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Multiple OMaxes

OMax
#1

Hi all,
What is the best way to get more than one copy of OMax running at the same time?
Thanks,
Mark

#2

Dear Mark,

The easiest solution to get two copies of OMax running side by side is to duplicate your Max app (in the folder /Applications/Max…) then launch the two apps independently and open the main OMax patch in both. They will run perfectly side by side (without any interactions between them) and your operating system will be able to balance correctly the CPU charge of the two Max apps on your processor cores.

Naturally if you want interactions between the copies of OMax or if you have some other processes running in Max, this solution may not be suitable for you. You may need to have only one Max running.

If you want to load two copies of the main OMax patch in the same Max, then the way is to duplicate the main OMax patch and edit one of the copies in text mode (to benefit from search/replace functions). You will need to do the following searches and replacements in one of the copies (to avoid all conflicts in references):
Caution! You need to keep the extensions like _MIDI, _SP, _POLY etc.

  • search for all the mentions of “Dual” and replace them all by “Duo” (for example). This way, you will have independent audio inputs and models.
  • search for all the mentions of “Vizu” and replace them all by “Disp” (for example). This way, you will have 2 visualization windows.
  • search for all the mentions of “Impro1” , “Impro2” , “Impro3” , “Impro4” and replace them by “ImproA” , “ImproB” , “ImproC” , “ImproD” (for example).
    if you are interested by the MIDI part of OMax as well:
  • search for all the mention of “[ “MIDI” ]” (brackets included with their content) and replace them all by “[ “14H” ]” (for example)
  • search for all the mentions of “MIDI_POLY” and replace them all by “14H_POLY” (for example, or the same name you used for the previous step, appended with _POLY).
  • search for all the mentions of “ImproM1” , “ImproM2” and replace them by “ImproH1” , “ImproH2” (for example)

Save the patch and load both copies of the main OMax patch in Max, beginning with the “orginal” (not modified) one. You should not have any error message when loading the second copy (either saying that a structure is missing or that the name is already in use) and everything should work well. Otherwise, you probably missed some name replacements.

Naturally, as OMax has a modular structure, there are a lot of possibilites to build your own version of OMax with as many inputs as you want, as many improvisers etc. Though it is recommanded to be good “maxer” to do so… These possibilites should be documented in the future.

Feel free to let us know how it goes,
Best,

Benjamin

PS: in this message all the expressions to search/replace are given litteraly (without regular expressions) and enclosed in “double quotes”. Quotes are not to be included in the search/replace.

#3

Hi Benjamin,
That’s great, thanks. I’m going to try this soon, I’ll let you know how it goes. Maybe if I feel brave I can get a whole band going!
Thanks again,
Mark