Anyone tried the new Max for Live Beta? I’ve just downloaded it and have to say it looks impressive - if a little complicated. I think the possibilities for this could be limitless, though. The stuff you can do with controlling external hardware, for example, looks incredible - take a look at the movie where they have an APC40 modded to work as a step sequencer.
I’d be interested to see what everyone else here thinks. Especially about the price - is it worth it?
Hey bro, you know, i think its really cool in a very geeky kinda way. I honestly would just stick with Reaktor for everything. The only thing cool about MAX/MSP is its integration with Live. I honestly really dont need that and I feel that my musical creativity may suffer if I start to fiddle with that stuff. But if thats what youre after, more power to ya!
I know what you mean, howie! I’m not sure its the kind of level I want to get into. The step sequencer that it comes bundled with with pretty cool (but well overdue for Ableton), and I can imagine the pre-built instruments and effects would be good, but I wouldn’t have a clue where to start above that!
Mind you though, the ability to upload your Max instruments to share with other users could be good. Kind of like a LittleBigPlanet for Ableton! :hehe:
Yeah, they do that with Reaktor now. I would check out Reaktor bro. Like Phil said, Max is like the step between Reaktor and C++ coding. Screw that shiz. I don’t want to be a coder. I want to make music. Reaktor is pushing the realm enough as it is.
And the price is a bit steep for my liking - nearly £230! Bloody nora!
I installed and played with the tutorials a little last night, very interesting, but instantly overwhelming. I’m still going to get it because I’m interested in delving deeper into how things work, building my own effects and maybe some dj tools etc. etc.
It’s about the price I expected it to be, integrated into my DAW of choice, and the help seems much better than reaktor. If I build anything cool I’ll post it to maxforlive.com. I’m hoping that becomes a good source of interesting things, like the reaktor community.
I think what might be a better idea is having a discounted version of the Max plugin for users who don’t want to get as deep as the development of new plugins, but would like to be able to use pre-made ones. I would definitely be up for something like that. As it stands, I feel like I would be shelling out a whack on money for functionality I would never really use.
Ableton currently have different ‘tiers’ of their main software for different levels of users - this could use exactly the same marketing structure.
Yeah, that request is all over the ableton forum. You’d think it would only involve hiding the edit button. Maybe that’s something that will come along once there’s a lot more devices created, as there wouldn’t be a lot you could run in it right now.
Yes - I’ve started a discussion myself about it over on the Ableton forums! Like you say, the feeling about it seems quite strong - most people are saying they would prefer a stripped down version that just allows basic use of premade Max plugins.
In my experience so far (I don’t want to speak too soon though) the people at Live seem more responsive than most music software giants in listening to what people want. Hopefully it will only be a matter of time till they launch a parallel release of Max.