If you see a complete boxed version of Pluggo for less than 40 euros, would you get it?. As I understand, I could run the whole Pluggo legacy that’s out there, and really cheap.

Or is M4L going to kill the previous free runtime?

I’ve got a Pentium 4 (no dual core, no 64 bits) running Ubuntu Studio / WinXP with a selection of interesting and lightweight plugins. I record my mac running Live in sync with hardware gear with that Ubuntu / Windows box. No latency problems. One computer makes the noise, the other records it. All using not-really-state-of-the-art equipment.

So again, is Pluggo today a good cheap adition to my secondary DAW?

let’s be clear. i never once used the word “shame” or “ashamed” or even said that there was anything wrong with this. i said i believe it to be a poor choice and creates too large of an entry barrier. without a free runtime you’re required to own 2 seperate, rather expensive programs (live 8 and max for live) just to run a patch. i find that ridiculous.

as for locking down patches, i guess we’ll wait until we see. but upon reading cycling ’74’s forum there is no easy way to lock down a max patch. seeing as max is basically impossible to pirate i would like to see some of that same protection extended to the developers who wish to extend the platform; instead their forum basically says “deal with it.”

no i didn’t miss it, i just don’t see that there is anything wrong with that. the same could be said for reaktor … so what ? if people want to buy it for that purpose, fine with me ! there’s nothing shameful to “admit” !

i bought Max/MSP and use it primarily to program my own patches and I also bought Reaktor and use it primarily to use other people’s creations. I’m extremely happy with both and consider both excellent value for money compared to pretty much anything else out there.

I have now bought m4l and will use it both for my own patches and other peoples … should i be ashamed ?? ;-)

i can certainly see why many people would be happy to see a cheap m4l runtime, and maybe it will happen sooner or later, till then what we’ve got is IMHO a fantastic and exciting step forward ….

as for : “seeing as max/msp patches can be edited and copied just by hitting the unlock button i’m not sure how they’ll achieve locking down content ”

as I alreday said i’m not sure how either, but they are going to be sellling it (the IrcaMAX maxforlive patch bundle) (… for $99 if i remember correctly) and I specifically asked (at the Paris launch event) if it would be unlockable / editable and was told : NO ! … so …

Actually I don’t really see why it would be so hard to make it possible to lock m4l patches … maybe they will offer this possibility to “content creation partners” or something …. dunno … it’s pure speculation at this point, but that is DEFINITELY what Ircam were saying ….

and yeah i’ll bitch about it, but i’ll probably end up buying it too. i’m just annoyed with the implementation and will be waiting to see it achieves critical mass or not.

perhaps you missed this quote?

“In fact, representatives of both Ableton and Cycling ‘74 have told me that they expect that many people will buy Max for Live at that price for the sole purpose of running other people’s patches.”

seeing as max/msp patches can be edited and copied just by hitting the unlock button i’m not sure how they’ll achieve locking down content. then you have an ecosystem where you need to spend $500 or whatever for live + $300 for max for live + whatever the developer charges. it adds up pretty quick. and a free runtime would fix that problem IMO.

nonsense

if you would like to be able to, ahem, “extend” Live yourself, and / or use other people’s “extensions” … you get m4l, .. if not, don’t … why should ableton “admit” this ? is it something to be ashamed of ? for me it seems to be just about the single most exciting & liberating thing to happen to electronic music making in quite a while … as for c74, their ‘product’ – max -has always been about what you, or others, can so with it , rather than what comes out of the box … thats the whole point of Max ! so they probably do”admit” to that heinous crime too ;-)

… and, just to throw the pigeon amongst the cats, i wouldn’t be too sure about this “absolutely no way to lock down your content” thing, at least in the medium term … i don’t know the details, but at the m4l “launch” at Ircam in Paris, Ircam announced the Ircamax plugs for m4l which are definitely going to be sold and are supposedly going to be protected & locked … they’re not saying how (maybe they don’t know ;-)) but thats what was said … so its very, very early days in the m4l ecosystem …

my problem is simple: there should be a free runtime. i don’t believe this is a minor quibble, i think it is a huge problem.

“In fact, representatives of both Ableton and Cycling ‘74 have told me that they expect that many people will buy Max for Live at that price for the sole purpose of running other people’s patches.”

good luck charging for maxforlive patches when people have already paid almost $1000 just for the software to run them. which basically means that ableton/cycling are expecting people to pay for maxforlive, and then develop something for *free*, with absolutely no way to lock down your content.

also, you have ableton and cycling both basically admitting that they are planning on using other people’s work to make their product one worth buying. that should tell you something right there. i’m frustrated by this because i want nothing more than the ability to make max patches inside ableton, but i can’t help but feel that the implementation has been crippled to maximize profit at the expense of making it something where developers could be rewarded for their work. in turn, i think it’s unlikely to reach a critical mass of developers for this reason, but i hope i’m wrong.

what i would like to see instead, and a way that i think would be more profitable to all parties involved would be the iphone model: have a free runtime, developers pay for the full version and sell patches thru a central store that prevents piracy and ableton/cycling make their money from developers and a small take off of any patch sold thru the central store.

I’m unclear with the complaints in comments what people’s background is, or what they would want as an alternative. My original post isn’t a complaint; it’s a reminder that there are other paths.

Nor is Ableton the only developer looking at this. FL Studio added SynthMaker. It’s much narrower than Max for Live, but it’s included with most bundles and may actually be a bit easier if all you want to do is build a synth or effect. It’s much less interesting for some of these other things.

Reaper has not one but two ways of coding into the host, one which is more of a scripting environment and the other a full SDK. It’s a very different approach to Max for Live, and so again has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. But it is also included with the host, meaning a solution you devise works for all Reaper users.

Open source development is still an option — including for Live users.

But yes, I agree — complaining is not a worthwhile use of time. Talking about different options and working on the ones that are most productive for you certainly is.

Live is a remarkable DAW – it still has major weaknesses ( no half way decent automation curves, or quarter way decent crossfades being amonst them) but it also has a lot of major strengths and unique features.
If it isn’t right for you, fine, use something else … for those of us who find, despite the weaknesses, that it IS what they want to use for some or all of their work … there is now a new and unique set of possibilities available, that we can choose to add, or not.

Is the implementation perfect ? undoubtedly not, but even as it is, the possibilities it opens up are so vast, and to many of us so damn interesting that for people to be complaining that they could / should not have gone with C74 and have done it from scratch seems just crazy.

why don’t you go complain that digidesign haven’t written an in-house PD for PT ?

damn