Max for Live is now available, fusing the multimedia, visual programming environment of Max/MSP/Jitter with the plug-in hosting and sequencing and clip-launching and recording of Ableton Live. With two complex products interacting, there are plenty of questions to answer. I asked Michael Chenetz, the creator of the online tutorial site and community max4live.info, to tell us what major points we shouldn’t miss.

Here for launch week are Michael’s answers, information on what you get in the box (including videos from Ableton), plus the best video tutorials from Michael’s site to get you oriented in the new tool – and to begin to determine wheterh Max for Live is for you.

Max for Live is a fantastic product that treads on genuinely new ground. Its level of integration with the user interface and operation of the host reaches a new high, it comes with a rich selection of instruments, effects, and tools to use as examples, and, in combination with Max 5’s re-vamped interface, makes a comfortable development environment. It does all of this inside a host that, true to its “Live” name, provides a unique workflow.

But Max for Live also comes with some significant strings attached, and it confirms some of the disadvantages to Max as a proprietary, vendor-specific development solution for music and performance. That means that it’ll be a superb choice for certain applications, but will fail to be a viable option for others.

Technology is about trade-offs; understanding those tradeoffs is essential to making informed decisions. There’s never a “right” choice; only a right choice for you. I think the music tech community will embrace Max for Live, but it’s also important to have alternatives. The DIY creative music community likely won’t – and certainly shouldn’t – simply make Max for Live and Ableton Live its tool for everything.

In summary:

1. Max for Live doesn’t have a free run-time, which means it’s not your best option if you want to reach a wide audience with your creations.

2. Max is no longer an option for people wanting to develop plug-ins for multiple hosts, a change that didn’t go over well with all developers partly because it was only revealed after Max 5 and Max for Live.

3. Jitter output is crippled in Max for Live if you don’t also own Jitter.

4. Max isn’t an open source tool, which has practical implications, including -

5. You’ll want to choose something else if you’re interested in mobile music making.

You’ll want to weigh these options when considering Max for Live, even before considering the technical specifics of the tool. You may determine it’s still the perfect tool for the job, or you may not; it should simply be part of your equation.

These aren’t entirely black and white issues, so I’ll be specific:

edison – tonka truck from edison on Vimeo.

edison has become an underground sensation, a monome-playing virtuoso with soul. And now he’s just showing off. Sure, the monome lacks velocity sensitivity, but here, it remains an instrument, a 64-button sampler. It’s not so much the tool itself as the choice: edison has chosen to focus on this interface and build musical dexterity on its grid, to be a monome player. I caught the artist live at the monomeet, a get-together for the fans of the instrument, and can say he’s not just some online video wonder – if you can see him live, do it.

all one shot sounds…
no loops running….
64 buttons
64 noises….
shot on 2 HD cameras, 720p, 1 live take…..
with audio captured right to camera…..

this track is from my new album “all the information at hand”
available in january on kid without radio records…
myspace.com/kidwithoutradio

big thanks to e-level, adam patch, mr. mike landry, dalia burde, brandon loper, eric herron, kyle westbrook, mattie bills, nava and brian and kelli

It’s the perfect way to round out this set of monome news, because it’s really more about the music than the monome.

SevenUpLive 2.0 Preview from bar|none on Vimeo.

Planet monome is getting to be an exciting place. The biggest news: SevenUpLive, an extraordinary original application that melds the monome as controller with a set of Live functions, is getting a major rebuild and Max for Live support. Mapping the buttons of the monome to a set of Live sonic magic, SevenUp transforms the monome – and Live – into an interactive compositional instrument, with looping, sequencing, and melodic and rhythmic manipulation. With Max for Live integration, that will also allow people writing Max patches for Ableton to use their work as modules, and the simple grid controls of the monome as the interface.

For more on the existing 7up project:
SevenUpLive on the monome wiki
Google Code Project
SevenUp at makingthenoise

MakingTheNoise, the artist behind the project, is himself a terrific performer. I got to play with him last week at Boston’s Enormous Room, and he’s a wonderful guy and inventive artist. We’re both presenting in New York, so expect more on this soon (see the end of the story).

New monome kits, models: Okay, so you want the real thing, and you’re ready for a monome of your own. You have two ongoing opportunities from the source, in addition to the various emulators and DIY projects. Dogs not included (sadly).

The monome phenomenon in music making owes a lot to a combination of powerful elements: elegant, human-readable messages that describe button presses (using OSC), open software built with a patching environment that anyone can modify and customize, and sample-slicing audio playback mayhem with the popular MLR tool.

In one tutorial, you can learn about all of these elements. The idea here is to use the monome hardware, but this could be easily adapter to other grid controllers or a device of your own invention. You’ll also learn a bit of Pd (Pure Data), the free and open-source cousin to Max/MSP. It demonstrates that you don’t need the commercial Max for all of these applications. And that’s important even if you’re a die-hard Max lover, because Pd can run places Max can’t – meaning knowing a little of both could help you out.

By the time you’ve finished with the tutorial, you’ll have learned about OSC messages and how do to basic sample slicing in Pd – good stuff. It’s the work of Ben aka ucacjbs.

How to make a simple version of mlr in Pd [monome docs]

Message thread: Tutorial: a basic MLR in Pd (pure data) [monome forum]

Yes, the monome community rocks.

Let us know what you think of the tutorial and if you have other feedback / ideas / mods.