Can anyone see the abl.device.drumsampler in max? Im new to max, so maybe I’m getting confused as to what and where it is. In c74’s new video, the presented it as a new thingymabob for max
I like your graphic for that 
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I didn’t make it! Saw on reddit. It was free so I gave it a whirl. Pretty nice on pad sounds
Oh, saves you having your brains picked by me as to how you did it! I’m getting ahead myself. I’ve only just started learning m4l.
Nice find. I’ll give it a whizz
Celestine now with full Push 3 standalone control. That was fast.
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And here the link to the post in the thread, @ianjojo did a great job :
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We’ve seen a serious uptick in the quality of Max for live devices over the last few years. However, what I’ve not seen before is what appears to be a trend of companies moving away from Max.
As of the moment, I’m noticing moves from Fors, GM Audio, 510k, Rainbow Circuit, Kentaro and others. These are all good examples of highly rated folks either moving from Max in part, or in full, or making strong signals that this is what they will be doing long term. This, by the way is not a slight on those companies, because I can see why you’d want your devices to reach as many people as possible, and to do more with the software development process.
What brought this to mind is that if you prefer the simplicity of an Ableton-centric setup, either via P3SA or just limiting or minimising plugins, it could be a potential issue if you like adding to your arsenal of native tools. Max for Live can still help folks push back on GAS for hardware. But as GAS for software, perhaps it might be more of a question mark.
If a company moves from Max to plugin format, then at some point the greater sales would presumably make it less likely that the Max devices will get updates, and new devices even less likely. For the buyer, perhaps it also means the staying with the vanilla stock plugins or long-term supported plugins by known companies would also mean more long term stability? Meantime there’s no guarantee that Live 13/14 will run the original devices designed for Live 10/11/12 later down the track…
I’m wondering if anyone else has noticed this trend of late as well?
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I’ve noticed the same trend, yeah. Developers have every right to try new things and expand their market, but it’s a bit of a bummer.
Wasn’t RNBO originally meant to solve this problem by making M4L patches exportable in other formats? I’m only dimly aware that RNBO does exist, but I can’t recall seeing any big or popular devices with RNBO branding on them at all. I’d also be really curious what devs who have switched from M4L to other formats think from a design perspective. Is the sound quality better? Is the device more optimized?
I have no reason to think that this is in the pipeline for Ableton, but one way to fix this would be if they could make it easier to wrap up VSTs and other plugins to work in the devices strip. I know there are quick ways to do that with racks, but unless there’s a built-in, instant way to do it, I don’t think it would ever take off.
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I was specifically avoiding VSTs when I went for their M4L.
Those are high standard M4L devices, but the VST scene is another pond imho.
Am I going to buy a granular VST adaptation of a M4L with all the pletoric options? probably not. I’m keeping my M4L.
I’m not sure how much there is to gain in this move, though I can understand the drive to it.
I did buy the FORS VSTs but I’ll not follow on other’s endeavour as I’m specifically trying to keep VSTs to a minimum.
That said, now we have Softube releasing M4L devices… 
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I think things like JUCE have made it simpler than it used to be to make a VST/AU/Clap plug-in, which then usable outside of Live. I also think the visual programming paradigm of Max can become more difficult to use as a project increases in complexity.
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Yeah this is a good point. Plugin wrappers are kinda magic to the point you can forget you’re using the VST, though they tend to work best on simple effects. ELPHNT’s Soundtoys wrappers were fun to use because they follow the Live design language. I also noticed Disclosure using some on a recent stream. It would be amazing if Live could auto map them for sure.
It’s a bit of a conundrum for Ableton as well I think. A lot has been made of the power of Max devices, and it’s often said that with Suite and a few Max devices you won’t need any plugins. But no matter how amazing the devices, if they become abandonware in favour of VSTs eventually, then Max is a less powerful selling point. Certainly it’s making me question whether I’d buy anything that resembled a plugin level of spending on Max devices. With a plugin you get a free trial, usually the option of a refund, and a promise for stability updates over time. Max devices don’t offer that, which isn’t really something to build a setup around.
Completely agree. I get that a lot of these companies are one or two people, and they’re probably mega excited to share their stuff with a new audience, and as I mentioned - I totally get why you’d try and step up to VSTs. But it might help them (if this is true) to say something like “we’re excited to share our stuff with more people, but rest assured your Max devices aren’t going anywhere. The devices won’t see any future updates, but we guarantee you stability updates for Live 13, 14 and beyond.” I think that would help give folks a bit more confidence to build sets using them. Otherwise you’re looking at old projects that might not work, just like with plugins.
All that leaves people with a few options that I can think of at least. a) Use the Ableton store, since they need to maintain devices for future updates, pretty much the safest bet overall, though with a more limited selection. b) If you’re investing in anything, go for racks (using core devices/audio samples) which basically never date and will always be supported since they only use the stock tools.
This did catch my attention. It’s been a while since Ableton named a 3rd party on an included device, and this route seems to open up that possibility again. Of course in this case, it’s as a paid add on, not included in Suite. The other issue there is with Tape and Wasted Space, Softube were selling a pack with these and 3 other plugins in for $49 a few years ago, so I imagine a lot of people have those plugins already. I’m interested to see if they add other plugins to their store when Live 13 comes along.
I think Max is a stable platform in terms of backwards compatibility so you can expect old devices to keep working.
I have noticed the trend though - personally I think Max for Live devices offer a much better UX for Ableton users, but clearly they limit your scale quite significantly as you can’t support other DAWs, and I would hazard a guess piracy is rife of them as well as copy protection is non existent. So it makes commercial sense to move to full plugins at a certain point.
As someone who has built both, Max is way easier to get started with in many ways and more fun, and you can’t beat integrating directly into Live’s UI, so I think there’ll be a constant stream of new Max developers while some “graduate” to full plugins for wider reach.
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This is a really fair point. There is zero copy protection (I presume unless selling through Ableton store directly), and I know from browsing in some dark corners of the web, it is possible to “acquire” these devices basically with zero kickback. I’ve always supported devs though since it just makes sense.
OK cool. I’ve done 2 versions of Live so I’m a comparative noob. I’ve been intrigued to hear stories of some of the more popular Max devices like Classic Synths which apparently don’t fully work now, but were much loved at the time.
Ah didn’t realise this was the case. I take back what I said lol. Maybe going forward they’ll try not to break backwards compatibility though, there’s no reason why they should have to really.
Even then the .amxd file can just be freely copied and sent to someone. I don’t think there’s any ilok equivalent for Max to check licensing.
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Yeah I know one person who uses/loves it but also doesn’t rely on it now as some of the behaviour is a bit buggy. Was made for Live 9 & I’m unsure if it was a paid thing or not.
It’s a bit of a conundrum for Ableton as well I think. (…)
Yup, that’s about the same for every “community centric” softwares. That’s nice on paper but in practicity it ends up hitting reality : people are going to follow their own path, life catches up, struggles, moods swing etc. With luck you get a Monomono, Fors, Kentaro and such to take it in their own hands to dev great devices, needed or innovative, for a while.
You can’t solely rely on benevolant souls to move your project forward, so ABLETON needs to be pro activ and drive the movement so it doesn’t stagnate and die in the lack of novelties/evolutions (which isn’t the case so far).
In that regard, the lack of a proper official marketplace is bizarre. The official devices page hasn’t seen much devices for a while.
For my part, I took that in consideration and also that PUSH 3 as a standalone by itself should drive ABLETON to dev or commission 3rd parties to reinforce the devices offer, else the standalone makes no sense. PUSH 3 is now an instrument that needs to be on par with the competition.
So I took it as is, hoping for further devs but taking each new capability as a bonus.
Another thing to consider is that there’ll be some turnover in the M4L dev community, some will go, some will come in etc.
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To be fair, I should probably look on the brighter side, like you said they are pushing Live forward.
Aside from the recent Softube additions; a lot of the packs are old, and to your point, not unique/new Max devices. I know Ableton wants you to learn and build inside Max yourself, however an official marketplace with supported packs would be a really interesting addition.
Yeah absolutely, those community initiatives rely on the community itself to provide the change, and that might at some point fall away when people move on, move up or move out.
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There are some forgotten gems like SPAT tho… 
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Ableton should put up a community store and let devs benefit from their server side checks. The new softube stuff uses something so you can’t just share them with your friends. I’m sure it’s coming but probably not an easy endeavour. They would benefit for sure with all the fees generated from sales
I’m using some ancient m4l devices for my Monome stuff and they still work but they are more for modulation and sequencing so might be why there’s less issues despite being so old
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