Max 8
Discover a new landscape of sonic possibilities
Max 8 Features
1. Tap into sonic complexity with MC
2. Noticeably improved performance
3. Simplified MIDI and keyboard control with Mappings
4. Vizzie 2, completely rebuilt with OpenGL
5. Open your patches to the world with Node for Max
6. Experience a streamlined patching workflow
7. Uncover the secrets to Max mastery with search
8. 37 more features including VST3 and Gen for events
Discover a new landscape of sonic possibilities
With MC, patches with 100 channels of audio look as simple as those with a single channel. The ability to manipulate so many audio channels and operations with so few objects will open up a previously hidden world of ideas.
Everything you love about Max... multiplied
Experience noticeably faster performance
For Max 8, we profiled real-world, messy patches to discover what we could optimize. You’ll notice the difference the moment you launch the application.
In addition to these overall improvements, we’ve significantly enhanced specific real-time use cases including the coll object (up to 60x faster), Jitter texture to matrix copying, jit.world matrix output, and an updated physics engine.
Control your patch with hardware — no patching required
Max 8 includes a Mappings feature inspired by DAWs such as Ableton Live.
Assign physical controls to your patch in just three steps:
Once you’ve mapped your controller, you can immediately starting playing as you patch.
With Mappings in Max, use a familiar workflow to set up hardware controls for more than just volume or filter cutoff. Trigger complex events, transform visuals, or adjust probabilities — all without adding any objects to your existing patches.
Build your own visuals faster than ever
Vizzie is our collection of over 80 high-level modules for interactive video. It’s already a perfect launchpad for learning Jitter, but now it’s ready for serious use.
37 more features including VST3 and Gen for events
Workflow Improvements
1 Javascript, coll, and other text-based objects can open files in an external text editor
2 The Max console toolbar icon shows when new messages or errors have arrived
3 Post messages to the Max console from any patch cord in one step with new Print Watchpoints.
4 Max 8 includes a completely new UI for editing object colors including algorithmic color tweaking, palette saving and loading, and much more.
5 Use the mouse or trackpad to zoom and scroll around in large patchers
6 The patcher style system features numerous refinements including the ability to delete styles
7 There are new options for pasting objects including Paste and Match Style
8 The audio signal probe includes new history and scope modes
9 Updated interfaces for Reference, Package Manager, File Browser, and Authorization Window features
10 The feature that transforms changed attributes into arguments has been improved, particularly for Jitter objects
New Objects
11 The new chooser UI object displays a scrolling list, useful for file browsing interfaces and more
12 The new multirange object is a graphical editor for functions that contain ranges of values
13 The new console object outputs and filters the contents of the Max console inside your patch
14 New MIDI objects for 14-bit continuous controller, registered and non-registered parameter messages
15 Gen now has an event domain version called gen with the same interactive code generation and DSP features as its older sibling gen~
16 New frame~ and framesnap~ objects simplify working with spectral data
Compatibility Improvements
17 Max scans your audio plug-ins, simplifying the use of “shell” plug-ins (such as from Waves and Expert Sleepers).
It also will also detect plug-ins with compatibility issues and disable them.
18 Max 8 is compatible with modern Mac OS full screen windowing features including tabbed windows
19 Max 8 on Windows includes support for multitouch and HiDPI monitors
20 Improved support for multi-channel audio file formats
21 Duplicate file name warnings list the locations of all duplicate files, not just the one Max will be using.
Jitter Improvements
22 Improvements to the jit.gl.pix WebGL export process
23 OpenGL supports drawing to multiple jit.gl.node contexts, simplifying render variations from a single geometry source.
24 jit.gl.multiple can now draw jit.gl.node instances, allowing for complex geometry hierarchies to be multiplied
25 jit.gl.model now loads FBX, glTF and OpenGEX files
26 Improvements to the way Jitter GL objects automatically find and join a render context without specifying a rendering context name
27 jit.gl.node and jit.world can output a description of the entire 3D scene as a dictionary
28 jit.gl.slab and jit.gl.shader without arguments will open a default shader file when double clicked as a starting point for developing new shaders
Major Object Enhancements
29 The vst~ object now supports VST3 plug-ins
30 The line object works with multi-segment ramps and is compatible with the function object
31 The dial object includes four new modes: Live, Classic, Needle and Pan and the live.dial object has a new large mode
32 The jit.cellblock object can monitor audio signals
33 The poly~ object can host a different patcher in each of its voices and includes a bypass mode
34 poly~ automatically adds an outlet identifying the voice that sent the last event
35 Gen includes an @expr mode for high-performance expression evaluation in a single object box
36 The message box allows changing the value of its arguments without triggering output
37 The gestalt object that reports system environment information has been substantially modernized and includes a dictionary output mode
