“So here we are, more than a year and a half later [after OSX’s release], and only a handful of audio applications have placed both feet firmly on the good ship OS X. Hardware drivers and plug-ins also remain a crapshoot. While the rest of the Mac world has been moving to OS X with only minor hiccups, most audio-related companies have lagged far behind. What’s the holdup? The answer, as you might expect, depends on whom you ask.” This is an interesting article over at ‘Electronic Musician’ regarding MacOSX from the pro-audio point of view, and its audio application base status today.
Has OS X Joined the Band?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Although the publication date on the masthead of this article is Jan 1 it was clearly written around October/November 2002. It’s more than a little out of date now – especially since last week saw Winter NAMM (one of the largest Music industry shows). Frankly the author should have been published back in November or waited until after the NAMM show.
To recap major NAMM announcements – ProTools 6 is now shipping on OS X, Logic 6 will ship during/by the end of February. MOTU announced Digital Performer for OS X and gave demos (but I didn’t see a ship date). Waves announced OS X versions of their plugins (and mentioned AudioUnits too on their promo material but again no date). Ableton announced an update to Live, Native Instruments announced OS X versions of Reaktor (and for the BeOS faithful amongst you who remember FinalScratch – that is now available under OS X from Native Instruments too).
Audio has taken it’s time coming to OS X. This is as much to do with the customer as OS X. Studios do not upgrade lightly, there are plenty of studios still running PowerMac 9600’s with OS 8.x and ProTools 4. ProTools is such a dominant force in studios that even if other applications a studio uses are available on OS X (BIAS Peak say) many will not ‘switch’ until *everything* they use is available on OS X.
This year will see much more progress with Audio companies on OS X and by the end of summer (say AES in the fall at the latest) I doubt there will be a single vendor left on the Mac platform who has NOT moved to OS X.
But it’ll probably be 2003/2004 when it gets really interesting since all the companies that have spent so long getting to OS X can then start really using the new features effectively – and not just Audio features. New UI treatments, integration and other things are probably likely to happen too.
Andrew 😎
The article makes some good points (especially about this situation being caused by Apple themselves, at least to a degree), but the situation they describe is changing by the day. This month’s NAMM saw large numbers of major OSX audio apps being showcased, most scheduled to ship in the 1st or 2nd quarter. The number of AU plugins (at least on the freeware/shareware/homebrewed end of things) has exploded in the last two months. And Jaguar’s audio and midi capabilities finally seem to match the promises that Apple has been making for OSX. (Though for the life of me, I can’t figure out why “Audio MIDI Setup” isn’t in the system preferences like it logically should be.)
Now, whether the individual companies can provide an affordable upgrade path — that’s an entire ‘nother question..
Then it popped up again on the link sites. Stale
Even when it was first written, I remember thinking – this is overly negative. Guess what, progress sometimes has a few bumps in the road. One of the best things apple did with OS X was a clean break.
MS would be well served by doing the same next time around rather than keeping the crud (registry, dlls etc). Oh, and if and when MS does make that clean break, windows audio users will be suffering and all of us OS X users will be past the pain and enjoying a modern and stable, kick ass system for music. Guess which system makes sense to go with right now. OK, maybe wait 9 months for the rest of the audio apps and the 970.
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/articles/2003/01/winternamm03/
But also among print houses. When actually would QuarkXpress be release?
>When actually would QuarkXpress be release?
There is info here:
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/quarkxpress6.html
The state of the music software industry is pathetic. It isn’t just OSX that’s slow to gain adoption, it’s E*V*E*R*Y*T*H*I*N*G!!!!!!!
Music software SUCKS!!! as do the vast majority of drivers for hardware.
If an operating system comes out, say like Win2000 did, it’s at least one full year before software and drivers start showing up, and when they do show up, they’ll be buggy as hell. All the major sequencers are good for no more than an hour before they crash and burn. Doesn’t matter what hardware, what drivers, they’ll crash and burn. The software sucks! Platform doesn’t matter, Cubase, for example, is no more stable on the mac than it is on the pc.
Want to see some bad code and stupid interface ideas? Look at cubase and logic device driver dialogs. What idiots wrote that tripe?
Another issue is lack of standards adoption, like cakewalk still refusing to incorporate VST into sonar. IDIOTS!!!
And just how many hardware vendors program in deliberate conflicts with other soundcards? Hear me echo audio? idiots. Speaking of soundcards, can’t use a soundblaster because the drivers are so horrible. And why can’t they achieve the same volume level as other cards?
Enough ranting, it’ll never change. But considering the sky high price of music hardware/software, i expect much much more.
I have just about no real experience with music software, I’ve seen some stuff on Atari way back. But come on, is it really that bad? It is like this linux friend of mine, as soon as he installas a Windows distribution (even XP) everything fails for him, drivers go in and out mysteriously etc. I just can’t fanthom what he does, everything breaks down, and I am not even saying that it is his fault (because let’s face it, if I have to somehow *AVOID* doing certain things with an OS, it needs to be fixed). So, first, are you sure this is the same for everyone, or just you having very bad luck? No offense meant of course.
Second, wouldn’t this be a huge market if you wanted to make music software? Maybe something for Linux (that is, if you like not making money;)) even. When I see really really buggy software in a field, I tend to think “there one could do some real damage by making supperior software”.
For instance, a good native MacOS X office suit. And no, I don’t call any of the offerings especially good today. Office is the king, no question, and some of the applications in said suit is quite awful, regardless of platform. Word just have to be the worst application I use, and none of the “alternatives” I’ve seen was even remotely better.
By the way, yesterday in the ardour-dev mailing list there was a call for volunteers to make a native OS X port of Ardour. Isn’t it an excellent chance? Though currently in the development stage, Ardour (http://ardour.sourceforge.net) already is very promising and powerful free DAW for Linux, and with Mac’s native audio interfaces and existing quality plugins it probably could compete with many commercial DAWs such as Pro Tools.
appleforever: One of the best things apple did with OS X was a clean break.
Business-wise maybe. But they made pretty huge blunders that alienated a lot of OS 9< users.
MS would be well served by doing the same next time
Technically yes, for sure. But would they do it? Doubt it. Microsoft hardly ever does something just for the sake of technology ideality. Especially since they just started using the new core.
Besides, if they did do something like that, it would be done totally different. For one, the new API would still be easy on Win32 to port (like Carbon is to OS X), and compatibility packs for it would be bundled on a few versions before making the break.
They would also release tools and APIs around 5 years before they do the break. Also, it would start getting major hardware makers to write drivers for their products years in advance Plus, when they do the break, for sure they would spend money on trying to convert existing Windows users rather than to target with their money other markets (makes little difference though :-).
It certainly would not be done in the manner OS X did it. And if they would to do it, it wouldn’t be done because there is some crud parts of the OS. They would do it only when they really need too, they already spent too much too on NT.
Plus, if they do this “clean break”, for sure they would rewrite everything and not use UNIX. And they would have a superior (in speed, esp) binary compatiblity with Win32 applications.
Besides, Apple didn’t choose the clean break because they wanted to. Rather it needed to. Microsoft have been developing NT for a decade already before releasing it to mass consumers, if Apple waits a decade, they probably be dead. Plus writing full software (as opposed to emulation) binary compatibility if Macintosh APIs (prior to Cocoa) wasn’t so complicated (meaning it would take a lot time).
That last comment in the speed demon box is a tad unfair. OS X was the only one that could do it without third party addons? Well yeah, except the low-latency patches have been integrated into the next version on the kernel for ages. It’s not really different to how they were complaining about the Core* apis not being implemented.
Microsoft ARE making the break. The NT/2000/XP series was the break at the OS low level, .NET is the break from the crufty old Win32 user land APIs. Unlike Apple though they don’t try and force people onto it faster than they can go, there’s none of this “from this point on 98 is dead” garbage. They only recently stopped supporting Windows 95.
They plan on doing a “from this point on 98 is dead” this year, I’ve heard.
Plus at some point you have to focus on future stuff and not carry so much baggage or you get stuck. Its called progress. The method may vary but the result is the same. Everythign including businesses must do it at some point.
Mike Hearn: Microsoft ARE making the break. The NT/2000/XP series was the break at the OS low level, .NET is the break from the crufty old Win32 user land APIs.
Actually, Longhorn would come out with Avalon, a more advance version of Win32 (from what rumour sites say, as big a step as Win16 to Win32). But I think long term, Microsoft would push .NET in the enterprise and the embedded market, where platforms vary (unlike the desktop, where more than 95% of it is x86 and this is unlikely to change).
But unlike Apple, it is far more easier to move an application from Win32 to .NET because it can be done in stages, if .NET is the real future. The same goes for Avalon.
But remember, Microsoft is business, not technical orientated. They don’t care about what would please the geeks most but rather what would please the customer enough for them to buy.
Excalibur: They plan on doing a “from this point on 98 is dead” this year, I’ve heard.
Yes, they are. But not in the similar fashion as Apple. By time Microsoft discontinues Windows 98, most of the world would be using Windows XP and newer, but now Apple kills OS 9 when most of the Mac world uses it.
Excalibur: Plus at some point you have to focus on future stuff and not carry so much baggage or you get stuck. Its called progress. The method may vary but the result is the same.
But unloading baggage too fast would only hurt the company. How much would Apple benefit if they didn’t drop OS 9 support? How much would they benefit if Cocoa support was given to OS 9? It wouldn’t harm their business, but rather enchance it.
I doubt Quark will ever release a OS X version of Express they have had ample time to do so and have yet to show any betas and or experimental code to anyone, they are waiting for OS X to become more widely used and developed on but as for right now there is no port in the planning
The article may be a bit out of date, but the facts in it are all valid:
OS X is a whole new platform compared to previous MacOS versions. Especially in terms of audio software, where there is hardly any API-level backwards compatibility, vendors could have just as well ported their software to Linux or BeOS – same effort.
That adapting software takes a while as well is due to the fact that you need all your software in OS X versions – unlike most design software, audio software doesn’t run in classic mode, at least not in a usable manner. Even when all your audio software is out for OS X, that still doesn’t make you rich enough to afford all those updates.
But unloading baggage too fast would only hurt the company. How much would Apple benefit if they didn’t drop OS 9 support? How much would they benefit if Cocoa support was given to OS 9? It wouldn’t harm their business, but rather enchance it.
Agreed it may have been to fast, but trying to add cocoa stuff to OS9 basically was a failed and tried plan. Copland was a move to do just that. Due the legacy architecture of OS 9 it wasn’t gonna work. This is why everything was scrapped and everything was started new. Basically starting new WAS the best option, adopting NeXT technology was a way to speed that up and get those lacking features. Not an easy task, personally I didn’t expect them to get this far to be honest.
Does anyone know about the tech side of audio on
MacOS X? I suspect the latencies on a modified Mach
kernel aren’t too great. Maybe an environment with
(mostly) cooperative multitasking was actually better
suited for real time audio.
I think Steinberg needed to dig very deep into Win2k
to deliver acceptable performance.
Excalibur: Agreed it may have been to fast, but trying to add cocoa stuff to OS9 basically was a failed and tried plan
I have only said it is a *good* idea mainly because the migration would be far more easier to complete. You see only Carbon applications can run on both OS 9 and OS X, and for OS 9, you need to download a compatiblity layer, IIRC.
Excalibur: Copland was a move to do just that.
Copland was a move to create a new OS. In other words, they wanted OS X to be based on the same core as OS 9 and OS 8 and System 7.. That, IMHO, is stupid.
Excalibur: This is why everything was scrapped and everything was started new.
That was done because it was cheaper… way cheaper than doing a longer but smoother and more successful migration. It wasn’t done because it was technically impossible. I’m saying that in addition to Carbon, Cocoa, a very portable API (OpenStep), can be added into OS 9, heck even some later versions of OS 8 so that the developer’s migration would be easier.
In addition to that, Apple can still write applications in Cocoa, like Safari and most of the iApps, and allow it to run on OS 9.
However, that’s the businessman’s view.
“All the major sequencers are good for no more than an hour before they crash and burn.”
Hehe! Try buying the software!
Back on topic… I very much doubt any software companies will move their mix engines into core audio. Witness the flame wars on any sequencer forum about mix engines, summing, and the ‘sound’ of various different sequencers. Having a proprietery engine for multiple apps would make them hard to port to other OSs and lose the sequencer’s individual strengths. If it’s just another driver interface like ASIO, rather than something more invasive, why don’t they say so?
It’s interesting also to note in the article about OSX being tested for <2.9ms latency….
(The other three systems hitting that milestone were all Pentium III/933 MHz machines, one running Windows 2000 with ASIO and two running versions of Linux with a third-party software patch.)
Does anyone know if the Andrew Morten low latency patch will make it into 2.5? I know pre-empt is in there, but have not seen any sign of this patch being updated.
yeah right… just spent 2 days trying to get ardour to compile from cvs. Still has a horrible interface. But, it’s the only reasonable app for linux. P.S. : Ardour is a dupe of Cool Edit Pro 2.
on making a “clean break”
I do think MS would be better off ditching more of the past. But it is harder for them to do. Windows is like a giant aircraft carrier and it takes longer to turn around than the mac. Mac users generally are also more tolerant of the pain involved in moving forward, I think. There’s a body of core mac users that buy that latest OS updates, etc. Whereas millions of windows users never update their OS. Of course there are mac users like these windows users. I just think apple can expect more from its users, in terms of putting up with the pains of change.
I would have to agree with appleforever on this one. I think trying to get the user base to upgrade is something Apple had to do, especially to get developers on the move. It has had some negative consequences, there is no doubt about that. But, it’s one of those choices – you know it’s going to hurt either way.
I do wonder what it could be like if they were able to do what rajan was saying.
At any rate, it sounds like things are beginning to catch up as far as music software is concerned. But then again, as it was asked, will music people be quick to make the total shift?
Does anyone know about the tech side of audio on
MacOS X?
I’m currently coding a MIDI sequencer for OS X and I can tell you that Apple designed CoreAudio and CoreMIDI to have EXTREMELY high thread priority. I’ve easily achieved 1.5ms latecny for MIDI (from sequencer to interface – the MIDI protocol itself moves slower).
As far as audio (CoreAudio), I can’t say that I’ve had the chance to [rigorously] test it out. I do run Cubase SX and I haven’t had any noticable issues yet, and I’ve been beating up on it pretty hard lately.
I’m still waiting on drivers for my DIGI-001, Digidesign says that ProTools 6.0 is shipping but I can’t for the life of me find a way to get it (help here anyone?)
rajan r: I have only said it is a *good* idea mainly because the migration would be far more easier to complete. You see only Carbon applications can run on both OS 9 and OS X, and for OS 9, you need to download a compatibility layer, IIRC.
With OS 9 the “compatibility layer” (which is only a 3 mb file) comes with the OS, and all you need to do for OS 8 and 8.5 is download the carbon.lib file.
“Plus, if they do this “clean break”, for sure they would rewrite everything and not use UNIX. And they would have a superior (in speed, esp) binary compatiblity with Win32 applications.”
Suuuree, just like they have a superior DOS compatibility using their (technically broken) DOS emulation layer, right? ;P
” Microsoft ARE making the break. The NT/2000/XP series was the break at the OS low level, .NET is the break from the crufty old Win32 user land APIs.”
Wrong. W2000 is based on their moldy old NT technology. It is NOT UNIX. It does not have CREDIBLE memory protection or security.
And “.NET” is DOA. It will probably NEVER be used on the WWW because there is no guarantee it will be cross-platform. Same reason you never see ActiveX on the web except in the backwaters of http://www.microsoft.com.
“Windows is like a giant aircraft carrier and it takes longer to turn around than the mac. Mac users generally are also more tolerant of the pain involved in moving forward, I think. There’s a body of core mac users that buy that latest OS updates, etc. Whereas millions of windows users never update their OS.”
Agree totally. With 10% (or 5%, depending on whom you believe) Apple does not have the luxury of being a “little” better that Windows. They have to be WAY better to keep their mostly pretty techy user base happy. I loved OS 9, but having moved to X about a year ago, I can’t even stand to boot back into 9 now. 9 had more polish in some ways that X does, even today, in terms of UI, but under X my machine handles multitasking a LOT better than I have seen under classic Mac OS or Win2000.
MSFT, on the other hand, has NO market incentive to update their stuff into the 21st century because they sell tons of product as is, and they can protect their franchise with threats and FUD for a long time yet to come.
Wrong. W2000 is based on their moldy old NT technology. It is NOT UNIX. It does not have CREDIBLE memory protection or security.
What exactly is wrong with NT’s memory protection or security? How can you call NT “moldy old” in the face of the older Unix?
I’m not an expert in high end audio applications but I did learn an interesting tidbit on television.
On MuchMusic ( Canada’s equivalent to MTV ) they aired a one hour segment on the future of the music industry i.e. how P2P filesharing and electronic recording will effect the industry. In it several artists, on big labels in the US and Canada, stated that they were using their Mac’s w/ iTunes I believe to record an entire album. All the artists were raving about it and were telling others to buy Macs because it cost them next to nothing to record the albums. The quality is great and they can record at home.
I think you might be mistaken because iTunes does not have any recording capabilites, only playback.
It is quite possible that these artists could have referred to Digidesign’s ProToolsLE (with a DIGI-001), I know several indie artists who track and mix at home with their DIGI-001 and bring their session(s) into a ‘real’ studio for mastering only. Most studios run ProTools on a Mac so the sessions are easily compatible. ProTools runs VERY stable on a Mac (OS 9.x).
No I don’t work for Digi, but when I a product is very good, I like to support the company and tout their stuff.
“What exactly is wrong with NT’s memory protection or security? How can you call NT “moldy old” in the face of the older Unix?”
We would not wish to discriminate based on age. Indeed, UNIX goes back a long way. And is constantly being improved.
NT can be most directly traced to VMS, the VAX OS. VMS was not too bad– VAXes tended to have excellent uptimes, but they have been retired, after Compaq– now HP– bought DEC. Unfortunately, Redmond did a poor job of copying things, because NT is pretty unstable, as we all know. I find that errant apps will easily take my W2000 box down. I think that is mostly because it does not have the millions of man-years devoted to fixing it that UNIX has had. I guess, in a way, age can be a virtue.
As for security: I don’t think I need to “go there”. Windows is the most insecure OS I know of.
I have two things I want to bring up. Win2k isn’t to unstable nowadays. It’s been through 3 service packs and most of the bugs have been well ironed out. Now I’m not a Microsoft junky in fact, I hate Microsoft, but I do have to give them credit where it’s due. I’m really hoping that in the next few years that multimedia gets ironed out on Linux because I can’t use it now for that, but I hate the direction MSFT is going. Win2k is a pretty stable workstation though. Now if we are talking servers thats a whole other issue. But I don’t have any problems with uptimes and performance.
Now to my other issue.
“cited OS X’s Core Audio as being one of only four systems registering throughput latencies of less than 2.9 ms. (The other three systems hitting that milestone were all Pentium III/933 MHz machines, one running Windows 2000 with ASIO and two running versions of Linux with a third-party software patch.) The OS X system was the only one capable of achieving those extremely low latencies with no add-on hardware or third-party extensions.”
That was a report from 2001, it’s now 2003. What the hell? You can’t use a report that old. The interesting thing is that back in 2001 I think the top mac you could get was a G4 1Ghz Dual CPU right? So they’ve gone to 1.25GHz, where as I’m running an XP2600+ that is WAY faster. My XP 2600+ only cost me around $1000 to build too. Have you seen how much a Dual 1.25GHz Mac costs? I’m sure many PC’s could get less than 2.9ms now. It’s funny that they note Mac as being the only one that could do it without any third-party software after an article that shows that nobody is using the Core Audio. Everyone is sticking to their own setups. What’s the big deal of using ASIO drivers? My nForce2 has ASIO and I didn’t even know it until I went into Fruityloops and it listed ASIO. I didn’t even have to install them.
Anyway, I’m sorry but Macs just aren’t practical. People may like them, but there is no logical arguement for them. People can buy them if they want, but they cost twice as much have 10% of the software at best, and contrary to what the author of the article thought the most recent surveys show Apple having 3% of users. They have had such a hard time that they are discontinuing the new iMac with the 17″ LCD.
wow that previous comment is so full of errors, i don’t know where to begin.
Anyway, I’m sorry but Macs just aren’t practical. People may like them, but there is no logical arguement for them. People can buy them if they want, but they cost twice as much have 10% of the software at best.
You sir are silly.
I’m not a mac user, and i have never owned a mac.
I am however not as narrow sighted as you.
So what if it doesn’t have much software? Most normal users dont need it anyway.
So what if it is a bit more expensive? Since when did that become the only important quality measurement.
And are they really so expensive? I just did some comparisons, and i failed to find a pc notebook compareable to the 12″ powerbook that wasnt more expensive than the powerbook. (i never actually managed to find a pc laptop with a dvd burner, and a decent graphics board)
Sure i can find a very fast pc laptop that is cheaper, but then its usually a 7 lbs monster with a short battery lifetime, with the housing made of plastic. But i do value weight, battery life and build quality quite high.
I think Macs are the BMW’s of the computer industry. They are more expensive than most (at least the powermacs which seems to be horribly overpriced indeed), but i do find the quality to be superior. Others might simply like them because they are different from the pcs, or simply because they like the way they work.
I haven’t been able to afford neither a mac, nor a bmw yet, but as soon as i can i will. Simply because i like the quality, “practical” or not.
I think the real issue in these discussions is that people are so eager to judge the mac, where they maybe should admit that they dont know much about them, or that they simply just dont like them. But arguing that they “just arent practical” only shows idiocy IMO.
I think you are missing some critical info here, a faster CPU does NOT equate lower latency times for audio thruput, it is the whole architecture[/i] of an audio system that contribute to lower latency and the CPU is just one factor in that larger equation.
ASIO’s architecture has been proven to work well. The big deal with CoreAudio is that Apple developed it to be INTEGRAL in the OS, not a third-party add-on (like ASIO, just because you didn’t manually install it doesn’t mean that it is not third-part; not that there is anything wrong with third-parties, just you made a point to mention that, so I thought I’d clarify that for you *wink*)
Stating marketshare and product discontinuation (rumors at best?) have nothing to do with audio latency, if your system cannot acheive 1.5ms, then so be it, don’t attack CoreAudio(and Mac’s) with offtopic rhetoric because they are able to acheive this. I could easily come back to you and ask the marketshare of professional recording studios using Mac’s over PC’s and you’d wimper to hear that ALMOST ALL studios use Mac’s. I have been in only ONE studio here in Chicago in the last two years (prolly over twenty studios) that used a PC. Granted no one is using OS X because most use ProTools (and 6.0 for OS X available yet…) but I presume that will change soon…
Sorry about the missing bold tag…
I think the real issue in these discussions is that people are so eager to judge the mac, where they maybe should admit that they dont know much about them, or that they simply just dont like them. But arguing that they “just arent practical” only shows idiocy IMO.
I think he meant practical as in economically practical. There isn’t really any good objective justification for buying a Mac, only vague subjective arguments that it’s higher “quality”, ie it’ll never make it on a large scale.
I’m pretty sure that’s what he meant.
And FYI poor richard, NT has had memory protection from day one, and in some respects is more advanced than unix ever was.
I agree with pascals comment.
Heres a page you might read, re: your concern about audio on a mac.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/technologies/audio.html
Also, OMS (and free midi) is gone-MIDI is now part of the system!
Plug in a USB keyboard, and play.
The author of OMS is now with Apple.
A good thing about the G4/altivec and a beefy L3 is it can handle audio processing well. With firewire interfaces, ie MLan, just arriving, good stuff is happening.
As to the rest of your comments, you forgot the one button mouse thing : ).
xmidi said :
I could easily come back to you and ask the marketshare of professional recording studios using Mac’s over PC’s and you’d wimper to hear that ALMOST ALL studios use Mac’s
This argument is not a good one, I think. What you say is true, but it’s more for historical reasons. 10 years ago, you couldn’t do anything with a PC ( for music stuff ). And pro tools, the version with DSP, exists only for mac hardware. Today, I hear more and more people say “digidesign is not cheap, the hardware is very expensive, why not Nuendo ?”. And nuendo can work as well on pc and on mac.
Someone argued about the unstability of windows2000 : I don’t know what he is talking about. For desktop use, windows2000 is very stable ( the only times I reboot is to boot under Linux or QNX ).
For the latency issue : indeed, the CPU isn’t the main point. The scheduler of the OS, the soundcard’s drivers, etc… are much more significant. But there is no strong difference bewteen Windows2000/ Gnu/linux ( “normal” kernel, not RTLinux ) and Mac OS X. I saw a study which showed that Gnu/linux is the better, windows2000 the worst, but the difference was just about 1 ms bewteen them. Windows98 and Mac OS 9 were far away.
You make some fine points and I agree the Digi hardware is not cheap. I also agree that many people are being turned on by Nuendo, it is certainly a great product.
While the DIGI hardware works on both PC’s and Mac’s, most of the studios are likely to stick with Mac’s because it is what they are used to, they know how to quick debug if something goes wrong, etc. From a studio perspective, setting up a workhorse DAW is more time consuming on the PC only because there is the issue of driver conflicts with various components. The ‘all-in-one’ Mac solution is just more appealing for these applications. I haven’t seen it at the pro level (because I’ve only seen one studio using a PC) many a mate spend hours-upon-hours trying to get their systems tight enough for fluid use of their audio apps.
Second, most studios are not pinching every penny like the average consumer (or even prosumer), they can afford the PowerMacs and they get em. When you are paying thousands for a one week session, the extra $1000 that you spend on a Mac is worth their time in stability and comfort (we can thank pavlov for the latter *grin*)
I’d love to walk into a studio and see them running Linux, but it would suck for me personally because the pre-mixed ProTools session that I have on a portable Firewire HD won’t be compatible with their app (because it won’t be ProTools).
The funny thing about all of this is that for a ProTools user (TDM system) all the DSP is done on dedicated hardware and the systems CPU just handles the tiny stuff, go figure…
Indeed, UNIX goes back a long way. And is constantly being improved.
No, it’s constantly being rewritten under new names. Linux is not an improvement of AIX. FreeBSD is not an improvement of SCO Unix. Today, Unix is not an implementation but a design which doesn’t get changed.
NT can be most directly traced to VMS, the VAX OS.
If by that you mean designed by the same guy, that’s about it. It’s not like NT was a carbon copy, reimplementation or sucessor of VMS.
because NT is pretty unstable, as we all know. I find that errant apps will easily take my W2000 box down.
Apps or poorly written drivers? XP is very stable for me, crashes about as often as OS X or Linux do – in my experience. Either way, memory protection is not something any modern OS had any problems with – if you want to talk about your percieved NT’s instability, find something else to blame. I recommend drivers.
I think that is mostly because it does not have the millions of man-years devoted to fixing it that UNIX has had.
Which Unix? Solaris doesn’t profit from a Linux patch I write.
As for security: I don’t think I need to “go there”. Windows is the most insecure OS I know of.
Which is not a problem of the NT kernel but of mostly flaky userland apps (IE, IIS). I don’t think you would want to blame NT’s TCP/IP stack?
I think the only people complaining about the mac’s price are the hobbyist musicians. They normally would have a windows computer anyways (because 90 percent of people do), and they actually care about $500 or $1000 difference on a computer. The studios and pros could care less about that differential and for historical reasons they are mac users.
While the PC is not totally unusable for music like in the real old days, apple has moved forward with built-in audio and midi and audiounits plug format. almost everything pros would use is available for the mac – Logic, Digital Performer, Pro Tools, Cubase SX, Native Instruments, etc. Thus, there’s simply no reason for pro users to switch. There are advantage on the mac side. The speed issue will be over in 6-9 months with the ibm 970 (which goes by very fast, frankly).
the more interesting question is, if today’s hobbyist musicians grow up on the PC (while they are cost conscious) and then make it big, will they switch to the mac? probably they will keep using the PC. Although who knows. Make it big and you have plenty of money, maybe you might buy and use both mac and PC.
Another thing. I think it’s very possible that in 5-10 years we’ll have so much processing power that it will be like RAM is today, almost free. Software will be a higher percentage of the total cost of the system, taking away a lot of the advantage PCs now have on the mac cost-wise (for desktops – laptops Apple is already competitive).
I’ve been making music with computers since I got my first Amstrad CPC 464.
Now I’ve upgraded to a PC with my turntable, and amp, to be honest MIDI sounds crap on my AWE64 sound card, and 16-bit sounds just don’t compare to a 32-bit sound card.
I know people who use software like Dance Ejay, and have produced 10 albums, well 200 tracks using such software. The interface is good for beginners, but me I have never used an Apple Mac, don’t need to.
I’m happy with my Wintel machine using Acid Pro, and Wavelab. Acid Pro uses the most beautiful algorithms I’ve ever seen. I hate Cool Edit!!!
Now I was just wondering if those benchmarks done by PeaBody on Latency where done on a BeOS machine with the same setup as a the Win2K what would be the result??
To Andrew Kimpton, where did you actually SEE that PT 6 is shipping? There is no indication of this on the Digidesign web site. Reports from NAMM attendees who visited Digi found no mention of a ship date.
That was done because it was cheaper… way cheaper than doing a longer but smoother and more successful migration. It wasn’t done because it was technically impossible. I’m saying that in addition to Carbon, Cocoa, a very portable API (OpenStep), can be added into OS 9, heck even some later versions of OS 8 so that the developer’s migration would be easier.
IIRC, it was time that was a big factor as well. They couldn’t wait to have a solution many years down the road. That was at the peak downfall time and they needed a faster solution. Hence… adopting NeXT and building off a proven technology instead of carrying old technology too far. I personally am glad they started fresh. Sure they have rocky roads, thats how it goes but in the long run things work out best. That situation won’t have to be crossed again for a LONG time. It’s been dealt with.
The Copland OS situation at Apple failed for two reasons:
1. Politics and management at Apple.
2. 3rd party developers were unwilling to support it because it was completely different and had no backwards compatibility. Chicken and egg problem again.
Apple developers were instructed to make a 100% compatible solution for transitioning. The Classic feature in OS X is pretty much converted from the ashes of the Copland project.
IMO, Apple would have been better off sticking with Copland since it was still Mac OS and better designed on a user level. Instead, Apple went shopping for an OS externally out of despiration to prove that Apple was competant. The executives were tired of the Copland management fiasco. Mostly their own fault.
I was under the impression from various conversations at the show that it should be shipping by now. Obviously I was mistaken if there’s nothing on the website yet.
Ahhh well…. people have been patient this long I guess folk can wait a little longer 😎
The executives were tired of the Copland management fiasco. Mostly their own fault.
The reason I agree to scrap the sucker and start from scratch.
I’ve been a professional musician for the last 16 years, and have been in recording studios that entire time (some pretty nice ones occasionally). Was part owner in one for several years.
People pointing to the improved audio capacity and reduced latencies of OSX are missing a point-it’s completely irrelevant, except perhaps to a hobbyist. There are only two acceptable PROFESSIONAL hard-disk audio recording platforms:
Mark of the Unicorn (marginal, mostly used for editing for ADAT)
Digidesign’s ProTools suite (the industry standard)
And this is due to the quality of the outboard equipment, which handles all the D/A conversions as well as the actual DSP. An old PowerMac is really all that’s required to run the system, as the processor handles very little except for keeping track of which waveforms are to be playing at any given location.
For the same reasons as above, there is not one Windows-based recording application that you will ever find in a professional recording studio. The Digi hardware is not compatible (I’m not speaking of the hobbyist’s ProTools LE) Cubase, et. al are fine programs, but made for “prosumer” hobbyists. The Windows based recorders/sequencers are nice programs, but do not have the supporting hardware packed with $13-25 thousand dollars worth of D/A converters.
As to the article-I do know that the OSX compatible version of ProTools is not yet shipping. To those who are pointing fingers at Digi and other developers for the Mac, I can say with some confidence that Apple blindsided the pro audio community by not working with the software developers and hardware manufacturers before OSX’s initial release, perhaps to advance the interests of their own platform. It doesn’t really matter in the long term, as I said earlier, it doesn’t require a G4 to run ProTools.
The arbiter said :
“Cubase, et. al are fine programs, but made for “prosumer” hobbyists”
Yeah, people like Hans Zimmer are indeed little hobbyists doing some little stuff ! I personnnally hate cubase, but it can be used to do serious things. Pro tolls isn’t anything else than a standart. And more and more people do HATE this standart : what is the point about using an old mac instead of a new G4 if you have to spend thousands of dollars in DSP farms and htdm plug ins ? Digidesign also seems to have a very bad reputation, for its client relation.
And MOTU are not the only soundcards which have a good A/D. I personnally don’t think it sounds a lot better than RME cards, for example. Nuendo with RME is pretty like Pro tools with digidesign stuff. Maybe a good point for pro tools is its ability to work for mixing in fixed point 56 bits, which is a lot better than 32 bits floating, normally used in softwares working on x86 or G4. But who really needs that ? And with the next generation of CPU, the 64 ones, this problem will naturrally dissapear.bits
I don’t know too many Mac users that would defect if OS X can out one or two years late. I’m not saying Apple shouldn’t have used NeXT. I’m saying they should have made a longer, smoother transition isn’t of a sudden clean break. Would OS X have all these problems if it was transition slowly? I really really highly doubt it.
I don’t know too many Mac users that would defect if OS X can out one or two years late. I’m not saying Apple shouldn’t have used NeXT. I’m saying they should have made a longer, smoother transition isn’t of a sudden clean break. Would OS X have all these problems if it was transition slowly? I really really highly doubt it.
I see what you are saying and I agree there.
Of course Hans Zimmer is a professional. And he does use Cubase, for the same reason and purpose I do-as a preproduction suite. It makes orchestration and planning much, much easier.
If you think he’s recording a forty-piece orchestra with it, or using it as a final production platform, well, on that score you would be dead wrong.
RME? Are you kidding? MOTU is unacceptable, even, for anything with more quality than an ADAT. I was talking about PROFESSIONAL gear, here, not hobbyist grade stuff.
the arbiter said
RME? Are you kidding? MOTU is unacceptable, even, for anything with more quality than an ADAT. I was talking about PROFESSIONAL gear, here, not hobbyist grade stuff.
RME, hobbyist ? There is no quality difference between, RME and MOTU. They may sound different, but you cannot say motu sonds better than RME. RME is used by A LOT of professionals, too. The only thing i know wihch is a lot better than RME A/D ( or MOTU ) are the apogee, but well, it is not the same range of prices. The digidesign A/D and D/A are not a lot better than the RME ones ( if you think the contrary, you will need proof and objective facts to convince me ).
Really, the only advantage of digidesign today is the qulaity of mixing, because of the 56 bits fixed point precision, which enables mixing on digideign to be as good as SSL analog mixing desks. But the HTDM standart is not a lot better than VST or AU. I really think that digidesign will have some problems in the near futur…