livefader VS scheme-for-max

Nice work on Scheme for Max!

Much less impressive, but I spent a bit of time building a simple M4L device a while back using Typescript, and put some effort into figuring out how to make TS play nice(r) with the M4L API (the JS support in Max is pretty basic).

I never got around to splitting it out into its own reusable module but it might be of interest to anyone interested in playing with scripting Ableton from Max, but not interested in learning Max’s visual programming paradigm: https://github.com/tomduncalf/livefader

Would be interested to know how Ableton’s scriptability compares to some other DAWs… I know Tracktion and Bitwig have some degree of JS support, and Reaper has its own scripting language. Personally I’d love it Ableton made the Python API etc. a bit more official but I can of course understand why they don’t.

Yeah Max’s JS support is pretty weird.

I spent some time figuring out nicer ways to work with it in order to build an Octatrack-style parameter crossfader for M4L, it provides some abstractions and setup to make using Typescript with Max a bit more pleasant. Still plenty of limitations but I was able to get my device working pretty well in the end. Apologies for lack of docs!

https://github.com/tomduncalf/livefader

Mine is Scheme for Max, now on it's fourth open source release, but really written so I could make computer music how I want to. It's an extension to the popular Max/MSP visual music programming environment that embeds an s7 Scheme interpreter and provides a substantial API/FFI to Max. It allows you to script Max (and thus also Ableton Live) with Scheme, enabling interactive coding, algorithmic music, live coding, macros, and just much more pleasant scripting than in JavaScript. It locks in with the scheduler so you can even use Scheme powered sequencers within Ableton Live alongside regular Live tracks, and you can build sophisticated Live control surfaces using the Live API.

Github page here: https://github.com/iainctduncan/scheme-for-max

The project page is here, with links to lots of documentation I've done: https://github.com/iainctduncan/scheme-for-max

To download Scheme for Max and for tutorials, documentation, and the cookbook, visit the GitHub page: https://github.com/iainctduncan/scheme-for-max

If you like things like Janet, you might also like s7 Scheme. It is also a minimal Scheme built entirely in C and dead easy to embed. I used it to make Scheme for Max and Scheme for Pd, extensions to the Max and Pd computer music platform to allow scripting them in Scheme. (https://github.com/iainctduncan/scheme-for-max) Janet was one of the options I looked pretty closely at before choosing s7.

The author (Bill Schottstaedt, Stanford CCRMA) is not too interested in making pretty web pages, ha, but the language is great!

Project page: https://github.com/iainctduncan/scheme-for-max

I created Scheme for Max and Scheme for Pure Data. They are extensions to the Max/MSP, Ableton Live, and Pure Data computer music environments that embed an s7 Scheme interpreter in the host so that you can script, automate, and live code the hosts with s7, a Scheme from the CCRMA computer music center at Stanford and the same one used in the Snd editor and the Common Music 3 algorithmic composition environment. This allows you to do things like write algorithmic music tools, sequencers, and use the Ableton Live API in Scheme, including with Common Lisp style macros. It has an API for integrating with Max to share data structures, hook into the scheduler, run in the high priority thread, and so on. S4M allows you to do all the goodness of high level music programming in a Lisp, without losing the ability to use modern commercial tooling and instruments. It's my thesis project for a Masters in Music Technology with Andy Schloss and George Tzanetakis at the University of Victoria, and I plan to continue to a PhD working on it. I tried submitting twice, but it never made the page, which surprised me a bit given Lisp interest here.

The github page is here: https://github.com/iainctduncan/scheme-for-max

The youtube channel with various demos is here: https://www.youtube.com/c/musicwithlisp