Max for Live has been an interesting journey for me. I wont bother with too much detail, but basically it pushed me out of Ableton and into Max independent.
I found that the Live aspect was too dominant. I felt still like I was just using Live and locked into that way of thinking. Whereas using only Max I felt free and liberated and forced into a situation where I had to use Max or use nothing.
Also I felt the learning curve for integrating max into Live (like UI interactions) was very steep (for me anyways, but maybe I just needed to spend more time with it).
But the question is how much can I afford to leave Ableton behind now that I feel much happier in max? I don't need a timeline, max's sequencing capabilities I'm pretty sure are well up to scratch for my needs. There's the dreaded summing question also.. can I trust Max to be sum all my sounds well enough?
Sorry. Quite an introverted post but a few questions that I'd be very keen to clear up. Obviously I'm not suggesting that maxforLive is bad. Just for my tastes and workflow it hasn't quite worked out.
some questions (answered)
some questions (answered)
Last edited by slow riot on Thu Feb 25, 2010 10:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: some questions
I think there is no general answer.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Just try using Max alone and see how it works for you.
Personally I'm primarily a Max user, and consider M4L as a very useful addition.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Just try using Max alone and see how it works for you.
Personally I'm primarily a Max user, and consider M4L as a very useful addition.
Re: some questions
One day there will be a Live 9 and a Max 6.0. Together they may form M4L 2.0
While we've seen Max get incorporated into Live and a little of Live into Max, whatever we're seeing now probably pales in comparison to what both these companies see for the future.
My point here is, it may be hard to get rid of Live in the long run. If you move on to something that suits your workflow and productivity better, nobody will blame you.
I have a mate who ditched Live for Max, fell in love with modularity, built a big analog modular rig and now he's making Arduino sequencers in M4L and combines everything. Topped off with plenty of OSC control.
Whatever works for you is the thing that'll make you happy doing it. Its an old cliche, but do what feels right and fun.
While we've seen Max get incorporated into Live and a little of Live into Max, whatever we're seeing now probably pales in comparison to what both these companies see for the future.
My point here is, it may be hard to get rid of Live in the long run. If you move on to something that suits your workflow and productivity better, nobody will blame you.
I have a mate who ditched Live for Max, fell in love with modularity, built a big analog modular rig and now he's making Arduino sequencers in M4L and combines everything. Topped off with plenty of OSC control.
Whatever works for you is the thing that'll make you happy doing it. Its an old cliche, but do what feels right and fun.
Re: some questions
thanks for the replies guys.
I think partly I'm forcing myself into this situation as I want to sell stuff to buy more stuff. But I think I should be more patient.
I'm definitely having a bit of an 'i don't want to touch ableton' phase. but probably the best thing to do will be to put it to one side and have fun with max, rather than get rid of Live altogether. especially with what might be on the horizon.
I think partly I'm forcing myself into this situation as I want to sell stuff to buy more stuff. But I think I should be more patient.
I'm definitely having a bit of an 'i don't want to touch ableton' phase. but probably the best thing to do will be to put it to one side and have fun with max, rather than get rid of Live altogether. especially with what might be on the horizon.
Re: some questions
i had a little talk with someone about summing quality in Max.
I don't think Max is at all optimised for precision audio summing, which is an expensive process, espcially in the max system which is calculating summing at every tiny point in the signal chain.
This is one reason why I would not like to use Max as my only audio environment.
I think for me the the issue I had was one of balance. My creative flow was asking me not to use Live so much.
However there is a lot that this Ableton Cycling74 collaboration will bring, as it brings together a lot of different necessary things from 2 different environments. And even though it is interesting at the moment there is a high possiblity of this collaboration becoming even more itneresting in the future.
yo.
I don't think Max is at all optimised for precision audio summing, which is an expensive process, espcially in the max system which is calculating summing at every tiny point in the signal chain.
This is one reason why I would not like to use Max as my only audio environment.
I think for me the the issue I had was one of balance. My creative flow was asking me not to use Live so much.
However there is a lot that this Ableton Cycling74 collaboration will bring, as it brings together a lot of different necessary things from 2 different environments. And even though it is interesting at the moment there is a high possiblity of this collaboration becoming even more itneresting in the future.
yo.