Gary Lee Nelson

I have lots of complex patches in 4.6 and a continuing schedule of 

personal projects and consulting deadlines so I am wary of jumping 

I know there are other great new things in Max 5 but transport and 

the associated timing scheme are of most immediate interest.

I am wondering if there are any dangers in running both versions 

together. My idea is to continue running my production stuff in 4.6 

while controlling timing with patches written in 5. I plan to send 

signals 5 >> 4.6 via either midi or udp. If this is indeed feasible 

and safe, is there an advantage to creating the Max 5 patches as 

I don't need examples, just advice and caveats.

  I have lots of complex patches in 4.6 and a continuing schedule of  
personal projects and consulting deadlines so I am wary of jumping  
completely.

I know there are other great new things in Max 5 but transport and  
the associated timing scheme are of most immediate interest.

I am wondering if there are any dangers in running both versions  
together.  My idea is to continue running my production stuff in 4.6  
while controlling timing with patches written in 5.  I plan to send  
signals 5 >> 4.6 via either midi or udp.  If this is indeed feasible  
and safe, is there an advantage to creating the Max 5 patches as  
standalones?

Cheers
Gary Lee Nelson
TIMARA Department
Oberlin College
www.timara.oberlin.edu/GaryLeeNelson

max-4-6-and-max-5-running-together

On 7 juin 08, at 14:50, Gary Lee Nelson wrote:

> I don't need examples, just advice and caveats.

Max 4.x and Max 5.x run safely on the same computer. I would recommend 

Max 4.x and Max 5.x run safely on the same computer. I would recommend  
having different search path though.

it *might* be possible to host 4.6 as a rewire client in 5... it should make a lot of the midi/signal routing easier. i'm not sure if it would work though..

Actually I have the signal routing all worked out. I use a MOTU828MKII.

I jumpered a cable between the optical in/out ports on the MOTU. Works

much better and more reliably than either soundflower of rewire. In the

audio setup I can deal with just one sound device instead of an aggregate.

My question about 5 & 4.6 together still stands.

Subject: [maxmsp] Re: Max 4.6 and Max 5 running together.

> it *might* be possible to host 4.6 as a rewire client in 5... it 

> should make a lot of the midi/signal routing easier. i'm not sure 

Actually I have the signal routing all worked out.  I use a MOTU828MKII.
 I jumpered a cable between the optical in/out ports on the MOTU.  Works
much better and more reliably than either soundflower of rewire.  In the
audio setup I can deal with just one sound device instead of an aggregate.

----- Original Message -----
From: thezer0ist 
Date: Saturday, June 7, 2008 11:05 am
Subject: [maxmsp] Re: Max 4.6 and Max 5 running together.

>
> it *might* be possible to host 4.6 as a rewire client in 5... it 
> should make a lot of the midi/signal routing easier. i'm not sure 
> if it would work though..
>


Max 5 on my G4 is super slow. i love it and hate it and the same time. i still rock 4.6 for live performances, but perhaps i just need a new intel laptop to run max 5 w/ ease. 4.6 & 5 together seems like it would make my computer crash. 

Subject: Re: [maxmsp] Re: Max 4.6 and Max 5 running together.

Max 5 on my G4 is super slow.   i love it and hate it and the same time.  i still rock 4.6 for live performances, but perhaps i just need a new intel laptop to run max 5 w/ ease.  4.6 & 5 together seems like it would make my computer crash.  
-chuck

----- Original Message ----
From: Gary Nelson 
Sent: Saturday, June 7, 2008 3:40:17 PM
Subject: Re: [maxmsp] Re: Max 4.6 and Max 5 running together.

Actually I have the signal routing all worked out.  I use a MOTU828MKII.
I jumpered a cable between the optical in/out ports on the MOTU.  Works
much better and more reliably than either soundflower of rewire.  In the
audio setup I can deal with just one sound device instead of an aggregate.

On 7 Jun 2008, at 20:40, Gary Nelson wrote:

> My question about 5 & 4.6 together still stands.

As far as I could tell when I tried it, you can't use MXJ in both at 

the same time. I've not (yet) tried to isolate the reason.

As far as I could tell when I tried it, you can't use MXJ in both at  
the same time. I've not (yet) tried to isolate the reason.

Nick Rothwell / Cassiel.com Limited
www.cassiel.com
www.myspace.com/cassieldotcom
www.last.fm/music/cassiel
www.reverbnation.com/cassiel
www.linkedin.com/in/cassiel
www.loadbang.net


As Emmanuel said, you can run both together on the same machine, even at the same time. I sometimes have 5, 4.6 *and* 4.5 running at the same time on a single machine.

The advice about distinct search paths is worth noting. V5 will open v4 patchers but it will only save in the new format. I resisted the recommended move of *copying* all projects to a new Max 5 folder for a while, but eventually broke down and have done so. This is not entirely convenient with ongoing projects, but I move projects to v5 one at a time.

Nick's note about Java is interesting. I've not tried running mxj stuff on two Maxes at the same time. But I don't do much Java (pretty deliberately).

On 8 Jun 2008, at 15:15, Peter Castine wrote:

> Nick's note about Java is interesting. I've not tried running mxj 

I just tried it again now, with two Groovy interpreters, and it all 

seems to work fine, so I'm not sure what the original problem was, if 

any; some complaint about JNI initialisation which might be transient, 

(The Python threading stuff seems mysteriously broken in Max 4 but 

fine in Max 5 - but the Jython system has a common cache of compiled 

objects, so it's very possible that this should be considered a 

> Nick's note about Java is interesting. I've not tried running mxj  
> stuff on two Maxes at the same time.

I just tried it again now, with two Groovy interpreters, and it all  
seems to work fine, so I'm not sure what the original problem was, if  
any; some complaint about JNI initialisation which might be transient,  
fixed, or both.

(The Python threading stuff seems mysteriously broken in Max 4 but  
fine in Max 5 - but the Jython system has a common cache of compiled  
objects, so it's very possible that this should be considered a  
singleton.)

FWIW I haven't had any problems running 4.6 and 5 simultaneously. Been using a lot of Java and JRuby.