Audio Routes 2 - Advanced Topics

Audio Routes Max For Live pack - Advanced Topics
Topic 1: Max for Live programming functions
The Audio Routing Example device is a great option for Max for Live developers that want to create
multichannel routing devices of their own. Open the device in the Max editor by clicking the Edit
button:
The patching part of this device exposes the basic elements needed to build a multichannel device.
Notice the multiple arguments to the plugin~ and plugout~ objects, which define the multiple audio
inputs and outputs that are exposed to Live.
Basically, if a device has 8 inputs, it is capable of grabbing 8 audio signals from different tracks in
Live. Similarly, if the device has 8 outputs, it is capable of sending 8 audio signals to other tracks in
Live. 
Remember that there is a constraint of routing in Live - and, by extension, in the M4L context:
routings have to be set as stereo pairs.
The result of this constraint is that inputs or outputs 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 and 7-8 will be routed together in
pairs. To accomplish this, the Audio Routing device offers a small utility in the form of a bpatcher
that programmers can copy into their own device.
This bpatcher has two arguments: “audio_inputs” or “audio_outputs” in order to define the type of
target, and the index of a pair of inputs/outputs of the device it refers to, with 1 representing pair
1-2, 2 representing 3-4, 3 for 5-6, and so on.
A single device may have up to 64 inputs and outputs (32 stereo addressable I/O pairs).
Topic 2: Editing speakers routing and configuration
The Panner device has an editor for adjusting speakers’s position, name and size separately, for
creating a bass (LFE) channel, as well as for routing the multichannel audio produced by the
panning effect. To open the side-bar of the editor, click on the Edit (tool icon) in the upper right part
of the user interface:
The Output section
Audio routing
It is important to understand that Live only handles stereo tracks. Therefore, routing settings may
only be set to pairs of audio channels: channels 1/2, channels 3/4, etc. The routing popups allows
for selecting a destination output. The destination output should be a stereo pair set to a stereo
output of a physical audio device:
Just like in Live, it is possible to target a Live track rather than an output of a physical audio device.
In this case the second popup allows for selecting an “insertion point” in the target track, such as
the different audio input pairs of a multichannel device or plugin. If the track is empty, only the
“Track In” target is available:
Editing a pair of outputs (speakers)
To select a pair of outputs to edit, use the Output popup:
For each available output, several parameters may be adjusted:

- the “Chan” (channel) parameters selects whether the output is enabled or disabled, and which
channel of the output pair the audio signal should be routed to: A (left) or B (right). Note that if a
channel is disabled, the corresponding speaker icon in the main UI is made invisible.
- the Name parameter allows for renaming the speaker. Note: if the text content is deleted, the
name is set to the channel number
- the Az and Dist and/or X and Y localization parameters allow for fine adjustments of the position
of the speaker. The localization parameters are displayed accordingly to the coordinates mode
selected:
- the Size parameters allows for adjusting the size of the speaker circle
Note that in Edit mode, speakers positions and size may be manipulated from the main UI as well.
Subwoofer channel
This section allows for the creation of a bass channel, which may be used by some specific
speakers systems (5.1, 7.1…).
The subwoofer channel has its own routing facilities, whose features are similar to the satellites
speakers as described above. It’s up to the user to route the output of the subwoofer channel to a
dedicated physical audio output.
All active satellites channels are mixed together into one sole channel, with a slight level
attenuation as the number of satellites channels increases. A lowpass filtering is then applied to the
mixed audio, with adjustable cutoff frequency and slope.
Two filtering modes may be applied: “LP” (lowpass) only affects the subwoofer channel, while
“X” (crossover) applies both a lowpass filtering to the subwoofer channel, and an additional
highpass filtering to the satellites channels, with common cutoff frequency and slope.
Topic 3: Speakers setup variations, copy/paste & sharing
Once a speakers configuration has been defined, we may want to create variations of that
configuration, or share configurations between different instances of the device.
A small set of utilities can be found in the upper-right part of the Speakers editor, including setup
copy/paste and share features in between devices:

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Audio Routes Max For Live pack - Advanced Topics

Topic 1: Max for Live programming functions

Editing a pair of outputs (speakers)

To select a pair of outputs to edit, use the Output popup:

For each available output, several parameters may be adjusted:

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