Am I the *ONLY* one finding M4L actually honestly unusable!?

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stringtapper
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Re: Am I the *ONLY* one finding M4L actually honestly unusable!?

Post by stringtapper » Wed Feb 27, 2019 4:19 am

Angstrom wrote:
Tue Feb 26, 2019 12:31 pm
scheffkoch wrote:
Tue Feb 26, 2019 9:38 am
...i don't have problems with m4l devices and i use them a lot and have a lot of them implemented in my standard template...so what does that tell you?...maybe i'm just lucky but maybe others who have problems with m4l just use devices that are not built/designed in the best way...
I think this comment shines a light on my issue with Max in Live.

Consider that the defense of Max is to say that any substandard devices can cause issues:
"... others who have problems with m4l just use devices that are not built/designed in the best way..."

This Implies that its possible for a user to create something in the DAW which will destabilise the DAW. Surely that's not a good possibility. Have you ever created an operator patch which crashed the DAW, or written a series of midi notes which crashed the DAW? If they did it would be a bug, and Ableton would aim to fix it..

Ableton had a bit of a problem a few years back when Live 8 was released and many users encountered stability issues. Gerhard issued a public apology and Live 8 spent around 9 months bug hunting. The aim was to improve stability.

Now, Max is a great IDE, that's undeniable. It's super powerful and multi-faceted. But I'd say that massive power means it's not compatible with stability. If a user writes something in it which gobbles memory, or sends the DAW into a death spiral ... of course the users ineptitude is a primary cause, but we have to say that whoever gave us monkeys the keys to the control room is also partly at fault. If you are going to lot monkeys in to wiggle all the levers and press all the buttons then you best make sure that absolutely nothing can go wrong as a result. The control room needs to be monkey-proof..

Because Max is so powerful and multifaceted there are countless control room doors and a million interrelated levers to check for problems
And to me this is the biggest reason that they need to roll the Max code directly into Live and stop screwing around with this “app within an app” scheme.

Surely easier said than done, but a monkey can dream…
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cvlol
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Re: Am I the *ONLY* one finding M4L actually honestly unusable!?

Post by cvlol » Wed Feb 27, 2019 7:40 pm

stringtapper wrote:
Wed Feb 27, 2019 4:15 am
cvlol wrote:
Tue Feb 26, 2019 3:59 am
The people in this thread going "oh I've never had problems with M4L in it's entire decade of existence" have never worked with Max in isolation, and don't use M4L to do any heavy lifting in their projects.
Not in my case. I use Max more than I use M4L (or even Live for that matter), and when I do use M4L it’s building my own devices that can indeed become quite complex (mostly for controlling Eurorack hardware these days).

Are you a Windows user?

Not asking to be polemical but rather to get an idea of how pervasive the seeming imbalance between the OSes really is in terms of M4L performance.
I am a Windows user, and I have only recently become aware of the difference in stability between Ableton on Mac and Ableton on Windows. It's fine though, I'm done with Ableton as a whole, it's not necessary in any capacity. I'd spent some time earlier learning Max and put it on the backburner thinking that it'd merely be a sideproject for me. But I have realized that the ideas that I want to execute cannot be executed in Ableton anyway (this is not a brag of any sort, I am simply limited by M4L's instability), so I'm back to the grind, learning and work with Max exclusively + some Bitwig if I truly feel the need to use a traditional DAW for whatever reason. I'm just disappointed in how M4L has gone the past decade, yet I definitely feel a sense of liberation from this mess by simply putting Ableton out of the equation entirely.

maky355
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Re: Am I the *ONLY* one finding M4L actually honestly unusable!?

Post by maky355 » Thu Feb 28, 2019 6:26 am

cvlol wrote:
Tue Feb 26, 2019 3:59 am
Max4live is definitely an unstable implementation of Max. If you've not run into issues with it, you most likely have never used it to any extent beyond tinkering with a device or two in isolation. In larger projects where you have multiple devices across many channels, you absolutely will have run into issues with parameters unmapping themselves, device GUIs disappearing, or the entire project freezing up on you. And especially if you've tried using one max device to control or modulate another max device, then you know what I'm talking about.

The people in this thread going "oh I've never had problems with M4L in it's entire decade of existence" have never worked with Max in isolation, and don't use M4L to do any heavy lifting in their projects. By ignoring it, you're going to end up driving people away from Ableton and away from trying to use M4L in any meaningful capacity especially with Bitwig 3s grid right around the corner.

Ableton desperately needs to be optimized for performance under load, and really desperately needs device sandboxing so that entire projects don't seize up the moment some device decides to throw an error. I've pretty much had it with Ableton tbh, I like Max/MSP and I like having a DAW but I'm ready to try something new on the DAW front, even if it comes at the price of not being tightly coupled to Max.
This...thank you. My English is so limited but you put it out so well.

It's like i mean it's so depressing. Users blaming us people with issues even though i reported bugs and even after i say Ableton confirmed them i am still getting that marginalization from the people on forum. Like "it's your fault" or "you're using it wrong"...unbelievable.

It's ok if you use few devices (and hope they are coded well) and jumps thru their presets. But if you start using what m4l have to offer - BIG problems arise.

maky355
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Re: Am I the *ONLY* one finding M4L actually honestly unusable!?

Post by maky355 » Thu Feb 28, 2019 6:30 am

scheffkoch wrote:
Tue Feb 26, 2019 9:38 am
...i don't have problems with m4l devices and i use them a lot and have a lot of them implemented in my standard template...so what does that tell you?...
Here he goes again....

What do you want to tell us? Man stop acting like we need to guess something out of your experience!!

I told you i REPORTED M4L ISSUES TO ABLETON AND THEY CONFIRMED THEM - so in my case there is NO ANYTHING TO GUESS!!!

Yet these problems aren't FIXED YET!!!!

I am happy for you not having problems. Truly i mean genuinely i am. But stop pretending like it's our problem for reporting our issues here in thread. Please stop it.

maky355
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Re: Am I the *ONLY* one finding M4L actually honestly unusable!?

Post by maky355 » Thu Feb 28, 2019 6:35 am

scheffkoch wrote:
Tue Feb 26, 2019 1:28 pm
...i get what you mean but i don't know if it's possible to implement limitations to that "system"...i see it the same way as native instrument's reaktor platform...there are some user instruments/fx that have a nice concept but they are "unusable" because of the cpu consumption...on the other hand you have "semi professional" users/programmers who know how to get best results...
Dude...i reported confirmed issues on ABLETON own m4l devices. Devices which are shipped with Ableton itself. Not some obscure m4l effect from maxforlive free library.

I mean how long do you use Ableton? Don't you remember fiasco with their m4l IR reverb (it's fixed now)???

I really feel bad because of you. Like i constantly need to prove something. You are so comfortably marginalizing other people issues that it's strange at this point and creepy. Why are you doing it?

If you don't have m4l issues what on earth are you doing by repeating yourself in thread where people are reporting issues?

Lalalalaaa i don't have issues and guess why is that? - i mean what the hell?!?!?!?

chapelier fou
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Re: Am I the *ONLY* one finding M4L actually honestly unusable!?

Post by chapelier fou » Thu Feb 28, 2019 8:29 am

Keep calm everyone.
From my experience in patching on a Mac, M4L has always been unstable and weird in edit mode. send/receive not working, GUI bugs, initialization weirdness, device parameters disappearing, etc....
It's sometimes a pain to patch, but I always have something working in the end.
I need to precise that most of my stuff is mostly oriented towards controlling Live's API. Almost no DSP stuff.
It's a love and hate relationship, but I find it essential in my workflow, so I try to just deal with it. It's still a real improvement to Live's native state.
MacBook Pro 13" Retina i7 2.8 GHz OS 10.13, L10.0.1, M4L.
MacStudio M1Max 32Go OS 12.3.1

jonbenderr
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Re: Am I the *ONLY* one finding M4L actually honestly unusable!?

Post by jonbenderr » Thu Feb 28, 2019 12:39 pm

I don't want to be to snotty but I want to understand how to replicate some of these confirmed bugs.

Sometimes I feel like it's easy to get these convoluted ideas of how to achieve something that is in reality incredibly simple. So people end up with these giant sets that are similar to what some might call "spaghetti code".

Any system, no matter what, put under enough load and with enough confusing stuff going on, will run into problems.

If Ableton confirms these bugs but doesn't do anything about it, maybe that's because no one else has reported it and the line of thinking and workflow that brought you to the bug is kind of a one in a million shot that most people will not encounter? Is that an excuse to not fix it? No...not at all. Still something to at least think about that may help you achieve better results in the future.

I will also say, a lot of Ableton's own devices such as the M4L "essentials" pack seem incredibly over engineered, and yes, spaghetti-ish. (I still do not understand why the lfo needs a live graphical oscilloscope display. What a waste of cpu when a lot of plugins don't have anything like this.)

I still don't understand why the id's in the live API have to constantly change in a set either. I'm sure there is a reason for this, but this is probably how and why a lot of the mappings are lost when closing and opening a live set. If something is not set in place to make damn sure the mapping recieves the correct ID when a set is revisited, yeah, it's bad.

I will admit I usually only use M4L in a "creative jumpstart" sense. I generate ideas...sequences....audio clips....midi clips. Everything I do with M4L gets commited to a clip in whatever way possible. Then I do away with the max and get to arranging, automation etc. etc.. So this is probably why I am not seeing the "un-usability" of M4L because I've never set myself up to where I'm completely relying on it.

Again, genuinely not trying to make anyone feel stupid or anything, but with great power comes great responsibility! or something...

pottering
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Re: Am I the *ONLY* one finding M4L actually honestly unusable!?

Post by pottering » Thu Feb 28, 2019 6:29 pm

maky355 wrote:
Thu Feb 28, 2019 6:26 am
cvlol wrote:
Tue Feb 26, 2019 3:59 am
Max4live is definitely an unstable implementation of Max. If you've not run into issues with it, you most likely have never used it to any extent beyond tinkering with a device or two in isolation. In larger projects where you have multiple devices across many channels, you absolutely will have run into issues with parameters unmapping themselves, device GUIs disappearing, or the entire project freezing up on you. And especially if you've tried using one max device to control or modulate another max device, then you know what I'm talking about.

The people in this thread going "oh I've never had problems with M4L in it's entire decade of existence" have never worked with Max in isolation, and don't use M4L to do any heavy lifting in their projects. By ignoring it, you're going to end up driving people away from Ableton and away from trying to use M4L in any meaningful capacity especially with Bitwig 3s grid right around the corner.

Ableton desperately needs to be optimized for performance under load, and really desperately needs device sandboxing so that entire projects don't seize up the moment some device decides to throw an error. I've pretty much had it with Ableton tbh, I like Max/MSP and I like having a DAW but I'm ready to try something new on the DAW front, even if it comes at the price of not being tightly coupled to Max.
This...thank you. My English is so limited but you put it out so well.

It's like i mean it's so depressing. Users blaming us people with issues even though i reported bugs and even after i say Ableton confirmed them i am still getting that marginalization from the people on forum. Like "it's your fault" or "you're using it wrong"...unbelievable.

It's ok if you use few devices (and hope they are coded well) and jumps thru their presets. But if you start using what m4l have to offer - BIG problems arise.
OP said M4L is UNUSABLE.

It is in the thread's TITLE

"Unstable" is a far cry from UNUSABLE.

"Has bugs" is a far cry from UNUSABLE.

You and the user you quoted are defending the claim that "M4L is UNUSABLE".

So accept the criticism that your arguments are VERY WEAK.

"I reported some bugs" doesn't come even close to proving "M4L actually honestly unusable".

The rest of your comments are personal insults, pure ad hominem.
♥♥♥

scheffkoch
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Re: Am I the *ONLY* one finding M4L actually honestly unusable!?

Post by scheffkoch » Fri Mar 01, 2019 9:55 am

„If you don't have m4l issues what on earth are you doing by repeating yourself in thread where people are reporting issues?“

…the thread title is a question so i answer…if it‘s an answer you don‘t like to hear it‘s your problem but stop insulting me…i never said that your problems with m4l are non existent ot that it‘s your fault…
macbook pro m1pro, macos monterey, rme multiface via sonnet echo express se I, push 2, faderfox mx12, xone:k2

fabrice segura
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Re: Am I the *ONLY* one finding M4L actually honestly unusable!?

Post by fabrice segura » Thu Mar 14, 2019 3:46 pm

i have a lot of crashs on live10.0.6 and only max for live (ableton packs)


AppHangB1 error

maky355
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Re: Am I the *ONLY* one finding M4L actually honestly unusable!?

Post by maky355 » Mon Mar 18, 2019 7:29 am

pottering wrote:
Thu Feb 28, 2019 6:29 pm
So accept the criticism that your arguments are VERY WEAK.

"I reported some bugs" doesn't come even close to proving "M4L actually honestly unusable".

The rest of your comments are personal insults, pure ad hominem.
Yeah right. My arguments are "VERY WEAK". (along the lines of numerous other people reports here). Plus my reports to Ableton which are CONFIRMED BY ABLETON itself. Out of all nonsense you added in this thread this has to be pinnacle of logic here. A biscuit. Now that has to be ad hominem by default.

Look up your tone and tell me who is politely insulting. You are in the very same thread where people are reporting their problems - yet you are pushing your "i don't have any problem guess why that is" nonsense. Tell me who is insulting here? Let's call me names i don't care. I know i have communication problem. Even though other people politely tried to explain you it's not the same thing for M4L users which are using few packs and few presets when compared to people which are using more advanced tools. Yet you keep pushing.

Ok fair enough. I won't pollute this thread with my responses to you or to scheffkoh. I'll add you to my block list, you add me and we can continue civil talk. I guess that's best.

EDIT: i see i pointed wrong person when i said ""i don't have any problem guess why that is" - that was actually pointed to scheffkoh. I apologize. Stopping this thread now. Bye

[jur]
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Re: Am I the *ONLY* one finding M4L actually honestly unusable!?

Post by [jur] » Mon Mar 18, 2019 8:28 am

Daddy is in the garden teaching his carrots how to grow, and when he's back here his boys are fighting again! Chill out now ugly boys!
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stringtapper
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Re: Am I the *ONLY* one finding M4L actually honestly unusable!?

Post by stringtapper » Mon Mar 18, 2019 2:22 pm

The problem with the arguments on the “unusable” side are that there are so many things that could be causing these types of instability when it comes to computers and especially a system like M4L.

The tough truth is that if you’re rolling your own devices it could very well come to down to… you suck at coding in Max and need to learn how to patch more efficiently. Not meant to be an insult, just a harsh truth of the reality of what Max is. There are layers upon layers of sources of instability when it comes to something like M4L: from the OS itself down to the structure of the M4L device you’re patching.

Seems like a troubleshooting nightmare when you think about it and I don’t envy Ableton/Cycling ‘74 tech support in that regard.
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[jur]
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Re: Am I the *ONLY* one finding M4L actually honestly unusable!?

Post by [jur] » Mon Mar 18, 2019 4:04 pm

Indeed, badly coded devices (by yourself or others found on e.g maxforlive.com) is a serious issue.
I'm not saying that M4L doesn't have any quirk, but it's now actually very very stable... Not for everyone sadly, and I know some people have issues with supposedly well patched devices, but that's quite marginal actually.
I understand that it is frustrating but the best way to go is to contact support@ableton.com if you can't find any solution here (or other forums). They can help solving your problem in most situations. Sometimes it's due to some obscure interactions with other things installed on your OS that gets in the way and that is very specific to your setup so you might not easily find someone who already experienced it.
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Spillby
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Re: Am I the *ONLY* one finding M4L actually honestly unusable!?

Post by Spillby » Thu Mar 21, 2019 10:14 am

I have only one week of experience with Max, but I have to agree that it seems very buggy.

First, the tutorial devices don't work, because they have specified the wrong path for the movie files. I searched after the files on the computer myself, and I found the files, but not in the folder specified.

Then a few times I was not able to save my work. It happened when I had multiple windows and devices open at the same time. Nothing happened when i tried to save then. I also had a few crashes.

I've never had any problems with running Max devices though, only with the editor.

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