One Year of MAX for Live

[arachnaut]

For those of you who have been programming Max for this past year or so:

How do you find it?

After a year of working on Reaktor, (for example), I felt pretty comfortable and could do mostly what I wanted, or could at least figure out what I needed to know to proceed.

When I saw Max I thought it would take quite some time to get proficient - probably the same amount of time - and I didn't buy it.

Now that that time has elapsed (and I did not learn Max) - what do you folks have to say about the experience?

[Gregory Wells-King]

I had a chance to comment on CM (Computer Music Magazine) recently through a online user questionnaire, the result of which was a suggestion frommyself that the "Specials" magazines from both them and 'Music Tech' were the biggest draw on my current set of reasons for buying the magazine.

I know tha the Help tutorial system in built to M4L is very good, however it's not something I have had chance to delve in to much, as the raw understanding of MAX's language are still missing from my vocabulary; as is what I would want from building a device in the first place.

A CM special on MAX FOR LIVE would be brilliant, with step by step building tutorials and workshops, and background to the whole DSP software language idea and creation, even outside of max.

I would like to know, where I should start at all really, i.e would a physics or maths background be a better advantage, as I feel musical bacground has little to do with programming DSP at times.

But I would not be without it, as it's really easy to build racks with lives exsisting effects and instruments that have something different about them, and simple tools like preset managers have really opened up the possibility's for on spontanious effect building.

That's kind of where I want it to be with Live, kind of the upper module building element that's present in NI Reaktor, where you can bolt simple effects together to make larger ones, but without the difficulties of library location that Reaktor has.

I swaped out of Reaktor for M4L for precisely that reason, everything is down to up to my rack building ideas and everything is kept tidy and with easy access to my sound library with out problem.

I will learn some max basics in the next year, as I would like to splice some ideas together if possible, but for now Lives environment mixed with the devices that are in the Max.Com Library are more than enough to produce an interesting tune.

As I always say, I'm very grateful to the Reaktor and Max community for all the wondeful creations.

[trevox]

I have used Max/MSP on and off for around 10 years (with Logic) and moved to Live specifically because M4L was integrated into it. I usually create my own patches, but find deconstructing other people's patches give me more efficient ways of doing things - I still learn something almost every time I use Max. I would think in a year (with a fair bit of use), you could get proficient enough to make a good stab at what you want to do and then get help/advice from forums like this one when you run into issues. Generally people who use Max/M4L like to help for some reason.

I generally use M4L to effect/generate midi though and not too much audio stuff any more. I used to make synths and effects in Max/MSP and that can require a fair bit of learning - particularly FFT stuff. Now I use pretty much all hardware, so have no real need. The Live API was also new to me, but there's some great tutorials and patches out there to help understand that once you understand the basics in Max.

I like Live's workflow and all that, but I couldn't possibly use it to make the music I make without M4L as Live's native midi capabilities are poor at best. And even with M4L, you need workaround to do any midi routing between patches. I sincerely hope this gets dealt with in a future release of Live.

Just one other note in regards to a comment in a previous post regarding the idea that you are better off coming from a physics or maths background to use Max. Music is fundamentally mathematical and most musicians will understand a lot of the fundamentals without realising it. If your goal is to make music, Max/M4L is a tool to help you meet that goal. I can imagine that this might be a bit daunting initially, but don't let the fact that music has been reduced to numbers scare you!! I happen to be a musician with a maths background, but I know a good few musicians (the more arty types) that can barely add that have used Max/MSP for a long time!

[synnack]

It should be no shock to anyone that I am very happy with my purchase and have very much enjoyed Max for Live. Both in terms of the process of learning and using it, and in using things other people have built.

I can also say that even after so much time, I have not even tried most of the devices that come with it for free. It's VERY easy to get sucked into trying to figure out the 1000+ devices out there for free. It can be a huge time suck. Not in learning to develop them yourself but just in trying to figure out what on earth a device actually does if they are poorly documented (or not documented at all)

For my own work, the fact that Max for Live supports Video and Reaktor doesn't was enough reason to learn it.

[JuanSOLO]

I've had Reaktor for years, and only learned a little along the way modifying ensembles from the UL.

I've had M4L since it was released and have learned to build great personal devices that make my Live experience even better.
The Max documentation is far superior to Reaktor, along with the incredibly helpful M4L community.
I find the best part of M4L is once you get comfortable with it, you can come up with little solutions in very little time.
FOR EXAMPLE:
I want to control the Send A B and C amount of my drumRack from devices that are nested in cells for each hit, in about 15mins I have it done for 16 cells.
I want to have my kick midi note, send to devices all over my set, DONE!
I want to make a floating GUI that lets me view, adjust, store and recall ALL of my 300+ parameters in my drumRack, took some work, but totally doable!
I want to make different Tracks mute on/off depending on wether or not a looper has recorded and is playing a loop. SURE!
I want my Ms Pinky Vinyl to load loops I have recorded into a looper for vinyl manipulation, not really that difficult.
Custom control surface tricks, HELL YEAH!

M4L has been provided SO much goodness even through all the buggyness of its initial release.
Looking forward to Live 9 and any updates improving M4L integration.
Seems it could only get better.

[arachnaut]

I have found that I spend a very large part of my Reaktor building time spent in debugging. It sounds like Max is easier to debug.

[trevox]

I have found that I spend a very large part of my Reaktor building time spent in debugging. It sounds like Max is easier to debug.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that! It's easier in the sense that you can print out whatever message is coming out of an object at a specific point to see where you may have gone wrong, but I would say debugging is also the biggest time consumer in building Max/M4L patches.

[pid]

in max there is an entire menu entry called "Debug". it is amazing. you should take a look at it. a lot more there than "print" (although you are totally correct of course, "print" rocks!)

if your thing is synths and synths only, then reaktor is fantastic (although a nightmare to build creatively in). but if your thing is anything else at all (including "synths and..."), max / m4l is unbeatable. liveAPI, jitter (video), opengl (gpu), javascript, lua (in max6), Gen (in max6, it is awesome), oh, and midi and synths and sampling and all that jazz.

since m4l based on max 5.1.8 came out, m4l has been solid and brilliant. cannot wait for live9 / m4l2.