Ableton - Max or not?

[risome]

Max for Live is great on a powerful machine and as for the extra instruments in Suite are you kidding .Operator is one of the best virtual synths around and Sampler .There are some great Max for Live plugins at http://www.maxforlive.com/index.php.You just need to sort the wood from the chaff a bit .I recommend both Suite and MaxforLive

[ghettosynth]

Max for Live is great on a powerful machine and as for the extra instruments in Suite are you kidding .Operator is one of the best virtual synths around and Sampler .There are some great Max for Live plugins at http://www.maxforlive.com/index.php.You just need to sort the wood from the chaff a bit .I recommend both Suite and MaxforLive

Operator is fine but it's hardly one of the "best" virtual synths around. It's not even one of the best FM synths around. I like it a lot more with the updated filters, but it's still a 4-op FM synth.

As far as mac vs PC, I don't think so, I have it on both. I suspect as pxindy says, if you're finding it extremely stable that you're not doing the same things. It's a lot better than it was, but, M4L still causes its share of crashes on both Macs and PCs.

[pekbro]

Like it or not, Max is the approximated modular environment for Live. If you
want modular level control or access to Live, even if you just want to use things
created by others with the system, currently you will need Max.

Certainly, there is much available that is worthwhile.

Of course, performance, work-flow, and possibly stability may suffer for it,
that often happens when you "Frankenstein" two independent systems
together to act as one.

Until Live is rewritten from the ground up, as a modular system, it is what it is...

Now, if you have no interest in any of that, then you probably don't need Max.
If all you want to do is modulate the parameters of some plugins, or even build
your own instruments or effects, there are absolutely other solutions available.
MUX, Reaktor, etc...

-Cheers

[lengro]

I'm now more or less convinced that Live Standard is good enough for for my needs. (Actually I'm quite satisfied with the Lite edition - except for the painful 8-track/scene limitations, and the lack of effects)

I can see how the global modulation and also the many plugins would be nice to have - but its also expensive for features I probably wont use that much.

Also, I realize I'm a bit(!) late to the Ableton 9 party - I would hate to spend big money on Suite now if Ableton 10 is within the next 0 -12 months.

Anyway, thanks for the responses - its much appreciated.

[Mister Natural]

using WIN10 64bit SSD 16gb RAM AMD 8 core
zero MAX crashes, minimal delay to startup, does use a bit more than it's share of system resources however

I think it's a mistake to underestimate the ability of the Suite instruments & EFX, even with your Zebra OP - there are some badass sounds in there. MAX is the icing on a delicious cake.

peace

[liquidsound]

using WIN10 64bit SSD 16gb RAM AMD 8 core
zero MAX crashes, minimal delay to startup, does use a bit more than it's share of system resources however

I think it's a mistake to underestimate the ability of the Suite instruments & EFX, even with your Zebra OP - there are some badass sounds in there. MAX is the icing on a delicious cake.

peace

Exactly!

[mcbpete]

Anyone know what causes Max to have such a huge loading time (both loading the standalone application, and the initial instance of launching a m4l device in Ableton). I've both the latest builds of Reaktor 6 and Max 7, the former application loads in about 5 seconds from initially clicking the desktop shortcut to displaying a blank patch, but Max is closer to like 40 seconds to do the same thing ....

Does it pre-load all the objects into ram or scan them all or something, or is there some sort of Java shenanigans that might slow it down ?

[kmonkey]

Anyone know what causes Max to have such a huge loading time (both loading the standalone application, and the initial instance of launching a m4l device in Ableton). I've both the latest builds of Reaktor 6 and Max 7, the former application loads in about 5 seconds from initially clicking the desktop shortcut to displaying a blank patch, but Max is closer to like 40 seconds to do the same thing ....

Does it pre-load all the objects into ram or scan them all or something, or is there some sort of Java shenanigans that might slow it down ?

Heh i would like to know this as well.

Having SSD, OVerclocked haswell at 4,3ghz - every VST load in under sec. But Max plugin such as Dub Machines or anything really takes more then 10 sec to load.

[ghettosynth]

Anyone know what causes Max to have such a huge loading time (both loading the standalone application, and the initial instance of launching a m4l device in Ableton). I've both the latest builds of Reaktor 6 and Max 7, the former application loads in about 5 seconds from initially clicking the desktop shortcut to displaying a blank patch, but Max is closer to like 40 seconds to do the same thing ....

Does it pre-load all the objects into ram or scan them all or something, or is there some sort of Java shenanigans that might slow it down ?

Heh i would like to know this as well.

Having SSD, OVerclocked haswell at 4,3ghz - every VST load in under sec. But Max plugin such as Dub Machines or anything really takes more then 10 sec to load.

It's usually only the first MAX plugin that is slow because causes Live to launch MAX in the background and that's what takes the time. So if you load up something MAX with your startup template then the startup time can be rolled up into Live's launch time, which isn't exactly fast to begin with.

[wasi]

I use Max7 a lot more than m4L, especially now that you can load m4L devices into Max.

Honestly if you're investing in Live you should have m4L. But if you're unsure whether you'll need it you probably don't.

[Winstontaneous]

I'm now more or less convinced that Live Standard is good enough for for my needs. (Actually I'm quite satisfied with the Lite edition - except for the painful 8-track/scene limitations, and the lack of effects)

I can see how the global modulation and also the many plugins would be nice to have - but its also expensive for features I probably wont use that much.

Also, I realize I'm a bit(!) late to the Ableton 9 party - I would hate to spend big money on Suite now if Ableton 10 is within the next 0 -12 months.

Anyway, thanks for the responses - its much appreciated.

If you're patient, you can get Suite secondhand in the classifieds here for about what you'd pay for Standard brand new.

I'm glad I have Suite & M4L, and on my MBP, the Live 9.7/M4L combo is more stable than any previous version. Operator, the AAS modeling synths, M4L modulators, Convolution reverb, Instant Haus, and Buffer Shuffler are very useful. That said, M4L adds overhead in terms of learning curve and system usage.

[Trancit]

Sad but true:

M4L is the only option in Live to get some extra funcionality (and sometimes some standard features) alive...

Nevertheless,

- the loading time of the first device is really annoying
- if I had crashes with Live 9, it was 100% M4L related

again: sad but true...

[tooneba]

Live is compromised. Ableton should have added native LFO and Envelope follower but they ignored and make third-party company program them through its api.

[whyterabbyt]

Sad but true:

M4L is the only option in Live to get some extra funcionality (and sometimes some standard features) alive...

What an strangely negative perspective; most other hosts dont have any means of getting any extra functionality.

[sfxsound3]

Sad but true:

M4L is the only option in Live to get some extra funcionality (and sometimes some standard features) alive...

What an strangely negative perspective; most other hosts dont have any means of getting any extra functionality.

In this day and age...