Max For Live licenses vs Max license

Learn about building and using Max for Live devices.
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Stromkraft
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Max For Live licenses vs Max license

Post by Stromkraft » Sat Apr 09, 2016 11:20 am

So what are really the limitations with the MaxForLive license compared to a full Max 7 license?

What is that you can do with Max 7 that you actually cannot do with Max For Live? I seem to get conflicting information about this. Maybe something changed with Max 7. I never really explored the 30 day demo you get with a full Max license when first installing Max.

So different uses I see are:
  • Use Max devices inside Live
  • Save control settings of said devices as presets and as settings used in the Set
  • Open devices in Max app and make changes to existing devices and save as a new devices or as an edit of the existing
  • Make your own Max devices from scratch using objects in Max environment
  • Add your own code
  • Distribute your devices to others
I assume you can do all of these things and maybe more — What did I miss? — with a full Max license. What can't you do with a MFL license?
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S4racen
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Re: Max For Live licenses vs Max license

Post by S4racen » Sat Apr 09, 2016 1:42 pm

Make standalones so people who don't have max can run them...

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D

stringtapper
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Re: Max For Live licenses vs Max license

Post by stringtapper » Sat Apr 09, 2016 7:18 pm

Stromkraft wrote:I assume you can do all of these things and maybe more — What did I miss? — with a full Max license. What can't you do with a MFL license?
A full Max license does not let you make M4L devices and run them in Live. You have to have a M4L license to do that.

Likewise a M4L license does not let you run Max as a standalone app without being launched through Live (pressing the Edit button on a M4L device).

Also, you keep using the term "Max devices" but it's not entirely clear if you mean a M4L device or a Max patch.

M4L Device = .amxd file

Max Patch = .maxpat file
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Stromkraft
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Re: Max For Live licenses vs Max license

Post by Stromkraft » Sat Apr 09, 2016 8:50 pm

S4racen wrote:Make standalones so people who don't have max can run them...
I didn't even realize this was possible, but that's a nice feature.
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S4racen
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Re: Max For Live licenses vs Max license

Post by S4racen » Sat Apr 09, 2016 10:00 pm

Yeah that;s how our Circuit Editor came to be, build it in Max (don't rely on Live Crashing) and then export to M4L (.amxd) and a standalone... The standalone file is big but it works without max...

Cheers
D

Stromkraft
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Re: Max For Live licenses vs Max license

Post by Stromkraft » Sat Apr 09, 2016 10:15 pm

stringtapper wrote:
Stromkraft wrote:I assume you can do all of these things and maybe more — What did I miss? — with a full Max license. What can't you do with a MFL license?
A full Max license does not let you make M4L devices and run them in Live. You have to have a M4L license to do that.

Likewise a M4L license does not let you run Max as a standalone app without being launched through Live (pressing the Edit button on a M4L device).
Thanks for the clarifications, Stringtapper. Assuming I already have a MFL license and I get a Max license, then I can both make new devices and run them in Live on my own box as well as distribute it to others?

Does the MFL license allow me to add or change things in an existing device, commercial or free, and run that inside Live? Though I cant distribute this to be run outside of Live nor let others use it?

At the moment I'm nearing the point in time where I'll be choosing between Reaktor and Max for development of some musical devices for my own use mainly. Reaktor 6 feels more attractive than ever before but I don't want to dismiss Max just yet.

I'll slowly try to learn more about Max development. I'm especially interested in making my own MIDI devices, even though there are some great ones out there already.

I must say the new Max 7 intro is really nice. I don't think I've opened Max since v6 so v7 is a positive development indeed.
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stringtapper
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Re: Max For Live licenses vs Max license

Post by stringtapper » Sun Apr 10, 2016 2:23 pm

Stromkraft wrote:Assuming I already have a MFL license and I get a Max license, then I can both make new devices and run them in Live on my own box as well as distribute it to others?
Whether you can distribute anything has nothing to do with owning a full Max license. With a M4L license you can make any M4L device you want and distribute it as you want.

Stromkraft wrote:Does the MFL license allow me to add or change things in an existing device, commercial or free, and run that inside Live? Though I cant distribute this to be run outside of Live nor let others use it?
You can edit any M4L device if you have a M4L license.

There is no built-in copy protection scheme for M4L devices, but several developers who have made commercial M4L devices have devised strategies to make sure people can't get to the code, or at least so that getting to it is difficult.

What you can do with existing devices, both commercial and non-commercial, depends on the specific license that the device creator has applied to the device.

Stromkraft wrote:I'll slowly try to learn more about Max development. I'm especially interested in making my own MIDI devices, even though there are some great ones out there already.
MIDI is the easy stuff compared to coding DSP, so it's a great place for a beginner to start. Check the resources in the sticky thread at the top of this sub-forum and make sure to go through the excellent Max tutorials.

If all you ever want to do is make M4L devices then a full Max license is not necessary.
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Stromkraft
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Re: Max For Live licenses vs Max license

Post by Stromkraft » Mon Apr 11, 2016 8:47 am

Very enlightening, Stringtapper. Thank you for answering. Max suddenly looks very attractive again.
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stringtapper
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Re: Max For Live licenses vs Max license

Post by stringtapper » Mon Apr 11, 2016 4:04 pm

Stromkraft wrote:Max suddenly looks very attractive again.
The integration with the host is what sets it apart from Reaktor.

You'll also want to investigate the Live API and the Live Object Model (LOM) for designing M4L devices that can use the unique features of the M4L/Live integration.
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Stromkraft
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Re: Max For Live licenses vs Max license

Post by Stromkraft » Mon Apr 11, 2016 9:35 pm

stringtapper wrote:
Stromkraft wrote:Max suddenly looks very attractive again.
The integration with the host is what sets it apart from Reaktor.

You'll also want to investigate the Live API and the Live Object Model (LOM) for designing M4L devices that can use the unique features of the M4L/Live integration.
Thanks for the suggestion. I'm very interested in the API actually. Even after 3 years in use, possibly because it's maturing, Live 9 is really growing on me.
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S4racen
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Re: Max For Live licenses vs Max license

Post by S4racen » Tue Apr 12, 2016 9:11 am

The API integration is getting better with each release, there is a theme though... If Push 2 needs it, it's gets developed!

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D

ChironControl
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Re: Max For Live licenses vs Max license

Post by ChironControl » Wed Apr 20, 2016 11:05 am

Stromkraft wrote:....

I assume you can do all of these things and maybe more — What did I miss? — with a full Max license. What can't you do with a MFL license?
I am thinking of purchasing a full Max license in addition to my existing M4L license because of the following reason:
In M4L you are limited to the 2 channel audio routing structure from Live. In Max it is possible to directly adress multichannel audio output. For multi channel synthesizer modules this would makes things easier.

chapelier fou
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Re: Max For Live licenses vs Max license

Post by chapelier fou » Wed Apr 20, 2016 1:08 pm

I might be wrong, but at least with max 6, there was a bug.
You would create a M4L device. Edit it. It opens Max. While it's open, you could create regular Max patches.
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S4racen
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Re: Max For Live licenses vs Max license

Post by S4racen » Wed Apr 20, 2016 1:19 pm

chapelier fou wrote:I might be wrong, but at least with max 6, there was a bug.
You would create a M4L device. Edit it. It opens Max. While it's open, you could create regular Max patches.
That works if the trial is still valid these days...

Cheers
D

stringtapper
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Re: Max For Live licenses vs Max license

Post by stringtapper » Wed Apr 20, 2016 2:23 pm

S4racen wrote:
chapelier fou wrote:I might be wrong, but at least with max 6, there was a bug.
You would create a M4L device. Edit it. It opens Max. While it's open, you could create regular Max patches.
That works if the trial is still valid these days...

Cheers
D
Someone here recently said that they have always been able to do this. They only had a M4L license.

I have never been able to test things like this because I've never not had had a full Max license since before M4L was released. But something that person said made sense: how could you make abstractions or bpatchers for M4L devices if you couldn't save .maxpat files?

I really wish Ableton/Cycling 74 would come out with a short document on M4L that really explains everything about the licensing and how it differs from Max standalone from a technical standpoint. I always find myself answering questions like this but then even I get confused!
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