- When I reviewed Version 6 of Max, Cycling '74's interactive programming environment for music and video, back in 2011, I was impressed with the momentum they'd created at the time. It can be tough to gauge the progress of an endeavor as open-ended as Max, but with 6's new features and user experience tweaks, things were heading in the right direction. However, one of the concerns I voiced back then was the learning curve that many casual users face when trying to become productive with Max—that's probably one of the reasons I found myself drifting away from it over time. Three years have now passed, and Version 7 was released with (among other goals) a desire to be more user-friendly. I was curious to see what exactly this entailed.
If you've never used Max before, or haven't been paying close attention to Cycling '74, one of the first sources of confusion is all the names of the various pieces and parts associated with the Max brand. The environment itself is called Max, and any patchable object that deals with data (numbers, text, MIDI) or UI elements is generally categorized as a Max object. Once you start working with audio, you'll be using MSP, and there's another set of objects for video called Jitter. If you want to write your own audio or video processing code, or create your own objects, you can use Gen to do that. Gen is a separate patching environment within Max that allows for the development of custom high-performance algorithms that can be exported for use outside of Max. Finally, there's Max For Live, which allows for patches created in Max to be used as Live devices. There are also now two different collections of high-level reusable modules built with MSP and Jitter (and Gen) objects, each with its own name and distinct purpose. The one for audio is called BEAP, and it's designed to function more or less as a collection of inter-compatible modules akin to what you would find in a Eurorack modular synth. The one for video is Vizzie; its original purpose was for live video work, but it has evolved into a more generally useful collection for working with video of all types.
Max 7 attempts to simplify the task of finding the right module for the job in a number of ways. When you open a new patcher in Max 7, you're greeted with toolbars on all four sides of the window now. The left toolbar is where you'll find the patching toolbox, which contains an object browser for the base Max/MSP/Jitter objects, as well as dedicated browsers for the BEAP and Vizzie modules. You'll also find dedicated media browsers for searching and loading audio, image, or video files into a patch. Going from browsing to playback of music and video is easier than ever in Max 7 as well, thanks to a new set of objects (playlist~ and jit.playlist~) that are automatically created when dragging those types of files into a patch. This simplifies the process of establishing playback greatly, as it no longer requires multiple different objects to accomplish this relatively simple task.
Moving to the bottom toolbar, you'll find the usual suspects from Max 6, with one notable addition: the Save Snippet button. Snippets are a useful new concept in Max 7, essentially a piece of a patch you can save for later. To create them, all you have to do is select one or more objects in a patcher window and select the Save Snippet button. You'll be prompted to give a name, and if you want you can also tag it later to aid in searching via the file browser. Snippets can be loaded from the dedicated snippet browser, which gives the option of browsing a visual overview of each snippet. However, in the context of the tiny screen real estate provided by Max here, this option is less useful than one would imagine.
There are lots more new additions in Max 7, more than I could cover here. Two that are probably of greatest interest are the pitch and time manipulation options, and the changes to the way Max For Live devices are handled. With the former, realtime audio elasticity has been added to most of the objects that handle audio playback, and you can synchronize audio to Max's global transport very easily (as entertainingly illustrated here). In terms of Max For Live, these devices can be loaded directly into standalone Max patches, and Cycling '74 bundles an impressive amount of devices with Max 7, including the Pluggo For Live collection and over a dozen other new devices. When you consider this in addition to the integrated BEAP and Vizzie browsers, it's clear that Cycling '74 made high-level reusability a priority with Max 7, and that's a very good thing.
While the Max For Live changes are nice, many of the folks that might benefit from them will have to wait until Ableton makes the jump from Version 6 to 7 for its Max For Live license holders that do not own Max standalone. (Historically Ableton has done this as part of its major upgrades to Live, so it can take awhile.) Interestingly enough though, licensing was one of the areas Cycling '74 revamped with this release. They now offer a subscription model for $10 per month, which could be a good option for Live users to bridge that gap. Also, Gen editing (a $100 extra option previously) is also included with the regular Max license now, which is a nice move.
With all of these changes, it could be hard to find something to complain about. There are two specific areas, however, that left me feeling disappointed. First, native support for OSC (to be able to talk easily to apps like Lemur and TouchOSC, or controllers like the KMI Softstep 2) is something that many users have asked for going back years now. Not only did that not make it into the list for Max 7, the included documentation and wiki is astonishingly silent on the subject.
That leads to my next gripe, and it's essentially the same concern I voiced about Max 6: the documentation and lessons still leave much to be desired. There are no topics in the Max 7 docs for BEAP or Vizzie, many of the tutorials are outdated, and the reference pages for many of the new objects have TEXT_HERE placeholders. It feels like there's still a "TO DO" on a whiteboard somewhere at Cycling '74 HQ to revisit and reorganize the documentation, tutorials and references for Max 7. The upside is that it can only get better from here, and there are third-party books and YouTube channels that fill the gap. On the whole, Max 7 is still a very exciting release. What you can do with it is nearly boundless, and the new features Cycling '74 have added makes it easier than ever to build patches quickly.
Ratings:
Cost: 3.5/5
Versatility: 5/5
Sound: 4/5
Ease of use: 3/5