If you haven’t been following Max 5 updates, the folks at Cycling ‘74 have been aggressively bug squashing. The changelog for 5.0.6 alone is exhaustive. (Via @rekkerd on Twitter, of rekkerd.org.)

Updated: Also new in Max 5, it’s now possible as of 5.0.6 to properly save your patches to a version control repository. Don’t know what that is? Now’s a perfect time to find out — it means it’ll be easier to track changes you make to your own patches, and easier to collaborate with other people. And it’s free. From adamj, on comments:

RE: the diff’ing issue I was talking about above. Timothy Place (one of the Max developers) shared this helpful tidbit:

“Since the change log is a mile long, I’ll point out an obscure new power-user feature in Max 5.0.6.

You can send a new message to Max like this (or put it in an init file):
;max sortpatcherdictonsave 1

This makes it so that the JSON files that are use by Max for saving patches will keep the dictionary in the same order (alphabetized) every time you save. If you are keeping your patches in version control (e.g. SVN, GIT, CVS, etc.) then this should make your diffs a lot more usable.”

See: Version Control and Sharing for Patching: Keep Those Max, Pd Patches in Order with Git

And in other Max news, Expo74 will be a full-blown Max conference in April in San Francisco. You still have a few days to lock in the US$295 intro price (through 3/1). On the menu:

• C74-taught workshops for users: live looping, 3D, Max for Live, new timing objects, etc.
• Workshops for developers: C programming and the Max external API
• Special guest speakers, including Robert Henke — but also Miller Puckette, the creator of the original Max and developer of Cycling ’74’s open-source rival Pd.
• An afternoon on teaching Max
• A “Science Fair” for sharing projects
• Field trips
• A “Relationship Manager” – a sort of conference concierge – plus access to the C74 folks, a bit like the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference

Expo74

It’s good stuff. And the price seems a very reasonable deal for a conference.

You know, it also reminds me that some of the events around the open-source tools could be friendlier than they are. And we like science fairs. I’m not sure that I’ll be able to make it out to California in April (I’ll be there in March for the Game Developer Conference), but eager to hear how this goes.

But speaking of open source, don’t want to spend April at an event for a proprietary tool? Prefer the East Coast to the West Coast? Like code better than patching? Like tools that begin with the letter “S” better than the letter “M”? Want tools that make you think of supermassive black holes? Oh, April in North America has you covered regardless of what you like. One moment while I write up another post…

Many people are asking about what Max for Live can do. That’s a short answer: everything Max/MSP/Jitter can, plus some new stuff to make it work with Ableton Live. It might be better called “Max in Live.” Max for Live has all the objects that Max/MSP and Jitter have – all of them. Right now, I’m gathering a big part of the testing Cycling ‘74 is doing is to try to make anything not work, but so far, it sounds as though everything does. That means Max for Live is an environment for JavaScript and Java. It means you could have Processing sketches, wrapped in Max patches, running in Live.

And it also means you get Jitter, which gives you video playback, processing, and output, plus 3D visuals. You’ll apparently be able to open a window for output, just as in Jitter. So you could have Live sets that trigger video clips, all from within the same tool – or, if that sounds unwieldy on one machine, have a Max patch that communicates with any visual app you like on another machine.

It’s been a long, long wait, but it’s now official: Ableton and Cycling ‘74 have collaborated on Max for Live, which integrates Max/MSP with Ableton Live. There’s tons of information on the Cycling ‘74 site, and I’ll be doing some follow-up interviews for CDM soon with more details, but here’s the overview.

What is Max for Live?

Max is an add-on product for Ableton Live 8, which will be announced in a press conference shortly. Note that it isn’t just Max or just Live – it’s a separate, add-on product. No pricing information yet; availability later in 2009.

What Will You Be Able to Build?

• Step sequencers
• Instruments
• Effects
• Stuff to control Live
• New hardware integration features, with your own instrument / effect / sequencer creations, and with Live itself – think, build your own hardware mappings

What I’ve heard is that via native controls, you’ll be able to control anything you can control in Live with a mouse, down to moving warp markers around. That’s obviously huge, but expect the specifics of these details (and eventually, how to do it) on this site over the coming days and months. I’m also eager to find out if it’ll be possible to use Max for Live with OSC inside Live.

The APC40 is physically completely unlike the monome, but one important way it did learn from the experience of Live users’ desire to hack: you’ll be able to make your own, custom setups, using Max.

Ableton founder and CEO Gerhard Behles explains to Akai in an interview released this morning:

Owners of the APC40 who also own Max for Live can change the way the APC40 controls Live, and completely customize their experience. This means things like step sequencers and drum rack support and other things that only feel right with hardware will now be available for people who own these two great products. The boundaries of what you can do with complete customization and hundreds of LEDs are infinite.

I’m guessing at this point you might like to know what "Max for Live" is. Suffice to say, Cycling ‘74 said that they’d show their collaboration with Ableton at the NAMM show, and there’s an Ableton press conference later today.

My main question on this: how much control do you have? Is there anything special about the APC40, or is what Gerhard really saying that you can make your own weird step sequencers with whatever hardware you want using Max for Live? (For that matter, there’s no reason you can’t do this right now using Reaktor or Pd or a number of other tools that also work with Live.) My sense is actually that this is different, but in terms of what objects are specifically in there that enable it, we’re still waiting to find out (and may actually have more of those specifics after NAMM).

If you’re looking for pitch- and speed-independent warping and other sonic effects, and Max 5 is your modular patching tool of choice, a new tool is now available to add to your arsenal. elastic~ is an object similar that allows high-quality audio warping. The developer claims it uses the “same algorhythm as software giants Cubase, Ableton Live, and Kontakt.” I’m personally still quite happy with granular tools in software like Reaktor — and have recently gotten interested in exploring implementations in the free and open source SuperCollider, but of course there are great advantages to working in Max, and the implementation here seems unusually elegant and easy to use.

The developer writes:

With elastic~ it’s easy to tempo match loops together (either to each other or a global tempo); create a sampler that doesn’t change the speed of your sample as you change pitch; correct out of tune samples; create harmonizers; and just generally loop and bend and warp and stretch and……

elastic~ Product Page

The software is the creation of Simon Adcock and Joe Jarlett.

Product price is GBP20 — though thanks to the US Dollar surging against the Sterling, that’s not so bad. If you grab this and make stuff with it, let us know. Got an external you prefer, or other tool (a la SuperCollider) for audio warping, let us know that, too. (Warping audio is a personal and intimate process. I can’t imagine you’d share it with just any tool.)

Update: The engine in question is Elastique — quite nice, in fact, to have this “ported” effectively to Max/MSP! (And check out how many places it’s used — fascinating.)