APPLE NOTES

Apple Notes

Published in SOS February 2002
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Technique : Apple Notes

The word is in from MacExpo and the AES show, and the word is that the OS10.1 apps are coming...

Having suggested in this very column that Apple should get someone to talk about the features of Core Audio at the recent MacExpo, I suddenly found myself, at very short notice, doing exactly that, at a couple of presentations on the second day (remember that old Chinese proverb, "be careful what you wish for..."). Fortunately, I had the support and help of Freddie Mercury and Peter Gabriel to make sure that at least the musical side of my presentation was up to scratch. I was able to use the 5.1 surround sound mix of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' to illustrate the fidelity of 24/96, and all 120+ tracks of the 'Make Tomorrow Today' multitrack (from Gabriel's Ovo project), to show the need for multi-channel audio support at OS level. (Thanks to Justin Shirley-Smith of Queen Productions, and Peter himself, for making that possible.) I was also lucky enough to have Aspen Media bring along their excellent Magtrax 5.1 surround sound system to take care of the audio side of things.

The amazing thing for me was that 10 days before the MacExpo presentation, when I managed to convince Apple UK that it could be done, I had one OSX-ready audio app to demonstrate everything (Celemony's Melodyne, which has been OSX-compatible since it shipped, back in September). But two days before the event, after a flurry of emails and some long downloads, I found myself looking at a respectable crop of OSX betas and, in one case, a fully functional, downloadable freebie.

First of all, Steinberg came through with an OSX beta of Nuendo, although my receiving a web site URL from them so that I could download it only marked the start of my problems (getting access to it, not using it, I hasten to add). Persuading all 14Mb to come across the ISDN link at my office was a nightmare, as I kept getting kicked off after 45 minutes. Even at home that evening, where we have ADSL, I kept getting an error at 12.1Mb. But next morning, when I decided to have one last try at downloading it, all 14Mb came across without problems. But my worries were not over. Although the Nuendo updater worked OK when I tried to run the OSX version, the PACE software reported extensions missing. There was a PACE updater in the program folder, but when I ran this, it wanted to take me to the PACE web site. However, once it got there, it could not access what it needed. Eventually, I thought of running the PACE updater under OSX instead of OS9 — and suddenly it found its way to the right place on the PACE site. This produced a second updater on the OSX desktop, and when I ran this it downloaded further files from the PACE site. After hours of frustrated anticipation, I finally found myself running the OSX version of Nuendo, which was indistinguishable from the OS9 version I had been using.

It ran the 24-track recording of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' perfectly, and allowed me to give those attending my presentations a little glimpse behind the scenes at a modern classic, on a track-by-track basis. This was just the prelude to running the first ever public playbacks of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and 'Death On Two Legs' in 5.1 surround.

Then I was able to demonstrate the capabilities of Melodyne with the lead vocal and guitar solo from this masterpiece, removing any doubt in anyone's mind that the demo was being faked, as the singer is not available for re-recording. Of course, it was no surprise to anyone who has already checked out this software that it can change the melody and phrasing of any vocal or monophonic instrument line. Still, it was a delight to see the jaws dropping at a Mac show, where half the people had wandered in out of curiosity, or a barely-concealed desire to share a Wayne's World moment! If ever OSX has a killer app, this is it (it only runs under 9.x if a later version of Carbon Lib than 1.3.1, which makes X's goodies available to OS9 apps, is present in the Extensions Folder).

A real surprise was to find, courtesy of our publisher (the only one in history who seeds columnists with press releases on receipt), that TC Works, without any prompting from me, had put a full OSX-compatible version of Spark on their web site for free download. OK, so I was fighting musicians in the US to download it at the same time, hence the snail-like download, even via the new ADSL in my Swiss flat. (I spoke with someone who had got in before the rush and he had it in seconds; mine took half an hour, but who cares when you are no longer paying by the minute?). To have this staple of my OS9 work available so early in the transition to X, and not to have to pay for it, is phenomenal.

The final joy was to discover that the latest version of Peak, also downloadable, is also OSX (or, to be more accurate, 10.1) compatible! Sadly, although already shown a few months back, at the summer MacWorld in New York, a beta of Logic Audio running under X was not available, but this can't be too far away either. Add these to the 'Classic compatible' apps, such as Native Instruments' B4, which can be run side by side with OSX apps, and suddenly OSX starts to look like a really serious musical environment.

Of course, there are still a few pieces needed to slot into the puzzle. The main one for most professional applications is hardware interfaces for audio I/O. The MIDI situation is a little better, with OSX drivers from Midiman already downloadable. To date, I am unaware of any audio interfaces which work under X. So, for the time being, inputting and outputting audio is somewhat restricted. However, the real-time sample-rate conversion in Core Audio means that you can work with files whose rate and resolution surpass the hardware capabilities currently available. Core Audio simply downsamples the rate and downsizes the bit resolution automatically. Thus more limited hardware, like the 16-bit converters in the Mac, can play files back without the user having to spend ages doing off-line conversions, then having to import those for use in the arrangement — and then, after any editing, reassign the original, higher fidelity files. I've had to do this a few times, and it's a nightmare! So if you copy a project to a Titanium PowerBook, using FireWire Target Mode (Apple + T as you reboot), which is lightning-fast for those huge 24/96 audio-file transfers, you can edit and mix the project on headphones anywhere — as long as you have those fantastic Bose Noise Cancelling headphones which Apple were using at the show. Then you can email just the tiny main project file back to the studio with your new edit or mix.

When insomnia strikes in New York City, you've finished your Apple Notes column (which is due before you get home), and you don't fancy going out on the street with the crazies, what do you do? Well, while out there recently for the AES show, I found myself in a hotel room with an Ethernet Internet connection, a brand-new PowerBook and a new email account. What would I do but try to get online! I prepared myself psychologically for a hideous phone bill, as I girded my loins for the struggle to get connected which this stuff has always entailed in the past.

Not this time! Apart from needing to dial England to get the necessary details to type in from my new IT guardian angel at Apple, it hardly cost anything at all. I was on the Internet in seconds, thanks to the free version of Internet Explorer which comes with OSX, and the mail program in X enabled me to send this article about 10 minutes later, thus meeting my deadline and staying on the right side of my SOS sub-editor!

Montage: The Video Editor For Musicians?     For years, I have been trying to persuade Steinberg or Emagic — or, indeed, anyone — to make a multitrack editor that allows video and audio (from a musical as well as a post-production standpoint) to be edited simultaneously. If you can live with just the charmingly-named 'butt' edits, a limited amount of video editing can be performed in Nuendo, but it gets very frustrating sometimes when you can't even create a very short dissolve or fade to black. So I got very excited when Ian Gilby emailed me a press release about Arboretum's new product launch at AES. It read as follows: "In Montage, video, pictures, audio, MIDI and text are equally at home. All media components share a single, infinitely expandable workspace, with movable clips that can be freely associated, edited in place and processed either individually or in groups." Needless to say, the Arboretum booth was the first one I hit, long before the show opened. Despite the fact that he was still putting the finishing touches to the booth, Georges Jaroslaw took the time to show me enough to really whet my appetite. Montage has no tracks, just a grid system which you use to line up component parts of your project in time and sync with each other, using simple drag 'n' drop — all possible, he told me, because of the unique nature of OSX (Montage will never run on anything else!). When I had some more time, I was back for the full demo. Drum loops effortlessly sync'd together were put through Hyperprism effects, complemented by string textures triggered via MIDI, themselves effected and mixed, then video clips were dropped onto key musical points and cross-dissolved with video effects, all while the composition was running. I must have this program! It's exactly what I need to edit the video footage and surround audio I recorded in the Czech Republic earlier this year. How can I be expected to wait until April, when they plan to release it? I feel a beta-tester agreement coming on!

Lord Of The (Modular) Ring     My old friend Thierry Carron, of Mil Productions, turned up for MacExpo and showed me the latest beta of his new product, Modular Ring, which is more fun than anyone should be allowed to have on a computer. It's basically a set of 21 sound, sequencing and processing modules (although this number seems to grow every time he shows it to me). The modules are connected by the drag 'n' drop MidiShare system — which the Mac music cognoscenti acknowledge as the only way of moving MIDI around inside pre-OSX Macs with the timing and sync'ing precision needed, but which could never compete commercially with the big boys like OMS. (Rumour has it that the technology involved will be supported in the next rev of OSX). Modular Ring gives you all the different elements you might need for a musical production (drum machine, synth(s), sequencer(s), arpeggiators, sampler(s), and so on), in a set of bite-sized pieces which make learning each bit a breeze.

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