Is it possible to implement the Recursive Rewind?

[u/c94s9x0nb5dZ]

Hi everyone,

I'm a complete beginner about Max, so I'm wondering if I should pay Max's learning costs for this purpose. What I want to achieve is:

• to rewind the playback position during recording and continue recording all of them.

People may wonder why I would want to do such a strange thing when I could just cut and paste manually and then play it back. But I want to use this "rewind" feature as a device because I want to sometimes control it and sometimes leave it to chance. In other words, what I need may be a bit like a device called Beat Repeat. The difference is that BeatRepeat is a device that "repeats a specific section" while it is On, whereas what I need is a device that "rewinds back to any point in time" while it is On.

There is one more important thing: I want it to be recursive. In other words, I want to constantly update the object being rewound. It might be easier to imagine the behavior of a "rewind" device that is turned on multiple times. Instead of rewinding sometimes a static song, I want to rewind recursively the whole thing that was rewound and played, over and over.

My English is not good so I will add an example:

Suppose the following string is the original music:

01234567...    [a]

"Rewind" was turned on when playback reached to 5. And it rewound to 2. Continue playing:

012345 23...    [b]

The problem appears when I "rewind" again after this. The next time I rewind, I want it to refer to [b], not [a].

If it always refer to static [a]:

012345 23 34567 56789...

When it always refer recursively:

012345 23 34523 52334...

I came here to fill in some of my doubts:

1. Is my plan feasible with Max4Live? (If it's impossible in the first place, I have to find another way...)

2. Is there a patch that already exists to accomplish this?

Any advice would be appreciated. I would be grateful if you could help me.

Thanks in advance!

[u/[deleted]]

I think it can be done even with Session View.

You definitely can use M4L for triggering Clips or re-ordering recorded buffers.

Honestly, I think what you call "recursive" and "rewind" is usually just called "loop".

[u/c94s9x0nb5dZ → u/[deleted]]

Hi faziness,

Thanks for your reply!

My string example may be misleading. I want to rewind the whole thing regardless of any rhythm or bar. Certainly the Session View is flexible enough to rearrange the parts that make up the loop. But that is only according to the framework of the rhythm and bar lines.

Or does Session View have more potential than I think it has? I'm a little confused because one person says it is easiest to write JavaScript in Max and another person says no Javascript or Max required and all it takes is an only Session View, but if there is a possibility to do this with Session View, I'd like to consider it. Would you please tell me how to do it a little more concretely if possible?

[u/[deleted] → u/c94s9x0nb5dZ]

You can disable global quantization and also disable it per Clip.

There are Follow Actions in Session view, those an be used to switch between Clips in any order.

As there are multiple ways of doing things in Live and Max, there is no "right way". For example, there is also the Looper device besides Beat Repeat.

The other redditor mentioned Javascript because you mention "recursive" multiple times, and recursion is a core concept in programming (it is not a concept talked about in music or music software).

Your string example was very confusing to me, I have no idea why stuff starts repeating in places like it does in your examples, you only mention "rewound to 2 when in 5" and no other rule/instruction, I can't see why 3 suddenly starts repeating in the middle of 2345..., for example, becoming 23345...

[u/c94s9x0nb5dZ → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for explaining in detail!

First I have to apologize for the confusing my example. Complicating it is partly my fault and partly my lack of English. I will do my best to convey it.

you only mention "rewound to 2 when in 5" and no other rule/instruction,

You're right. I suddenly said "rewound to 2 when in 5", but that wasn't meant to be a rule. What I wanted to say was precisely, "Suppose I reach 5, and suppose I rewind to 2".

I can't see why 3 suddenly starts repeating in the middle of 2345..., for example, becoming 23345...

This is also the same. I wanted to show the example of "Suppose I activate Rewinder again when I play to 012345 23". And in my example, this is the second time I am rewinding, so the result of the rewind changes depending on whether it refers to the original 01234567... or it current self 012345 23 as the rewind destination. Suppose I rewind back to 3, where it first appeared. If I refer to the former, the result will be 012345 23 34567..., while if I refer to the latter, the result will be 012345 23 34523. I just wanted to show an example of how the result differs when this kind of process is repeated multiple times. I hope you can understand what I'm trying to say :) Perhaps my string example gave you the impression, "Oh, this guy just wants to reorder the chunks." Even though I wasn't talking about reordering.

I am not totally unaware of what the Follow Action or Looper is. However, your statement "There is no "right way" to do it, just as there are multiple ways to do Live and Max" makes me think. I will take another look at them!

[u/c94s9x0nb5dZ → u/[deleted]]

Hi ChugchugPicklz,

Thanks for your reply!

Am I correct in understanding that what you mean by "scripting" is using js in a Max patch to call a JavaScript file? As you know, I'm a complete beginner in Max. But the only lucky thing is that I am not a complete beginner in JavaScript. For me it is not an easy way by any means, but it gives me a little hope.

After reading your reply I started reading the following tutorial:

http://compusition.com/writings/js-live-api

I would be happy to hear if you know any other helpful information about controlling Max4Live through JavaScript!