Audio Apps Crucial to OS X

rufus

The Macintosh platform has established itself in the music industry as the leading OS for recording production. Apple sells *alot* of CPU's to studios accross the world. An important step torwards moving OS X into this world was cubase being carbonized. This isn't really one of the big guns though.

It is imperritive to bring ProTools to Mac OS X. It is the absolute industry standard in recording studios, and there is still no word from Digidesign as to when it will be released.

True it may not be as important as the release of Photoshop, but thats only relatively speaking. ProTools being carbonized is crucial to OS X's adoption in the music world. Just my $0.02. Your thoughts?

<img src="confused.gif" border="0">

hmurchison

Pro Tools is VERY important but it pales in comparison to Photoshop. The reason. Photoshop has no peers. Xres and Live Picture have met their demise. Other tools are and have always been leagues behind PS. Pro Tools doesn't hold the same sway with Audio Pros. Sure it's a mature and powerful system but as an Audio Pro you have a plethora of ways and tools to craft your audio. I look forward to a Pro Tools X and I also look forward to many of the current apps going X/Core Audio Savvy.



I think that the Mac needs something equal to Sonic Foundry's Acid Pro (Bitheadz Phrazer is close but not there) and I like the idea of the Gigasampler from Tascam.



Products that I would like to see more of is Celemony from Melodyne(Pitch shifting extraordinaire)



Also I like Steinbergs plans to use Multiple Networked Computers for VST plug ins. This could be the future of Audio on a Mac. MP and Network Processing!

alex london

I'm the owner of a 'Digital Audio'- Apples' name for a DP533 with no audio in-some joke guys. I use Logic Audio 5.1, a competitor to Pro Tools,but one that won't be going native until the end of the year- if its' UK distributors are to be believed. And that is in spite of a press release from august 2001 from emagic saying how vital and cool OSX was for the company. So basically I agree-we need audio apps now,Core Audio , Core Midi , Audio Units what are the developers waiting for?

whisper

FWIW, <a href="http://osxaudio.com/"; target="_blank">http://osxaudio.com/</a>;

harald

If what I heard from the horse's mouth is true, then don't hold your breath for ProTools X. Like, migrate now to something that does the job as it's errrrrm not coming. If you've seen a DP1GHz eat its way through multitrack 96k 24bit audio on a Steinberg product you won't care so much.

alex london

A talking horse-why of course,its Mr Ed. Thanks for the link Whisper.

whisper

[quote]Originally posted by Harald:

<strong>If what I heard from the horse's mouth is true, then don't hold your breath for ProTools X. Like, migrate now to something that does the job as it's errrrrm not coming. If you've seen a DP1GHz eat its way through multitrack 96k 24bit audio on a Steinberg product you won't care so much.</strong><hr></blockquote>



Who told you that? And why wouldn't they make an OS X version?

rufus

Digidesign was one of the first companies to hop onto the OS X development. I remember back when X was still in beta, they had a list of major developers, Digidesign being one of them. There is no doubt in my mind that Digidesign is putting together ProTools X, when is the question though.



BTW I've done 24bit 96khz recording with a Steinbergh product on a DP800 G4. I prefer my DP500 G4 running ProTools 5.1 any day. ProTool's interface is more intuitive and far far better than that of anything thats dribbled out of steibergh. Dont get me wrong, i respect cubase and think it has a great selling point with alot of people, but when it comes down to having the absolute best software, I've yet to meet a engineer or producer in the industry that thinks anything is better than ProTools. Ill take my own experiance and the word of the industry over some random person who thinks cubase is gods gift to digital recording.

barracuda

Do any of you guys know of a cheap basic way for me to record guitar parts onto my Mac in OS X, just to get song ideas down? In the past, I used SimpleSound and the little mic that came with my beige G3 mini-tower (266Mhz..woo hooo!). The sound quality was surprisingly good! I have a USB/Firewire card....I just need to know some good recommendations for a mic and any other helpful hints. Also, is that iMic from Griffin a good way to hook a mic up? Any advice would be REALLY HELPFUL!! Thanks!!

barracuda

Also....any word on when Apple will have something of the equivalent to SimpleSound for OS X? It would be FREAKIN' AWESOME if they put ouy an iApp to record instruments and voice! Maybe 10.2 (Jaguar) ?! Just for fun...what should Apple call the application? iStudio? iRecord? iJam? <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />



[ 04-16-2002: Message edited by: barracuda ]</p>

harald

ProTools product manager in SF told me. No, he wasn't even JYD-style pissed. The sense I gathered was that CoreAudio is migrating all DSP onto internal guts of a Macintosh, and the Digi-losophy is that's never going to work ... they do have a major stake in outboard IO and DSP which may be why this is the case. Digi consider the best way to do major DSP (ie multitrack non-linear editing) is the oldskool "use the motherboard for display and use outboard for DSP.")



FWIW this was in November of last year and things may have changed. I had a full-on argument about the potential of OS X and CoreAudio; all my points were seriously rebutted and I saw absolutely no reason why he should be bullshitting me.

antaisce

FWIW this was in November of last year and things may have changed. I had a full-on argument about the potential of OS X and CoreAudio; all my points were seriously rebutted and I saw absolutely no reason why he should be bullshitting me.[/QB][/QUOTE]



What are their plans then?

hmurchison

I'm not quite sure that making an Audio App OSX Native REQUIRES the use of Core Audio. Any clarification would be appreciated.

aquatic

A little off topic, but.. Barracuda, just plug your guitar into the audio in! You'll probably need a 1/4" to 1/8" (mini) adapter ((big to little.) I still don't understand why Apple took away audio in. USB audio eats CPU, and USB is *very* flaky. I've crashed iMacs countless times by unplugging a keyboard or mouse. Plus, why replace something, instead of just add to it?



I have a Yamaha P200 88key keyboard and MU50 tone generator. I bought Digital Performer 2.51, but so far, I think it sucks; it's hard to use. Everyone else tells me I just don't know anything. Sounds kind of like what PC people tell someone who just bought a PC. Any recommendations for software? All I want to do is record from the keyboard, and then layer it, to make some Baroque, techno, jazz, or rock riffs. The trick is the MU50 tone generator. MIDI is a pain The Mac won't record input from the P200 and MU50 at the same time (through Midiman USB.) Maybe a software tone generator would work? If there were MIDI software as easy to use as my MacOS 9.2.2 I would be greatful to anyone who could steer me to it!



OS X has support for surround sound now. Who will provide the hardware though? Maybe Apple??

(hopefully not Creative)

gnom

[quote]Originally posted by hmurchison:

<strong>I'm not quite sure that making an Audio App OSX Native REQUIRES the use of Core Audio. </strong><hr></blockquote>





I don´t know if it´s required or not but Markus Fritze (one of emagics Software engineers) said in the Logic mailing list that the MacOS X version of Logic will use Core Audio and he also pointed out that the most time consuming thing is/was not some major flaws in CoreAudio but getting used to coding and beta testing for X.

He also said something like it (Logic X) works very well with up to 50 Audio Tracks, he did not specifically pointed ot what happens if you have more than 50 but I guess it gets a little quirky/sloppy or something like that.

Sounds promising to me (and I´m waiting for the damn thing since January).





bye.

alex london

I got an email from Emagic saying that Logic OSX will ship within the 2nd quarter 2002, like you GnOm, I've been waitng so long, oh the anticipation.

guitarbloke

For recording, there's a nice 2-track free program from tcworks called "Spark". I'd suggest some sort of recording preamp with audio outs connected to the line in on the iMac - I swear by my little Tech-21 amp-simulator box; at the moment the other half of my recording preamp is an old Tascam portastudio (Lo-Fi rules )



Mostly, though, I use Pro Tools Free in OS 9 if I want to record - lovely interface, nice plugins, some basic MIDI, free - result!