Producer Cafe

Build your own devices with Max for Live

Posted on 04. Dec, 2009 by Clintonne in Interesting Reads

Have you ever wished you could build your own audio effects? How about your very own soft synth? Or perhaps some MIDI device that based upon the notes you play on your MIDI controller, automatically plays a predefined sequence in the right scale for you.
Now all of this plus much more is possible in Ableton Live, thanks to the great collaboration between Ableton and the folks at Cycling ‘74. After a couple of months of beta testing, last week finally saw the release of the much anticipated Max for Live.

Max for Live is a visual programming environment based on Max/MSP. If your are already familiar with Max/MSP, getting your way around in Max for Live should definitely be feasible, since it’s based on the exact same techniques that made Max/MSP such a powerfull tool but yet so easy and fun to work with.

If you are new to this kind of programming, fear no more for Max for Live comes with some great step-by-step tutorials as well as some preprogrammed devices serving as very good examples for the beginner. Now anyone can start programming their own devices.

The heart of visual programming : The Object Palette

But it’s not just audio effect. Max for Live can interact with MIDI data as well. You could for instance build your own arpeggiator or just randomize your MIDI sequence for a laugh.

A MIDI step Sequencer made in Max for Live

Max for Live is also capable of interacting with your favorite hardware device like the Akai APC40. This is particularly interesting for those that use Ableton Live as a DJ software. What makes it even more interesting is the fact that you can edit your home made devices on the fly without ever having to stop playing your set.

The one thing that I personally like most about Max for Live is that once you have build a cool device, you can instantly share this with others. There is even this 3rd party website where you can upload your devices and download devices build by other programmers.

To sum up, Max for Live takes music production one step further. It’s one thing to use preprogrammed devices, it’s another to design and build your own. As I mentioned before, now anyone can build their own audio and MIDI devices using nothing but a laptop. It’s that easy. No need to wait, hope and pray anymore for the Ableton developers team to do that for you.

For pricing and more information, please visit http://cycling74.com/products/maxforlive/ and http://www.ableton.com/maxforlive/

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Tags: ableton, Akai APC40, Max for Live, Max/MSP, programming