The lack of a good, centralized M4L Community?
Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 5:34 pm
To the M4L Admins & Mods,
I want to start off saying that I've been excited about Max For Live since it was announced, jumped on the beta as soon as I could and bought the software the day it was released. I understand its a 1.0 release, and therefore still has some rough edges and missing pieces and I'm fine with the occasional crash or some desired function missing from the API knowing that these things will be fixed in a timely manner.
However, I am a bit concerned about what seems like a lack of effort and initiative to foster an active and centralized community for M4L users. I understand the product was just released and these things take time, but the lack of some simple actions on Ableton and Cycling74's part makes me a little unsure how invested each party is to this product. Most of these concerns are trivial, but I think have large symbolic value in showing active Vendor support. For a product in which much of its potential is still unrealized and many of us have bought it for what it will BECOME and what it COULD EVENTUALLY do, token displays of active consideration are extremely important.
My requests are as follows:
1) One OFFICIAL forum dedicated to Max For Live users: Why are you fracturing this already small community between the Ableton and Cycling74 forums? Yes, I understand it is a joint project, but this feels to me like neither company wants to take ownership of this community completely. I paid Ableton $300 for this software (and I mean JUST Ableton, whatever behind-the-scenes revenue sharing you do is not my concern. I bought the software on your site, and you charged my credit card), WHY is only forum for Max For Live the Beta Discussion? This signals that you aren't paying attention, and it does not breed confidence.
Most users have gotten in the habit of duplicate posting across both forums. This is a waste of time and energy, and serves only to make it so we have to jump between similar posts on both forums to see all the relevant comments. Nothing is gained, but effectiveness is lost.
2) An official repository for M4L patches: Seriously, this is pretty much why 50% of people buy Reaktor: for access to its fantastic user-generated repository. I want to give props to synnack for creating http://www.maxforlive.com and taking initiative to do this himself but this really is something Ableton should be creating for its users. This is a golden opportunity for adding some serious value-add and help justify to people on the fence why they should shell out the $300: Not only do you get the playground, but access to tons of useful devices as well.
3) Communication on future extensions to the API: File this one under "would be nice", but should I hold my breath waiting for access to set the absolute playback position in a session clip, or invest the time coding a workaround? If I spend weeks coding a workaround for a problem I have and then the API is updated with a simple fix, I'll be pissed that I wasted all that time that I could have done something else. I understand the trepidation involved in exposing too much of what you're working on and then getting tons of heat when you have to scale back (call it the Windows Vista effect), but just knowing WHAT is in the pipeline, and a rough estimate of when to expect it (weeks? months? a year?) would be extremely nice, if just to show us that you're working on it.
Honestly, I am truly happy with the software and my experience with it thus far has been positive. You guys really did a good job up to this point. With a few small things, I think it could be absolutely great. I think if you just put a little effort into these key areas to keep the community engaged, you'll really have a game changer on your hands.
I want to start off saying that I've been excited about Max For Live since it was announced, jumped on the beta as soon as I could and bought the software the day it was released. I understand its a 1.0 release, and therefore still has some rough edges and missing pieces and I'm fine with the occasional crash or some desired function missing from the API knowing that these things will be fixed in a timely manner.
However, I am a bit concerned about what seems like a lack of effort and initiative to foster an active and centralized community for M4L users. I understand the product was just released and these things take time, but the lack of some simple actions on Ableton and Cycling74's part makes me a little unsure how invested each party is to this product. Most of these concerns are trivial, but I think have large symbolic value in showing active Vendor support. For a product in which much of its potential is still unrealized and many of us have bought it for what it will BECOME and what it COULD EVENTUALLY do, token displays of active consideration are extremely important.
My requests are as follows:
1) One OFFICIAL forum dedicated to Max For Live users: Why are you fracturing this already small community between the Ableton and Cycling74 forums? Yes, I understand it is a joint project, but this feels to me like neither company wants to take ownership of this community completely. I paid Ableton $300 for this software (and I mean JUST Ableton, whatever behind-the-scenes revenue sharing you do is not my concern. I bought the software on your site, and you charged my credit card), WHY is only forum for Max For Live the Beta Discussion? This signals that you aren't paying attention, and it does not breed confidence.
Most users have gotten in the habit of duplicate posting across both forums. This is a waste of time and energy, and serves only to make it so we have to jump between similar posts on both forums to see all the relevant comments. Nothing is gained, but effectiveness is lost.
2) An official repository for M4L patches: Seriously, this is pretty much why 50% of people buy Reaktor: for access to its fantastic user-generated repository. I want to give props to synnack for creating http://www.maxforlive.com and taking initiative to do this himself but this really is something Ableton should be creating for its users. This is a golden opportunity for adding some serious value-add and help justify to people on the fence why they should shell out the $300: Not only do you get the playground, but access to tons of useful devices as well.
3) Communication on future extensions to the API: File this one under "would be nice", but should I hold my breath waiting for access to set the absolute playback position in a session clip, or invest the time coding a workaround? If I spend weeks coding a workaround for a problem I have and then the API is updated with a simple fix, I'll be pissed that I wasted all that time that I could have done something else. I understand the trepidation involved in exposing too much of what you're working on and then getting tons of heat when you have to scale back (call it the Windows Vista effect), but just knowing WHAT is in the pipeline, and a rough estimate of when to expect it (weeks? months? a year?) would be extremely nice, if just to show us that you're working on it.
Honestly, I am truly happy with the software and my experience with it thus far has been positive. You guys really did a good job up to this point. With a few small things, I think it could be absolutely great. I think if you just put a little effort into these key areas to keep the community engaged, you'll really have a game changer on your hands.