Question about Max for Live vs. Max
I just purchased Ableton Live Suite (which includes Max for Live). I'm just wondering if there's any reason to purchase the full version of Max, apart from the fact that you can run it as a stand-alone program, without having to run it within Live. Are there extra features, capabilities, add-ons, etc.?
Thanks.
infinite possibilities....
i think some things run smoother, like send~ receive~, buffers, personnal gui, etc... i would say both things are really different. You might want to try 30 days demo to realize it by yourself.
A full version of max affords you greater flexibility of audio and MIDI outside of use within Live, but one of the biggest reasons to cross grade to Max plus Gen is the ability to edit Gen patches for use within Live.
Having a full Max license will also allow you to use jitter which might be irrelevant if you're not interested in working with visuals but would be really cool if not :) as has already been mentioned the gen objects are another big draw for doing low level stuff.
Thanks to everyone who responded. I'm mainly interested in the audio capabilities, although the video features would be nice to have too. I was looking for a side-by-side comparison of the two products on the Cycling '74 web site but couldn't find one. Maybe I missed it, if anyone knows where I can find it, please let me know. Or if anyone from Cycling '74 is here, maybe you should consider adding one. But I think I will upgrade once the trial expires. There was a 30-day trial installed automatically when I installed Live Suite and Max for Live, so I've still got a few weeks to play with it.
Having a full Max license will also allow you to use jitter
Jitter works in M4L
Thanks to everyone who responded. I’m mainly interested in the audio capabilities, although the video features would be nice to have too. I was looking for a side-by-side comparison of the two products on the Cycling ’74 web site but couldn’t find one. Maybe I missed it, if anyone knows where I can find it, please let me know. Or if anyone from Cycling ’74 is here, maybe you should consider adding one. But I think I will upgrade once the trial expires. There was a 30-day trial installed automatically when I installed Live Suite and Max for Live, so I’ve still got a few weeks to play with it.
The main differences are in how data and audio gets in and out of each environment. In Max MIDI and audio come in and out through your normal audio and MIDI drivers (CoreAudio and CoreMIDI on OS X, no idea for Windows). With M4L all MIDI and audio in and out is handled by Live itself. Since Live has certain restrictions on how it handles MIDI and audio (no multichannel MIDI, all tracks are stereo, etc.) this has some drawbacks.
Other than the in/out issues there aren't a whole lot of differences. The best way to think about it is that M4L is just Max working inside of Live. You have all of the same editing capabilities in M4L that you have in Max.
I know Jitter works in M4L but unless I'm mistaken unless you have a full Max license it's severely limited. That's certainly how it used to be but it may have been changed.
I think it must have changed at least with Max 6 since there is no separate Jitter license anymore.
Actually from the Limitations of Max for Live article in the documentation:
When authorized only via Live, the visual display of the jit.window and jit.pwindow objects are crippled. This limitation does not exist inside Live itself, or when Max and Jitter are authorized.
Dkettle might want to have a look at this I think it's the closest thing to a comparison that exists https://cycling74.com/docs/max6/dynamic/c74_docs.html#live_limitations