Wormhole2 is a powerful, cross-platform (Windows + Mac) VST plug-in capable of transmitting audio between computers over networks. It allows effects chain routing between networked computers, boasts low-latency performance on LANs, and even works over WiFi or Firewire. But Wormhole2’s niche audience kept it from catching on more widely, and we hadn’t heard much from it lately, leaving some users worried Wormhole had fallen into a black hole.

plasq, the wonderful people who brought us Skitch and Comic Life, have been giving their audio tools new lives rather than orphaning them. We’ve already seen plasq’s live performance-savvy instrument and effects host Rax show up as an Audiofile Engineering product, and AE in turn recently promised in comments that great things were coming for Rax.

Now, we have some great news for Wormhole2: it’s gone open source:

Wormhole2 @ Google Code

Product Page and Features (still up at press time)

Discussion at plasq.com Forum

End users can just download AU (Mac) and VST (Windows) binaries, plus a PDF manual. It’s even a Universal Binary for Intel Macs.

Developers: because VST isn’t an open-source format, you have to download Steinberg’s VST SDK to use it, but plasq will actually go the trouble of sending you the files once you agree to Steinberg’s license agreement. (AU isn’t either, but Apple ships all the developer tools you need with the OS.)

I’m really hopeful someone will build something cool with this. You’ll need something else to route MIDI (though the Mac does that over networks out of the box, cough, Windows). But there are powerful audio-over-network options here which would be hard to work out on your own. It’s unclear how useful Wormhole2 will be to the existing, open source JACK audio project, which is also capable of routing audio between apps and (via netjack) networked computers. JACK uses a client/server model as opposed to Wormhole’s plug-in approach. But for end users, having both tools available free is a very good thing, and the price tag is an extra incentive to be brave and see if these tools can help power up your rig.

Generally, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has been working pretty well for most users, though we continue to hear a number of complaints about compatibility with M-Audio hardware. There are some annoyances, though, including one glitch as far as routing audio between apps. Updated: the good news is, this is fixable.

In the “bad” category, Paul Davis, the creator of JACK and Ardour, writes:

Leopard has stopped JACK and other inter-application audio routers from being used as the default audio device. Apple is now distributing an SDK that is aimed at “aiding” developers in writing user-space CoreAudio “drivers” such as JACK and SoundFlower. Early reports suggest that the SDK requires a much more complex design. JACK still runs on Leopard, and so JACK-aware apps (i.e. Linux audio apps ported to OS X like Ardour and Jamin) can use it, but native apps can no longer be connected to each other or to JACK applications. Work is underway to make JACK use this new SDK but it appears to be a non-trivial effort. Apple’s motive in making this change is not clear.

Now, the good news. JACK OS X’s developers chime in in comments to point out progress is being made. And this is even a good thing. (Unfortunately, such is the way with OSes — for even small improvements, you have to break, then fix things, then reap the benefits, sometimes not immediately.) From Stephane:

SoundFlower is actually a “kernel space” driver that is somewhat much more easier to develop and maintain

• Apple SDK is definitively a step forward to develop more compliant “user-space” drivers, even if mastering the new code layering takes some time…
• as Dan said, the new version is almost ready and should be more compliant (more application working correctly with it)

And a beta is available now.

In other words, if you use these apps in a critical project, you might want to hold off upgrading, but otherwise all is well. I’ll be sure to post an update when a fix is ready. Note that Audio Hijack is now compatible with Mac OS X 10.5, though that doesn’t allow many of the musical applications possible with JACK and SoundFlower.

A subtler UI annoyance, Apple has somewhat crippled the audio previews you get in Finder’s multi-column view. You get the “play” button in the last column, as before, but no scrubbing or volume control. QuickLook, fortunately, solves the problem. Hit space and you get a full view of your audio file. At first, I thought this would be less convenient, thinking you’d have to preview files one at a time. But you can navigate from one file to another by scrolling up and down with the keyboard to select different files. Thanks to David Hollands for this tip; David says he’s finding QuickLook to be slower than using multi-column view.

Another alternative would be to use a dedicated utility like Iced Audio’s AudioFinder for your sample sorting, which may be better than Leopard or Tiger anyway, depending on your preference.

Sure enough, today we learn that AudioFinder’s new sample editor is in beta. Combined with AF’s other sample juggling tools, the fix may actually be more interesting than the problem.

There’s something to be said for making connections in hardware studios: if you’ve got the cables, you can make it happen. In the world of the computer, it’s another story. The vision of Jack is to make routing audio between software as flexible. As the creators put it:

Have you ever wanted to take the audio output of one piece of software and send it to another? How about taking the output of that same program and send it to two others, then record the result in the first program? If so, JACK may be what you’ve been looking for.

Previously, Jack lived primarily on Linux and Mac. But Stéphane Letz’s brilliant jackdmp implementation, which fully supports multiple processors (among other things), is now available on Windows, via Stéphane’s hard work. Even the Qjackctl graphical front end gets a port, thanks to Rui Nuno Capela. With all three platforms supported, it’ll be interesting to see what’s next — perhaps more development of netjack, the over-the-network rendition of the idea.

I think it’s also worth mentioning, after all Microsoft’s puffery about “innovation” for musicians in Vista, here’s something genuinely innovative and practically useful for XP and Vista alike. That’s not just to take a slam at Microsoft, either. I hope that these larger companies (all of them) will start to take notice of the value of some of these independent efforts of developers for the larger good. (Developers! Developers! Developers!) For OS development, it means better document your APIs. Be public about changes, earlier and wider. And install these tools, use, and test them.

jackdmp project, background, and details, for all three platforms

There are two basic ways to approach computer music making: work with a system that’s already built for you (think traditional sequencers), or build your own, modular, unique way of working. Both approaches can be valid, but for a small but dedicated band of hard-core computer musicians, only the latter will do. The Buzz project for Windows attempted to merge modular capabilities with a tracker-style sequencer. (Buzzmachines.com isn’t working for me at the moment; see also the Buzz Wikipedia entry.)

There’s a new hope, however. Linux-native but build-able on Windows, free, and intensely powerful, early versions of the new Aldrin software for Windows look very promising. Formerly called Mute, Aldrin offers tracker capabilities, modular features, planned “1:1 compatibility with Buzz,” and integration with the Freesound creative commons sample library.

I can do better than a static screenshot here. The developer has just posted a video of the program in action. Let the techno commence:

Heck, you can even use DSP sources directly in your projects. Andy Selby writes with more:

Want to share audio between applications easily on an Intel Mac? Now you can. JACK OS X, the superb open-source solution for routing audio between applications and computers on Mac OS X, is now a Universal binary for Intel/PowerPC Macs with today’s release of version 0.73. That means if you’re running an Intel Mac, you can now easily route audio between your Intel-native copies of software like Ableton Live (released last week) and Apple Logic Pro (shipped last month).

Updated: The creator of JACK writes us to note that inter-app MIDI is bound for an upcoming release. (See comments.)