Day 952--still No Pro Sequencer For Os X, Deliver us, O ye audio/MIDI gods... Options

[Levon River]

Even Noah only had to deal with 40 days and 40 nights of rain. Here we've been subjected to a 952-day and 952-night drought with NO, zip, none, nada, nary a single pro combined audio/MIDI program in sight.

Don't point to Reason 2.0: it's a wonderful program, but they admit that they don't even use *actual* MIDI, and I'd rather juggle kittens than use Reason's editors for writing and/or tweaking a part. And of course it doesn't do audio editing at all.

Don't point to Deck 3.5: no MIDI sequencing and editing.

No, it's a plague and a curse on Mac musicians, a starvation diet, over two years in solitary confinement. But there are promises...

Promises, promises...

DAY 952 and counting...

[bixpender]

actually logic and cubase are both coming out in september. pro tools will follow later this year. the reason for all this wait is actually apple's fault. untill jaguar the audio core wasn't ready.

[BusError]

This is wrong. CoreAudio was ready, and was working perfectly since about 10.1.3. CoreMIDI worked perfectly as well, even if they fixed a non-crashing issue with 10.1.5 on SMP machines.

No, those people don't either have, or want to get OSX programmers, so they basicaly suck. It takes a considerable amount of time to adapt.

The system works, and I should know it, I'm the developer who ported Sibelius to OSX.

Beside, it wouldn't take apple a year to fix bugs. They are desperate for applications, and when porting Sibelius I had absolutly terrific return from the CoreAudio & MIDI team, they actualy delayed 10.1.5 JUST to get that MIDI fix in, primarily for Sibelius.

Of course, the whole of the application was already working. There is no valid reason, given the size of their teams, and the state of the OS, to claim "awww it's HARD, and all apple fault!" it's just plain not true.

slackers!

[Levon River]

Well, BusError, that's pretty interesting information, and it also means I just bit my tongue off in what I just posted in another thread about the lack of firewire audio/MIDI devices.

First, kudos on the Sibilius work; I don't have it, but what I've seen on the web site is awfully impressive.

However, in an ocean of things that don't completely add up, you added another drop or two: eMagic was demoing Logic for OS X at Summer NAMM 2001, and announced rather splendiferously that it WOULD ship by September 2001. That was almost a year ago...

So, uh, *their* reason for not releasing obviously wasn't that "those people don't have, or want to get OS X programmers." Any insight? Guesses? Tarot reading?

[rickenbacker]

I don't think companies showing products at trade shows means zip. How many products in the past have been shown, then either delayed by a year or two - or more - or never actually appear at all? I saw Reason demo-ed running on OS X back in January - six months later, it finally appears. Cubase SX was shown in January... still waiting...

As for OS X's CoreMidi, it was always pretty good, then release 10.1.5 really tightened up performance. See Intuem's Midi sequencing program for what OS X has been able to do for months, Jaguar conspiracy theories notwithstanding!

(Hey, if Levon can post the same replies in multiple topics, so can I!)

[BusError]

I don't know really what happends. It's true that Carbonizing is done at 95% in 3 weeks, then it takes 6 months to fix the 5% remaining. However, it doesn't take 2 years!

I also need a sequencer, music notation is all very lovely and all, but I also need a sequencer!

slackers!

There, have a look at what the next Sibelius will be able to do. Notice the quality of the rendering; it's all done using native OpenGL, it's easily 50x faster than before, and looks 50x better!

Sibeliorama (800Kb .pdf screenshot, showing 2*1280x1024)

[deleted]

Here we've been subjected to a 952-day and 952-night drought with NO, zip, none, nada, nary a single pro combined audio/MIDI program in sight.

Don't point to Reason 2.0

Don't point to Deck 3.5

Well, shall i point to Live, then?
It's been released for some time now, and it works well under os X.
It's a specific sequencer, but a sequencer anyway. Nerver tested it, though.
Anyone using it under os X?

Bye.

[Levon River]

I'm afraid Live also isn't in the same category as DP, Logic, Cubase, ProTools. It has no MIDI editor or MIDI file support, per se, at least not that *I* can find or see, nor does it support direct recording into the program. As its name implies, it's not really a studio recording package--it's for stringing loops and audio clips together for live performance, and triggering them via MIDI.

That's as much as I can determine about it, because I can spend only so much time looking at an interface that looks like a Saturday morning cartoon show before I get a craving for Cocoa Puffs...

[prutulz]

That's as much as I can determine about it, because I can spend only so much time looking at an interface that looks like a Saturday morning cartoon show before I get a craving for Cocoa Puffs...

LOL

Just be patient friends, major sequencers should all be released before this year's end...
Only Digidesign didnt make any announcements.

The solution is near (i hope...)

[filarion]

Hey, no dissing Live, it´s a wonderful program. Talking about good software, does anyone have info on whether Cycling ´74 is interested in porting Max/Msp at all?

Anyways, Live is a great program and together with an MPD16 it rocks, but I would not recommend it for classical scoring :p

If you´re interested in Live _and_ good techno you should check out the OpenSource : Players CD/LP released on Source Records. It has Akufen, Jan Jelinek and other great underground techno artists on it. Made 100% with Live. (sorry, had to plug that one :P)

[Levon River]

Hey, no dissing Live, it´s a wonderful program.

I wasn't dissing the program. I just think the interface looks like a Saturday morning cartoon show, that's all.

But my point was that it is not a hybrid DAW/MIDI program, and we Mac-ers are still standing out in the desert now, and it's up to /cue DOOM music/ ~~DAY 968~~ /cue DOOM music/ without one. The peecee-ers merrily make music while those of us invested in the "killer" A/V machine (just ask Apple's hype pages how great the Mac is for multimedia) sit and twiddle our thumb-pianos.

I don't know of any precedent. And *nobody* is going to convince me that it is *solely* because of the sloth of the software developers. If there hasn't been some significant OS log-jam up till now that has been blocking complete development and distribution (which of course *nobody* involved is going to admit to), I'll eat my hat.

And my personal opinion is that if any one of them involved had the integrity of a barn rat, they would issue an informative statement of facts to fill in the vast vacuum sitting there where info, not hype, ought to be.

YMMV.

[filarion]

I´m totally with you on this issue. My only guess is that Apple puts rigid NDA´s on anyone working with them on Core Audio stuff - either that, or, as BusError already noted elsewhere, the company´s just don´t have enough people that actually know how to program in OSX.

[ryosode]

I agree with Levon River. Live is not a Audio/MIDI sequencer and we all know (and if you don't, maybe you are on a wrong forum) that's not what we are looking for. Same goes for Reason and Deck. They are all great in their own rights.

Both Steinberg and MOTU said they'll release the production systems by the end of this year. Well, you know that when these companies aren't giving you specific dates, chance is shipments won't happen in next month or two. (Yeah, I heard the thing about "September release" too, but that was 6 months ago and nothing was heard afterwards.) As for Apple/Emagic, they haven't made any public statements as to when Logic will be available. Same goes for Digidesign.

For one thing, since Apple is pushing CoreAudio and that's what most developers are using, the old code must be changed dramatically. It's not making the pretty GUI that takes the most time. It's making sure the audio engine works fine that takes the longest. If you have ever looked at the source code for those audio stuff, you know how scary it is to rewrite the Audio I/O, right?

Secondly, Apple revised Audio HAL and MIDI Services in Jaguar. As the result, the API improved alot. However, some of the older API's were deprecated as well. While they have gone through extensive CoreAduio/MIDI Service sessions in the last WWDC 2002 (and you could pretty much meet engineers from every major companies discussed in these threads! They are working very hard.), it will take some time for the developers to catch up and rewrite the code that was written for 10.1.x. I am glad though that these developers are taking time to make sure the software works! In the mean time, I am content with my OS 9.

BTW, I noticed some ppl were spitting out jargon such as "CoreMIDI". I was not aware of an API called CoreMIDI. Pls correct me if I am wrong. Please read this page for general info on OS X Audio:
http://developer.apple.com/audio/coreaudio.html

[filarion]

Sigh. Again, I never said that Live was, we were only gossipping about the cartoon show remark.

Otherwise you´re right, but that´s all old news.

But, since I´m in a thread with a few guys that seem to know a bunch about coding ... Live is based on a Max/Msp object and was programmed with OSX already in mind - why is it so hard then for Cycling 74 to pump out an OSX version of the Max/Msp package?

[rickenbacker]

For what it's worth, I was talking to the sales and marketing director at Sound Technology (eMagic's UK distributor) yesterday about something completely unrelated to Logic, yet towards the end of our conversation he was keen to impress upon me that Logic for OS X was coming "very soon" (his words). Again, no exact date, but he was proffering the information unsolicited, so maybe it really is nearly here.

As for Live's GUI, I like it. It makes a change from the rather austere (read "grey and dismal") appearance of Logic. From what I've seen of Cubase SX on PC, Steinberg has embraced the world of colour, too, as have Storm and Reason. It's all good.

[DANO10]

Hey guys. There is a professional Audio/MIDI sequencer made for OSX. Its called DECK 3.5 fron BIAS. Full featured. Check it out at BIAS.com
DANO

[bdeep]

The fact that emagic haven't announced an exact release date for logic for OS X yet, doesn't really come as a suprise to me. Since it now belongs to Apple, there's reason to believe they will use the same way of announcing things. They don't. It'll probably with us totally out of the blue. I mean, when did you know there was a new line of PowerMacs? Only when it was already there.

But then again, i might be wrong, they did announce 10.2...

[filarion]

Audio yeah, but does Deck have any MIDI capabilities except maybe MMC start/stop? :p

Deck seems to be a nice package, but it´s not for me. Spark, Logic and Live are about the only ´big´ software packages I need. (´cept the C-Mexx stuff. I want a Mac version of those, sniff)

And rickenbacker, that sounds like good news. Maybe they manage it by September 27, that would make a nice b-day present for me. I guess that means that they´ll bring everything in the Logic suite to osx, right? EXS24, ES2, etc. - Now Sounddiver I´d really be happy about. I´d even pay over for it again. Using it under WinXP now and it´s the opposite of stable, heh.

[damann]

But, since I´m in a thread with a few guys that seem to know a bunch about coding ...

to truly integrate an application into osx, it will ultimately require re-coding in cocoa which is a variant of c++, there is a temporary solution available, it's called carbon. it's a variant of c++
anything good written in max/msp deserves re-coding!
max/msp will not survive in osx i'm afraid.
it's just not sophisticated enough...

[filarion]

A real pity, especially since they´re developing a Windoze version. A lot of Universities are using Max/Msp to teach sound synthesis, it´s just more flexible than Reaktor, especially when working with MIDI signals that don´t necessarily have to do with controlling standard equipment (light installations, modified Sega Powergloves, etc.).

What did you mean with "not sophisticated enough" though? Something to do with the way it´s coded I guess?

(snap)

Just got back from the Cycling74 homepage and yay! They apparently are porting to OSX afterall:

# Will Max 4 support OS X?

Yes. We are working on an OS X version of Max 4, which will be available later this year.


---

At last I can upgrade (part of) our audio lab at university to OSX.

[Levon River]

My original plaint that started this thread has now been resolved with the release by Apple of Logic Platinum for OS X--970 days after the release of OS X, a year after the originally-announced release date for Logic for OS X, but, like the Creation, coming just 7 days after the release of 10.2.

As for my hotly-contested deduction, then, that OS problems were at the root of the hold-up pre-Jaguar, I think I will say no more...

Except...

What's this about it running on OS X and 10.1.5 as well? Will I be sent to the stockades for public pillorying? Put down the old tomatoes; the jury is still out.