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Emagic Releases Logic Platinum for Mac OS X 21

Posted by pudge from the the-platform-is-the-standard dept.
ericdano writes "Emagic announced the release of the first version of Logic Platinum 5 for Mac OS X. This is accompanied by the simultaneous release of Mac OS X hardware drivers for Emagic's range of USB MIDI and audio interfaces. It is a free download to registered Logic Platinum 5 users." Apple bought Emagic a couple of months ago.
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Emagic Releases Logic Platinum for Mac OS X More

Emagic Releases Logic Platinum for Mac OS X

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  • Good news (Score:3)

    by MaxVlast ( 103795 ) <maxim.sla@to> on Monday September 02, 2002 @09:18AM (#4183548) Homepage
    This is good news. The pro audio software has been slow in coming as they seem to access the hardware at a fairly low level, which wasn't permitted in Classic. My understanding of Core Audio in Mac OS X, though, is that it's a lot better than the tools that developers had at their disposal previously.

  • Jaguar and MIDI (Score:3, Informative)

    by Draoi ( 99421 ) <.draiocht. .at. .mac.com.> on Monday September 02, 2002 @09:41AM (#4183631)
    I went out and bought an Edirol [edirol.com] UM-2 a few weeks ago(at the Apple Store in Cupertino!). Works just great on 9 but when I switched over to Jaguar I was curious as to how Apple got around the lack of OMS [opcode.com] in MacOS X.

    So I went to the Edirol site, downloaded the experimental X.2 driver, popped it into the right place (/Library/Audio/MIDI Drivers) - and, hey, it works! The app went on to discover most of my MIDI setup including an antiquated Oberheim OB-8. Apple's new 'Audio Midi Setup' app works almost exactly like OMS, except with a much nicer UI & audio config thrown in.

    The downside - absolutely no documentation from Apple, either from built-in help or on-line. There is their audio [apple.com] page but there's precious little about MIDI.

    Apple, BTW, already have Logic Platinum 5.3.0 update on their site. You can check it out here [apple.com] (anyone dare ./ Apple??? :-) ) It's very slick running in Aqua ...

    • Oh yeah, and I'm tired of waiting on these guys [steinberg.net] to release Cubase SX [steinberg.net] for MacOS X. I love Cubase - been using it since the Atari ST days & I'm sure that Jaguar rollout has been holding them up but now Emagic have pipped them to it.

      So, c'mon Charlie - let's have a copy of Cubase SX soon. Please??

    • The app went on to discover most of my MIDI setup including an antiquated Oberheim OB-8.

      Hey, I have an antiquated Oberheim Matrix-6! Want to trade? ;)

      I have an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 audio/midi card, and I was pleasently surprised to see Audio Midi Setup app find all my gear.

      Now I'm just waiting on Cubase SX...

      :)

  • the death of VST plugins? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02, 2002 @11:05AM (#4183916)
    stage4 [stage4.co.uk] has this article [stage4.co.uk] that picks up on Emagic's switch to 'audio units' over popular 3rd party plugin formats such as VST.

    Is this good or bad?

    • Re:the death of VST plugins? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Draoi ( 99421 ) <.draiocht. .at. .mac.com.> on Monday September 02, 2002 @12:12PM (#4184218)
      Bad - very bad. Cubase SX for MacOS X (when it's *finally* released) will probably be VST only, for a few good reasons;
      • There's bo-zillions of VST plug-ins out there already
      • Cubase is cross-platform & the VST format also works on PCs with a re-compile. So why should companies like Steinberg fork their existing plug-ins; VST for x86 and 'audio units' for MacOS X?
      • VST is popular and seen as 'open'. Audio Units are unknown and are MacOS only and the API is owned by Apple, which will be seen by others as a Bad Thing!
      • Companies like Bias, Inc. [bias-inc.com] that specialise in VST plug-ins now have to do double(ish) the work to support two platforms & standards. Why?
      Just MHO ....
      • Emagic are providing a "toolkit" for developers that will help them port their VST's to audio units "in a few hours." Minimum work to make the plugs compliant.... there is absoutely no reason not to support both standards, and Steinberg and Bias would be idiots not to!
        • Well, this toolkit (and the final AU spec) don't exist yet, so it may be a bit more wishful thinking than reality. In particular, plugins that have GUIs made with VSTGUI will be tricky to port.
          • You don't need to port the GUI. I've been using Pluggo [cycling74.com] as a VST shell for Digital Performer, and one of the things it can do is strip out the GUI and give you a default interface. It's not pretty [cycling74.com], but it works.

            I see no reason why Emagic/Apple's toolkit could't do some thing like that.

            • Well, most of my new plugins [smartelectronix.com] are pretty useless without their custom GUI. Some plugins with a few straightforward parameters work fine with no GUI, but for the fancy stuff a GUI is vital. (In fact, one I'm working on right now has so many settings that it doesn't even use host 'parameters' for most stuff!)

              Anyway, if you are happy with no custom GUI, then you will almost certainly be able to load VST plugins as audio units. VSTGUI is the biggest obstacle to switching over in my opinion.
        • Well, the "few hours" porting is just a big joke. Anyone with some programming experience knows that stuff like this takes time. Remember when carbon was introduced, how Steve promised it'd just take a couple of days to port classic applications?

          Yeah right... And we are still waiting for a native Quark :p

      • Despite all of the nice tones coming from Emagic, I can't help but feel that this is Apple's version of Embrace and Extend. Even if they are open as all get-out, it's still locked to one platform.

        Apple has been working hard recently to control the creative business. It's almost as if they've cribbed a page from Microsoft's playbook, only they swapped the phrase "lower price than the competitor" with "better quality than the competitor".

        It would be interesing to see how Audio Units differs from VST at the code level. Is it an extension, loosely based or totally different (requiring a translator)? If it's just VST on steroids, then *maybe* we can relax.
      • There's bo-zillions of VST plug-ins out there already

        I'm a Cubase VST user, so I agree. But most of the VST plugs out there are still classic only.

        I did download the great free mda plugs for OS X.

        It would be nice to see Cubase, and Logic support both formats.

      • You make it sound like VST plugins are the only audio plugins out there. Don't forget that there are also RTAS, MAS, and ProTools plug-ins. At this stage of the game it doesn't make much sense to have these exist as proprietary entities for all these different software platforms.

        Windows has a similar problem, as audio apps on that side might use VST or DirectX plug-ins.

        Wouldn't it be cool if all your audio apps used DSP plug ins installed at the OS level, If the OS handled the routing between those plug-ins and then talked directly to your audio hardware.

        Emagic even hints that the new Audio Units have better performance than VST.

        Besides, if you're really concerned, you know it will only be a short matter of time before somebody will create a small "wrapper" app which looks to Mac OS X like an Audio Unit which can run VST plugins, so I wouldn't worry too much.

        This is forward progress. This is Apple doing what they should have done with pro audio years ago, and I think it should be met with enthusiasm, not skepticism.
  • I don't know if any announcement has been made about Emagic's plans, but so far no announcement has been made as to whether Emagic will support their own Audiowerk2 and Audiowerk8 cards under OS X.

    This is a bit surprising to me. The cards are admittedly yesterday's news, but they can be had cheaply and surpass the quality of the Mac on-board audio.

    Have any slashdotters heard anything about this? I'll probably check out the Logic Users mailing list too, but the signal-to-noise ratio on there is pretty awful.

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