On behalf of our co-workers at Cycling ’74, we’re pleased to announce the release of Max 8 , our first major upgrade to the software in four years. We started the Max 8 project with a focus on improving performance. We hope you find the application launches and loads files noticeably faster and has a more responsive user interface. Building on this foundation, we worked in small teams on several major feature areas including a new Vizzie based on Jitter OpenGL objects, a new Max console, an integrated search feature, UI color themes, compatibility improvements including HiDPI and multitouch support on Windows, Node.js integration, an optional new mode for patching called "Operate While Unlocked" you should try at least once, and an easy-to-use MIDI mapping system inspired by Ableton Live. Behind the scenes, we undertook a major project to streamline the technology that manages Max authorizations.

Max 8 also includes something unexpected: a way to patch with multiple channels of audio we call MC. This was not something we had originally planned for this release, but we stumbled on a way to make this work about a year ago. We found the experience of playing with MC so compelling that we made the decision to postpone the release for a few months in order to make room for it.

While we forced you to wait a bit longer for Max 8 to come out of the oven, we also had the opportunity to address a few long-standing issues (a list of Max 8 bug fixes and new features is here ). We even fixed a bug in the expr object present in Max since the original version from the late 1980s!

All of your friends at Cycling ’74 continue to be inspired by the amazing work created by the Max community. Max turned 30 this year, and Cycling ’74 turned 20. With every new version of the software, we seek to respect this long and unique trajectory while exploring new ways to amplify your imagination through patching. We hope you find Max 8 worthy of your attention.

Finally, we want to recognize the great work on Max 8 by our C74 colleagues in engineering (Emmanuel, Joshua, Jeremy, Ben, Stefan, Florian, Rob R., Rob S., Cassie, and Sam), content, support, and project management (Tom, Ashley, Andrew B., Darwin, Cory, Andrew P., Tim, and Gregory), server and web development (August, Lilli, and Ginger), and sales and finance (Maddie, Laurin, Jill, and Andrea). We’re also particularly grateful to our dedicated group of beta testers who’ve been looking at Max 8 for the past year.