I’d like to build my own sequencer and was wondering who would chose which one over the other? I don’t know how to use either package, but am well accustomed to visual node based programming. thoughts?
My feeling is that Reaktor has more high-level building blocks, which can be pretty useful) but Max has a wider scope (in terms of visual stuff).
cheers, by that mean max has a wider range of UI elements to utilize?
I don’t know the answer to that one - I meant more that Max has always focussed on ‘atomic’ elements - like having to build the clocking guts of a step sequencer from individual switches, iterators & dividers yourself & bundle this into a bigger abstraction with inlets & outlets - thats kind of how Max has always worked. While I’d expect to find a finished block that does all that already in Reaktor.
This is not to say that vendor & user-contributed patches & libraries don’t have much of this covered - or that Reaktor isn’t low-level as well (it is…). Just my impression of some years spent with both.
PureData / Context
it’s modular. as for me, this is a great advantage — one can focus on implementing the features unavailable elsewhere, without building everything from scratch (and building a proper sequencer from scratch is long & tedious job on any platform).
Maybe this will get you a nice overview, i will get this for the xmas-holiday-boredom
I would say Reaktor. It is a platform on its own that has been around for years. Some fantastic instruments available.
There are hundreds of sequencers and thousands of ensembles that are easy to hack to make them suit your needs
I find midi handing to be far far better in max compared to Reaktor.
Also without being entirely clear on what you’re wanting to build, objects like Groove~
are far more useful and easier to grasp than some of the concepts in Reaktor.
Also Max is somewhat better documented that Reaktor. If Salamander Anagram hasn’t done a video tutorial on Reaktor, then you’re going to be hard pressed to find information.
Compare that to how much stuff on YouTube there is for Max, it’s a no brainer.
Also worth mentioning that transport is a bit more flexible in Max. You can use global transport or you can build something up from a metro object and a quick formula to calculate BPM if that’s how you want to work…
thanks all, quite the rabbit hole I learned. if only days would have more hours . Guess I should sketch out what I’m actually trying to achieve. it seems chances are that what I’m after, has already been done
that‘s why I never had the patience to learn max. I tried a bit, but I always found that everything I would do with already exists and that I could spent the time using these tools and make music.
Still wish I would learn it one day
haha my favourite Max beef! when the Timeline object (mega object really) got dropped.
An alternative was several overlaid Function objects & synchronised timeline with LCD. I believe this was the route taken by a number of people. It was definitely not optimized on an old Mac though.
that’s def the way to go. Isolates bugs too.
That’s the MLR approach, right?
Max basically started as an ‘event’ time system, primarily for dealing with MIDI. The MSP autio-time sound generation system didn’t come in until later. I think that at the core, Max is a better sequencer-building system. In fact, they just came out with a book about just this subject (sequencing). I think Max is especially great when you want to have a lot of custom logic (probability, time-base events, conditionals, etc) around your sequencing.
Reaktor is more than capable of building sequencers too. There are some great standalone sequencers built with Reaktor. But with Reaktor, you’re kindof having to design the UI at the same time / separately from the nodes. Which can be great if you’re going for making something like the Colorflex sequencer. But I think a lot of Reaktor’s real power is in its DSP. It’s really targeted more towards building synths.
I’ve owned Reaktor for 10+ years and have hardly built anything with it. I also seldom build anything with Max, but I found I was able to get an idea in my head for some procedural sequencers to sequence the Monomachine and Novation Circuit and I was able to build something rather quickly in Max that I think would have taken me much longer in Reaktor.
The atomic components of Max just feel much easier to work with for things like this. Which is what I wanted - to still take advantage of my hardware synths for sound design, but be able to do complex sequencing for when the Elektron step sequencers don’t work for what I want to do.
I was thinking more about the unix tool concept of chaining processors to filter the output of the one in preceding it. This was a natural fit for Mac since it’s had decent MIDI routing between applications for a very long time.
I was talking about the LCD bit. I know they use the LCD as the main component in the bpatchers for the step locations. LCD is a bit beyond my skill set right now, I must admit. Hopefully get there soon.
Reaktor is pretty great for building sequencers from scratch IMO. I think it’s a bit more intuitive than Max, but that may just be familiarity. I also like the ease and speed of making the interface. It makes more sense to me and has way less visual clutter than most max patches I see.
Reaktor has a great community with people sharing lots of their builds/sequencers/etc. Think it’s easier then Max and more fun
Max book is out now. Something to read while in the toilet and studio.
https://www.soundonsound.com/news/cycling-74-publish-first-book
I just ordered my paperback copy. It should be in after January 3rd.