
Ableton Connection Kit (2016) - Tomte
https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/connection-kit/
======
jakobloekke
I was a musician before becoming a software developer. Max/MSP was my gateway
into the general field of programming and I still rely on the intuition I
built back then when forming mental models about problem solving. Object-
orientation, functional concepts, declarative programming – it’s all in there
in a very tangible way. It’s just a joy to work with! So, seeing how Max just
keeps maturing and becoming more and more accessible makes me very happy! And
having it integrate so well with Ableton and the outside world is really a
major leap forward compared to back then (2004, pre-Ableton acqusition). We
spent oceans of time getting sensors, midi and OSC working together reliably!
Now it’s a non-issue.

~~~
cactus2093
That's an interesting perspective, I've found quite the opposite. I'm an
experienced developer and I've dabbled with Max for Live but have not quite
found it a joy to work with.

Having to do everything in a GUI is just really tough to do, so I give them
props for how good it is, there's no other purely visual programming
environment I've tried that is even this usable. I did find the
discoverability surprisingly poor when starting out, but after a while I think
I now understand the structure and what's possible. But my biggest complaint
is it's just soooo slow to do basic things. You have to drag and drop every
single little construct, instead of typing "if { } else { }" which takes maybe
5 seconds, you have to drag and arrange and connect like 6 different things
which takes at least 20 seconds and a lot more focused dexterity. I also find
the freeform spatial layout kind of stressful and dread changing anything,
instead of going into a function and editing code or adding a couple of lines
of new functionality, you have to drag everything everything else around the
page to add space for the extra blocks you want to insert.

I don't want to undersell it, the libraries and building blocks you get in Max
are amazing, and the ease of things like working with audio buffers make up
for a lot of the painpoints. But I do wish there was a first-class way to
connect things together with code instead of the current system, I think it
would make iterating much faster and more enjoyable.

~~~
erikschoster
There are plenty of mature text-based options for music programming. For
example SuperCollider (which also serves as a sound engine for many other
front-end languages), Faust, ChucK, RTcmix, Csound (one of the oldest and
still widely used & developed), HMSL, Hiroki Nishino's forthcoming microsound-
oriented LC language, Paul Batchelor's stack-based Sporth... and on and on.
Not to mention many options for using your general purpose language of choice
with a music synthesis library, I'm the author of one for python called pippi.
Paul Batchelor's C-based SoundPipe library is meant to be embedded. (I'm using
parts of it in pippi.)

And so on!

(FWIW Max also has many text-based options like the lower level embedded gen
language, and many bridges to higher-level languages like javascript, python,
lua for programming at control rate...)

------
elamje
I barely knew about ableton before some recent HN front page articles. IMO
they must have some of the best frontend/ui/designer people out there,
especially for a company that’s not huge.

The synth and music apps for the browser are pretty great!

Edit: links

[https://learningsynths.ableton.com/](https://learningsynths.ableton.com/)

[https://learningmusic.ableton.com/](https://learningmusic.ableton.com/)

~~~
deltron3030
>IMO they must have some of the best frontend/ui/designer people out there,
especially for a company that’s not huge.

They're one of the pioneers of flat UI's, long before e.g. Apple jumped on
that train in 2013. Here's a review with screenshots from 2004:
[https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/ableton-
live-4](https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/ableton-live-4)

Their UI style didn't change that much since then, they got it right from the
start. I wish they'd make an OS and laptops/computers etc., as another design
oriented alternative to Apple with an European background. They have the
design cred to succeed there.

~~~
crucialfelix
I call that the Fishertechnik aesthetic:
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischertechnik](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischertechnik)

In a way I think that held them back for a while from being considered a
serious audio app. I thought it looked too simple, gray and plastic. They
needed more of a feeling of precision and control. On the other hand it had
more of a fun lightweight feel and that helped for their main market.

~~~
deltron3030
Nah, they come from an electronic music background, their UI looks similar to
modular synths which often have a very radical industrial aesthetic without
bells and whistles. The round elments and neon color are influenced from the
pseudo-futuristic 90s/y2k rave and acid aesthetic at that time.

~~~
crucialfelix
To be precise, it looks like Robert Henke's original Max/MSP patch.
[https://cdm.link/2014/03/see-max-patch-robert-henke-built-
ab...](https://cdm.link/2014/03/see-max-patch-robert-henke-built-ableton-live-
hear-music-made/)

Max has always been flat and simple:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_(software)#/media/File:Lan...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_\(software\)#/media/File:LandMap_Max_patcher.jpg)

------
eganist
Tangentially related - it's pretty cool seeing hackers get into Ableton. You
end up with things like:

"Writing Custom Control Surfaces for Ableton" \-
[https://diracdeltas.github.io/blog/ableton-
midi/](https://diracdeltas.github.io/blog/ableton-midi/)

~~~
_def
Thank you for this resource. I'm planning to write a Control Surface Script
for the MidiFighter 3D.

~~~
dkersten
Oh, interesting!

Fun fact: I wrote the sysex communication code used to send configuration to
the Midifighter Pro and Midifighter 3D, as well as the first version of the
config utility. I see that my code still exists in the Midifighter Twister
too! You can see my name in the copyright header.

[https://github.com/DJ-
TechTools/Midi_Fighter_Twister_Open_So...](https://github.com/DJ-
TechTools/Midi_Fighter_Twister_Open_Source/blob/master/src/config.c)

[https://github.com/DJ-
TechTools/Midi_Fighter_Twister_Open_So...](https://github.com/DJ-
TechTools/Midi_Fighter_Twister_Open_Source/blob/master/src/sysex.c)

The bulk of the firmware was written by two engineers who worked for DJ Tech
Tools at the time, Michael Mitchell and Robin Green. Great guys to work with.
I personally was never employed there directly, I started out modding the
Midifighter classic and I wrote a crude configuration tool for my mod, they
liked it and reached out to me to help develop it into an official tool.

------
rpmisms
Ableton makes me wish I was a better musician, because their software is
absolutely delicious to use.

~~~
platetone
It's possibly the only piece of software I look forward to using. Everything
is right about it. I'm currently remastering a bunch of old albums for digital
distribution, so I've been using it a ton. I don't know why every UI isn't
required by law to have drag up/down to mean zoom on a timeline/scrollbar type
control.

~~~
rumori
I have the opposite opinion: while I commend the minimal look the way you have
to switch back and forth between midi sequences and your audio devices is a
major source of frustration for me on a laptop screen. I'm constantly resizing
the UI. When I first started I was using Live exclusively but since then
transitioned to hardware and was never able to get back into it. I imagine
Push might be the answer once you want tactility.

------
jchw
Excellent. I love how there’s no obvious objective here - it feels more like
“Here’s a bunch of stuff you can do cool things with.” It’s very appealing and
makes me wish I was into music production.

------
warent
Oh yeah this is super dope. The reason why this works is that Max is a 3rd
party programming interface for audio, and Live can interface with Max, hence
"Max for Live." It uses some subset of JavaScript. Anybody can develop stuff
like this and a lot do, but it's quite challenging in my experience and
fortunately Ableton does amazing work like this and always releases their own
Max stuff.

------
mskullcap
In love with Ableton, totally not in love with visual programming (Max). I
wish it was easier to use traditional programming with Ableton or Max.

~~~
robbyt
Check out Bitwig. Some ex-Ableton engineers split off to rewrite Ableton using
modern programming techniques. It has a public JS API for controlling anything
in the GUI. Also, has a modular synth mode called the grid (which is similar
to Max, but more like eurorack)

~~~
teilo
This is not a valid comparison.

Bitwig gives you no access to their DSP technology in its scripting language,
so it is not remotely comparable to Max in that regard.

Max, on the other hand, gives you no access to Ableton's UI or API.

I have both, but prefer Bitwig. But there is nothing out there quite like Max.
Not even Reaktor covers the same territory.

I am hoping that the next big thing in Bitwig will be to open up their DSP
API, and give us the ability to create our own Grid modules, and, beyond that
even, our own native instruments and effects. But I do not believe that
extending their Javascript API is the way to do this.

~~~
pottering
"Max, on the other hand, gives you no access to Ableton's UI or API"

You mean Max standalone?

Max For Live sure does "give you access to Ableton's UI or API".

[https://docs.cycling74.com/max8/vignettes/live_api_overview](https://docs.cycling74.com/max8/vignettes/live_api_overview)

~~~
teilo
I stand corrected.

What it doesn't give you, however, is access to the control surface internals,
i.e., to create new control surface "drivers" inside Ableton itself. But of
course, that's currently the ONLY thing Bitwig lets you do with their API.

------
smcl
This is neat, but ...

> JSON Video – the second example device on how to fetch web data in JSON
> format: uses #ableton tagged looped videos from the online video sharing
> service “Vine”.

How old is this? Vine was pretty much shuttered a few years ago, I'd be
surprised if there was a way to add new videos or if you could rely on being
able to access old ones

~~~
input_sh
Vine shuttered in late 2016, first GitHub commits are from March 2016, and
there are a few commits from 2019, so the project isn't did.

------
ablation
Ableton continues to do fantastic things and produce excellent software that
genuinely makes me WANT to use it. Connection Kit is just another wonderful
tool to help people be more creative with the platform.

------
cyberferret
This looks great. I am primarily a Logic X guy, but my son uses Ableton mainly
for his live act (looping). This announcement has prompted me to dive a little
deeper into the Ableton world to see what it is all about.

I know Logic has fairly powerful MIDI connectivity etc., but it looks like
this takes it to a whole new level with different audio comms protocols.
Wonder if they support PureData at all?

~~~
benwad
They do! [https://cdm.link/2016/11/free-jazz-now-ableton-link-sync-
wor...](https://cdm.link/2016/11/free-jazz-now-ableton-link-sync-works-pure-
data/)

I also once managed to get PD into Logic X but it took quite a lot of fiddling
around.

------
dna_polymerase
> If you’ve been looking to use Live with technologies like Arduino, LEGO®
> MINDSTORMS® EV3 and OSC [..]

Can't wait for the first Illenium set played entirely on Mindstorms. \s

I'm actually excited to see what people will do with this. This might
eliminate a lot of overhead for people who have really creative ideas but lack
the technical proficiency to set connect all the dots themselves.

------
pottering
Tangential, but let me hype mutateful and gibberwocky, they are just too cool:

[https://cdm.link/2019/10/mutateful-free-live-coding-
ableton/](https://cdm.link/2019/10/mutateful-free-live-coding-ableton/)

[https://github.com/carrierdown/mutateful/](https://github.com/carrierdown/mutateful/)

[https://cycling74.com/articles/content-you-need-
gibberwocky](https://cycling74.com/articles/content-you-need-gibberwocky)

[http://gibberwocky.cc/](http://gibberwocky.cc/)

------
arvinsim
I am interested in Ableton but pretty much everyone is recommending to either
get the lite version(which is bundled with a lot of products) or the Suite
version.

Would probably help if there was a installment plan for users who are outside
the US.

~~~
puranjay
Doesn't Lite limit you to 16 tracks? That gets over quickly once you start
producing serious music.

The Push + Live Suit bundle is good value imo.

Though you should ask what you're going to use it for. I use it mostly as an
arranger and honestly, I could have done the same better in Studio One.

~~~
thorin
Tell that to the Beatles, Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath,
Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix... but yeah I kinda agree ;-)

~~~
puranjay
Amazing how they worked around with 4 tracks back in the day. Iirc, even
Bohemia Rhapsody was recorded on 16 tracks and they had to essentially record,
bump everything to a single track, record again.

------
luka-birsa
Makes me wanna install Ableton and just play with it. What a well done
commercial.

------
adamnemecek
I'm launching an IDE for music composition soon
[http://ngrid.io](http://ngrid.io)

~~~
iamcreasy
Where can I learn more about it? Any image/video or demo?

------
buboard
Love ableton, but what are good open source programs using ableton's simple
approach? I know LMMS

~~~
jcelerier
I'm trying to get [https://ossia.io](https://ossia.io) there :)

~~~
andybak
Looks interesting.

The examples link here:
[https://ossia.io/libossia/](https://ossia.io/libossia/) is broken.

~~~
jcelerier
oops, fixed. Thanks !

~~~
andybak
Are there any sample projects I can load into Score? I'm a bit lost as to
where to start with a blank canvas.

~~~
jcelerier
yep : [https://github.com/OSSIA/score-user-
library/](https://github.com/OSSIA/score-user-library/)

but this is clearly not the strong point of the environment sadly !

------
AdrienLemaire
Edit: Sorry I accidentally posted on the wrong thread

~~~
AdrienLemaire
Ok, I can read it normally with llpp after downloading it.

Edit: This document is a great resource to keep by for when the time is needed
:)

~~~
obituary_latte
Ehem. I think you might be looking for this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21503005](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21503005)
:)

~~~
AdrienLemaire
Sorry about that, and thanks for the correction.

~~~
obituary_latte
No worries! Happens to everyone at some point :)

~~~
welly
I have that to look forward to then.. :(

~~~
obituary_latte
Indeed. Just keep in mind that it could be worse :)

