Angstrom wrote:Machinesworking wrote:I think the thing that really doesn't make any sense is how they pretty much abandoned all their UI standards when they decided to add more or less an object oriented programming language to their
super simple intuitive user interface™.
I really have no idea how this pairing made any sense in terms of their original selling point VS the big dinosaur DAWs like Logic, Cubase, DP, Sonar etc. ??
So now the selling point is something like, "You can get started right away making loops and writing melodies in Session View, and if you want to delve deeper into the program, take a course in Max/MSP and after a year you can write a basic synth as powerful as the original VSTs from 1996!"
Seriously there's an uncanny valley between Live's original intuitive interface and Max 4 Live. Compare this to some relatively simple problems you might run into in DP, Logic, Cubase etc. To get up and running learning 90% of what Cubase, DP, Logic do would take you about a year, in Live, you can get the basic program in a couple months, but to use Max 4 Live at 90% will take you several years. I see how it appeals to certain people, but not all of us are programmers.
I agree 100% and I spend all day programming for a dayjob, so it's not like I can't extend a class or figure out variable scope. It offends me because its so wrong.
The problem comes when people who love Max can't understand the problem of putting an IDE in a music app. They think the naysayers are too daft to program, and so just want "simple" so say "well here's an LFO we made", and "here's a Midi echo device". They can't see it. Cannot grasp it. It's invisible to them. "But look at BEAP, or maxforcats, they made a modular inside the app inside the app! Isn't that good" . No. It is not good. It is ludicrous.
Live is a modular synth, it has audio generators, modulation sources, filters, resonators, delays, waveshapers. Live has all the components of a massively modular synth programmed by experts to have the best audio quality and CPU usage. In Live you can stack and route audio sources and processors, and route inputs to outputs.
However you cant do sub-device routing of those modulators, and audio. You cant use Operator's envelope on the ringmod, you can't run the resonators through Operator. As a massively intuitive polyphonic modular environment it nearly, nearly works. All it needs is a mod-out button. An "audio from". All it needs is a parameter routing facility. Mod-out to destination. It was nearly nearly there! They brought in macros and the routing panel. But then ....
So what do Ableton do? they say "throw all that away, forget everything you have learned about our interface and our instruments and easy intuitive creation, if you want to send operator LFO to the ringmod now you must
make your own operator, and your own ringmod, and try to connect the ports, good luck sucker."
Bitwig got it right, Ableton got it wrong.
Sure M4L is powerful, but did that effort pay off for 80% of the users wanting to connect A to B to C to A?
Nope. M4L was a mistake. It was an un-needed side road. A distraction.
That is unless you are one of the 200 people loving making buffershufflers and controller scripts, or selling packs. Just loving their IDE.