Ableton Forum

My frustration is exceeding my happiness.

There are way too many Max for Live devices hosted on Maxforlive.com that were awesome but don't actually work anymore in Ableton 9.1/Max 6.1.5

IF there is a list of changes that typically break these things I would go about the nasty business of attempting to fix them maybe...

For example there are many Max for Live thingies for Novation Launchpad that just... don't... work... right... and I'm not very interested in digging through someone else's stuff without a clue.

Like this one: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/devic ... ad-drumseq

Sure I'm into writing new devices but not re-inventing the wheel. And they just need a bug fix.

The thing is, while there are many devices on maxforlive.com that are great there are also many that never did work very well in the first place.

Like this device http://www.maxforlive.com/library/devic ... -utilities I tried it when it first came out and there has been at least 1 update since then. I've never once gotten the track select takeover buttons to work. Maybe I'm not doing it right.. but that's just one of many I've tried that didn't work properly and several I've tried didn't do anything at all. That's just how things roll in a free device catalog.

Johnisfaster wrote:The thing is, while there are many devices on maxforlive.com that are great there are also many that never did work very well in the first place.

This is definitely true and I think it's related to a major problem in the m4l world: people are very impatient. They try a device and if it's not working in the first couple of minutes they move on and try the next one. Onyl if they really need a tool they bother to report a bug.

As we all know there are usually a lot of different ways to use a device in Live and it's almost impossible to test all of them. It happened to me that I overlooked something seemingly obvious, just because it never crossed my mind that you could also use the device combined with that specific action which fucks up the functionality of the device. If such an action isn't part of your workflow, you can get along with a device for ages, but if that action is part of your workflow the device might break with the first try.

It takes a lot of experience to avoid only the most obvious traps and most of the people releasing devices on maxforlive.com just don't have this experience yet (me included). On the other hand quite a few of those people are very happy if you report them a bug and are willing to correct the error themself.

I don't know if there is an answer to your opening question. Every change can potentially fuck up a device, I guess.

Hey manysounds,

I havent had a chance to look into the specific device you mention, however from my experience many of the devices that are not working properly are using javascript.

There is a change between max 5 & 6 (live 8 & 9) in the way javascript callback functions are handled, which has left some devices broken in max 6/live 9 . More info here: http://cycling74.com/forums/topic/javas ... d-in-max6/

I have fixed a few of them, most notably this one.
http://www.maxforlive.com/library/devic ... for-live-9

Hope that helps.

Johnisfaster wrote:The thing is, while there are many devices on maxforlive.com that are great there are also many that never did work very well in the first place.

I've just started using M4L, & I've been having quit a bit of difficulty with devices that hang, freeze, or crash Live. So I guess it's somewhat of a relief to learn than there are M4L devices that don't, or never, worked properly! I'd rather it be that than they work fine except on my machine!



But what amazing devices these be!

xmonsta wrote: I have fixed a few of them, most notably this one.
http://www.maxforlive.com/library/devic ... for-live-9

Hope that helps.

Love this thing! Thanks for the fix.