Apple’s next-generation OS will include an updated version of the company’s Core Audio technology that will deliver new tools and functions to improve the audio handling experience of Mac OS X applications. Also, Apple has released the latest update for the Mac OS X Server Admin Tools, version 10.3.5.
Core Audio in Mac OS X Tiger to improve audio handling
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of OpenAL. The other AppleInsider articles cover it. Not exactly in the same realm as audio-editing frameworks, but connected to sound.
We have reported on openal in the past: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=6520
A file-playback audio unit will make it possible for applications to use an existing sound file as an input source. The audio unit will convert file data from any format to linear PCM so that it can be processed by other audio units, sources said. Linear PCM (LPCM) is an uncompressed audio format that is similar to CD audio, but with higher sampling frequencies and quantisations. The format offers up to 8 channels of 48kHz or 96kHz sampling frequency and 16, 20 or 24 bits per sample but not all at the same time.
OSS has this loop back feature in Virtual Mixer
(http://www.opensound.com/virtmix.html) and IMUX (http://www.opensound.com/imux.html) and OSS gives you builtin equalizers and Fidelity Enhance (aka DFX/SRS/QSound)
Sorry, I know this isn’t MacOSX related and should be modded down as Off-topic, but we thought Apple was head and shoulders above OSS, ALSA and MS-DirectAudio. We’ve been holding CoreAudio as the gold standard – but looks like we may be ahead after OSS v4.0 comes out.
Best regards
Dev
From a pro audio standpoint (i.e. the majority of Mac users who care about sound) anything but CoreAudio, ALSA, and ASIO aren’t worth considering due to latency issues.
Whiz bang features aren’t particularly compelling when what you want is a platform for making music.
*sigh* … OSX, how I love thee. Yet I have no Mac to experience you on. >:~(
You are 100% right, ASIO/ALSA/OSS fall down in terms of music production apps. No arguments here. CoreAudio is waay ahead in terms of MIDI support and supporting Pro audio apps.
But given that most regular Mac users are using Macs for iTunes, playing games and listening to CDs, why doesn’t Apple put more “whizz bang” features?
best regards
Dev
But given that most regular Mac users are using Macs for iTunes, playing games and listening to CDs, why doesn’t Apple put more “whizz bang” features?
Well, CoreAudio is already quite the fully featured API, and it would seem they are adding a few more whiz bang features as you have already mentioned…
But from an end user perspective, who cares?
But from an end user perspective, who cares?
Becuase the developers who make the software you run do…
I think the implication is pretty false, here.
CoreAudio was introduced as an amazingly robust system. True pros were concerned about a new API, but it has instantly proven itself.
The lack of one or two “whiz-bang” features a couple of years after introduction is not a major issue. Nor does the lack of them at the present really hint at any lack of development or funtionality.
Just because one open source has the rudimentary beginning of functionality jsut coming to OS X does not mean that OSS or any other project for that matter are more advanced than CoreAudio.
I doubt your assertions about latency are true. Core Audio is supposed to have EXCELLENT latency (on the order of 2ms.) I hope I’m not incorrect in stating this, and the disclaimer is that I am not an audio professional, nor do I have any experience with OS X audio production. However, one of the major selling points of Core Audio has been is reported low latency. Maybe we could have a pro speak up?
If you had taken the time to read before posting osnews database would have two less postings…
why did steve jobs think be os was the wrong choice for apple,given it excels in multimedia?
Because Be wanted to much for BeOS. Plus who cares now, Apple has some of the brightest from BeOS working on OS X now already……..
“Core Video allows developers to apply all the benefits of Core Image to video — blazingly-fast performance of filters and effects, per-pixel accuracy and hardware scalability.”
“Maybe we could have a pro speak up?”
CoreAudio is one of the best around for low latency.
As for whiz bang features, it depends on who you are trying to impress. The people who’s audio requirements are iTunes and some speakers won’t care about CoreAudio because they don’t see it directly. People who do home recording and basic stuff do get to see the whiz band stuff, think Garage Band here. And the professionals don’t really need to see anything being shown off to impress the numbskulls because they have an understanding of how the technology works and are well enough informed to know what they need and want.
“”Core Video allows developers to apply all the benefits of Core Image to video — blazingly-fast performance of filters and effects, per-pixel accuracy and hardware scalability.””
CoreVideo is going to put Apple up another step in the video world, and CoreImage is going to redefine desktop graphics as we know it. The big players like Adobe need to take advantage of it as soon as they can.
My athlon 700 has been running at 1.3 ms latency for quite some years now… though now ive upgraded to a newer AMD PC. I can leave it at 1.3 ms with many synths and effects.. live on my inputs. Who knows why apple thinks they are ahead in this game when ive been doing better than core audio .. in windows for years.
Yeah Glen?
And the soundcard you use is…..?
dont play with numbers here….if you use Sonar that’s nothing to be proud of, because there are a lot of compatibility problems to cope with (for example vst wrappers) and anyway what professional uses cakewalk software?
we’re talking pro here.
and apple had done it in the system, so you can use your plugins system wide, depending on the laziness of the developer – they can do it if they want anytime…….
yes, that means we’re finished with format wars as long as you stay os x, and that’s good for a pro, very good.
OK, I switched *from* Sonar to Logic on the Mac, because I’m now a Mac user and was sick of having to use a PC. That being said, Sonar is an excellent pro-quality app that LOTS of top-notch pros are using in the business. Don’t dismiss it offhand just because it’s a PC program…it makes you sound like a dumb Apple kiss***.
CoreAudio rocks, but you can get very low latency with ASIO and sometimes WDM drivers on Windows as well. There’s simply not that huge of difference here, IMHO. I can’t comment on the Linux situation because I haven’t done any pro-audio work on Linux.
Jared
I doubt your assertions about latency are true. Core Audio is supposed to have EXCELLENT latency
I hope you weren’t responding to me, but as far as I can tell you are. Reread my post… I certainly wasn’t saying anything negative about CoreAudio. I was saying from a pro audio standpoint, CoreAudio, ALSA, and ASIO are the only interfaces worth considering (and conversely, OSS isn’t due to latency issues)
Because Be wanted to much for BeOS. Plus who cares now, Apple has some of the brightest from BeOS working on OS X now already……..
That doesn’t matter as MS has the brightest of the brightest and you must look very well for something nice to be developed by MS that they didn’t buy their way into or copied.
Its more the company philosphy that matters then pure raw talent (IMHO)
“That doesn’t matter as MS has the brightest of the brightest and you must look very well for something nice to be developed by MS that they didn’t buy their way into or copied.”
MS has unlimited time and unlimited funding and some of the most talented people out there, but at the end of the day they are still a bunch of geeks trying to recreate art.
Anyway, I think you guys that are pointing out unique features of CoreAudio are missing the point. It the combination of the low latency, the audio HAL, and the fact that it’s system wide (a plugin for Logic also works in Garage Band kind of thing), and the most important part is that it’s built into the system. It’s not an add-on or a 3rd party product. It’s in everything.
It would perhaps be better to compare Core Audio to ALSA+JACK or WDM kernel streaming+Rewire.
(There is no real native Windows equivalent to Core Audio as inter application communication under Rewire is quite limited in some ways. (Though it does the job)).
That doesn’t matter as MS has the brightest of the brightest and you must look very well for something nice to be developed by MS that they didn’t buy their way into or copied.
Its more the company philosphy that matters then pure raw talent (IMHO)
Show that statment to Bill Gates and he would swear under oath you were not talking about MS.
That very statement you have made IS what differentiates MS from Apple. Their engineers may be equally capable but the corporate philosophies are what make them stand apart.
[One of possibly many examples]
I mentioned some where that Apple’s innovation does not only come from new or revolutionary ideas, but also from an almost academic implementation of whatever they are doing.
The classic example is seperation of data+logic from interface in applications. MS finally gets it right with ASP.net (original ASP not good enough), the Java community follows with JSF (note: different from JSP which was also lackluster) yet WebObjects had this as of late nighties – no wonder it won several “Best Application Server” type awards.
Now, notice I did not claim that Apple came up with the concept, just that their implementation was made “innovative” coz they actually set out to do what the concept said.
Other people **cough** MS **cough** only started doing it when they had to (internet + Java as alternate paltforms), not because they wanted to provide value to their customers – which is a better form of “lock-in” than the tactics they usually employ.
[… one more]
Also look at the development models and (delivery)capabilities. MS constantly lagging whilst Apple adds a huge number of features to MacOS year after year, delivering products (new, updates) that take advantge of these features not too long after, sometimes at the same time.
The reason for this is simple (this is actually conceding on MS’s behalf). The bad design of Windows (well, I did not promise a rosy concession). The bad design of MS’s OS prevents them from adding new and innovative features as fast as Apple. DOS/Win32/COM/DCOM/DNA+++++….. you could go on.
Still, however, the blame can still be placed on them coz they are the ones that produced the hack job in the first place.
What was that about superior corporate philosophy? Greatest engineers? I think not! And to make the insult even worse, the MS bunch is anywhere from 2 to 3 times the size of Apples engineering workforce. And yet they, arguably, bring equal if not more new development/products/innovations to market.
Yer i use sonar, ive also used Logic Cubase etc. None of them can perform with simliar latency under windows at least. ASIO drivers have no memmory protection and no increased priortity .. hence Cubase and logic work around the 5 ms + latency (or sonar with ASIO drivers). Im using a very old Echo gina card. Id really like to have a new one i hear the Motu and others firewire cards work with low latency well.. but i havent tried them for myself.
As a side note,.. intel and amd processors have a special kernal level mode that has memmory protection. This mode (ring 1 or 2 its called) has kernal speed and memmory protection, wdm audio drivers use this. If asio or an audio driver dies under apple or linux.. your whole pc can go down.. and whichever way your likely to reboot. I never have to reboot my pc.. if i manage to crash sonar (which is very rare and when doing things u simply CANNOT do in logic and cubse such as drag and drop running effects whilst live monitoring ) then my audio in windows keeps working. I also cannot crash the rest of my pc.
When Apple gets IBM to put in a special kernal mode with memmory protection .. and impliments drivers that use that. They will have caught up with “kernal streaming WDM drivers” that i have been using for years.
BTW WDM rocks over ASIO in my experience .. and the SONAR VST wrapper kicks ass (it dosent even copy the audio !).. its simply a wrapper. DXIs are much more stable than VSTs running in a native VST host (orion logic etc).
Sorry to use the word crap before it wasnt really needed but that “study” that apple paid for showing coreaudio was the only OS capable of 1.5ms carefully tried every driver model in windows but the Kernal streaming WDM model everyone is using. That would be like testing audio performace of OSX without using coreaudio.. pretty useless and very disengenuine.
WDM 1.5 ms no dropouts 48khz 24 bit, Lots of synths and FX on live input. Lets speak the truth here.. if your pc does that who cares? Mine does.. does your mac? if so good.. but so does my pc.
“doing things u simply CANNOT do in logic and cubse such as drag and drop running effects whilst live monitoring”
Been a while since you’ve used Logic?
The last version i used was almost the last version ever created for PC. Apple was so worried that so many ppl were happy with Cubase and Logic on PC they had to anticompetitvly stop the product for PC. I only wish microsoft would stop making Office for Mac .. just to be fair ya know. But in all honesty Logic was a crap program.. its was never well designed and has many problems when it comes down to it.
Logic problems:- Cannot monitor LIVE inputs on more than 1 channel .. ie setup a few soft synths and route realtime midi to several AT ONCE. Only 1 soft synth or live monitored line in will play without latency .. even with all the tweak options avalible. Logic cheats behind your back and prerenders with large latency EVERY track except the one thats currently selected in track view.
Perhaps this is possible but ppl on the logic channels.. forums.. and MAc logic specialists couldnt do it(Most ppl simply lied to me and told me it was possible then when i explained my problem more fully (ie logic hack) they admitted thed never actually done it. Ive had years of experience and spent hours creating custom AUX feeds to try and get around this problem.. i couldnt. This made all the live midi routing in logic useless to me.
In sonar its so simple.. so… so simple.. it works as it should.. no hidden hacks to get performance up..
Logics use of Wave recording and editing is aweful..
Sonar is the best ..its better than ACID ever was.. and then some.
Sonar (cakewalk) has always been the best midi editor.. (1 button mouse intefaces suck)
Sonar has rewire, VST, DXI, ASIO, WDM support.. logic has vst support.. which used to be a little flakey at times.. its rewire support never used to actually work properly.
Automating effects and midi in sonar is a dream.. logic its a pain.
The list goes on .. but i guess youve never really used sonar because every logic user i know (Mac or no Mac) admits sonar is better designed and has more useful smart simple features.. logic is a bloated mess
The fact u use logic dosent make u a pro .. otherwise i was pro 5 years ago.
Ahh that explains a lot. I’ll certainly agree Logic on the PC sucks. No argument there. I would suggest you try Logic 6 though. First version with Apple’s engineers working on it, and it’s a HUGE improvement.
“Apple was so worried that so many ppl were happy with Cubase and Logic on PC they had to anticompetitvly stop the product for PC.”
I thought it was because more than 2/3 of the sales were for the Mac, and why spend the money to support the competitor when you aren’t profiting enough on it?
“I only wish microsoft would stop making Office for Mac ”
Ha ha. I wish they would too. Force Apple to make their own.
“Logic problems:- Cannot monitor LIVE inputs on more than 1 channel .. ie setup a few soft synths and route realtime midi to several AT ONCE. Only 1 soft synth or live monitored line in will play without latency .. even with all the tweak options avalible. Logic cheats behind your back and prerenders with large latency EVERY track except the one thats currently selected in track view.”
Fixed with version 6. Works especially well on a G5.
“its better than ACID ever was.. and then some.”
Never did like ACID.
“Sonar (cakewalk) has always been the best midi editor.. (1 button mouse intefaces suck)”
When did Logic have a 1 button mouse interface?
“Sonar has rewire, VST, DXI, ASIO, WDM support.. logic has vst support.. which used to be a little flakey at times.. its rewire support never used to actually work properly.”
VST support has gotten much better, and rewire I think was completely redone. They are pushing the use AudioUnits more now, and personally I think that’s the way to go, they are very easy to work with…
http://www.audio-units.com/
“Automating effects and midi in sonar is a dream.. logic its a pain.”
I’d probably usually argue there but it’s really a preference.
“The list goes on .. but i guess youve never really used sonar because every logic user i know (Mac or no Mac) admits sonar is better designed and has more useful smart simple features.. logic is a bloated mess”
You should really use the latest versions of things before debating them, especially when there have been such large changes.
“The fact u use logic dosent make u a pro .. otherwise i was pro 5 years ago.”
Certainly it doesn’t. But the fact that I have been certified and make money with it (I’m a multimedia developer, so it’s part of the job) does.
If you prefer Sonar I won’t argue about that, everyone prefers something, I just ask that you keep up to date before commenting on something.
Its good to know that apple have started to fix logic. Cause it was badly designed.
Windows DXI has everything audiounits had and was first.
WDM KS drivers perform just as well if not better than coreaudio .. and were out first.
Sonar had no live monitoring problems ever..
1 Button interface i ment , is like photoshop or logic or cubase, they all are wierd and contrived on pc. Cakewalk (sonar) mearly stays to the windows standards and is much faster and easier inmho. The context menus are well organised.
Putting aside any personal preferences… Sonar and windows does everything core audio and logic is now finally doing with audio units. Sonar and windows was first by quite a while.
Its all market hype apple its trying to use .. when in reality its all been done before.
Both good products but logic isnt doing anything sonar hasnt already been doing.
To get it out of the way, the who-did-what-first thing is coming off like flame bait more than anything because those debates can go on for literally hundreds of posts. Other than to say that, I won’t even began to address that issue.
“Its good to know that apple have started to fix logic. Cause it was badly designed.”
Very true.
“Windows DXI has everything audiounits had”
The end result has the possibility to be the same. Er, how to word that better…they are both using the same concept (not a new one on any terms), but with different methods. The appeal with AU is from a developers perspective. Because of how easy and fast it is to get powerful results when developing audio units we will start to see a shift in how audio recording and mastering is done very soon. The level of skill (and usually training) involved in professional audio will soon drop to almost nothing (same with pro graphic editing), and skill will be measured by taste and creativity instead of mastery of an application. When you get right down to it, all the current audio applications are a pain in the ass both to use and develop for.
“WDM KS drivers perform just as well if not better than coreaudio”
In reference to this article that’s also not so. Try thinking of it from a developers perspective and you’ll see what I mean.
“Sonar had no live monitoring problems ever…”
Good to hear. Not relevant, but good to hear.
“1 Button interface i ment , is like photoshop or logic or cubase, they all are wierd and contrived on pc. Cakewalk (sonar) mearly stays to the windows standards and is much faster and easier inmho. The context menus are well organised.”
I try to stay away from Cubase, but as for Photoshop and Logic, the interfaces are both compromised to work the same on both platforms. Neither are recommended for a one button mouse though.
“Putting aside any personal preferences… Sonar and windows does everything core audio and logic is now finally doing with audio units”
Again you’re thinking of this from an application vs application point of view. Look at what will and is being done with audio units. Just as with core image, it’s taking what has up until now been pro app only features and putting them into every day applications.
“Its all market hype apple its trying to use .. when in reality its all been done before.”
They aren’t promoting it, just announcing an update.