Ableton Forum

I just joined this forum. Being a Max/MSP developer for quite some time, I'm currently working on music editor for Live. There are a few things I noticed while working on my patch, for instance it would be nice if meter (time signatures) changes could be inserted and queried via the Live API (I'm not talking about initial settings).

Georg

In the Song class there are properties 'signature_denominator' and 'signature_numerator' with access get, set and observe.
Doesn't this provide what you want?

http://www.cycling74.com/docs/max5/refp ... model.html

Well, this is what I meant by initial settings; but what if I want to change the meter in, say, the 6th measure. The are no ways to query or to set these changes; or am I wrong?

You put a transport, the bar number changing to "6" or any position you like triggers a "set signature_numerator $1"

this should work

Just did a quick test and found that set signature_numerator does *not* work as expected.
It doesn't change the signature at the current position, but at song start. Apparently a BUG.

On the other hand, observing signature_numerator seems to work correctly.

Set seems to work here:

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-----------end_max5_patcher-----------
</code></pre>

@toscanini

I've tried your patch. It changes the numerator at the specified position, but for the *whole song*.
So if you go back on the timeline, the previous signature is lost.
I wouldn't consider this as correct behavior.

Unfortunately, the intended behavior is not at all defined in the documentation..

this was one of the first things i tried out when the m4l BETA came out. i even tried it interfacing with 'MaxScore' which is what i presume Georg is doing.

...it was also the first moment i realised m4l would not be what i wanted it to be. however it turned out it was great for other things.

i think it is LIVE that is at fault here, not max. live is not made for music which deviates from a constant 4/4. i do not think it ever will be, either, as the sanctimonious 'purity' of the main makers always seems to prevail. it means that the arrangement view is pretty pointless for max users. "max for reaper / nuendo" anyone?

i just use m4l for effects now... like some sort of lame synth-edit type programme. but i secretly still love it.

ShelLuser wrote:From what I can tell M4L does not support the time signature changes which you can setup in Live's arrangement view; only the so called Locators ('cue_points').

In fact, I was thinking that time signature changes could/should be inserted like cue_points.
But cue_points are actually different by design, ie. children of the Song class (=objects).
So I understand that time signature changes behave differently, not a bug but a limitation.

And you could use scene names to change the meter. If you remove all the clip buttons from a scene the selection of it (can be done through the API) will only change the meter, not interfere with the rest of what you are doing.