Cycling 74 / Ableton just released Max 8.0. Upgrade from Max 7.0 is $149.
A discussion of the new features is here:
I probably will hop on the upgrade.
took me until about the second bar last bullet point to get excited about possibly upgrading again
ā¦ old legible dials are apparently back
ā¦ okay there are other very nice patching touches for sure, but the lack of decent dials really derailed 7 for me - a bewildering regression - a bit spendy for the new stuff compared to what you get buying from scratch but I guess iāll hop on this too at some future point
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I know this is a little nerdy but the multi-channel (MC) patch cords ā i think there is more to this than meets the eye. And being able to use OpenGL should really improve Max for video programming. I want to know more about the new feature called Node for Max, but i have wanted something like this in the past for mini audio apps. Iām also psyched for VST 3 support ā it had to happen sooner or later, but thatās a good thing that itās now.
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I would assume that most of this will spill out to M4L too. Though not all the Node for Max and VST3.0 doesnāt i presume. The OpenGL does though, using Live for video could be interesting.
Wait- can you use Max as a VST inside other DAWs?
NVM: it looks like you can use other VSTs inside Max.
Iām glad that deal is only for upgrades and not crossgrades- the notion of max sounds great, but I donāt feel like gambling on 1. Branching out of Ableton, 2(and most importantly): getting around to learning Max(despite itās been on my to-do list for YEARS)
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Yes but that has been VST 2.0 which Steinberg announced thay were discontinuing earlier this year. Thatās why everyone needs to go VST 3.0 going forward.
OFF TOPIC TO RYAN:
Iāve been looking to try some other easier ways to generate VSTs. One is with HALion 6.0. Another is with Reaktor. And a third is with Mathworks ā which is available with a less expensive home version. That also would be a nice way to improve my DSP skills too.
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Off Topic Response
Thereās a textbook/PDF called āThinkDSP!ā that Iāve been meaning to crack into. DSP with Python. Iāve got to learn the data analysis and probably crack into Machine Learning a touch before I can focus on that. Add to Python experience- and after learning DSP, then it will probably make M4L make more sense
unless youāre using the old 4.x Max versions with Pluggo, a specific deprecated library that let you compile your patches in VST 2.0 format, or with the latest versions, export gencode to xcode or othe IDE inside specific frameworks as Juce the answer is: NO.
alternatives: use Pure Data inside camomille VST (a vst wrapper for PD)
yes you can use VST2.0.
It seems that new Max 8 version finally support VST3 too
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This video makes me REALLY want to crossgradeā¦
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mc.* objects are really worth the upgrade/crossgrade,
I donāt know what Iām looking at, but I love it
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MC is apparently a really big deal in Max 8(I donāt suppose that could transfer over to M4L?)
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My hunch is that MC (and what makes sense of the rest) will be part of M4L eventually ā they may hold off a few months, but Cycling 74 is owned by Ableton now, and it is in Abletonās interest that Live and M4L be as good as is possible. They gotta keep ahead of Bitwig!
Live and Push are their main products Max is in the second row.
By the way the crossgrade price from M4L to Max is $299.
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āLive 10 comes bundled with Max 8ā that is how Live got multi channel in latest version.
I meant to link the quote to https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/209772305-Recommended-Max-versions
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Good referencing link!
Iām a little confused as Max 8 was only released yesterday ā and Live 10 has been around for a while. I have a vague (thatās me) recollection of Live 10 getting some more M4L features, but that the full Max 8 was to come later. Perhaps there is an update for Live 10 waiting right now for me at Ableton?
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Hooray! No crossgrading for me! Thank you for saving me $300(that I probably wasnāt going to spend)
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According to the latest beta release, not yet.
Perhaps the integration is yet to be implemented? Or already implemented and the delay was to try to give Ableton a āPushā?
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yeah the Node item just appears to be an embed of NodeJS in Max - itās a fairly low-cost-of-entry Javascript server platform. Itās freely available in itās native form (though it does suck on Windows last time I looked) but perhaps having it as a Max object will make it easier to use in some respects.
Iāve done a bunch of OSC, MIDI & web service network programming with it to communicate between cameras, Ableton, web applications etc. Versioning & library dependencies (managed via npm) can be hellish though - I have to grin when they seem to say ānpm is coolā in that video
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Just upgraded last night. So excited about the OpenGL stuff.
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Just a clarification, since I read lot of OpenGL enthusiasts.
Max has its own video processing and 3D library, based on OpenGL
since version 4.x, long time before Max4Live advent.
This library is called Jitter and its partly made of objects working on CPU (jit.)
and objects working on GPU using the OpenGL (jit.gl.).
The improvement about OpenGL in Max8 is only related to Vizzie library,
a sort of āmacro environmentā made with Max itself that was previously based on
jit.* objects (CPU) and is now based on jit.gl.* objects (GPU).
So, you can do visuals based on OpenGL stuff in Ableton Live even with Max 6 if you want
itās just little bit deep than using vizzie 
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