Ableton Forum

As a novice I was wondering if anyone had directions for how to best use my time with the trial. A general course of action to follow, like what tutorials to go to next and so on. I'll be able to put in roughly 1.5-2 hrs 5-6 days a week.

All aspects of m4l appeal to me, so it doesn't matter where I start, but I don't think trying to learn all of them at once does me any favors. When instructions are too free form and open I tend to get overwhelmed, then sidetracked and distracted by things that offer a bit more instant gratification. I attempted to learn max/msp back at version 4 and that's what happened way back then. I guess I need my learning to be more regimented and orderly or something.

Cheers!

* Browse and download some stuff from the M4L library to see if anything interests you. Also, study them to see if you can learn a bit about how things work and see if you can get some ideas.

* Definitely get the LOM explorer.

kgmonarch wrote:* Definitely get the LOM explorer.

good idea, it is great, but careful, the api can get overwhelming at first too.

kgmonarch wrote:* Browse and download some stuff from the M4L library to see if anything interests you. Also, study them to see if you can learn a bit about how things work and see if you can get some ideas.

completely awful idea. do not do it. avoid third party content, especially that with no quality control.

it sounds to me you want a basic overview of what m4l can do first. and you know what, it comes stuffed full of excellent examples made by great patchers. if you are most familiar with live, start with all the built in LIVE m4l lessons - the sessions the you can access from the live tutorials section. then, after playing with them and opening up all the excellently documented m4l devices, make a decision as to what interests you most, then start going through the relevant parts of the max documentation lessons / tutorials (help menu from max).

sorry, i just get worried when people recommend third party content to max noobs. it is not a clever place to start. especially when all of the out the box and supported resources are so good.

2cents

pid wrote:

kgmonarch wrote:* Definitely get the LOM explorer.

good idea, it is great, but careful, the api can get overwhelming at first too.

kgmonarch wrote:* Browse and download some stuff from the M4L library to see if anything interests you. Also, study them to see if you can learn a bit about how things work and see if you can get some ideas.

completely awful idea. do not do it. avoid third party content, especially that with no quality control.

it sounds to me you want a basic overview of what m4l can do first. and you know what, it comes stuffed full of excellent examples made by great patchers. if you are most familiar with live, start with all the built in LIVE m4l lessons - the sessions the you can access from the live tutorials section. then, after playing with them and opening up all the excellently documented m4l devices, make a decision as to what interests you most, then start going through the relevant parts of the max documentation lessons / tutorials (help menu from max).

sorry, i just get worried when people recommend third party content to max noobs. it is not a clever place to start. especially when all of the out the box and supported resources are so good.

2cents

Word, i would've recommended to do the original idea in the early days but the content that comes with M4L especially the newer stuff is superb...

I'd think of an idea you want to implement and then research how you can acheive it, learn the objects within Max at your earliest opportunity especially deferlow!

Cheers
D

oh yeah and turn off the preview mode. caused me no end of grief this past night.

CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH CRASH...

Should have figured out that it would crash every time I saved, until I turned it off.

S4racen wrote:

pid wrote:

kgmonarch wrote:* Definitely get the LOM explorer.

good idea, it is great, but careful, the api can get overwhelming at first too.

kgmonarch wrote:* Browse and download some stuff from the M4L library to see if anything interests you. Also, study them to see if you can learn a bit about how things work and see if you can get some ideas.

completely awful idea. do not do it. avoid third party content, especially that with no quality control.

it sounds to me you want a basic overview of what m4l can do first. and you know what, it comes stuffed full of excellent examples made by great patchers. if you are most familiar with live, start with all the built in LIVE m4l lessons - the sessions the you can access from the live tutorials section. then, after playing with them and opening up all the excellently documented m4l devices, make a decision as to what interests you most, then start going through the relevant parts of the max documentation lessons / tutorials (help menu from max).

sorry, i just get worried when people recommend third party content to max noobs. it is not a clever place to start. especially when all of the out the box and supported resources are so good.

2cents

Word, i would've recommended to do the original idea in the early days but the content that comes with M4L especially the newer stuff is superb...

I'd think of an idea you want to implement and then research how you can acheive it, learn the objects within Max at your earliest opportunity especially deferlow!

Cheers
D

I dunno. I hate "hello world" lessons that dance around the thing I am trying to solve.

I've always preferred to take something that is somewhat close to what I need and then cannibalize it. Going through all the basics sequentially is fine if you don't have a specific goal in mind.

just think what you need and then go there step by step. take a knob and connect it to a message, the rest is objects which are all documented inside very well. i found the learning curve not tough, it explodes quickly within the first weeks and then you´re on solid ground from where you can do nearly everything.


my first stuff was just some knobs and ctlout/midiout for controlling an old external synthesizer from the 80ies. it was done in three days and i wondered how easy max4live is once you dared to step inside this world. 3 months later i´d made 5 complete programs, including complete sequencers and a complex, sequencer driven sampler with a lot of options and special features (resampling through fx etc), now considering to learn c-programming and going to the next level. great fun!

look at the midi event and clip operations tutorials that come with Live. There's enough there to give you a glimpse of what is possible and to give you an overview of how max does stuff. The api tools are worth looking at as well, but they're more complicated.