ralf,
i’m struggling to understand this post for a couple of reasons. the first is that liveapi does exist. in fact, i’ve been working on a system that allows any midibox user access to live that go beyond the new akai controller and the monodeck II. i’m even able to access track, clip, device, and device parameter names and put them on the midibox, after automapping the midibox to each control. feedback on clips is an easy one. so the system exists, it’s just that we weren’t really told about it and how to use it. which leads to the next reason i’m confused.
Ultra, as you know, Ableton was aware of the LiveAPI, and although it was a hack into the inner parts of Live and thus a violation of the license, ableton decided to not only tolerate this attempt to get an API to control Live, but welcomed it. The reason is that we knew a demand for such an API exists, and people were putting thier efforts into it, but we also appreciated their skills as engineers. We looked if a community would grow around this, but that seemed not to be the case, most likely because it was too difficult and unreliable to use it.
You must understand that an internal programming level is something completely different than an official API provided to the users. The internal API may change with each release, even with each bugfix, and render your efforts useless. It is not reliable, not documented, not complete, not polished, uses internal terms, is not orthogonal and hard to use, and its very easy to make mistakes and loose your work (i.e. the Live set). Therefore we had to say that no API existed for the users to control Live.
Making such ann API from the internal layers is a significant effort and for MAX for Live we are doing that. We had to build an infrastructure for handling the user-made programs (patches) anyway, so we used the chance to extend MAX with objects to control Live. We took care to make a nice and understandable API and data model, we will document them, test them, fix bugs and keep them as stable as possible over time. So that we can say without shame, yes we provide an API.
the monodeck II was built using an open-source system with information provided by tk and the midibox community. however, i’ve yet to find any information about the monodeck II that was given back to the community (edit: i’ve found information on the hardware, but nothing on the software/communication). i have looked, because of my interest in getting under the hood with live. it was a bit disappointing to find nothing.
The extensions of MIDIBOX software needed for monodeck II are documented here:
http://www.suckow.de/ralf/ledmatrix4x20/index.html
The actual software in the monodeck II is slightly different, but since I had no time to document it (again), I just sent the software as is to the people who asked, which were 3 or 4.
The huge Max patches which actually implement all the logic in Live are made by Robert and are his secret (his competitive advantage as musician, if you like). But this has nothing to do with the monodeck, with MIDIBOX, with ableton or with me. Most technical musicians keep their personal way of making music, their tricks, for themselves.
now we’re being asked about how to improve a commercial product, after having been slighted on information regarding how to control our own devices. are you providing max for live for free? or do you want us to purchase it and tell you how you can make it better? how is this nothing more than a max for live advertisement being posted to the forum, when we already have a means to control live but are told it doesn’t exist?
You are right, that was a stupid move of mine. It has nothing to do with ableton. I was a little homesick about the MIDIBOX community, which I had no contact with for two years, and then I thought it would be cool to get some feedback on the API so that we could improve it, maybe even before the release. But I forgot that this is a completely non-commercial thing here, which I must respect. Also I became weak and allowed myself to show off with something I though would be cool in the eyes of the MIDIBOX community. You are right, please forget my post.
