What did you expect from Max4Live?

arachnaut · Post by **arachnaut** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 4:12 am

"a set of objects that regulate access to Live and hardware devices."

"You can build new devices from scratch, modify existing ones..."

"Max for Live also provides objects that allow you to access and modify the inner workings of Live."

"...pretty much anything else you can see or hear in Live"

From this description at http://www.ableton.com/maxforlive

I expected to be able to program modulations of all Live devices - Simpler, Flanger,
Granular Delay, etc, at a low level - inside a Max instrument.

I am very disappointed with the resultant implementation.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 5:03 am

get over it and move on. you had preconceptions that were wrong.

arachnaut · Post by **arachnaut** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 5:06 am

Tone Deft wrote:get over it and move on. you had preconceptions that were wrong.

You're right, I'll stick with Reaktor.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 5:11 am

aww c'mon Jim, Reaktor has even less of the functionality you're looking for.

suit yourself but we could use a guy like you making patches with m4L.

arachnaut · Post by **arachnaut** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 5:26 am

Tone Deft wrote:aww c'mon Jim, Reaktor has even less of the functionality you're looking for.

suit yourself but we could use a guy like you making patches with m4L.

Yes, it's too late to change anything. sigh.

I expected a lot from this and I am really disappointed.

Maybe it's a matter of style, maybe it's one of definition. From what (LITTLE)
I've seen of Max4Live I am truly disappointed.

The buffer shufflers, granular resynths, and MIDI stuff I've seen in the lessons are all early 2004-era Reaktor 3/4 components.

Reaktor has come a very long way from this.

How do you define 'functionality' - is it the ability to press buttons in software? or the ability to manipulate large pre-defined objects?

I'll take Reaktor VST versus Max4Live as I see it now.

I hope I can be convinced that Ableton didn't make a big mistake in going with Max versus Reaktor.

I am open to argument, please convince me.

outershpongolia · Post by **outershpongolia** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 6:03 am

Did you make 2 threads?

Not to be forum police, but I know i'd bawked at for that.

arachnaut · Post by **arachnaut** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 6:08 am

outershpongolia wrote:Did you make 2 threads?

Not to be forum police, but I know i'd bawked at for that.

I think I made 4 threads about this. (Plus one in a Reaktor forum).

I'm very upset, bawk me.

If Microsoft said there was some software that would give access to the API to Excel, for example, I would expect to be able to get to the cell row and column and modify the contents, change the formula, stuff like that, at least if I was owner of the data (other users may not have such access). Compare that with Max 4 Live. It only allows one to press the buttons that Excel exposes to a user, like sort a column, capitalize, etc. That is a weak definition of API access.

Michael Hatsis · Post by **Michael Hatsis** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 7:56 am

Jim-

Have you looked into the api at all? You can do most of what your asking to do. Like control any of Lives params from a max device and mess with any clip in your set.
Ill agree with you on a couple points though - the mfl devices are like reaktor 2 or 3, and there's nothing like reaktor macros at this point, but i think in time hopefully people will port reaktor macros over to mfl

Gregory Wells-King · Post by **Gregory Wells-King** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:41 am

Interesting reading.

I didn't know there was a part of MAX to manipulate the Live program through itself. That sounds quite nasty, or a bag of worms I don't want to get into. However...

I guess you can't help make comparisons to other software, for me it's about useable content. The overall concept is a very sound one, but the included content (so far) looks not so good..

It's a bit of an urban legend at the moment but when I hear folks say 'There's too much choice really and yo have to narow things down a bit all over just to get a track finished' you understand what they mean like you said it.

And on that note, I'm going to continue with the days music making, and get off this forum...

Cheers guys

Poster · Post by **Poster** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 11:57 am

At the first announcement of MFL the idea of modifying the inner guts of Live devices crossed my mind,
but let go of that idea pretty fast since that would require dynamic change of signal paths which these devices aren't designed for..
Think of it; being able to have Sampler's LFO to modulate Operator's cut-off while running Sampler's output through Operator as a fifth oscilator is a totally different approach as to what MFL is all about..

Since you can replicate most of the Live devices pretty easy I don't see how this would restrain you in any way..

re: MFL vs. Reaktor
I have to agree on that one though.. If you're coming from Reaktor like myself, devices like Buffershuffler are no showstealers..
If I have to mention one disappointment I'd say that the stock devices are not really impressive.. (I mean the 'non-API devices', just the majority of Audio-MIDI stuff..)
But mind you; Reaktor had to come a long way as well.. I expect MFL will grow a tad faster since there already are plenty of inspireing concepts that can be ported to MFL..

And don't forget that Reaktor's communication with Live is like a banana asking for directions to a paper clip..
I truly love Reaktor but communication/integration with Live is hell..
To me the true beauty of it all is the tight integration and the amazing API stuff..

solconnection · Post by **solconnection** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:14 pm

so far M4L is everything i expected and more, over the moon with what it allows.

The integration is so nice. Im personnaly most exited about its midi processing abilities and interface integration, which is really tight and quite beyond what is possible with reaktor. I would probably never use M4L to build a synth (as in their FM synth tutorial) as i feel reaktor is much better suited to this sort of behaviour than MAX but for everything else, M4L all the way!!! Someone has already written a patch to load their email in to session clips, try doing that in reaktor, there are huge possibilities.

IMO it was completely unrealistic to expect to be able to re-engineer existing live devices.

aarontrinder1 · Post by **aarontrinder1** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:31 pm

I agree that the audio effects and virtual instruments are unlikely to ever get near the breadth and scope of the reaktor library. Its amazing. Also Reaktor is much more suited to quickly inventing a new software synth or audio effect because of all the built in macros.

However, for me M4L gives access to two key other areas.

1-Enhanced Interaction with hardware (the outside world) via Live API (OSC and Midi)
2-Jitter

stefan-tiedje · Post by **stefan-tiedje** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:27 pm

arachnaut wrote:I hope I can be convinced that Ableton didn't make a big mistake in going with Max versus Reaktor.

I am open to argument, please convince me.

I think the concepts of Reaktor and Max/MSP are pretty different. I can do things in Max which are simply impossible in Reaktor, but this is usually not something which sell well, I need it for myself. Its like with commercial synths, the presets sell, not the potential. Why does every commercial synth plug-in has reverb on board? Just to fake the sound into something sweet...
Reaktor is comming with lots and lots of useful readymade presets/patches no need to understand it. Max/MSP doesn't! You have to get your hands dirty yourself!

And your first complain about not being able to access/control parameters from other devices I don't understand, as far as I can see that is possible, there is even a thread about it, which seems to show a way to achieve it: http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=125767

And finally we are just starting, I have some weird devices to share, but they need some more time to ripe...
No problem if you don't get into it yourself, but I assure you its much less fun...

On your site there is a piece which claims you did it with a home brew analog synthesizer.
Max is like those home brewed instruments, Reaktor is like a doepfer modular synthesizer, and all your synth plug-ins are like preset romplers you can buy in a shop...
Once you built your own synthesizer you'd never exchange it with something readymade, though you'd probably use other synths without problem in addition to it....

Stefan

technog0d · Post by **technog0d** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:57 pm

Reaktor is really a totally different product with a different intent. Reaktor has a lot of prebuilt widgets that allow you to do things with Effects and synths and so on. You can access the lower layer like osculators and math functions and such. However, it is primarily designed to quickly create synths and effects. Max and M4L is more of a programming environment. You need to familiarize yourself with the different objects and use them to build the components that do what you want them to do. That is not to say that Ableton/Cycling74 haven't gone out of their way to make it easier and provide some ready made objects to allow user to quickly accomplish a task. They definitely have.

I have used both Reaktor and Max and i find them useful for different purposes. Max is definitely far more capable as a programming lanuage. There are things a simply cannot do in Reaktor that I can do it Max.

At the end of the day, you need to decide what your looking to do with any one of these environements. In any case you need to invest a little time in understanding the cocnepts and in doing so you can be greatly rewarded.

Poster · Post by **Poster** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 3:10 pm

technog0d wrote:Max and M4L is more of a programming environment. You need to familiarize yourself with the different objects and use them to build the components that do what you want them to do.

dunno what you exactly mean by this but you need to go through the exact same routine with Reaktor..
there's no 'instant familiarization' there either..

What did you expect from Max4Live?

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