Is Max for Live for me?

[purpurkatten]

I was a excited when I first heard of Max for Live (MFL) from the Namm Show 2009. I thought it would be cool to get much more things available for Live by enthusiastic code-programmers that Ableton themselves never would get around to doing, with Ableton CEO Gerhard Behles own words.

When MFL at last was released by Ableton, there wasn´t much more than the step sequencer that got my interest. A step sequencer for several hundred euros is a bit expensive for me, though. So I waited for all those cool things that was gradually supposed to show up for a non-code-programmer like me to use.

So now, where are all the cool extra MFL-things made by either Ableton or MFL-users?

I´m prepared to get MFL and also to pay extra for useful things that enthusiasts have come up with, if there is evidence of those things in existance.

- Looking in the Ableton products pages, there are no new info on MFL since the last 2 years. No links to 3rd party-users' MFL-inventions.
- I just made a search in this forum, “Music and audio production”. I looked at 5 pages of search answers and all I could see was complaints on MFL making it Live unstable. No discussions on cool new things that has come out from MFL.
- A quick check in the dedicated MFL-forum here leaves me what I thought, nothing understandable for a non-code-programmer like me.

Am I missing something here? Has MFL matured enough for a non-code-programmer to use with success? Or is it still for "geeks" only?

[8O]

Hi, from my (limited) experience with Mas/MSP/Jitter, I'd look at it the other way round: not what will Max give me, but rather I want to create this instrument/controller/performance and will Max enable me to realise it?

[Mister36]

http://www.maxforlive.com

There are quite a few devices, of all kinds, on there. And also at Mr. Henke's Monolake site, there are a few interesting devices.

And I'm sure there are others too. Google is your friend. And you can search for specifically what you want to be able to do. There's very often a Max for Live solution.

[Khazul]

If you want wierd audio processing then IMHO Reaktor is way way way more useful.

M4L seems to be better used for doing wierd stuff with live, but unfortunately alot of Live functionality isnt accessable.

I still only use really for a few LFO like things and DMX lighting control. Im vaguely tempted to some midi and video stuff with it as well, but not really audio stuff - I have reaktor and there is so much more that people have done with reaktor in terms of compenents and complete instrument and fx etc that actually sound good as well (rather than just bland or glicthy).

[Khazul]

If you want wierd audio processing then IMHO Reaktor is way way way more useful.

M4L seems to be better used for doing wierd stuff with live, but unfortunately alot of Live functionality isnt accessable.

I still only use really for a few LFO like things and DMX lighting control. Im vaguely tempted to some midi and video stuff with it as well, but not really audio stuff - I have reaktor and there is so much more that people have done with reaktor in terms of compenents and complete instrument and fx etc that actually sound good as well (rather than just bland or glicthy).

I can't say for M4L specifically, but MaxDSP is a lot deeper (and more complicated) than Reaktor.

Assembler programming is deeper too - doesnt make it better

[jamief]

i bought M4l recently. i haver alot of software and a fair amount of hardware to work with. I have live shows to prepare for record releases to complete etc etc. So i bough M4L to give me something else to colour my sound with. I also have reaktor.
Max no doubt is a deep tool but for me the learning curve when i have alot of other things to do is not a viable option to spend a lot of time with and apart from that i have ashort attention span to some things and computer programming is one of them. I am much more comfortable spending hours and hours on end listening and audtioning musicla parts for songs. Computer programming is er not that interesting to me - sound is - and out the box M4l didint offer that much for my money. The future i,m sure will provide some amazing things.........................................

best

[Khazul]

Well, I didn't say either was better (that's subjective), but I was just saying that Max, is you learn it, can do a lot more than Reaktor and is more useful. There is a learning curve though, for sure. And a lack of *good* MaxDSP tutorials.

Perhaps in theory - but that still doesnt add up to the choice you get of good sounding community created stuff for either - reaktor just seems to have a better collection tha I have generally found with MAX/MSP. Im excluding C++ externals from this BTW and only considering the through audio processing. MAX/MSP OTOH has alot of good analytical bits - just aint been wowed by the sound of many of the audio processing stuff I have tried.

The other thing that you can do in reaktor that you currently cannot in M4L is any kind of proper sample accurate sidechain processing in a single plugin. In reaktor there are multi-channel host that allows this. Im sure it would be a relative small thing for Ableton/cycling to do for M4L, but currently they dont and this to me is THE big killer for it. Same with lack of MIDI and Audio in support (you can have one or the other, but not both). I sure if they wanted to they could easily do this as Live does suport such a concept in its native and 3rd party VST/AU plugins.

[tigali]

I got M4L around christmas time. I haven't gotten into programming with it yet (tho I've worked through the first 8 tutorials and enjoyed doing them) but I have found lots of really cool stuff on the MaxforLive.com website. Really useful and fantastic sounding stuff that isn't just about glitching or beat-repeat stuff.
So far I have found lots of extras that really add the cherry on the icing of some of my productions. Some great examples (not all free but nearly all) are Tapestop, LFO Everything, Jc Reverse, Skinnerbox, Scanner and the StepSequencer you mentioned. Also, some of the stuff that ships natively with M4L is pretty sweet too. In my opinion it's more than just value for money as there's new stuff coming along all the time. I also made the simplest device you can imagine yesterday and it helped me out of a hole in a production I was working on.
Basically, in my personal opinion, it's well worth the money as it is, and it's a very exciting thing to have in your arsenal for what's coming down the track. (I did buy mine during the recent discount but I still think it's worth the full asking price).

[purpurkatten]

Thanks for all the tips, guys, and the link to http://www.maxforlive.com.

Actually, I´m impressed with all the things available on that site. Can´t believe Ableton doesn´t link to it.

I guess I´ll have to consider MFL seriously now. Anything more I should know of as a plain non-programmer that just plan to use the plugs as they are? Are they stable, generally?

[hoffman2k]

Can´t believe Ableton doesn´t link to it.

They just did a feature on the creator of the site: http://www.ableton.com/clint-sand

[synnack]

Can´t believe Ableton doesn´t link to it.

They just did a feature on the creator of the site: http://www.ableton.com/clint-sand

Indeed. Ableton has been very supportive of maxforlive.com. Thanks Hoffman2k.

[Khazul]

And on your second point, I not too familiar with M4L, but I doubt that this limitation carries over to Max (which is what I was talking about).

This thread was abut M4L

[tigali]

Just to reiterate how great some of the free stuff is; I've just been using TapeStop and JC Reverse and they're both superb! (and free!)

[purpurkatten]

So how stable are the free plugs in MFL?

[tigali]

What he said^^