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

[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.


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