C74" and stylized as '74) is an American software development company founded in 1997 by David Zicarelli, headquartered in San Francisco, California and owned by Ableton.

[1] The company's name comes relates to its original web design; Zicarelli used images from a 1974 bicycling catalog (see an early archive of the website).

[2] C74 began producing the MSP extension to Opcode Systems's 1990 program "Max" in the mid 1990s, and in 1998 started distributing the products together.

Aside from re-designed graphics, the development of the new system concentrated on the original code base, and provided integrated documentation and debugging.

gen~ encourages users to continue thinking and patching visually, but with the basic building blocks of algorithms.

[10] It is an extension of the Max patching environment, specialized for specific domains such as audio (MSP) and matrix and texture processing with Jitter.

The same year, the label released its first record - a live compilation album by the Freight Elevator Quartet.