you can download and use Max without any limitation for 30 days… and once the trial period is expired… you’ll still be able to open and run your projects… or other peoples projects… but you won’t be able to save files you modified…
many of my students first realize something with the demo… then keep using their project in “runtime” mode… and if they ever need to re-program something or create a different project… they can rent Max it for 30 days for a low price… or of course just decide to make an investment and buy the software…
Max has many licenses offers… discounts for students… teachers… ableton live users… permanent or subscription based… if want to know more… here is a link
I am not affiliated with Cycling’74… the company that makes Max… i don’t get a cut when my students buy something from them or anything similar…
Max is the software i use since 2009 for 95% of my projects… and its the one i can teach better…
additionally… i teach with it because… in my opinion… it’s well documented… there are plenty of examples and resources to learn and get inspired from… and its surrounded by a helpful and active community…
the above points make the learning curve less steep for beginners…
and for non-beginners… Max can be an extremely deep software… able to give unimaginable possibilities that no human being will aver be able to fully explore in a hundred lifetimes…
Max can get very deep in visuals and 3d… sound design and music… interfacing with external devices and other sofwares… this is one of the main reasons why i personally use it all the time… i can kind of do everything with it…
with Max i created interactive installations and performances using projections… live music… physical computing and driving theater lights… i used it for permanent commercial installations in hotels with multiple monitor screens… i used it for generative sound installations… to create 3d visualizations for movies… to drive video-mappings on huge gothic italian churches…
but also to decide which kind of pizza to pick when i can’t choose… or to build my own “stream deck like” button interface to trigger key combinations and shortcuts on my computer with an old tablet…
so… thats why Max…
having said that… i personally don’t mind what softwares or combination of softwares you use… what matters is what you do with it…
there are amazing softwares out there that absolutely deserve attention and are free…
for music and sound design there is plugdata… cardinal… ppooll… and if you like to code… orca… supercollider… csound… faust…
for visuals there is cables… game engines like godot… Unity… and if you have a beefy computer… Unreal…
if you are fine with coding there is… open frameworks…
and if you are fine with paying… isadora… touch designer… vvvv…
and many more my brain can’t recall right now…
to wrap up… i use Max because i am comfortable with it and because it lets me do lots of very different stuff in the same environment without the need of launching other softwares… but if you prefer to use other tools… go for it! there are 100 different ways to get to the similar results… it takes all sorts to make a world…