using plugins within max?

shaar's icon

hi,

i know it's possible with the vst~ object (and some newer ones too?) but i'm curious: do a lot of you use "conventional" audio plugins in max?

i'm thinking of things like reverb, distortion, eq: basic audio processing concepts that many companies have already made very well in the form of plugins.
so i'm wondering to what extent max users design functions like these themselves in max, or decide to not "reinvent the wheel" and just use waves, izotope, soundtoys etc. plugins for stuff like this.

for example, is building a good reverb or distortion (assuming i like the sound of the plugins i own) worth the effort?

the plugin parameters should be midi-controllable within max, right? like anything else in max?

thanks for any insights!

Roman Thilenius's icon

to control plug-in parameter number 5 you simply do -[/127.]-[prepend 5] to incoming midi CCs.

classic reverb is a good example where many would prefer waves or powercore or altiverb over a custom msp code, starting with the problem that the same process in maxmsp will need 10x more CPU compared to a good commercial plug-in.

-110

bkshepard's icon

A lot also depends on how portable I need the project to be. If I'm only running it on my own machine, then I frequently use the various plugins I own. No sense reinventing the wheel if I don't need to. However, if I need to create something to distribute or run on different machines, I usually roll my own for processing. That way I still get the desired effect regardless of the plugins installed on the specific computer.

shaar's icon

thanks for the insights guys!

i'd be very interested in hearing from other users on which DSP processes can be done well in max, and which things are considered best left to commercial plugins.

i guess reverb is mostly left to plugins?

how about distortion, EQ, and convolution for example?

thanks again!