Ableton Max for Live - Typescript Project

Overview

This project serves as a small boilerplate for Node for Max Typescript projects. See these videos for an introduction to Node for Max:

• Node for Max: An Introduction
• Node for Max: Getting Started

Getting started

• Clone this repo
• Run npm install to install dependencies
• Run npm run build to build the project
• Run npm run watch to continuously build the project on further changes

Installing the device into Ableton

Open this project with your computer's folder browser. Drag max-device.amxd into Ableton's window, onto a MIDI effect chain:

Open the device by clicking the top left icon here:

Open the Max Console by clicking the button highlighted blue in this picture:

Making changes

After running npm run watch, Ableton will re-run your script every time you change something in your Typescript code.

src/max-index.tsx is the entry point used for Ableton, while src/node-index.tsx is an alternate entry point to run node from your command line. This is useful when testing things that doesn't rely on Ableton. Run the node program outside of Ableton by running node max-device/node-index.js.

Edit src/app/master.ts to change the functionality of the device. You can log to the console using this.logger.log(). Anything you log should show in the Max Console, or the command line console if you are running the script yourself as node-index.js.

Using the web application

Currently the node-index file is set up to communicate to the browser over websockets. After building your project with npm run build, run node max-device/node-index.js to start the websocket server.

In the webapp directory, run:

• npm install
• npm start

Then go to http://localhost:1234 in your browser. Then click "Start" to turn on the in-browser synthesizer.

Go back to the terminal that is running node-index.js. With this terminal in focus, you should be able to use your computer keyboard as a chord generator. For example, pressing the C key should play C major. When you press keys with the terminal in focus, the node process picks up your key strokes, converts them into chords, and sends the chords to the browser over websockets. The browser then plays the notes using a library called SoundFont.

This is a proof of concept where the max process would be able to communicate to the browser in a similar manner. Running the node code directly in your terminal allows for quicker iterations of development, because it doesn't rely on Ableton to be running or any of Ableton's state.