In a little while, Steve Jobs will be keynoting Apple’s developer conference. I doubt that anyone will be thinking about audio drivers. So in the remaining moments to do that, let’s go — because 10.5 looks like it’s yet another release from Apple that takes music production seriously.

Most of us didn’t expect any major improvements in Apple’s Core Audio in 10.5 — nor need them, as Core Audio is rock-solid for most of what we need to do, in terms of performance and reliability. That’s not to give Apple a free pass; there have been some compatibility issues with point releases (10.4.9 comes to mind), bumps in the AU plug-in format’s evolution, and so on. But at the end of the day, the Mac is an OS that works for music production, more seamlessly and easily than anything else out there. Yet Apple is in fact making some improvements to its audio driver system even in 10.5:

164 Professional Audio Input and Output with Leopard Mac OS X Essentials Presentation
Discover Leopard’s support for the recently-approved USB Audio Device 2.0 class specification and how to write spec-compliant descriptors for your high-speed USB audio device. Find out how to unleash the power of FireWire peer-to-peer networking using Leopard’s all-new FireWire audio drivers and enhanced Audio/Video Control (AV/C) media services. Learn how to implement user interfaces and vendor-specific AV/C commands to control your audio device.

So, wow, in other words … in a release that’s largely focused on Core Animation and the visual side of the operating system, Apple has added new FireWire support, networking over FireWire, and driver-free USB 2.0 support. (Right now, you can plug-and-play class-compliant USB 1.1 audio devices, but not USB 2.0. Erm … or whatever those two USB specs are really supposed to be called; that’s another discussion.)

This is great news, because typically adding driver support to Core Audio would not require anything new on the application side — meaning you’ll soon be able to plug in devices and reap the benefits, at least for things like plug-and-play USB 2.0 (provided your hardware is up to spec).

Microsoft recently held an Audio Summit to talk to its partners about what was needed in their OS. FireWire and USB support would be extremely high on my list, yet Vista still has to catch up to the level of support in Mac OS X 10.2. Windows’ internal USB/FireWire support is basically unusable for pro audio, there’s not anything near approaching plug-and play with USB MIDI and USB and FireWire audio devices, and Windows lags badly behind key features on Mac and Linux for inter-app audio and MIDI, device aggregation, and other tools that are essential to building a music and audio creation studio. Apple, having taken care of a lot of the basics, can now go on and actually innovate with features like networking. I was told Microsoft basically ignored USB, FireWire, and MIDI support in general in Vista, aside from overhauling the driver model and thus breaking a lot of backwards compatibility. (But overhauling the driver model doesn’t necessarily benefit the music and audio market.) Meanwhile, not a single OS release has gone by that Apple hasn’t made significant improvements to its pro audio capabilities. (And, as I’m fond of pointing out, that benefits not only “pros” but anyone who cares about music.)

Just sayin’. And this is not to be smug or launch an OS war; I genuinely hope Microsoft makes an effort to do better.

Any developers at WWDC who can report back? I couldn’t fly out to San Francisco this week.

Your best bet: don’t install the updates the Software Update recommends unless you can easily go back to the previous version. And hold off on 10.4.9 for now.

Users and developers are understandably angry with Apple: rather than bundle updates together, Apple has been making lots of minor changes in successive updates, and developers too often find about changes after things break. That’s especially problematic when the changes are being made to an API like AU — the whole point is supposed to be providing a solid platform for developers. Apple either needs to adjust the way it rolls out updates or communicate better with its developers. Be aware, as well, that the upcoming 10.5 upgrade is an enormous release; I expect you may want to wait for updates to catch up with that when it comes out (when that is, no one knows).

Now, no Windows vs. Mac arguments, please: the bottom line is, developers are having a rougher time than they should on both platforms. (On the Vista side, what I’ve heard from developers is that they had the same difficulties the rest of us did — it was tough to get test systems up and running because of new compatibility and driver issues, so it was hard to test in advance.) Updates and the resulting bugs are a necessary evil, but there’s clearly room for improvement on both the Apple and Microsoft side that could result in a healthier, happier platform for everyone.

There is time, however. You can save yourselves from utter scumbagdom (at least in my eyes). This thing is obviously the same hardware as the BCD2000, so you can do it. Update the BCD2000 drivers and firmware and we’ll never speak of this again.

The alternative is to get crushed by Numark’s NuVJ and Total Control/ION’s iCue, Vestax’ VCI-100, MAudio’s Xponent… Seriously people, when the BCD2000 was announced it was basically the only kid on the block at the price point, 18 months later there are similarly functioned devices from all of the major players, and all you’ve managed is a coat of paint and platform support which was put together by a hacker sniffing USB packets?

Dude, ouch.

Evinyatar has commented on our early BCD2000 Not Mac Compatible post to announce that he – sick of waiting for Behringer to actually do something useful with their gear – has written and released OSX Universal drivers (MIDI only so far):

My first subject is Behringer’s BCD2000. When it was released about two years ago it was rumored that MacOS X drivers would be released by the end of 2005. Rather than waiting for those to appear (which they probably won’t) I decided to have a go myself. The result is quite good, if I say so myself. It works, which is more than I expected.

Currently only MIDI in and output works. Audio does not. That means you can control Traktor the way you would on a Windows computer, but you won’t hear anything through the BCD2000’s audio ports or record anything trough them. You can still, of course, use other audio outputs, built-in or external, that do work with MacOS X.

Right now the MIDI input and output are should be identical to the Windows driver in B-DJ mode. Which means a reasonable amount of pain is implied when trying to configure Traktor for the BCD2000. Basically, the same hack that works for Windows (using MIDI-Rules and a loopback device, in our case Apple’s built-in IAC) is also required for Mac. I hope to incorporate similar functionality inside the driver in the future, eliminating the need for the hack. For now, this will have to do. A more detailed guide to setting this up will be posted sometime later this week.

3 days later there’s a release, and he’s gone further: Working on a system which will allow OSX users to actually customize mappings on their BCD:

I have just finished building and testing the Universal Binary driver for the BCD2000. So now you should be able to use the BCD2000 on your PowerBook, iBook, iMac and PowerMac, as well as your MacBook, MacBook Pro, or Mac Pro. As always, you can find the download link over at the “Links” box on the right.

On other news, I’ve been working on a GUI for MIDI Rules, which should make setting up Traktor a bit easier. After that’s done being polished, I’ll release it and write up the HOW-TO for getting Traktor up and running with the BCD2000 on Mac OS X.

Right now, though, I’m being rather intrigued by how audio works on the BCD2000. My pleas for documentation have fallen on deaf ears at Behringer (you’d think they’d be a bit more supportive when you’re doing them a favor like this one), so I’m staring at hex dumps from USB Snoop on my Windows machine trying to figure this stuff out.

This is absolutely stellar news for users, and shockingly poor form from Behringer. That they had both an obvious demand and a 2 year head start and were still beaten to OSX compatibility by a hacker with hex dumps is a pretty apt reflection on their pathetic attitude to customer support.

I’ll be picking up a Macbook (my first) in the coming month or so, but until then I’d love to hear from anyone who’s been able to give this a spin on their Mac. I’ve emailed Evinyatar to get some further information on his process, and I’m thinking of propositioning him to work on an updated Windows driver. Any other frustrated BCD2000 owners out there willing to chip in to fund work on this?

In the meantime, lucky Mac-based BCD2000 owners can download Version 0.0.1 Universal Binary and give them a go.

Fission is the first (and currently only) OS X audio editor to support lossless editing of MP3 and AAC audio. The software has a super simple interface which provides an accurate dual-waveform view and a handful of editing commands that let you split, cut, crop, and fade audio. While still clearly a 1.0 version, it does have some slick features including audible audio scrubbing.

Fission’s streamlined interface is a joy to look at and use. Its only flaw may be that it is too stripped down for some. With a few more features, particularly support for VST and AU plug-ins, Fission could become my go-to audio editor for those times when bringing up Peak is just overkill.

Fission works with mono and stereo MP3s, AAC, Apple Lossless and AIFF audio files and is available now as a Universal Binary that runs natively on PowerPC and Intel Mac for US$32.