I was wondering if anybody has used Overbridge inside of Max. I’m starting a course on Max in September and from what I’ve read you can host VSTs inside of it. Can anybody fill me in on their experience?
Yes it hosts AUs and VSTs so you can call it a DAW of some sort. It is focused on realtime interaction though rather then placing events or sounds on a timeline for recording (which is still possible in it though). It is awesome for interactive, installation, controlling video and motion, multi speaker and so on stuff. But if you plan to do only music it’s a waste of time. Any regular DAW + plugins will give you the same results much faster and will sound better IMO.
I couldn’t agree any less - no regular daw + any amount of plugins will give you the potential you have with max, especially in control terms and I’ve no idea why you’d imagine it’ll sound any different tbh - but I guess if you have a particular aspiration it may not be the one or simplest/quickest, but if you like to do your own thing in your own way, there’s nothing that blends the scope with the ease so effortlessly
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OB beta sorta works in Max/MSP, same issues as other hosting environments, easy enough to set up once you know what you’re doing and the help system is extensive
Why not just use Max for Live within Ableton 9? It’ll run overbridge and max patches and give you nice DAW capabilities to boot.
I think with max 6 they improved the sound engine somewhat to reach a more modern standard but before that it was focused on enabling realtime control on rather primitive computers and they had to cut corners sound wise.
I used max/pd a lot but nowadays there’s such a plethora of plugins for the obscurest of processing that for me it’s just not worth it anymore. You can also use Reaktor inside any DAW or Max inside Ableton. That is extremely flexible and it makes more sense, especially if you are more focused on the audible results of your creations than the theoretical power of your tools.
when I use max, I forget to make music and I am only busy programming and doing other stuff that has nothing to do with making music
possibilities kill my workflow
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this is very true, but once you’ve settled on an environment, it is your environment and that is priceless - all other solutions are too restrictive for my aspirations, but the never-finished patch is a big issue
the freedoms are worth the price IMHO and I’m not really a DAW user anyway
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working around Ableton midi ‘issues’ is not for me wrt M4L
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Thanks for the info everybody. I’m definitely looking forward to doing some video and animation stuff, so it sound like Max will be great.
I recently picked up a vintage dexterity testing kit from from a flea market and have been brainstorming how to aim a webcam at it and make it a physical sequencer. Kind of like this but even more vintage and medical looking:
So I’m very excited by the potential of Max. Good to hear that Overbridge will be accessible in Max 7, I’m really intrigued by using different gestural and webcam based objects to shape the sounds coming from my AK.
To give you an idea of my creative direction lately, I’ve currently got two
http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=108&cp_id=10844&cs_id=1084406&p_id=10403&seq=1&format=2
that are suspended from two 10 foot audio wires in my kitchen. I’m trying to figure out how to swing them pendulum style with matching frequency settings so that an old tube radio rotates between the signals…
I’d like to use Max for Live but the price compared to Max 7’s $9.99USD monthly subscription is hard to justify as I already own Logic and am still learning how to use that.
I just treat it as gaffer tape to patch together disparate things (hardware and software) so I can continue to make music.
Sure, there are possibilities. Just like everything else on my laptop. But I’ve never felt the need to make, say an FM synth in Max because why re-invent the wheel? I’d rather just play an FM hardware synth (that may interact with Max).
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