Not as a consumer app, but more towards the pro end. Kinda a go-along with Final Cut Pro 3.
In the manual for FCP 2 (unfortunatly I have not gotten FCP 3 yet) it says that it is specifically for making bad audio better not making it sound "neat".
It is also true that FCP 2 cannot import Mp3's straight, they have to be converted to a less compressed format like AIFF's.
Correct me if I'm way off base here as to what this program could be, but a nice high end audio editing program would go real well with FCP. It could have more filters for providing different sound effects as well as high quality encoding conversion. Not to mention a better equalizer.(and a mixer and cutting station...)
<strong>i have a hard time believing apple would release an app like this when every new machine that they've released in the last 2 years has lacked an analog audio-in jack. That would be the most important piece of hardware to the amateur musician,</strong><hr></blockquote>
Think Firewire! MOTU for example has released an excellent firewire based audio interface. Various other companies are currently building firewire devices that have video, audio and/or MIDI/mLan, and that's what you really need when you do this kind of stuff.
Because Vision works both in a linear and in a non-linear fashion, it's in my opinion the best program around for doing film music. You can write short sequences and have them triggered by smtp. Something like this I find easier to do in Vision than in any other program, although the new Digital Performer comes close.
Damnit Perceptual, your news about Vision has made waiting for the January MacWorld Expo harder than ever
I got Cubase VST5.1 on Christmas eve. I have been a Cubase user sinse v3. Let me tell you unconditionally that there is Very little ANYONE could do that would give it an edge over 5.1.
About 5 years ago, I pumped about £20,000 into a hardware based personal studio. On Xmas Eve, I officially replaced all of this with an £80 upgrade. In fact 5.1 is so good, that It would probably have cost me about an extra £10,000 to upgrade the HW studio to equal the performance I get from VST.
And the sound quality is far superior (no noise, 50HZ hum etc). There are no cables (I had about 300metres of the stuff. Flexibility is awesome. You'dd have to drop about £20k on HW just to get an equivalent automated Digital Mixer with the subrouting options. Software synthesis is Now beyond belief. I dropped £1k on a Korg Prophecy, £800 on a Yamaha AN1x. £2500 on an Ensoniq ASR-10 sampler. Most of this stuff comes free in the box. A software Sampler far beyond the ASR-10 costs £300.
I never used Logic, but I hear its just as good. The VST/Logic war has been for over 10 years, these apps are some of the best software you can get on any platform, at any price, in any category. And the competition between them is similar to AMD/Intel so these apps are highly evolved and always evolving. I'd go out on a limb to say that VST5.1 is probably the best piece of programming I've ever seen. (but V4 sucked beyond belief). There simply is no room for Apple to release an iSequencer or SequencerPRO. The speed of development alone would consume them. Sorry.
One other thing.... Opcode is still selling Studio Vision Pro on their web site. $99 for the full version (download only), not bad. It's at <a href="http://www.opcode.com"; target="_blank">www.opcode.com</a> in case you're curious.
That Live program looks interesting. What do you use for an audio interface in OSX, though? The headphone jack?!
Also I was talking to a friend last night who was a hardcore Studio Vision Pro user right up until "the end," and I told him about these rumors. He says he's pretty sure somebody confused the fact that one of the main guys (forgot his name) from Opcode, who worked on SVP, went to work at Apple on an alternative to OMS for OSX (the 3-letter acronyms are flying fast & furious!).
In other words, this Opcode guy goes to Apple to work on base-level midi & audio services for OSX, and people hear this and misunderstand, and assume that this means he's reproducing SVP for Apple as an OSX app.
He didn't have any definite information, but this was just based on information he had heard from other former hardcore SVP users.
Oh, and on a different subject my friend also said he had heard the rumors of Apple negotiating to purchase Avid (and by extension, Digidesign) recently, too. I trust him on this one especially because he's an engineer for a TV station and they interact with Avid quite a lot.
How many people have digital camcorders and other ways of getting footage?
How many people have DVD players and movies, video, and pictures to put on DVDs?
Millions. Tens of millions. Who doesn't have CDs and pictures, and doesn't like 1 in every 3 or 4 American homes have a DVD player?
Now..
How many people have synthesizers/keyboards and are interested in MIDI stuff and work with audio like that? Even out of the Mac creative community.. not nearly as many. Probably less than a hundred thousand or two altogether, and that's being QUITE generous.
Still, I'd love to see more software on the Mac. Not an iApp, but a Pro app for this would really be great, and if Apple did it I'm sure it would be better than almost everything else out there. So, here's hoping.
The midi & digital audio field is one of the few segments of the market where Mac owners can look down their noses at Windows PC owners and say "Too bad you can't get all this great software for YOUR computer!"
Even though you can get a Windows version of Pro Tools, I don't know a single serious user of Pro Tools on that platform.
The only thing I wish we had for the Mac is a viable alternative to Sonic Foundry's ACID. I know there are multiple similar Mac programs either almost available or planned, but I haven't seen anything yet that's quite as good as ACID for audio loop-based composition.
The guys at Gibson that take care of Opcode legacy issues are in a group call Gibson Labs. They do minor, minor support for Opcode users. I don't see Gibson, or anyone else, investing big in Opcode stuff, but it seems like Gibson Labs is working on some kind of software. I think it's just TDM plugins and stuff, though.
Picking up Doug Wyatt from Opcode was a good thing for Apple.
I do agree with Brad that Midi/Home Recording is just too much of a niche for Apple to enter. I think this is one areas where the 3rd party market for Apple is alive and thriving.
Sizzle Chest- I agree about the Acid Pro thing. Have you tried Phrazer from Bitheadz.com? I have yet to hear it or see it in action.
I have yet to use/demo Phrazer myself, but I heard fairly negative things about it from somebody who was ALSO looking for a sort of "ACID for Mac." His exact comment was "I'd rather keep using Windows occasionally than try to get Phrazer to work as well as ACID."
<strong>I have yet to use/demo Phrazer myself, but I heard fairly negative things about it from somebody who was ALSO looking for a sort of "ACID for Mac." His exact comment was "I'd rather keep using Windows occasionally than try to get Phrazer to work as well as ACID."</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's about a product called Ableton Live <a href="http://www.ableton.com"; target="_blank">www.ableton.com</a>
" is something I came across a month or so ago, downloaded the demo, and really liked it. Well, I bought a copy today at Macworld (Guitar Center was selling it at their booth for $220) after watching a demo at the Midiman booth (Midiman is distributing Live). The easiest way to understand what Live is all about is to think of Acid for the Mac... and then add a bunch of features for live performance.
Using Live in a live environment, you can easily and quickly trigger loops and groups of loops, edit loops, change tempo, change loop start and end points, etc, all on the fly. VERY cool. I bought it mainly because I wanted to take my Particle Salad project out on the road in the not too distant future, but didn't want to hire a whole bunch of musicians in order to realize the material.
Live will sync to MTC and (unlike Acid) Midi Clock, which makes it a great compositional tool. I intend to sync it with Cubase VST on my G4 533 and pipe it in to Cubase via Rewire. I'll let you all know how it works after I've had some time with it.
It will work with pretty much any audio source files, though it doesn't recognize the audio metadata in Acid .wav files, so you'll need to figure out tempo and pitch manually. It runs under OS9, and there's currently an OSX preview release on Ableton's site. Download it yourself, and let me know what you think. It lists for $299."
I just viewed the semi-helpful Quicktime demo movie for Live, and it looks like something that would work for me.
It looks like a multi-state version ACID. That is, you can not only set up multi-part loops, but you can also switch between one "state" and another, or different (or multiple at once) combinations of loops.
For what I do, this might be JUST the trick. I probably wouldn't be using Live the way it was intended (I'd do really long ambient loops, not BPM-measured percussive stuff) , but then again I don't really use ACID the way it's intended either.
<strong>Ableton is selling Live for $349 on their web store. Are you sure the list price is $299? Or is that just GC's regular price?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Must have been a Macword Special. God I can't wait until summer..unfortunately that's when I will be getting my next Mac. Hopefully it'll be a G5.
Comments
Not as a consumer app, but more towards the pro end. Kinda a go-along with Final Cut Pro 3.
In the manual for FCP 2 (unfortunatly I have not gotten FCP 3 yet) it says that it is specifically for making bad audio better not making it sound "neat".
It is also true that FCP 2 cannot import Mp3's straight, they have to be converted to a less compressed format like AIFF's.
Correct me if I'm way off base here as to what this program could be, but a nice high end audio editing program would go real well with FCP. It could have more filters for providing different sound effects as well as high quality encoding conversion. Not to mention a better equalizer.(and a mixer and cutting station...)
<strong>i have a hard time believing apple would release an app like this when every new machine that they've released in the last 2 years has lacked an analog audio-in jack. That would be the most important piece of hardware to the amateur musician,</strong><hr></blockquote>
Think Firewire! MOTU for example has released an excellent firewire based audio interface. Various other companies are currently building firewire devices that have video, audio and/or MIDI/mLan, and that's what you really need when you do this kind of stuff.
Because Vision works both in a linear and in a non-linear fashion, it's in my opinion the best program around for doing film music. You can write short sequences and have them triggered by smtp. Something like this I find easier to do in Vision than in any other program, although the new Digital Performer comes close.
Damnit Perceptual, your news about Vision has made waiting for the January MacWorld Expo harder than ever
[ 12-27-2001: Message edited by: macanoid? ]</p>
Now that the Mac Expo is well under way, I was wondering if you (or your friend) has any more info on this rumoured audio app??
[ 01-08-2002: Message edited by: macanoid? ]</p>
About 5 years ago, I pumped about £20,000 into a hardware based personal studio. On Xmas Eve, I officially replaced all of this with an £80 upgrade. In fact 5.1 is so good, that It would probably have cost me about an extra £10,000 to upgrade the HW studio to equal the performance I get from VST.
And the sound quality is far superior (no noise, 50HZ hum etc). There are no cables (I had about 300metres of the stuff. Flexibility is awesome. You'dd have to drop about £20k on HW just to get an equivalent automated Digital Mixer with the subrouting options. Software synthesis is Now beyond belief. I dropped £1k on a Korg Prophecy, £800 on a Yamaha AN1x. £2500 on an Ensoniq ASR-10 sampler. Most of this stuff comes free in the box. A software Sampler far beyond the ASR-10 costs £300.
I never used Logic, but I hear its just as good. The VST/Logic war has been for over 10 years, these apps are some of the best software you can get on any platform, at any price, in any category. And the competition between them is similar to AMD/Intel so these apps are highly evolved and always evolving. I'd go out on a limb to say that VST5.1 is probably the best piece of programming I've ever seen. (but V4 sucked beyond belief). There simply is no room for Apple to release an iSequencer or SequencerPRO. The speed of development alone would consume them. Sorry.
Although Ableton has a beta of Live out for X. A wonderful performance based tool. Yummy.
Also I was talking to a friend last night who was a hardcore Studio Vision Pro user right up until "the end," and I told him about these rumors. He says he's pretty sure somebody confused the fact that one of the main guys (forgot his name) from Opcode, who worked on SVP, went to work at Apple on an alternative to OMS for OSX (the 3-letter acronyms are flying fast & furious!).
In other words, this Opcode guy goes to Apple to work on base-level midi & audio services for OSX, and people hear this and misunderstand, and assume that this means he's reproducing SVP for Apple as an OSX app.
He didn't have any definite information, but this was just based on information he had heard from other former hardcore SVP users.
Oh, and on a different subject my friend also said he had heard the rumors of Apple negotiating to purchase Avid (and by extension, Digidesign) recently, too. I trust him on this one especially because he's an engineer for a TV station and they interact with Avid quite a lot.
How many people have CDs, MP3s, and MP3 players?
How many people have digital camcorders and other ways of getting footage?
How many people have DVD players and movies, video, and pictures to put on DVDs?
Millions. Tens of millions. Who doesn't have CDs and pictures, and doesn't like 1 in every 3 or 4 American homes have a DVD player?
Now..
How many people have synthesizers/keyboards and are interested in MIDI stuff and work with audio like that? Even out of the Mac creative community.. not nearly as many. Probably less than a hundred thousand or two altogether, and that's being QUITE generous.
Still, I'd love to see more software on the Mac.
[ 01-09-2002: Message edited by: bradbower ]</p>
Even though you can get a Windows version of Pro Tools, I don't know a single serious user of Pro Tools on that platform.
The only thing I wish we had for the Mac is a viable alternative to Sonic Foundry's ACID. I know there are multiple similar Mac programs either almost available or planned, but I haven't seen anything yet that's quite as good as ACID for audio loop-based composition.
Cheers.
I do agree with Brad that Midi/Home Recording is just too much of a niche for Apple to enter. I think this is one areas where the 3rd party market for Apple is alive and thriving.
Sizzle Chest- I agree about the Acid Pro thing. Have you tried Phrazer from Bitheadz.com? I have yet to hear it or see it in action.
<strong>I have yet to use/demo Phrazer myself, but I heard fairly negative things about it from somebody who was ALSO looking for a sort of "ACID for Mac." His exact comment was "I'd rather keep using Windows occasionally than try to get Phrazer to work as well as ACID."</strong><hr></blockquote>
Sizzle check out this from <a href="http://www.xlr8yourmac.com"; target="_blank">www.xlr8yourmac.com</a>
<a href="http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/audio/issue68.html"; target="_blank">http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/audio/issue68.html</a>;
It's about a product called Ableton Live <a href="http://www.ableton.com"; target="_blank">www.ableton.com</a>
" is something I came across a month or so ago, downloaded the demo, and really liked it. Well, I bought a copy today at Macworld (Guitar Center was selling it at their booth for $220) after watching a demo at the Midiman booth (Midiman is distributing Live). The easiest way to understand what Live is all about is to think of Acid for the Mac... and then add a bunch of features for live performance.
Using Live in a live environment, you can easily and quickly trigger loops and groups of loops, edit loops, change tempo, change loop start and end points, etc, all on the fly. VERY cool. I bought it mainly because I wanted to take my Particle Salad project out on the road in the not too distant future, but didn't want to hire a whole bunch of musicians in order to realize the material.
Live will sync to MTC and (unlike Acid) Midi Clock, which makes it a great compositional tool. I intend to sync it with Cubase VST on my G4 533 and pipe it in to Cubase via Rewire. I'll let you all know how it works after I've had some time with it.
It will work with pretty much any audio source files, though it doesn't recognize the audio metadata in Acid .wav files, so you'll need to figure out tempo and pitch manually. It runs under OS9, and there's currently an OSX preview release on Ableton's site. Download it yourself, and let me know what you think. It lists for $299."
There is hope yet.
[ 01-10-2002: Message edited by: hmurchison ]</p>
It looks like a multi-state version ACID. That is, you can not only set up multi-part loops, but you can also switch between one "state" and another, or different (or multiple at once) combinations of loops.
For what I do, this might be JUST the trick. I probably wouldn't be using Live the way it was intended (I'd do really long ambient loops, not BPM-measured percussive stuff) , but then again I don't really use ACID the way it's intended either.
<strong>Ableton is selling Live for $349 on their web store. Are you sure the list price is $299? Or is that just GC's regular price?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Must have been a Macword Special. God I can't wait until summer..unfortunately that's when I will be getting my next Mac. Hopefully it'll be a G5.