FAQ: Max 6

Visit the authorization page for detailed instructions.

No. Max 6 requires its own serial number.

Your serial number was emailed to you if you purchased Max 5 or 6 directly from Cycling ’74. If you cannot find it, log into your NetSuite account, choose the “My Account” tab, and click on the “Max 5 & 6 Serial Numbers” link to see the list.

Currently, there is no de-authorization process. You may authorize on another personal machine so long as it belongs to you and Max is not used simultaneously on the two (or more) machines. If you wish to remove Max from a machine, simply trash the Max 6 folder.

No. Instead, you may use Max Runtime or Max Standalones to run patches on the unauthorized machines.

Yes, you can authorize both. And, yes, patches will work on both.

Yes

• If you own Max 6 only, you will not receive a Max 5 or Max 4 serial, but you may authorize these versions by choosing ‘Manual Activation’ and submitting your Challenge to the Challenge/Response Authorization Form. Please include your Max 6 serial and a brief note concerning the nature of your request.
• If you own Max 6 and Max 5, please authorize Max 5 using Internet Activation and your Max 5 serial.

Please note that Max 4, Max 5, and Max 6 are all separate, self-contained applications and you should have no trouble using them side-by-side on a single machine.

Your serial number was emailed to you after you purchased Max or an upgrade. If you cannot find it, contact the Sales Dept and include your full name and any alternate email address you may have used for your purchase.

No. There is only one installer and only one flavor of the Max application. There are no limited or ‘crippled’ versions, except for the Max Runtime. The only difference between a ‘academic’ (student, teacher, or school) and ‘permanent’ license is the amount paid for the program and/or whether or not your license expires after some period of time (e.g. the 12-month student license). The ’30-day demo’ simply refers to the fact that Max will run without copy protection for the first 30 days. There are no limitations to the program during this period.

Visit this page for details.

Important note for Windows users regarding Pace copy protection and your CPU type: Interlok, which is the copy protection system created by Pace we employ on all of our products, does not work on all CPU types. Pace copy protection for Windows only works on Intel and AMD processors. This mean that if you have another CPU type, for example a Transmeta CPU – you will not be able to run the full versions of any of our products. You will however, be able to use the runtime versions of Max 6.

If it’s a Max Patch:

• You can send your patch to any person who owns Max and has it installed. That person can just open it directly.
• There’s also a 30-day demo available for downloading, if the person has not installed Max before.

If they do not have Max installed then you can direct them to download the runtime version of Max from our website. It is free and not copy-protected. Then they may open and use your patch.

If it’s a Max Collective:

You may also build a collective out of your patch. This bundles up your patch into one file to make it easier to send. It’s especially useful if your patch contains a number of different files. Collectives are cross-platform compatible (Max/MSP 4.3 or greater).

Like a Patch, a Collective also requires a Max installation, demo, or runtime version. Refer to the documentation for more details on how to create collectives.

If it’s a Max Standalone:

You may turn your patch into a platform-specific standalone application. A standalone does not require any additional Max installation or runtime. You can give this away free.

If it’s saved as a Max 6 Project:

The project is portable and can be opened by other Max 6 users.

Yes.

Yes, you can authorize both. And, yes, patches will work on both.

Max 6.1 is available in both 32- and 64-bit versions. The MacOS download contains both versions as a FAT bundle; you can change whether it runs in 32- or 64-bit mode using “Get Info” in the finder. There are separate 32- and 64-bit downloads for Windows. Third party objects will not work with 64-bit versions of Max 6.1, as they will need to be recompiled for 64-bit compatibility.

Max 6.0.8 is a 32-bit binary application.

The version of software does not affect MSP’s signal processing bit depth, which was updated to 64-bit as of Max 6.0.

As stated above, MSP signals are 64-bit as of Max 6. The bit resolution of Max messages is dependent on the version of software that you are using.

Version 6.0, and the 32-bit versions of Max 6.1, use 32-bit numeric data. The 64-bit version of Max 6.1 uses 64-bit numeric data for all message contents.

This being our first 64-bit release, we will not have all of the features of the 32-bit version, especially regarding Jitter and Quicktime support. We will be continuing to work on Jitter video playback and other QT features in the 64-bit version, but many features won’t be in our initial release. Max and MSP should have nearly all the same features, except where it relies on QT. Please see the version 6.1 release notes for more information.

All Max externals need to be ported and recompiled. An SDK will be forthcoming. In the meantime, we would suggest you try rewriting patches to use standard objects and abstractions if you want to run them in 64-bit, until specific 3rd party objects are ported to 64-bit.

An SDK will be made publicly available sometime shortly after Max 6.1 is released.

In Max 6, we have introduced an architecture for the translation of the user interface. We hope to extend this architecture to the rest of Max Documentation and Max patches at some point in the future.

Ableton Live 8: If you own Max 6.0, you may use it as your Max for Live device editor. If you only own Max for Live, or Max for Live and Max 5, you will use Max 5 as your device editor.

Ableton Live 9: Max 6.1 is required to run and edit Live 9 Max for Live devices.

Gen works within Max for Live with a full Max 6 license. However, to edit Gen patchers in Max 6 or Max for Live, you will need to own a Gen license, which is an affordable add on to Max 6. See Shop for details.

You can access them four ways: 1) Inside the Max 6 application folder: patches > docs > tutorials. 2) From the Max 6 application start-up or welcome screen, choose “Documentation”. Inside the Documentation window, there is a Tutorials tab. 3) If you do not have the start-up or welcome screen, then use the Help dropdown menu. 4) You can also find the documentation online with the Tutorials tab.

On this website, you can find others not included with the application documentation on the Tutorials page.