Max 6 for Max for Live ?

[discopimp]

hello,

i have a Max 4 Live license (but not the complete Max) and i'm wondering if i should download and install Max 6 now or does Max 4 Live only work with 5.1.9 ?

[stringtapper]

Max for Live will work with Max 6 but it is not yet officially supported and the newer features in Max 6 won't work, so it's best to keep 5.1.9 as your Max for Live editor for the time being.

[synnack]

http://www.maxforlive.com/news.php?id=115

[jon_moore]

I've managed to get a little more light on this matter from Andrew Pask (C74) over on the C74 forum.

http://cycling74.com/forums/topic.php?id=36738

As you'll see there are big advantages to using Max 6 with M4L (64-Bit audio objects, integration of Gen based patches etc.) And if you come across any incompatibilities it's simply a matter of changing your Max path back to 5.19 in Live's preferences.

From a personal perspective the improvements to Max's audio engine alone have made the upgrade worthwhile. If you AB test the the audio effects (included in the M4L library) running via the 5.19 path to those via 6.01 you'll notice a huge improvement.

Download the 6 demo and see if it interferes with your workflow much. They'll be the odd patch where you'll need to revert to 5.19 but in my experience so far this has happened on only a few occasions (and then mainly with third party patches downloaded from max4live.com).

JM
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http://soundcloud.com/leftside-wobble

[stringtapper]

My statements here and on the C74 forum were based on what one of the Ableton employees said here when Max 6 was first released. Apparently they didn't know what they were talking about at the time?

[jon_moore]

My statements here and on the C74 forum were based on what one of the Ableton employees said here when Max 6 was first released. Apparently they didn't know what they were talking about at the time?

Hey there, don't take things so personally. I think the C74 line during the beta period was really a support issue. M4L is unlikely to be officially supported until quarter 2 of 2012 but this is the official line as detailed on their Max 6 FAQ page @ http://cycling74.com/support/faq_max6/:


Is Max 6 Max for Live compatible?
If you own Max 6, you may use it as your Max for Live device editor. If you only own Max for Live, or Max for Live and Max 5, you will use Max 5 as your device editor.

Will Gen work in Max for Live?
Gen works within Max for Live with a full Max 6 license. However, to edit Gen patchers in Max 6 or Max for Live, you will need to own a Gen license, which is an affordable add on to Max 6.

I would agree that they've not been explicit about the specifics of using Max 6 with M4L but I don't think there was anything intentional in this. Max 6 is a massive upgrade to what was already a very complex program and unfortunately for us in the M4L community, we're probably not at the top of their priority list during these early days of the new version launch; at least not until Max 6 and M4L have officially been integrated.

stringtapper, I've always found the information you post here on the Ableton forum to be extremely helpful and I wasn't intending to contradict the information you provided in this thread about Max 6, just expand upon it based on updated facts from C74.

Sorry if I caused offence.

JM
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http://soundcloud.com/leftside-wobble

[stringtapper]

Wait, what? No offense here.

I actually wasn't even responding to you directly. I was just letting people know that I wasn't trying to spread misinformation, but was rather going off of what was said here.

If you buy Max 6 standalone now, it is possible to use it with Max for Live - but if you want to publish your devices and make them available to Max for Live users who do not have Max 6 and in general ensure compatibility, the parallel installations are the best way to go. Also, the Max 6 functionality has not been thoroughly tested in M4L and I would highly recommend using Max 5 at this point - a Max 6-compatible version of Max for Live will be available in the future.

I was going by that statement the whole time and so I haven't even tried to use any of the new features (read: Gen) with M4L yet. Good to know that I can start!

And thanks for bringing this to people's attention, I had totally missed that line in the FAQ. You would think Gen working in M4L is kind of an important detail they'd want to let people know about.

[jon_moore]

All cool Mister.

JM
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http://soundcloud.com/leftside-wobble

[Per Boysen]

Ok, I've been reading this thread plus Ableton's and Cycling's web sites, saying that "it works ok to use Max 6 with M4L" - but it still isn't clear to me if you need to buy both the M4L license and the Max 6 license?

[jon_moore]

Ok, I've been reading this thread plus Ableton's and Cycling's web sites, saying that "it works ok to use Max 6 with M4L" - but it still isn't clear to me if you need to buy both the M4L license and the Max 6 license?

To use Max 6 as your M4L editor you have to own a full Max 6 license otherwise Max 6 will only work for the 30 day demo period. It's easy enough to swap between Max 5 and Max 6 in your Live preferences though. I've heard it could be as late as Qrt 2 before Max 6 is fully integrated with M4L so if you want to take advantage of the new stuff in 6 before that time you'll need a full 6 license.

At first I was a tad miffed by this but having bitten the bullet and upgraded to 6 I've found that I'm building far more stuff outside of the M4L environment and really appreciate the improvements in 6 from both a user experience standpoint and the improvements in the audio engine (64 bit processing on MSP objects).

In saying that I also appreciate that $299 is a fairly hefty crossgrade fee for M4L users. It's more palatable if you already own a full Max 5 license.

JM
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http://soundcloud.com/leftside-wobble

[Per Boysen]

Thank you. To be clear: what I can't find a clear information about is whether or not I need to also buy a M4L license in order to run the objects I create with Max 6 inside M4L?

As I remember it, the main difference back when Pluggo was discontinued in favor of M4L was that you needed to buy M4L in order to run the patches created with M4L. So how does this relate to Max 6 vs M4L? Does a Max 6 license allow you to open created patches as M4L patches within Ableton Live?

[jon_moore]

Thank you. To be clear: what I can't find a clear information about is whether or not I need to also buy a M4L license in order to run the objects I create with Max 6 inside M4L?

As I remember it, the main difference back when Pluggo was discontinued in favor of M4L was that you needed to buy M4L in order to run the patches created with M4L. So how does this relate to Max 6 vs M4L? Does a Max 6 license allow you to open created patches as M4L patches within Ableton Live?

You need to own both licenses if you want to use Max 6 objects in Live. However you only need a M4L license to use Max 5 objects within Live.

I hope this is clearer.

JM
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http://soundcloud.com/leftside-wobble

[Per Boysen]

Thank you jon_moore, the policy is totally clear now! ) I'll have to back off for now but will keep an eye on finances to hopefully pick up both licenses some day.