Imic And Dp4. Options

[ghant]

Im trying to get the iMic to work with DP4. DP4 sees the iMic and I can select it but I dont get anything in the track. The level doesnt move. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Thanks.

[Synthetic]

umm how well do you know that DP app? can you record anything else with it or this your first try? just wondering if you had gone through the instructions and made sure you have got track record ready in order to hear anything from it or see levels. I don't use DP but I know this is pretty much the same in almost every app to monitor audio input.

[ghant]

umm how well do you know that DP app? can you record anything else with it or this your first try? just wondering if you had gone through the instructions and made sure you have got track record ready in order to hear anything from it or see levels. I don't use DP but I know this is pretty much the same in almost every app to monitor audio input.

Ive used DP for 0S9 with the iMic and it worked fine. On the 10 version Im not getting a signal.

[Synthetic]

did imic have drivers for OSX and were they installed? I can't think of anything else. You can search the site of the manufacturer of the imic and see what they have to say about it and OSX. Sorry can't be more help

[BobbyA]

Here's the info on iMic and OS X compatibilty:
http://www.griffintechnology.com/archive/a...supportOSX.html


later,
BobbyA

[ebuddy]

I'm glad to hear you're not getting "Core Audio" configuration issues. In regards to the signal problem, be sure to visit your sound control panel and the speech control panel. These control panels house the mac's acknowledgement of external audio devices. (i.e. iMic) They are no doubt currently set to "built-in audio controller". If not, I apologize for patronizing you. I'm having a different problem. I'm only getting audio out from the internal computer speakers. The last time I had this issue (before I threw a "mach_file" away in classic OS and realized I threw away my OSX interface for Jaguar, AAAGGHH)I had to (and now need to again) go to the DP 4 site and download the upgrade to DP4.01. I was trying to playback some sequences and digital audio is only coming out of the computer's speakers tonight. A fun, but sometimes exhausting distraction this music thing is.

[ebuddy]

I forgot to mention one other issue; (My audio in and out is now working perfectly through the iMic) The problem you're having is in Performer. Open up a sequence and within the top menu bar go to SETUP. Under SETUP you will see CONFIGURE AUDIO SYSTEM. Then go to CONFIGURE HARDWARE DRIVER and verify iMic is one of the options. In fact, it should show as "iMic USB audio system (input) and iMic audio system (output). Hold shift, select both, click OK and VOILA! Now, when you open your tracks window within the sequence and select your input/outputs, you'll see iMic USB audio system out 1 or out 1-2 and iMic USB audio system in 1 or in 1-2. You're good to go. Honestly, between this and verifying your signal is good as the moderator suggested by record-enabling that track, and also as I had suggested by verifying your control panels-there is nothing else involved. That should just about do it. I hope this helps.
ebuddy

[Station X]

Hi Ghant,

Here's my experience with the imic and DP4 - others have had different results. The imic does not work with DP4.0. This was acknowledged by MOTU. It does however work with DP4.01 - MOTU's recent upgrade to DP4. The imic will work with DP4.0 if you use Propagamma's driver (V0.9b) http://www.usb-audio.com... but the driver costs about $60.00 and it's a beta. It does, however, support many other audio interfaces as well. Visit their site for details.

Both versions of Digital Performer for OS X have "issues". Most people who upgraded to 4.01 went back to 4.0 so think twice before you use the update. Also, the process for updating is a little goofy and a lot of people have experienced "glitches". Personally, I updated to 4.01 but use the 4.0 application and that works pretty well "most of the time". Make sure you're using a fast drive for your audio files, repair your disk permissions using Apple's Disk Utility and pray that DP4.02 gets here fast.

You should visit http://www.unicornation.com. It's the center of the Digital Performer galaxy. If you haven't already been there, you'll be amazed.

Rock and Roll

[ebuddy]

Summed up very well StationX. I mentioned the upgrade to DP4.01 mixed amongst many other issues, but the upgrade is definitely a necessary piece of the puzzle. I might ask what "glitches" you're referring to StationX. I trashed DP4.0 and am having minor issues myself. Every now and then I get jarbled digital audio and am too looking forward to a DP 4.02 upgrade. However, I've found most of the glitches are due in part to using the bare minimum required processor (i.e. 500mhz processor) for DP4. The G5 on which I anxiously await will take care of most of those audio glitches for a couple of reasons. for one; I won't need the iMic anymore and for another, it's a dual 2gig processor. Again; most of those audio glitches can be remedied by ensuring you have matching "ins" and "outs" in the tracks window of performer. From time to time and over recording time-you'll get those glitches-restart app and you're good to go. Not a pleasant solution, but a solution none the less for now. Restarting app and changing "out 1" to "out 1-2 stereo" relieves most of my problems. DP4 under OSX Jaguar seems to be a much beefier program than DP3 was. I never had the digital audio glitches I now have and believe DP's got some more work to do. Took 'em long enough to come out with DP4 for OSX and I thought it would have much more enhancements and flawless performance. Seems they've simply ghosted the interface and failed to really field test the end result themselves. Considering they took their sweet time I was displeased to have any issues like the ones above. I will say this however, no I/O timing issues at all. I play acoustic guitar to midi drum track and it records in perfect time and plays back in perfect time. It used to be annoying to have to go back in and move digital audio forward in timeline to match up with midi. No more of that and the future is looking very bright indeed.

[Station X]

Hello ebuddy,

Sounds like we're on the same page with DP4.x. The only real problems I'm having are occasional processor spikes and sometimes the audio gets garbled - pulses of distortion during playback - pops and cracks. This is usually after running other apps that access the core services/audio drivers. I don't usually have these problems with 4.0 or 4.01 if I restart and use only DP. To be fair, some of my projects are very messy and have a ton of soundbites, splices, fades, etc... I really need to do some housecleaning. I'm sure that would help. Regardless, after almost three months of using DP4 I've only had two crashes and very few problems. Pretty slick.

There are many glitches mentioned at unicornation but, with so many intangibles involved (users, system configurations, hardware, etc...) I take each with a grain of salt. The one glitch I have experienced, MOTU confirmed and I have yet to hear anyone else mention is this - when I open my 3.11 projects in DP4 some of my effect settings are lost - particularly EQ settings... which is a bad thing. MOTU said they were aware of this and working on a fix. I've also had the "skipping" audio output problem that has been mentioned by others when I use 4.01 with the iMic and the Propagamma driver - and no combination of buffer settings, disk repair, core settings or program settings helps. I will take a look at my ins and outs to make sure they match - thanks for the tip. I've been doing mostly mixing, not recording, with DP4.

The major turnaround for me with DP4 was when I moved my audio files from an external 5200rpm firewire drive to a new internal 7200 ATA drive. Sorry, by the way, I'm using a G4 466, 1GB of RAM, 10.2.6 and a lot of peripherals. I won't bother listing the peripherals since I'm not having many notable performance problems with DP4. Moving my audio files to the ATA drive fixed 99 percent of my problems. And a note, the files on my firewire drive were already defragged when I moved them.

I did watch/listen to iTunes and DP4 have a fist fight last week though. I forgot that iTunes was running in the background, launched DP4 and the fur flew.

A random note: the processor bar in DP4 is very pretty but I'm not sure that it's accurate. In general, it does not match up (on my machine) with the Apple Process Viewer's take on processor usage. I'm not sure that the two are in any way related, isolated to my set-up or should yield the same readings... but it makes one think.

I agree with your I/O statement as well. With DP3.11 I had to nudge things around quite a bit. With DP4, newly recorded material seems to land right where it should. I recorded an electronic drum track, played it back with the midi version still on and it was right on the money. That, was sweet.

I think MOTU is in hell right now trying to get DP4 up to speed. I've been a fan of theirs for a long time - still have floppies of the DP version that I ran on my SE/30 - and I'm hanging tough. They've always come through in the past and I believe they will come through with DP4. The corporate heads may have made some bad decisions but I believe the people doing the actual work are rock solid. We're all, to one degree or another, in uncharted waters with OS X. I'm just thrilled not to have to boot into OS9 anymore. OS9 was an excellent system but we're just not there anymore. Time to move on.

This email turned into a book so off I go. Good luck with all your endeavors.

Rock and Roll (with layered acoustics - D-18)