Apple delivers Universal Shake 4.1 for $499 - Page 2

Because of the featureset

Logic Pro users still don't have sample accurate editing in the arrange window much to their chagrin. STP has this.

the Action-based editing is very cool in STP. Reordering effects and turning them off or on seems to be pretty fluid and effective.

There's more but the core of STP looks to be scalable. Apple surely didn't scrap the orginal Soundtrack for a new codebase that they plan on killing.

Apple tends to be laggards sn some apps. It took'em forever to get Waveburner back into Logic.


no doubt I'm now closer to 40 than 30..that's freaky to me.

Marvin

Not bad...taking to Shake isn't the easiest thing in the world but you obviously "get" what they're trying to do. Did you read any books to help you get up to speed or just hands on stuff?

Murch talks about how much he likes STP, but he never actually says that he is using it for real work. On the apple site, he mostly talks about how Final Cut makes it easy to send audio to the sound department (where I assume they do their final mix in Pro Tools or a similar app).

I'd be surprised if they're able to mix Scrubs in STP. You have a source on that? (looking at the apple site, there's a scrubs article...says they do all editing on Final Cut Pro, but no mention of any of the other FCS apps)

MTV doesn't surprise me, there have been editors doing quick dirty mixes just using video editing tools. STP is an improvement over no audio app at all...but just barely. You have a point with being cheap, the main reason to use STP at this point is because you're too cheap to spend a little money on a real audio app. But it's a poor tool, and time is money. There are superior alternatives to STP that don't cost that much, not to mention that having a guy who knows audio doing your final mix will usually give you better quality and probably get done much quicker (meaning cheaper).

At this point, STP is probably mostly being use for some dialogue editing and cleanup (before handing off to the sound department to finish the job on software that can handle it), maybe mixes on programs that don't need much of a mix. But it will probably be years before any but the most basic and low-budget movies are mixed with STP.



I hope you're right, but I'm not holding my breath. I agree that the action layers are pretty cool. It's just a shame that they've let major basic features go missing, it almost seems like the people desigining the app haven't got any input from people doing real audio editing and mixing. Hopefully the app is designed so they can easily add more features, but I'm not optimistic. One of the biggest problems is that the app is glacially slow, even on a quad. Adding more features is likely to make it even slower.

And hopefully Logic will get sample accurate editing in the arrange window. While I'd like to see STP finally get some improvements, I'd much rather see the cooler features in STP get added to Logic.

How is STP supposed to be an option for audio editors and mixers if it is only sold as part of an expensive package?

I really don't see the problem. Say it gets its rumored EOL in 2008, let's assume mid-2008. That means two years of use before it gets replaced by something better. If you can use this software in a media business, I'd think that it would easily be worthwhile. Who knows, depending on the project, it might even pay for itself in one project. That said, I am not very familiar with the software.

Is the combination of Shake and Motion a plausible alternative to using After Effects for motion graphics? I use Motion as much as possible, but it's lack of 3D camera and lighting capabilities leads me right back into After Effects on almost every project. I know Shake is intended more for video effects and compositing, but could it be utilized for motion graphics effectively when combined with Motion? Since After Effects probably won't be Universal Binary for another two years (since version 7 was just released in January), I'd REALLY love to switch to something else. Shake's new $499 price makes it a realistic consideration, but I'm wondering if it's even the right tool for the job. Thanks.

The myth is that he uses it. If it isn't true I haven't heard him dispute it.

I don't know of any publication that regularly documents the audio post path of television shows and movies. So there really is no wide record of what has been used for each show.

I agree for larger budget shows are more likely to have an expensive sound edit and mix. But I do know that STP is being used.


Nope, but there is someone who I can ask. I do know that Scrubs does not have as large a budget as most television shows. I think they are working with around $600,000 to $800,000 per episode. While the average network show is around 1.2 million per episode. So I have heard they keep everything as slim as possible.

No I don't use STP. But since I work for an Apple reseller I have viewed the data and presentations. STP isn't Logic Pro by any stretch. Apple doesn't expect for you to record and mix your next feature length film on it either. It's great for tweaking dialogue and adding some tracks that can be kept or replaced at a later date with higher quality material.

Apple always does a great job with rev 2.0 applications. Motion improved significantly. As Teno said before moving FCS to Universal Binary was obviously a task that required a lot of recoding and it prevented us from seeing a new FCS version at NAB.

I'd bet money that we see a new FCS wih STP 2.0 next year at NAB. That also gives Apple time to finish and add Blu-Ray and beefed up HD DVD authoring tools to DVD Studio Pro 5

Funny how this tangent came from a discussion on Shake but I think there are parallels there. Soundtrack required a rewrite of the core to move the app into a direction that Apple wanted. I think with the reduction in price of Shake Apple is once again saying "we have to modify this house's foundation if we wish to build a sturdy structure"

They may as well gut the price and pick up as many users as they can in 2 yrs.

Motion Pictures are mixed on large Pro-Tools or Nuendo rigs. STP is not aimed at them .....yet. Its fine for Industrials, Indie films and..... PORN! (which is FCP's little market segment secret)

I'm assuming the Final Cut Suite will go workgroup like Toxik.

Doesn't Apple pretty much already contain the tools to set this up?

Core Data is a liteweight database at the heart of OS X now. If that doesn't work then Apple can certainly utilize the code being worked on by subsidiary Filemaker.

Next shouldn't integrate XSAN into the Final Cut Suite? This would allow for file-locking concurrent access and the ability to manage your storage data on or across RAID Array.

Next look at this rumor

http://www.macosxrumors.com/articles...ive-documents/

If this is true then Apple may be adding the ability to collaborate with any other Mac on any file that would support this potential API. Soooo

Final Cut Studio Extreme with XSAN and a deeply embedded database with hooks into the OS X Core Data database all wrapped up in systemwide collaboration toolsets.

It'd take a few years to smooth out but man you get a few kick arse digital video mavens working in realtime and this suite would be worth it's weight in saffron.

I heard that from somewhere too!

Heh. I guess I'll date myself, but when I was a kid I worked as a "machine room" operator at a film mixing studio.

Yes, back in the misty pre-history of a separate mag track for each channel of the mix, projector and mag playback machines locked up electro-mechanically with selsyn (self synchronizing) motors.

Anyway, most small clients came in with a dozen or so separate mag tacks (having gotten that down to manageable size with pre-mixes), and we'd spend days getting the mix right.

And then there was the porn guy. He showed up with exactly three tracks in a battered briefcase: production sound, music, and the "M & G" track, our name for "Moan and Groan", a little sweetening to improve on the actors, uh, performance.

And he insisted the mix be run in more or less real time-- just bring the music up if they aren't talking and the M & G up when they're, well, you know.

Glad to here the porn industry remains true to it's "get 'er done" roots, even in the digital age.

Can anyone (who isn't occupied arguing about Soundtrack Pro) answer my question about Shake posted above? Thank you.

Creepy... that's also MY brithday...

Wow 3 Pisces cusp Aries on the same board. Well happy belated gmdt!


I have absolutely no experience with AE but my guess is that you're going to have to stick with AE. I've yet to read about one person that needs z axis stuff that was able to replace AE with Shake.

Wow 3 Pisces cusp Aries on the same board. Well happy belated gmdt!


I have absolutely no experience with AE but my guess is that you're going to have to stick with AE. I've yet to read about one person that needs z axis stuff that was able to replace AE with Shake.

Piss on youze cuspers

Full-on Aries stubborness is where it's at!

Got this over @ cgtalk forums, supossed to be an email from Apple


I would bet option C is directed at Weta & ILM (and maybe the last bit directed towards Digital Domain!?!) And since Apple has now established the price for source code access, it is what Apple will probably get the big boys to start paying regular-like once the next-gen version of Shake comes out

Makes me wonder all the more about those bogus "iShake/ShakeExpress" interface screenshots from a few years or so ago

When is Siggraph this year?!?

;^p

The reqs for Shake include a display res of 1280 by 1024 - whilst the non-17" MBPs only sport a 1440 by 900 display.

Does this mean Shake won't run on a 15" MBP?

I don't think Motion and Shake are intended to be used together. You use either one or the other. If Motion doesn't fit your bill, which it obviously doesn't, you could try using only Shake.

I don't do much advanced stuff with it - just simple compositing high resolution media and retiming. The manual that comes with it is pretty good. For any specific queries, cgtalk.com is a good place to go as they have some pro Shake users there.

It's not really an effects package BTW. Like in Combustion, you can drop a smoke effect in somewhere. That's not the case with Shake. It's just really good at putting the media you already have together.

I always think the hands on approach is the best but I'd work through the manual first because some of the nodes don't really make much sense about what they do until you read the manual.


Possibly. Shake is the one with the 3D camera though and it doesn't support vector images. So, if you made fancy titles in Motion, you'd have to render them to a movie sequence and then import them into Shake. This is OK but I imagine most people would prefer to use the Motion graphics package last.

I don't like AE much but it does have a lot of plugins. Shake really doesn't. I imagine it's easier to do certain effects in AE than Shake. Where Shake really excels is that it's all scripted and you can make your own effects by building nodes together. I've heard that some people can make effects quicker and better that way than using plugins.

If I were you, I don't think I'd give up a single package I knew for two new ones that are very different. I actually don't like Motion at all and I do any kinds of simple motion graphics in Shake or FCP (flying text or whatever).


Shake runs on a 15" powerbook @ 1024x768. Just not very well because of the G4 CPU. The MBP will be fine.


Apple suggest that you can use them together either on the website or in the manual, I forget which.

Basically, AE is a decent compositor and motion graphics package.
Shake is a better compositor than AE but Motion is a weaker motion graphics package than AE.

The myth? The article on the apple website brags about films that were edited with Final Cut Pro. If they're editing and mixing with it, why would they pass up an opportunity to mention that? There ARE plenty of articles online mentioning the various equipment used on each show (mostly Pro Tools for audio), but none that I've found talking about mixing or editing in STP.

Sure, you know that STP is being used. But it's only being used on the most basic, low budget, low production value shows. I think that speaks volumes about the state of the software. I'm sure it also gets light work on other shows before the audio is handed off for the final editing, sound design and mix.

If you have a source on scrubs, go ahead and ask. I'd love to hear specifically what they're using. FYI, a google search turned up an article from Digidesign's website from a couple years ago talking about how Scrubs did 100% of their audio editing in mixing in Pro Tools, with the music done in Logic along with Pro Tools hardware. It's possible that they dumped PT for STP, but I doubt they'd be willing to take such a huge step down. Not to mention that if they've already bought the PT systems, there's no cost savings in dumping what you already have and already works well. Even for a $600k per episode show, there's no question that they can easily afford a one time cost of $10-15K for a decked out pro tools system.

If scrubs was mixing in STP, why wouldn't apple mention that on their website? They already have a relationship with the Scrubs crew.

Remember, one of the big costs of a show like that is labor. If using PT saves time over using STP, the labor costs will make the "cheap" app more expensive in the long run. This is a show that is basically produced in a week, I can't imagine them being able to make that deadline using an app as slow and buggy as STP.



Do you mean that they never plan for STP to be an app capable of that? FCP is capable of editing a feature film, why wouldn't they want to offer a similar app to handle the audio, especially when they are capable of shippng one of the best midi apps with Logic Pro? It seems like STP isn't very useful if the intention is just to use it for light cleanup before sending the audio to Pro Tools for the real mix.

Having used STP and many other audio apps, I can tell you that STP is NOT "great" for tweaking dialogue. It works, mostly. If you're willing to deal with incredibly slow load times, missing features, kludgy interface, numerous bugs. Not to mention that FCP import/export still has a ton of problems. It's probably better than FCP for editing dialogue, but that's about it.

STP isn't Logic but it shouldn't be. It's intended for completely different use. But it should (at least eventually) be as powerful and as useful as Logic.

And I still don't get how Apple expects to make it an audio app that gets any real use or competes with other audio apps if they don't even offer a way for audio guys to buy the app without spending hundreds on other apps that are useless to them?

minderbinder my bet is when the next FCP Studio drops all apps will be sold individual again.

This is a transition year for the selling of the apps + app growth, give it time.

And besides who cares if STP isn't as strong as other stuff yet? No one with an investment in post audio is gonna be throwing away their stuff anyways. Apple has essentially all the time in the world.

PS:


Technically they're all .1's now.

Who cares? People who bought the app. Sure, nobody is going to throw away their existing gear just yet. But it's pretty lame that the app doesn't even run basic things as promised. I'd be happy if I could use it for a few things and not have it corrupt audio files or run dog slow.

The problem with STP isn't that it "isn't as strong as other stuff". The problem is that it is horrible in its current state, just barely useable if you have low enough standards. Things like switching from one tiny audio file to another can take 4-5 seconds. That's unbelievable, we're talking about something that was virtually instantaneous on a quadra 950. Absolutely inexcusable.

And I'm not sure what you're talking about with the .1 thing. None of the other apple pro apps are still at version 1.0.x. Aperture got the worst press, but even that got an update that supposedly was a decent improvement (not to mention the update was FREE and they gave the app a price drop). I don't think there's any debating that STP is currently in the worst shape of any apple "pro" app.

So it is true Apple has confirmed the current version of Shake is at the end of the road. The code name for the next version of Shake is Phenomena.


Apple is pretty much throwing the future of Shake to the developer community which will likely build a much larger community of Shake users. Will the new compositing software go back to being $2999? Which would be out of the price range of mere mortals.

Ron Brinkman a founding employee of Sony Imageworks and a co-founder of Nothing Reel which developed Shake, is the VFX guru at the wheel of Shake and Apple's new compositing software.

Actually I just answered my own question. Its good business.

You get people people to try Shake at the low price then come out with a whole new version at the pro price.

Yes the current Shake is now a taste test. Build up more users and then provide a bridge to the nextgen product.

I read that Shake is limited in performance to 40MBps. I haven't been able to confirm this but if it's true there are performance bottlenecks that Apple can't seem to program around and thus they probably want to referesh the codebase.

Also of note Apple actually acquired two compositing applications. Nothing Real came first with Shake and Tremor and then not long after they purchased Rayz Chalice. I don't believe we've seem much of Chalice code input into Shake thus Phemomena may contain the best code from Shake, Tremor and Chalice plus a bunch of new Apple goodness.

2008 seems to be an ideal date. By then OpenGL 2.0 should be mature and we'll be looking at OS X 10.6 which I'm hoping has a beefy internal database (Core Data Extreme) and a new filesystem in ZFS from Sun among other things.

Phenomena isn't an app that can have a lot of 1st generation jitters. I hope Apple takes their time to beta test with Weta and ILM and other effect studios before unleashing on the rest of the world. The competition is STEEP...Autodesk has had no less than 7 updates to Toxik in a year!

2008 sounds like a bit of a while to me. Especially since Apple has basically said we are totally abandoning the current Shake code. Shake's last major feature update was NAB 2005. That would mean three years of no new features or development. This gives competitors a lot of time to upgrade their software and lure people away.

We hope Apple is already well on its way into the development of the new code.

I'm actually not surprised in the least to see this happening. With some of the Motion codebase (read: Core Image / Core Video, only more versatile), they should be able to take Shake "to the next level".


That's an interesting aside I wasn't aware of.


What do you find lacking in Core Data? Format support?

And ZFS has the usual Sun attributes: it's extremely slow, overhyped and overengineered. So what if it supports more storage size than could ever possibly be put on Earth _that's not a real-world application. The mirroring support in ZFS is interesting, but for the time being, I would prefer by far if Apple implemented NTFS-like transparent compression and encryption.

Quite honestly I don't know how robust Core Data is or isn't. I'm making an assumption that the API is currently fairly light and can grow. I'm seeing some apps sitting on top of db like Oracle (Toxik) and SQL and I'm wondering if Apple is headed in this direction as well and if Core Data can "cut the muster"

ZFS slow..that's not good at all. Love the fault tolerance features though.

Support for higher-end database backends such as Oracle, or even just PostgreSQL, would indeed be nice. As far as I know, it's currently limited to a binary format, XML or SQLite.

Is that the vide stream bit rate? Are you sure it is not 40MBps? I don't know how a video stream with 4k resolution can fit in 40Mbps, 40MBps might be a stretch too.

anon poster on hdforindies.com says this

http://www.hdforindies.com/2006/06/a...d-what-it.html


Still haven't been able to confirm this at all so take it with a grain of salt for now.

I just got my lovely, universal (and cheap!) copy of Shake and have but one comment to make - my god the paper they use for the manuals really stinks!!!

It's foul!

Should I report this for a bug fix! Damn, they're not developing it anymore are they?!