Last week we introduced a new series where Ableton manager tech support Dom Wilms answers one question about Ableton at the time. Here's round two.
Over the years Live made huge leaps forward with both the included and optional instruments. Did you guys ever think about releasing a software development kit for people to develop their own instruments with?
"Actually, before releasing something like that, you have to code it - and in this case it not only means "just" to implement a new synth idea or coming up with a new sample library. It means creating a full blown development tool instead. This is nothing a company of our size could pull off alone in a realistic time frame.
But nevertheless, we're just releasing exactly that! It is called Max for Live, was announced in January and offers you a complete toolkit for building your own Live devices like audio or midi effects or synths. As I said, we never would have been able to do this alone. We co-developed this product secretly during the last two years with Cycling'74, the company behind the development platform Max/MSP, which Max for Live is based on.
"Max/MSP is a visual programming language for audio/midi related ideas and has come a long way itself. It is amazing what kind of stuff people build with it. Max/MSP is not limited to just creating another substractive synth or delay plugin - you can implement the craziest ideas, from a simple step sequencer to a mind blowing fractal based composition tool.
"And Max for Live brings both products together now, right into Live. This sounds simple at first, but if you think about it, it opens a whole new world of what you can do and how creative a DAW can be as you now can even hack the functionality of your DAW itself: Max for Live not only enables you to create devices in real-time in Live, using the typical Live user interface controls etc., but lets you even change the behavior of Live as an application! Using Max for Live you can go as far as modifying what is going on under Live's hood, you can access notes in midi clips, modify them, access track properties etc.
"While Max for Five will be released pretty soon, the share beta will go on until further notice."
ableton.com/maxforlive
