nativeKontrol looks amazing - why is M4L so far behind???

[Gmix]

I'm sure this is old news for a lot of you, but just now when I was searching through reviews of the Korg Padkontrol I stumbled across this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cka0jOkc ... r_embedded

of the insanely cool nativeKontrol program (www.nativekontrol.com) for controlling not only standard Live transport and clip launching controls but everything from loading clips into a set from the browser, copying and pasting them to different tracks to changing the clip settings like transposition and volume. It seems that now they have similar programs for other akai controllers and such, but I had no idea that this level of controlling live was possible, not to mention since as far back as Live 6! Here I have been waiting for the release of new M4L objects to perform the same exact tasks when this stuff has been possible for several years already. But before I go out and buy one of these nativekontrol programs for either my apc40 or a padkontrol (if I end up getting one), is there anyone out there who can give me some more insight into how exactly these tasks are performed? I know most of the API-esque session controls are probably remote MIDI scripts with python, but what about navigating the browser, copying and pasting clips, undo/redo commands, and answering Live's dialogues for switching between sets? Applescripts maybe? Also how does it handle auto-mapping the transpose knobs for the different clips?

I guess I'm curious to know how all this works, because if there's any way of doing the same thing with Max For Live, I'd rather hold out for that functionality to be added instead of buying up all of these outside programs (which I'm really tempted to do, cause I've been dreaming about having these controls for a long time). Presumably if there is a way to implement all the same clip adding and moving controls along with control of the clip settings, I could use Max For Live to automatically transpose my clips so they are all in the same key (I keep all my clips in different folders arranged by key so I could use the file path information run through a simple expression to determine how to transpose the newly added clips).

Anyways, there's a lot of different things to discuss here, but any hints as to how this might work using Max would be greatly appreciated! Thanks,
G

[kanuck]

never used max for live before but this add on is free and really useful http://remotescripts.blogspot.com/p/apc-64-40.html

[S4racen]

Nativekontrol uses a Bomes Player so you don't need the full program of bomes for it to work, this plus some awesome control surface script stuff lets you achieve al of it's functionality....

Cheers
D

[S4racen]

Apples and oranges IMO.

First; "Powered by Bomes translator". That makes a very huge difference for starters. M4L is also perfectly capable to send in keyboard events yet this isn't fully reliable considering that it operates from within Live. Stuff like Bomes is basically a totally separate program which also operates on a whole different level; usually directly controlling the OS environment in which Live operates.

Another aspect are the control surface scripts. IMO also another issue than M4L; these can indeed do quite a few tricks but also nothing out of the ordinary whereas M4L is concerned.


I also notice that the stuff in the youtube clip is discontinued, so I'm not sure what to compare all of this with, but in the overall these programs seem to be fully aimed at control surface enhancements with (so I assume) outside support through the use of Bomes.

As soon as you pull in external support like that then M4L is also capable of doing a whole lot more. For example some of the midi limitations which Live imposes got solved (on the Apple environment anyway) by using an external program and connecting this with M4L.

Still, I am sure that we're bound to see more developments on these parts.

I did a lot of work with bomes when i first got the apc40 and it's superb at what it does but when my template needed to evolve i couldn't quickly change it as bomes sat in between the APC and Live so i had to build a new script each time, with Nativekontrol you are locked into its (excellent) feature set and as it uses a player you can't edit it's functionality. That said, Stray the author is constantly evolving the system and i'm sure would be able to offer support through his forums, check out his Cliphx stuff!

Cheers
D

[stringtapper]

The actual title of the thread should be:

nativeKontrol looks amazing - why are the people who would use this who also happen to program with M4L so far behind???

[S4racen]

Umm? I love the nativekontrol stuff for it's completeness, also that is it's lack of appeal for me as half of the functionality is wasted on me not being a producer....

And is M4L behind?

Cheers
D

[Gmix]

I guess I should have asked why does M4L SEEM so far behind?

To me it appears that M4L has hit a ceiling (a very high ceiling nonetheless) with the LOM and its API objects. I'm not saying I'm disatisfied with what M4L has accomplished so far, and I certainly know that I am light years away from understanding M4L's true limitations as they stand to date, but when I see something like the nativeKontrol that has been around long before M4L and that can perform all kinds of commands and shortcuts that I wouldn't even have imagined in the wildest of my pre-M4L fantasies, it brings me to wonder why can't we do the same things with Max??? And if we can, PLEASE enlighten me to some more specifics or point me in the direction of someone who is already doing these things!!!

Maybe it would help to list a few specific tasks from the nativeKontrol that I would like to be able to replicate with my own M4L patches:

1) First priority would be to gain control of the clip settings for each individual clip like I mentioned above. Could be as simple as the auto-map feature that the APC has for controlling different macro effects for each track. Maybe you could have an interface that allows you to hold a "shift" button on either a launchpad or APC 40 that lets you select the clip whose settings you want to change then when you release the clip button it would bring up an interface for adjusting the available clip parameters (volume, transposition, etc).

2) A way to scan through the browser and subsequently add clips to a specified clip slot in the session view. Could be as simple as having two up and down buttons (and maybe a left and right for opening and closing folders) and then a way to move that clip to one of the tracks. And an added touch for a touchscreen interface you could see the audio file scrub icon below the browser to scrub through the clips.

3) The ability to open up other menu commands like save, open new set, undo/redo, copy, paste and the ability to answer Live's dialouge menus. I have yet to check out aka.keyboard for replicating keystrokes, but I imagine that opening and navigating the menus up at the top of the screen would require a little more scripting than is possible with just aka.keyboard. But I would be very pleased if I were mistaken!!!

I could probably give you all a dozen more tasks that would be extremely handy to perform with M4L, but hopefully these 3 will at least give me a more precise idea of M4L's limitations compared to what is possible with Bomes and other external programs and scripting. Thanks,

G

[stringtapper]

The problem is that you keep saying "what M4L has accomplished." M4L doesn't accomplish anything. The people who program with it do. In other words it's not that M4L can't do the things you're talking about, more likely it's that no one who has the skills to program those features are actually interested in using them at this point.

As to the specifics you're looking for, I am almost certain that there is some way to accomplish most of these tasks with M4L. It might require some scripting via java objects or other voodoo, but I bet it can be done.

[prebentious]

1) First priority would be to gain control of the clip settings for each individual clip like I mentioned above. Could be as simple as the auto-map feature that the APC has for controlling different macro effects for each track. Maybe you could have an interface that allows you to hold a "shift" button on either a launchpad or APC 40 that lets you select the clip whose settings you want to change then when you release the clip button it would bring up an interface for adjusting the available clip parameters (volume, transposition, etc).

G

http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device.php?id=156

This might get you on the right track: it can control either the selected clip or any clip in the set. Use a bunch of them to control a bunch of clips

[Gmix]

I'm sorry if my wording is misleading to everyone. First off, I'll point out that the subject area of the forum has a very limited space to write in so, indeed, instead of just saying M4L it would have been more accurate to say "the M4L community as a whole, including its developers and those who use it to program." I hope most of you all caught my drift, but I use the term M4L loosely to address the aggregate community of users and developers, and I did not mean to knock them or complain that they weren't doing enough, but I felt that such a subject heading was needed to stir up the hornets nest if you will and get this discussion rolling. Because yes I believe that M4L has enabled Live users to do great things so far, but at the same time, correct me if I'm wrong, the whole concept behind Max/MSP is that it is a resource for multimedia artists who wish to go above and beyond the limitations of the average consumer audio and video software. Max should always encourage the exploration of new possibilities and the development of new objects to meet those goals. Just because the APC 40 is an awesome controller and it can do so much right out of the box, doesn't mean I won't look at the advantages that other controllers have and see if I can't improve upon the APC 40 with M4L to bring added functionality. And I certainly hope that those who were in charge of getting this collaboration to fruition aren't sitting back and saying "glad that's over with, now we can pack up and go home." I'm hopefully just trying to get some dialogue going about the next wave of development and possibilities. If I see something that I think would be useful for my own creative use of Live and something that I feel could benefit the M4L community as a whole, I would like to think that this forum is a good place to share those ideas and get some positive input about how we might achieve those goals, and what exactly are the current limitations that prevent it. If we can isolate those limitations, and solve them or work around them (with new objects, java, whatever) I believe that implementing these new features inside M4L would be of great benefit to both experienced and novice M4L users.

@ShelLuser, I've seen plenty of Max patches emulate a task that is already performed successfully by other supporting software. Just because we can rely on other pre-existing programs to perform these kind of "magical" tasks that are not currently native to Live, doesn't mean there wouldn't be benefits to reproducing them inside Max For Live (certainly there would be thousands of benefits of replicating these external programs inside a Max patch, the biggest and most obvious being the ability to customize). I feel like all of these things that we've mentioned so far should one day not only be native to Max For Live, but native to Ableton itself. Just an example off the top of my head is say the ability to command+m style midi map standard tasks like copy, paste, undo and selecting a block of clips. First we should be able to do that inside Max For Live, but eventually that might be a feature that Ableton deems worthy of including in Live's own environment. That's just an example though so don't call me out on that.

My point though is that there is no reason that we cannot discuss new possibilities and decide how we might set new goals, and figure out how to approach them. Maybe indeed, these tasks require going way beyond the current limitations, but in that case, it is even more important to ask the developers of M4L themselves how they might be able to implement these changes in future releases of M4L. And I'm not saying these are the only changes worth implementing at this point, I'm sure there are plenty of more requests out there, and if you have them it's about time you posted them and we start talking about them. But, for now, back to the proposal at hand...

If nativeKontrol accomplishes all those tasks using a Bomes Player, does that mean that Bomes is more powerful than Max/MSP? I thought that Bomes was just a MIDI translator, and I didn't think anything else came close to Max's flexibility in terms of translating MIDI messages. So, it must have some other special way of communicating with Live. If anyone can help get at the specifics of that and can figure out how we might replicate those same processes in M4L I'd say we were on the right track.

So far, stringtapper has recommended maybe using java scripts. Anyone familiar with that approach?

[S4racen]

With the APC40 it was produced pre M4L and so you access it mainly through api calls to the individual buttons/knobs....

Firstly i disable the default functionality of anything i want to double (or multiply by it's controls.... Then i listen for the button being pressed and route it's output through a gate (the number of options dependent on how many controls i want, i have 5 levels of functionality for the clip stop & scene launch buttons, 8 for the REC/SOLO/ACT buttons, 4 for the Track Control Knobs...)

With my now routed output of a button i program the functionality, anything that can be acheived through bomes can be created under the hood in M4L, even keystrokes allowing access to the menu items.... I'd have done this if i'd needed it, i haven't so therefore....

IF you need any help in creating it yourself hit me up on email at darrenecowley at sky dot com

Cheers
D

[sugary weaver]

I was hoping someone would have some insight into my situation:

I've a bit of money to spend on a gift and i'm up in the air on what to get.

i'm looking at max 4 live, bomes, the nativekontrol tc2 thingy (which i would also use the will marshalls dj template for when i dj). my brain doesn't sit to well with the technical end of this stuff, so basically I'm looking for something that just 'works' and lets me get on to the music making stuff while at the same time having some 'next level' options.

i'm just a bit over my head and if someone just had a straight ahead suggestion as to what 'add-on' i could use that would take advantage of apc40 that would be amazing. thanks for any help.

after reading over the thread i'm thinking, ultimately, i'd like to have both, but for the time being, it sounds like nativekontrol is better suited for my needs.

[Gmix]

@S4racen

Thanks for offering your assistance with the APC 40. I've kind of had to put that on the back-burner while I delve into other approaches for controlling Live. I'd love to get some insight into how to momentary bypass the standard APC session controls using a simple toggle in M4L, so I'll probably be sending you an email soon.

It's good to know that we both see the value and potential in a more intricate Live controller like the one that nativeKontrol offers, and hopefully more M4L users can see the benefits and potential for replicating those same controls inside of Live. I'm certainly excited to take this on as my next assignment, and hopefully I can come up with something great to share.

@sugary weaver

I'm a hard core fan of Max, so I'd have to recommend making the investment for M4L. As well as the bundled M4L patches, there are several excellent patches available from maxforlive.com and developers for different control surfaces like S4racen's patches for the APC40 that you can see on the link above. Also, not sure if you DJ with turntables or not, but I have been using the Ms. Pinky M4L patches and have been able to customize it fairly simply to my liking. Max has a fairly steep learning curve at first but once you read through the tutorials you should know enough to at least tweak some of the pre-existing patches to make something that works for you. NativeKontrol looks sweet and definitely has some features that would be nice to have in M4L, but from what I have deemed so far hopefully everything should be achievable within M4L. It' all a matter of patience, and willingness to explore new options I guess. For me, making the one time purchase of M4L beats having to fork out 30-60 bucks everytime I want to expand my controller's functionality with a new piece of external software. And I like the idea of loading my Live set with all of the extra bells and whistles all at the same time, instead of having to launch a number of external programs and configure communication between them. That's my opinion though, hope it helps you decide what to spend that xmas gift on. Peace,

G

[sugary weaver]

thanks Gmix. i'm just going to go with both. i do use the apc40 with an ns7...and a 70 dollar investment on the nativekontrol isn't a problem when it'll pay itself off in less than an hour of djing. i've way too much on my plate to learn m4l at the moment...but will gladly utilize the readymade devices and prep my brain for the thinking its going to require. thanks for the reply, cheers

[JuanSOLO]

Interesting Read. I was surprized to see that these Bomes tricks made anyone think that it had a leg up on M4L. Dont get me wrong Bomes is fantastic, and Stray's stuff is incredible. However Bomes is no more than a Midi Translator. To me this just goes to show how much you can actually accomplish by translating midi and key strokes with a little imagination.

M4L offers Midi translation plus, Audio constructions, synthesis building, Video support etc.

By this I somewhat understand what the original poster is getting at. If M4L offers so much, why does the NativeKontrol stuff seem so powerful in comparison.

My conclusion is you have this guy "Stray," he is somewhat of a wizard. There are few like him that can kick out some many different things and make it look so easy. So I dont think it's Bomes that is challenging M4L as much as Stray challenging the entire community.

I will say there are some things about Bomes that are more appealing, such as not using up CPU in Live/M4L to get some added functionality. Bomes seems to integrate super smooth with any program that needs translating. Sometimes more so than M4L. Yet I have pretty much phased out any need for Bomes thanks to M4L. And I hope it gets even better with newer versions.