What makes you think Ableton and C74 would merge? There's nothing of that sort announced or rumored, AFAIK.

and that's how rumours are born..

Really, where did you hear this?

I suggest you put your vivid imagination to work building patches.

Well IMO, Live is pretty awesome. I think it depends on what you are trying to do. If you are seriously in to creating patches in Max and using them in a DAW environment. The integration that Max/Live gives you is unequaled. No other DAW even comes close to the creative possibilities it offers.

That said, Live costs 500.0, which is an investment. But I feel that I have been using it for some time now, I think it is worth it. And very complimentary to what ever your DAW of preference is. The Live user base is huge compared to that of Cycling74. So I don't see them going under anytime soon.

But if Ableton is too pricey for you, I highly recommend Roby Steinmetzer's Delos, which is a simple track based time line for max objects and buffers. http://arts.lu/roby/index.php?/site/maxmsp/rs_delos Solid functionality at an inexpensive price.

I would love to use Ableton with M4L but so far I have had to avoid it completely and stick with Digital Performer and/or Logic.

The sole reason is the lack of a music notation view. I just can't stand trying to edit my recordings with piano roll views.

hi dhjdhjdhj

http://www.bachproject.net/bach/home_page.html

Thanks, pid

I knew about the first one but vaguely remember looking at it a long time ago and struggled to make it work and so dropped it. I'm always wary of using stuff that depends on the big bad Java machine. But maybe it's gotten more reliable and just "works" now. I'll take another look at it.

The second one is new to me but seems to be in a really early phase.

When I'm not wearing my development hat and just working on music, I really hate to have to deal with stuff that's not totally reliable. Do you have any sense as to how solid (and integrated) is MaxScore these days? Is it really the case that I can watch the notation while a song is playing, see and make real-time updates without interruptiong the music? I really depend on that in DP and Logic.

well, to be honest, i was sort of hinting that people work on related issues, not that you can replace DP / Logic.

apparently Ableton have seriously considered a scoring system for Live, but decided against it, if you believe what their employees say on their forums. and it seems cycling74 themselves have always had a huge aversion to the idea.

I haven't used MaxScore / LiveScore for quite a few months now (maybe longer). it is an impressive project and seeks to do what you wish, but is still in early stages and does not really succeed. actually the mxj maxscore object and jmsl language itself inside your own max patches is a lot more powerful / interesting. however, like you, i try and avoid java - i think it sucks - so this is one of the big reasons i am not into the project personally. i think come Live9, M4L2, Max6.1 or whatever, the LiveAPI will be improved and LiveScore could get really really good, and faster. hopefully it will move to mgraphics system rather than lcd, too.

one can do a hell of a lot with lua scripting and museScore by the way, or even PWGL/ENP. although that is getting off topic now...

regards second link - bach project: it is difficult not to speak too ridiculously highly of this project. it is amazing. and all in C. and while in 'early phase', it has been going a few years now and is solid and full featured. in 0.7 there will be a new 'page' view apparently, which will make it more standard features on top of what it is supposed to be (and does very well) - algorithmic list processing with a focus on notation in standard and midi domains. also musicxml in/out etc. beautiful, fast, good working native Max C SDK graphic objects. etc etc. but in M4L you would have to build your own entire environment.

anyway, these are personal thoughts / ramblings. i probably speak crap. apologies.

i do not use DP / Logic. i try my hardest to avoid single platform software, and i completely ignore software that is single platform and made by the same company that make the platform! cubase/nuendo/protools do quite a good traditional job in this regard. i do hate software one cannot click the edit button on though (!).

seems i have totally taken this topic off topic and away from OP's intentions. sorry.

Well, I have to say I separate my music world from my development world for the most part and so I find issues like single platform or using an environment where everything is made by the same company to be irrelevant. I want best of breed reliable stuff that doesn't get in the way of my creativity or interfere with a recording session. I can assure you that when I'm in a studio recording with session musicians, nobody is going to want to stop because I said "hang on while I modify the software"!!!

DP has worked great for years although I use Logic from time to time as its music notation editor is easier to use. I used to use MainStage but its rare (but sufficiently often) unreliability was the impetus to get Max and build my own environment to replace MainStage. On the other hand I won't touch anything with a hardware dongle and I got bitten so badly by an eLicenser problem a few weeks ago that I'm dumping all plugins that use it (goodbye Arturia, I will miss you)

When I have time, I might take a look at MaxScore for use with Max for sheer curiosity, but since I don't actually record/edit with Max, it's not that important there.