Cycling 74 Influence

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JBlongz
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Cycling 74 Influence

Post by JBlongz » Wed May 04, 2016 3:50 pm

How much does Ableton really depend on Cycling 74? Sure, it is great for making custom devices. Its like having a built-in Reaktor. But, how much does MAX affect the development of Live? When considering a major change in direction, or significant enhancement...how much does C74's operations affect key decisions at the Ableton office?
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stringtapper
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Re: Cycling 74 Influence

Post by stringtapper » Wed May 04, 2016 5:38 pm

JBlongz wrote:How much does Ableton really depend on Cycling 74? Sure, it is great for making custom devices. Its like having a built-in Reaktor. But, how much does MAX affect the development of Live? When considering a major change in direction, or significant enhancement...how much does C74's operations affect key decisions at the Ableton office?
As a customer of both companies for several years (and before M4L) I would say that the influence is much stronger in the other direction.

Many of the design choices that Cycling 74 has made with Max 4–>5–>6–>7 have been direct results of their observations of design decisions on the part of Ableton.

Max 7's browser-based design is totally derived from what they like about the Live experience and they're not shy about admitting it.

Now, if you're actually asking if Ableton decides whether or not to develop certain features based on if M4L can introduce the feature, then you'll have to ask Ableton.
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JBlongz
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Re: Cycling 74 Influence

Post by JBlongz » Wed May 04, 2016 6:36 pm

I really wonder if C74 is holding Ableton back from its full potential. I notice Live gets more sluggish with each release. I've been a user since version 4, and if it wasn't for Push 2, I'd be using my "other license" aka "evil twin".
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stringtapper
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Re: Cycling 74 Influence

Post by stringtapper » Wed May 04, 2016 6:41 pm

I doubt Cycling 74 themselves are holding back Ableton at all. I'm not even sure what power they could possibly have to hold them back even if they wanted to for some weird reason.

If what you're actually asking is whether M4L development is holding Ableton back then only Ableton know that.

In what way exactly do you imagine M4L holding Ableton back?
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chapelier fou
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Re: Cycling 74 Influence

Post by chapelier fou » Wed May 04, 2016 9:08 pm

I've been a customer of both for...many years.
As long as i love and use M4L, i still think the partnership locks a lot of potential.
The best example : ClyphX will never be a part of Live, and in many ways, for all the API stuff, i find it more clever, and more open to non programmers than M4L.
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kleine
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Re: Cycling 74 Influence

Post by kleine » Thu May 05, 2016 1:25 pm

Stringtapper is quite right here.
You pretty much have Live the way it would be without M4L if you'd take out M4L right now.

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c

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Re: Cycling 74 Influence

Post by chapelier fou » Thu May 05, 2016 3:39 pm

But would you say that it stops you from adding a script language like ClyphX, or Native LFO, now that it's in the M4L territory ?
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kleine
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Re: Cycling 74 Influence

Post by kleine » Thu May 05, 2016 3:47 pm

No, it doesn't. Why should it? Just because there's a M4L for something doesn't mean it might come natively at some point.
But as usual, there are thousands of wishes for functions and the challenge is to maintain a healthy balance between workflow speed, quality, depth, elegance, innovation etc.
In the recent months we saw Link, Push2, a new Simpler, many little (on the surface) detail optimisations...

Oh, an by the way: Natively does not automatically mean it's without cost, so for certain things we should be happy that there's M4L in Live but also it shouldn't be the answer to everything there isn't (that was never the intent anyway).

Best,
c

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Re: Cycling 74 Influence

Post by Angstrom » Thu May 05, 2016 4:52 pm

I would expect that the effect Cycling had on Live was in contributing toward the potential direction of growth of the API. Of course the other partners will have fed into that growth direction too, Akai, Novation and Push2 requirements very likely urged the development of certain endpoints. I would expect the same for Max4Live.
So ... All of these affiliates and the main developers might say things like "it would be nice if we could call browser methods via the API" (or whatever) and that gets fed into the spec process alongside the other affiliates requests and perhaps an API hook is made once the use cases are evaluated.

So, in that case people writing python, or using Clyphx, they too gain access to the new API methods. API endpoints are usually a safe development from a user standpoint, in that they dont usually slow or destabilise software. It's a socket which does nothing unless you plug into it.
Of course, if you plug a wonky input into an endpoint then its possible that annoying things could happen.

chapelier fou
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Re: Cycling 74 Influence

Post by chapelier fou » Thu May 05, 2016 7:18 pm

kleine wrote:No, it doesn't. Why should it? Just because there's a M4L for something doesn't mean it might come natively at some point.
But as usual, there are thousands of wishes for functions and the challenge is to maintain a healthy balance between workflow speed, quality, depth, elegance, innovation etc.
In the recent months we saw Link, Push2, a new Simpler, many little (on the surface) detail optimisations...

Oh, an by the way: Natively does not automatically mean it's without cost, so for certain things we should be happy that there's M4L in Live but also it shouldn't be the answer to everything there isn't (that was never the intent anyway).

Best,
c
Thanks for the answer.
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