I've dived more heavily into Max always the intention of learning customize my APC40 (which I consider a very poor, uninventive device). I had no idea there was no real official documentation for the APC40 on that level. It really is just comprised of a smattering of random videos a few articles. That's it.
Why isn there official documentation on the object model for the APC40? Is it business reasons? Is it Akai's responsibility? Ableton's? Are neither of them concerned? Do you think they're under the impression that the community doesn't care about the issue?
Why isn't there official Obj Model documentation for APC40?
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estevan carlos benson
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Why isn't there official Obj Model documentation for APC40?
Live 9 Suite | M4L | MacBook Pro Quadcore 16gb ram | APC40
estevancarlos.com | The Handsomest Drowned Man
estevancarlos.com | The Handsomest Drowned Man
Re: Why isn't there official Obj Model documentation for APC40?
Everything you need is out there, it is a controller that does exactly what it says on the tin… You want to customise it then the research and experimentation is down to you…
No one's ever said it's got an editor or alluded to it, they pretty much delivered day one what they said they would and moved onto the Push…
Cheers
D
No one's ever said it's got an editor or alluded to it, they pretty much delivered day one what they said they would and moved onto the Push…
Cheers
D
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estevan carlos benson
- Posts: 261
- Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2007 5:50 pm
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Re: Why isn't there official Obj Model documentation for APC40?
If you don't know the answer, that's fine. Obviously they didn't have to do a wide variety of things. My question has more to do with why didn't they consider it worthwhile from a business perspective or additional feature.S4racen wrote:Everything you need is out there, it is a controller that does exactly what it says on the tin… You want to customise it then the research and experimentation is down to you…
No one's ever said it's got an editor or alluded to it, they pretty much delivered day one what they said they would and moved onto the Push…
Cheers
D
Live 9 Suite | M4L | MacBook Pro Quadcore 16gb ram | APC40
estevancarlos.com | The Handsomest Drowned Man
estevancarlos.com | The Handsomest Drowned Man
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Johnisfaster
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Re: Why isn't there official Obj Model documentation for APC40?
I have a completely speculative idea as to why, which is about as much as anyone is going to be able to give you.
If there was an official reference on how to make patches that change how the apc40 worked then every hack out there would be able to make patches for the apc40. Why would that be bad? well look at maxforlive.com for example: Sure there is a lot of good stuff there but there is also a bunch of stuff that barely works or doesn't work at all. Not bashing it, I love all the free stuff and don't mind digging through it to find gems, but if tons of people started making apc40 patches you'd get a higher rate of badly written patches which could lead to the apc40 mistakenly getting a reputation for not working very well. So maybe they left the documentation out so that only the gifted max patchers would be making patches for the apc40, increasing the amount of apc40 patches that worked well and making the apc40 seem rock solid.
Most of that was bullshit.
If there was an official reference on how to make patches that change how the apc40 worked then every hack out there would be able to make patches for the apc40. Why would that be bad? well look at maxforlive.com for example: Sure there is a lot of good stuff there but there is also a bunch of stuff that barely works or doesn't work at all. Not bashing it, I love all the free stuff and don't mind digging through it to find gems, but if tons of people started making apc40 patches you'd get a higher rate of badly written patches which could lead to the apc40 mistakenly getting a reputation for not working very well. So maybe they left the documentation out so that only the gifted max patchers would be making patches for the apc40, increasing the amount of apc40 patches that worked well and making the apc40 seem rock solid.
Most of that was bullshit.
It was as if someone shook up a 6 foot can of blood soda and suddenly popped the top.
Re: Why isn't there official Obj Model documentation for APC40?
Max4Live came after the APC40 was designed and built, as it is you'll find it's not maximised to be used with it, some things are simply impossible for example… Disable the Clip Stop Buttons, but you can't re-enable them…estevan carlos benson wrote:
If you don't know the answer, that's fine. Obviously they didn't have to do a wide variety of things. My question has more to do with why didn't they consider it worthwhile from a business perspective or additional feature.
In addition the control_surface script changes on occasions so previous built devices cease to work with no explanation…
It all adds up to an unlikely event of having constantly updated documentation!
Cheers
D
Re: Why isn't there official Obj Model documentation for APC40?
The APC-40 was a botched product release, plain and simple. 
Akai never bothered to produce any real documentation for it. They're a faceless Japanese corporation with no real customer support.
Cycling74 OTOH is a tiny American company that didn't dedicate enough manpower to documentation - Max has always had excellent documentation in the past, but recently (perhaps because of their new built-in help system) they seem to have taken their eye off the ball (it's not just the APC or M4L, the new dict object is nearly crippled by C74's failure to provide adequate documentation, and there are other omissions in the reference docs). The fact that there's ANY LOM documentation for M4L is a miracle; apparently someone at C74 realized that need wasn't being addressed and pulled some overtime to throw something together, but the job was never properly completed.
And Ableton, who really should have been managing product integration, just sat back and watched the ball hit the ground, perhaps because their own Push product was already in the works. Frankly, one of the main reasons I have so little interest in the Push is that after getting burned by the APC I'm not interested in Ableton's hardware ventures. I don't trust them to actually get it right.
In short, don't buy an APC-40. One of its original selling points was that it would be re-configurable using Max4Live. Classic example of marketing overselling something that engineering never delivered. Yes, you can re-configure a lot of it via M4L (that's true of pretty much anything you use with M4L, it's one of Max's main raisons-d'etre), and some people (like S4racen) have put a lot of energy into reverse-engineering it, but the user configurability is hardly different from the old days of hacking Python scripts for the API, there's no meaningful official support, and there are some things that are flat-out impossible and will never be fixed (like the Clip Stop buttons example).
Akai never bothered to produce any real documentation for it. They're a faceless Japanese corporation with no real customer support.
Cycling74 OTOH is a tiny American company that didn't dedicate enough manpower to documentation - Max has always had excellent documentation in the past, but recently (perhaps because of their new built-in help system) they seem to have taken their eye off the ball (it's not just the APC or M4L, the new dict object is nearly crippled by C74's failure to provide adequate documentation, and there are other omissions in the reference docs). The fact that there's ANY LOM documentation for M4L is a miracle; apparently someone at C74 realized that need wasn't being addressed and pulled some overtime to throw something together, but the job was never properly completed.
And Ableton, who really should have been managing product integration, just sat back and watched the ball hit the ground, perhaps because their own Push product was already in the works. Frankly, one of the main reasons I have so little interest in the Push is that after getting burned by the APC I'm not interested in Ableton's hardware ventures. I don't trust them to actually get it right.
In short, don't buy an APC-40. One of its original selling points was that it would be re-configurable using Max4Live. Classic example of marketing overselling something that engineering never delivered. Yes, you can re-configure a lot of it via M4L (that's true of pretty much anything you use with M4L, it's one of Max's main raisons-d'etre), and some people (like S4racen) have put a lot of energy into reverse-engineering it, but the user configurability is hardly different from the old days of hacking Python scripts for the API, there's no meaningful official support, and there are some things that are flat-out impossible and will never be fixed (like the Clip Stop buttons example).