Re: Max/MSP (Re: Live Looping Interface)

[Stefan Tiedje <Stefan-Tiedje@addcom.de>]

Per Boysen schrieb:
> Thank you, Stefan, but that is exactly why I'm not buying Max/MSP; a 
> third party extension is needed.

In this case its free, but you have to deal with problems of that
particular tool with somebody else, which isn't that cool...

> When hearing developers talking about the AU protocol it just seems
> to be a good system and something you'd better support from the
> ground and up.

I do agree on that completely...

> It seems the Max concept as a whole also needs "workarounds" when 
> dealing with tempo related processes - which is the very nature of 
> looping and also the way I look at music (ie measuring "time" as 
> related to a given tempo instead of absolute values as milliseconds).

It looks like that, but that for sure is not true. Much of the confusion
is maybe just because of names of objects. The metro object which I
would expect to use BPM, does want milliseconds, but there is a tempo
object which does the same and more with BPM. But anyway these kinds of 
calculations you do once and forget them by creating wrappers for your 
own taste. Its not "workarounds" its the principle, that will lead you 
to adapt everything to your own weird ideas. Especially those ideas 
you'd never try to tell any commercial tool maker because there will be 
only a single person market for it...

> I don't think Max is bad or anything, but my interested is not in 
> programming per se, only in getting some specific software tools to 
> make music with.

I agree, you might be better served with something like a
Capybara/Kyma system. That will give you nice tools right out of the
box, and its much smarter dealing with conversions automatically and
alike. Its as flexible as Max, but there is less need to do everything
from scratch...

Its expensive though (way out of my reach), but you'll get world class
converters with it, and a "you'll never know when its obsolte" 
platform... ;-)
To get around this problem you'd better go for Pd, but it doesn't seem 
to attract as many loopers as Max, still too much geekyness required...

> As for my recent needs Plogue Bidule is faster for me for setting up 
> certain patches I need. I used to think that I may buy Max/MSP to 
> create a looper, as I want it, but this doesn't seem to be needed 
> either today, thanks to the direction Loogelloop is taking. Maybe in 
> the future, if Loogelloop gets its act together, I might buy Max for 
> the direct purpose of creating plug-in extensions to that looper.

I don't know if Logelloop will ever be open sourced for customers, that
would make it even simpler to add your own toys. But there is also
lloopp, which is open source, that also could be a starting point for
modifying an existing tool for your own needs...

But tools remain a matter of taste, thats so nice about it...
I don't know if I'd ever brush up my own "Ondes Memorielles" for 
everybodies use. Its probably too much hassle...

Stefan

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Stefan Tiedje------------x-------
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