M-Audio has actually gotten in touch in response to frustrations about incompatibilities with OS updates — updates which, admittedly, have recently been frequent and sometimes troublesome on both the Windows and Mac sides. Niels Larsen, General Manger at M-Audio, responds in comments with some specifics on where drivers are, some new drivers that were released literally today, and some comments on the OS situation in general.  (I’ve copied it here just in case you missed it in comments.)

I’ve also heard from Digidesign/M-Audio public relations; I hope to have additional updates soon.

This is well worth reading whether or not you own M-Audio hardware.

Speaking of drivers, PreSonus announced today that they’re allowing users to register for open beta drivers. They’re hardly the first to do this — M-Audio has done the same historically, even if I’m not thrilled with their pace at the moment. But this raises an interesting question: could opening a beta help improve driver quality and get updates in users’ hands faster? Do audio users really want to "beta-test" drivers in the first place? (I guess that depends on how mature the "beta" release is.) We’ll have to see how PreSonus fares.

How is PreSonus doing with released drivers? Reasonably well from what I can see — and what I’ve heard. But they do have some blips. There isn’t a Vista driver for their FaderPort or V-Fire, and there’s no Leopard driver for V-Fire though the rest of their product line is up-to-date with Vista and Leopard.

How have PreSonus drivers treated you? I see a number of improvements in terms of stability on Mac OS on their downloads page via recent releases.

There aren’t many positive ways to spin this: if you’re a user of Digidesign and M-Audio products and looking to use current operating systems, very often you’re out of luck. In some cases, this isn’t so surprising — given issues with Leopard, I actually suggest running Mac OS X Tiger if you can until some issues are resolved. And while I have one machine here running Vista happily, suffice to say Windows XP remains the choice for many, as drivers from a variety of vendors mature.

Still, I think it’s bad to see drivers missing altogether this late in the game — especially in the case of Windows XP SP3, a minor update to a six year-old OS. Maybe some of this isn’t M-Audio’s fault — maybe OS driver development needs to be easier. But either way, when a major music hardware vendor is this far out of sync with the software shipping on new machines, it’s a problem. And while their loss may be good for their competitors in audio hardware, it’s not terribly good for the music tech industry in general.

(Okay, Digidesign/M-Audio — before you start throwing things at me, I’m not saying this to be mean or to single you out, I’m saying this because I hear this all the time from your customers. I think if there are problems on the Apple/Microsoft side, then that’s worth examining, too. But I do think this is a situation that could stand some improvement.)

To really work with music software as an instrument, you have to focus on a set of tools and get deep into what they can do. Today, we’re launching the first of a limited series of minisites that lets us do that. It’s called Kore @CDM, devoted to NI’s Kore and Komplete lines. We’ve built a special blog which will feature regular tips on how to work with this set of tools, basic and advanced tutorials, and downloadable content, all free and open. (The contents of the site will be Creative Commons-licensed, so you’re free to share and modify what we do, with credit to the authors.)

Kore Minisite @CDM, http://kore.noisepages.com

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Why choose this product now?  I’ve felt really strongly, even having been critical of Kore’s first release, that Kore 2 has the potential to live up to its promise of creating a "meta-instrument" for working with sound and effects. Combined with the rest of the Komplete family, including Reaktor’s open-ended patching environment and the scriptable sampler Kontakt, NI has some deep tools — not perfect, not for everyone, but tools that matter to us. We want to really get into how to use them, and to develop a set of techniques and tools for others, both for sound design and live performance, in combination with hosts like Ableton Live. And this means not just doing stuff "by the book," but really seeing how far we can push these tools, sonically and in playability.

Kicking things off is Eoin Rossney, who talks about how to create feedback loops intentionally in Kore for special effects. It’s something mentioned in the manual, but there haven’t been instructions on how to accomplish it until now. Eoin takes that challenge on, and produces some really oddball sounds just by routing effects into themselves. Have a listen to the samples — just be sure to turn your speakers’ volume down first.

How to Route Feedback Loops in Kore - On Purpose [Kore @CDM]

Peter Dines, a Reaktor whiz and author of the Reaktor Tips blog, will also be writing and screencasting for us soon. Both Eoin and Peter have been CDM regulars, so it’s great to have them onboard.

Why we’re partnering with NI: So that we can provide as much content as we can for free, we’ve gotten sponsorship from Native Instruments to produce the site. But that doesn’t mean we want to make an "advertorial." NI has been generous enough to give us full control over the contents, and the goal isn’t a review, or an ad — it’s as much actual knowledge of these tools as we can provide. And, hey, it’s basically our job to demonstrate that by doing as good a job as we can and listening to your feedback. I’m happy to answer questions about why we’re doing things this way and what it means; we can talk in comments or contact the site.

Most of all, though, I hope you’ll check out the site. If you don’t own Kore or the other tools, we’ll still have sound and video samples and will include instructions for trying out projects in the demo, if you just want to kick the tires a bit. And definitely let us know what you think as we roll out more stories, because we want this to be as useful to you as possible.

Oh, yeah, and if you’re wondering about what the "noisepages.com" thing is about, you’ll be hearing more soon. Suffice to say the Kore site isn’t all we’re working on.

Bonus points to anyone else who had the "opportunity" to see the movie Deep Kore Core.

Background: Many laptop-based Mac OS X users are experiencing significant audio issues on Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard. On Tiger, the culprit appears to be the AirPort Extreme Update 2008-001 released earlier this spring. One workaround on Tiger is to simply turn off AirPort. On Leopard, the problem appears to be slightly more complex, but generally linked to 10.5.2; several software vendors are recommending music users avoid that update for now. (10.5 / 10.5.1 appear unaffected.) The issue is not universal on Leopard (some laptop Mac users report no problems), but if you are experiencing issues, the only current solution appears to be downgrading your entire system to an earlier release (via Time Machine or reinstalling).

Fortunately, on Tiger there’s a more specific temporary fix.

Tiger Fix: Musician Georgi Marinov has posted step-by-step instructions for reverting the AirPort Extreme Update to the previous release (2007-004). This fix will work only for Tiger users, apparently on specific MacBook Pro and Mac mini models.

tiger airport audio dropouts fix

I’d personally like to see Apple add some facility for uninstalling updates on all releases, as some other operating systems do. (Yes, you can use Time Machine, but that’s more of an argument for building this feature into Software Update.) But regardless, with any OS and any update (and certainly with this unsupported procedure), be sure to backup before applying any update to a critical machine.

If you do apply this, let us know if it works for you.

Previously:

Mac OS X 10.5.2: Music and Audio Problems on Apple Laptops? (Or Blame AirPort?)

Mac Audio Glitches: Serato Reports; Avoid 10.5.2, AirPort For Now

Photo: Telstar Logistics. (Hey, it was either that shot of SFO airport or another apple or tiger or something silly.)

Update: via Kris on comments, it appears the newest ("Penryn") Apple laptops are unaffected, presumably a side effect of using Broadcom chips. (That’s not to say the chip is to blame, but the software support for the different chips might be.)

Our friend Gustavo Bravetti is back with more Ableton Live tutorials. Looks like good fodder for working on some music making this weekend — especially if you’re not familiar with some of these techniques.

First up: cascading follow actions can break up endless looping repetition by triggering complex patterns. Gustavo throws in some "dummy clips" or "ghost clips" for adding additional automation.

Next, if you followed Gustavo’s bass drum tutorial with Operator and want to follow it up with some snares (and resonance), have a look at this:

More details at Gustavo’s iproducer column.

By the way, to anyone who wanted more "advanced" tutorials (or more beginning, for that matter — it’s all relative) — feel free to send us requests. Now I’m sort of intrigued by synthesizing drums; I’ve been chatting with a couple of our contributors here about Native Instruments’ FM8. The whole beauty of Operator is its simplicity, but maybe we should see if we can make an FM8 kit, as well. (And you’re not restricted to using Ableton’s own instruments in the Live Drum Rack, either.)

If you make stuff this weekend, or find tips of your own, let us know!

Apple’s "point" releases — those seemingly-harmless updates you get automatically in Software Update — do sometimes break stuff. I tend to ignore the updates until I’ve had a chance to confirm they’re okay. Case in point: it looks like 10.5.2 can result in glitchy audio on laptops.

Native Instruments has an official statement out on the problem, but according to them, this issue can affect software from other vendors, as well:

User feedback and internal testing indicates that recent changes introduced by Apple in Mac OS X 10.5.2 can cause audio dropouts and similar problems on Macbook/Macbook Pro computers. This issue is not limited to NI software in particular, but applies to performance-criticial music software in general.
Therefore, Native Instruments currently cannot guarantee the proper operation of its products under Mac OS X 10.5.2. If possible, users should refrain from upgrading beyond Mac OS X 10.5.1 until further information about this issue becomes available.

Now, I will say this: I am frustrated with Apple’s OS upgrade approach — and I think on any OS, media support is the most vulnerable area.

Slicing, remixing, looping, "live performance-oriented features" … this is Digidesign we’re talking about, right? Digi’s Advanced Instrument Research (A.I.R.) unit, the fruits of the acquisition of Wizoo, may have a pretentious name, but they’ve been doing some pretty great work on new instruments. The new project, Transfuser, will have to enter some crowded waters. Loop slicing and handling already works pretty nicely in Ableton Live (especially with Live 7’s drum racks), in instrument form in FL Studio 8’s awesome Edison and Slicex, and in tools like fxpansion’s GURU. (Superficially, at least, Transfuser bears more than a passing resemblance to the latter in its overall UI layout. And then there’s the fact that the knobs look like they were lifted directly from Live.)

Of course, Transfuser isn’t for FL Studio users. As with previous AIR releases, the Digi-owned Wizoo now make plug-ins for Pro Tools only. And if you are a Pro Tools user, you don’t have to listen to me or try to squint at the screenshots: you can take Transfuser for a test drive free. Download the plug-in for Pro Tools (LE/HD/M-Powered) before June 25, and it’ll operate for three months, no restrictions.

Transfuser Preview [Digidesign]

I can already see from these shots that this isn’t quite the way I’d want to work, personally, let alone enticing enough to make me deal with Pro Tools as a host. But "groove-making" is different for different people, so I’d be very eager to hear what someone else thinks. If you’d like to write up a mini-review for CDM, let us know.

Ableton announced that they’d be doing an orchestral sample library — called, logically enough, the Orchestral Instrument Collection — way back when Live Suite came out last year. But Orchestral Instruments actually didn’t ship then. As of this week, it is shipping.

You can buy the whole library for US$599, or you can pick up sections a la carte for $189 (or, oddly, $159 for Orchestral Percussion). Like the Essential Instruments Collection, the samples come from SONiVOX, with high-fidelity and low-fidelity (read: lightweight for performance) versions. There’s also something new called "SmartPriming" for system resources. I haven’t yet gotten my hands on this, so I can’t comment yet; obviously, it comes down to how important Live integration is to you, or whether you’d prefer a third-party orchestral library.

The a la carte sections, though, makes me think of Garrison Keillor’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra skit. (It’s Classical Music humor. My apologies.) One way to choose sections: think about which God would want you to buy. Excerpt:

But for a Lutheran who feels led to play in an orchestra, the first question must be: are you kidding? An orchestra? Are you sure this is what you want? Do you know what you are getting into? Opera. Is that anyplace for a Christian? Don Juan and Mephistopheles and Wagner and all his pagan goddesses hooting and hollering, and the immorality — I mean, is anybody in opera married?

Not to give away the punchline, but not surprisingly harps and percussion (think about the patience required to be an orchestral percussionist) win out, so that could theoretically guide your purchase decision here. Just remember:

The French Horn takes too much of a person’s life. French horn players hardly have time to marry and have children. The French horn is practically a religion all by itself.

Software is different, of course. A Young Lutheran’s Guide to Music Software, anyone?