supplement would be best. it would require a lot of work to build something as richly featured as either of those programs in max. some might say it would be impossible. i really use max as unique synthesis tool, or sample mangler. there's a lot of variation though, of course.

I suppose it would be technically possible, though I'm sure some of the parts wouldn't be as optimized. But you could do a ton of things that they couldn't...

They are different beasts, with different strengths. Max lets you do pretty much whatever you want, but it's not built for you already. Lots of parts are, and you can find lots of examples already made, but in the end, it's up to you to determine where you want to go with it.

Once you get the feel for how customizable everything is, how modular you can make things, how each object just does its own thing (it's how they're connected that matters), and how you can do 99.9% of things in real-time, you'll get all kinds of ideas. A true playground for the data masher!

I spent the best part of 2 years trying to build what equated to a crap version of ableton live, if you want a sequencer like cubase, logic or ableton then i'd recommend using the ones on the market, don't do what I did and make a rehash in max cause it won't work nearly as well without loads of time, effort and maybe a team of very qualified programmers and a big fat budget! As a previous poster said they are very different beasts, you can do things in max that nothing else on the market in capable of (bar pure data etc.). Go through the tutorials (I know tutorials suck but the ones for max are essential) so that you get a feel for the program, have a look at what other people are doing with it, then the skies the limit!

Alternately, sit down and make a list for yourself of what you want some application to do (you do that anyway, right?), and then decide what you can't live without. Then ask yourself whether or not you can do what you can't live without using Max. Think of it as the tool of last resort - a pretty deep and wonderful tool and all that - just in a *good* way.

Or, allow yourself to be moved from your envisioned goal when you learn something new and interesting - sail by dead reckoning, as it were.