Universal Audio has long had a successful business selling hardware DSP effects, many of them carefully-modeling classic analog gear. These products use dedicated DSP hardware for number-crunching, requiring that you connect an extra box to your computer. UA has certainly had their loyalists, and for fans of the products, the dedicated gear is simply a convenient way to get all of these sound-processing goodies. But it’s fair to ask the question, as many producers have who read this site, what’s the advantage? Why not simply use native processing on your computer?

Apollo, UA’s new hardware, answers that question more emphatically. By integrating the processing prowess of the UA platform into a high-quality audio interface, you can now add UA effects live, as you record and mix, with extreme low latencies. UA reports latencies below a couple of milliseconds. That’s possible, theoretically, on a desktop computer, but not generally on a laptop and very often not with any real reliability. You can do it in a lab, but it’s not something typical users see.

So, in one box, you effectively get your whole studio: the audio interface, the DSP power, and real low-latency sound processing. It’s not the first audio interface with DSP, but it might be the most compelling case yet for why that combination make sense.

And here’s where things get interesting: via Thunderbolt, a single MacBook Air, costing just around $1000, could be your whole studio machine. And while Apollo runs a couple grand above that, that means the total price tag is stunningly low compared to what you’d pay just a short time ago.

UA briefed me earlier this week on the technology. Even as NAMM raves about iPads, you begin to see the real power of conventional computers. Steve Jobs once compared those computers to “trucks” – while quietly leading a company that profits on how cool trucks are, too. With an Air, adding only slightly to the weight of an iPad and at only twice the cost, you can connect to vastly greater native processing power, greater outboard processing power, and greater I/O. And now with Thunderbolt, you could connect a high-res display or two, a big, fast hard drive, and the audio interface, all without running out of power or impacting performance. (No, seriously – you can. The reason you haven’t seen this in action is that we haven’t had the hardware to show it off. Apollo will be a compelling case for that.)

All of this is academic until you actually have something to do with sound. So, UA is also expanding their developer platform to additional outside development; more on that soon.

Apollo isn’t for everyone; obviously, some people won’t like being tied to hardware, and native plug-ins do work for a lot of people. But it does solve problems for many potential producer customers by making something reliable, predictable, low-latency, extensible with lots of excellent processing tools, and all in one single-box solution.

Apollo will initially be Mac-only, but will come to Windows, too – and with more PCs supporting Thunderbolt in 2012, that means the MacBook is far from your only choice. So, you’ve got one add-on that’s your interface, your pres, and your mix/master/effect toolbox.

More specs:

• 18 x 24 FireWire/Thunderbolt-ready audio interface, 24-bit/192 kHz
• “Premium” mic pres – UA stresses that they’re also building on their mic pre reputation, and they claim the “lowest THD and highest dynamic range” in their class
• Dedicated front-panel controls: preamp gain, channel selection, mic pad, +48V phantom power, low cut, monitor level, and dual headphone controls.
• 4 digitally-controlled analog mic preamps, 8 balanced line inputs and outputs, dual front-panel JFET DIs, digitally-controlled analog monitor outputs, 8 channels of ADAT, 2 channels of S/PDIF, word clock I/O, FireWire 800 (standard), and a Thunderbolt expansion bay — making it a well-equipped centerpiece for the modern project studio.
• Core Audio drivers; ASIO coming, so you can use this with your DAW of choice
• Console application and plug-in for recalling all your interface and plug-in settings at once
• UAD-2 acceleration
• Analog emulation plug-ins from Ampex, Lexicon, Manley, Neve, Roland, SSL, Studer, etc.
• Thunderbolt will be available on a sold-separately Option Card; UA says it reduces latency and audio buffer sizes, improves high sample-rate performance, and allows greater UAD plug-in instances over FireWire.

Of course, because Thunderbolt also connects to FireWire devices, you don’t lose your FireWire investment. The only bad news is that you only get Thunderbolt here as an Option Card; I imagine we’ll eventually see UA ship Thunderbolt connections standard.

There are both two-core and four-core versions, powered by Analog Devices SHARC processors, running an estimated street of US$1999 and $2499, respectively. Apollo’s Thunderbolt Option Card will be shipping in the first half of 2012, with pricing TBD.

www.uaudio.com/apollo

Videos are available on the UA blog: http://www.uaudio.com/blog/apollo-intro-video

Windows 7 summer; 10.6 and 10.7 Mac OS X when it ships.

Software Images

Sampler? Synth? Workstation? Or just big bucket of sound? There are some impressive rabbit holes for sound designers out there, and Steinberg’s offering just got a big refresh.

While looking at the latest flagship from a music hardware giant (Roland’s Jupiter-80), it’s revealing to compare the software side of the fence. Computer software instruments may not be directly equivalent to all-in-one keyboards, but they do each embody the latest thinking in how to build expressive instruments and new sounds. German maker Steinberg is at home at this week’s giant Messe trade show, and they’ve taken the wraps off the upcoming landmark release of their own flagship synthesizer sampler workstation. It does … a lot.

HALion is really two instruments combined, both a virtual analog synthesizer and a sampler and sample playback workstation. The new version has dockable, movable, and resizable windows, function tabs, and screen sets – UI features generally associated with hosts, but necessary here to navigate HALion’s complex interface. There’s even a full-blown mixer desk inside.

The big change, though, is an expected one, bringing HALion in line with Steinberg’s latest ideas on what to do with VST plug-ins and sequencing. I looked at these features in my preview of Cubase 6′s note-by-note expression editing and VST 3.5. New features for adding expression to individual musical notes and sequences require updates to the associated plug-in software and sound content, so that’s where HALion comes in. Put the two together, and you have a better way of coupling stored sequence information with musical-style expression, whether modeling real instruments or storing transformations of sound parameters with synth sounds. The idea is to give sequenced music the same sorts of information about how sounds change across a note that a musical score might.

With or without those features, HALion 4 is full of sound design tools:

• A mixing engine with unlimited buses per program and layer and free routing – think DAW-like mixing inside each sound patch. Then route those to 32 stereo output channels or 6-channel surround. (Ow! My head!)
• Some 44 effect processors – this is before you drop HALion inside a DAW and add effects – including convolution reverbs, studio EQs, rotary cabinet emulation, morphing filters.
• Internal phrase arpeggiator.
• A new version of MegaTrig, which allows you to create series of conditions for triggers – basically, a graphical interface in place of the textual scripting in tools like rival sampler Kontakt.
• “Quick Controls” for mapping parameters to macro knobs, as we’ve seen in … well, many places. Your brain can keep track of 8 things more easily than it can 80.
• 15 GB of sound content.
• 32-bit and 64-bit versions for both Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6.

More images (click any of these for larger versions), all courtesy Steinberg:

And all of this costs you EUR349/GBP295, including VAT. US$329.99 retail in the US. (It’s cheaper because we’re less tax-y, folks.)

And that’s, really, kind of ridiculously cheap for a synth, a sampler, a mixer, a sound design toolset, and gigs of sounds, if you think about it. Lots more HALion here:
http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/vst/preview_halion_4.htm

Updated: Here’s a photo of MegaTrig – think Kontakt’s KSP scripting environment as a GUI. Which is more powerful? We’ll find out when HALion ships.

I’m not one to post every single minor software update, but with the latest handful of free upgrades for Native Instruments software, I think it’s safe to say the 64-bit age has come to the Mac musician. Windows developer Cakewalk heralded just this sort of advance for years on the PC side, with largely little company (even beyond the music world), but today, the technology is finally a reality for average users.

64-bit computing means a marginal performance boost on capable machines and more flexible memory usage. The 32-bit Mac has had an edge over a 32-bit PC – each application can access up to 4 GB, provided available physical memory. But with Snow Leopard and a 64-bit Mac, you can finally, say, take advantage of all of the 8GB or more you might have on your machine. And Windows users, likewise, can load up their machines and fly past the crushing limit – slightly below 4GB – that impacted their entire system. (Linux users can run 64-bit, too, or a PAE kernel that nets the same result as that 32-bit Mac.)

Back to the updates: both Mac and Windows users should benefit from bug fixes to FM8, Massive, Guitar Rig, and Absynth. You’ll find the free update on NI’s Service Center utility, or heading to the updater on the website.

But the 64-bit aspect is the biggest news here. Since standalone mode is supported, you don’t even need a 64-bit capable host like Logic or Cubase (cough, 32-bit-only Ableton). That brings the current roster of NI products with 64-bit products to the latest versions of:

Battery, Guitar Rig, Kontakt, Maschine, Massive, FM8, Absynth

…and drivers for all the Audio DJ line and Traktor Kontrol hardware. Unfortunately, that does leave a lot of 32-bit only stuff, especially if you haven’t upgraded lately, but you still have a significant number of choices.

Now, the collective wisdom of the readership of this site is far greater than my own. Any particular software you wish was 64-bit that isn’t? Has 64-bit software meant any real-world improvements in music production for you? Let us know.

Music software development includes some of the most sophisticated, expressive software out there. But it has long faced serious challenges in sales – audio software still appeals, generally, to a small slice of people, made smaller by factors ranging from piracy to the sheer complexity of available audio tools. As computing’s distribution model for software shifts, audio developers are undoubtedly watching.

Love it or hate it, what’s unique about Apple’s App Store for iOS is that it’s a one-stop shop for everything. With App Store fever spreading – new stores for mobile and desktop are either available or planned from the likes of Apple, Intel, Microsoft, and Linux vendor Canonical – we’re likely to see a new kind of store model. On desktops, Android devices, and others, multiple stores will compete with one another in overlapping arenas. They’ll do it without lock-in, too – unlike on Apple’s stores for iOS, you’ll have a choice of where to get your software.

Last week, of course, that list expanded to include Apple’s Mac App Store, coming to Snow Leopard and then the just-announced Lion.

Music creation and pro audio apps may be a specific niche, but creators of everything from plug-ins to audio software are at least interested. Little wonder: desktop music making software has always faced an uphill climb, but recently, iPhone creations have become breakout hits.

Just don’t get too excited yet. An early look at Apple’s guidelines for the store suggest restrictions will rule out a great deal of current Mac software, particularly audio software that relies on plug-in models. I’ve asked some independent developers to comment on what the store means to them, and take a look at some of those restrictions.

Several developers responded to my questions. Now, a disclaimer: clearly, the Mac App Store is not aimed at creators of strange synthesizers and effects. Nor is it possible to represent the full gamut of developers making software for musicians. TUAW has a nice round-up of more typical Mac developers, who are, unsurprisingly, more upbeat. I likewise expect that anyone who now has some success on the iOS platform – vendors like IK Multimedia or Smule — will be optimistic about the Mac App Store.

So, instead, consider this as a sampling of developers for whom the App Store may not actually change that much. I was, frankly, surprised to see plug-in creators and pro audio users assuming that the Mac App Store would be a natural marketplace for the software they care about. Early evidence is that it isn’t. But with app stores spreading across devices, the responses from developers provide some insight into longer-range challenges that transcend even Apple’s latest offering.

Gallery: sample applications and stores.

Could the Apple App Store be a viable option for creative music developers?

Angus Hewlett, FXpansion:

I’d say it’s a viable option for entry-level and somewhat novelty apps, and as a launch-assistance platform for brand new developers (allowing unknowns with no established reputation to get started in the world of ecommerce). It’s not of great appeal to FXpansion – we’ve been around long enough that I’d hope commercial trust isn’t a massive barrier to people buying from our web-store – but as a get-yourself-started platform, it is not completely without merit.

Of course, because these app stores are usually tied to a specific platform, for those developers who are on more than one platform, it does just add additional complexity, cost, and hassle. Admittedly it improves convenience for end users a certain amount (a good thing in my book), but the effort/overhead of getting out your credit card and typing in the number looks completely different for a $0.99 game you’re going to play for 20 minutes, compared to a $249 plug-in that you’ll spend hours/days just learning and (we hope) use several times a week for years to come.

Christopher Randall, Audio Damage:

The guidelines preclude selling plug-ins, so that rules out the segment of the industry I’m most familiar with. This will probably change, but my general feeling is that people that make things like Numerology will be well served, but for the majority of our business, our needs are a bit too particular to really benefit from something as broadly-focused as the App Store. And there’s no real financial incentive on Apple’s part to cater specifically to us, because we’re such a small segment of the overall software market.

David Viens, Plogue Art et Technologie:

As much as we like having our code base tested on as much compilers and platforms possible for correctness and efficiency, constant platform changes are quite boring, and usually dont spark any innovative ideas from us. Innovation not only is what drives us in the morning, but it’s also what users want, hopefully more than the typical will-it-run-on-my-toaster? kind. Also innovation is highly regarded by various tax break programs in many countries Also app stores make it impossible for us to do quick fixes, we could be committing code to Nintendo ROM carts that it couldn’t be different. So there is a need to raise QA and testing budget by a very significant amount, before release….

For standalone software, the kinds of things we’ve seen for iOS seem a likely candidate – particularly general-consumption audio “toys” (in the sense of stuff anyone can open up and use to make sound)?

Chris Randall:

That was my my general thinking. I was pondering it at length last night, and the smaller single-use app seems more likely to benefit from it, assuming it is a parallel environment to the existing App Store, with the same sort of customers. The chief difference between this App Store and the iOS one is that this isn’t the only option for purchasing software for your Mac. It has to compete with other channels, which is an important distinction, especially if most of its offerings are simple “casual” apps.

What about the app store landscape in general, as other players get into the business of doing their own stores? How does Apple fit in?

Gavin Burke, Future Audio Workshop:

The main issue is that the app store model just one piece of a bigger jigsaw and is tied in closely to the hardware, software frameworks and what this means to an independent developer and his/her ability to compete on a level playing field with established brands.

App store success is just one part in a bigger picture. The other players need to get the various parts right and not just create an app store and think it will work.

A major part is the price and ease of purchase. It’s easier to buy the software for $1.00 with one-click purchase than look on rapidshare.com for a crack. So price, ease of purchase, and last but not least, [making it] difficult to get the cracked version. Looking at it, it may only work if there is a single distribution channel and not multiple ones ( including rapidshare as a channel )

One flaw, though, in the Apple App Store is the charts. At the moment it is based on sales volume. Allowing people to view by highest user rating, etc., might help level things. Also, Apple can act as king maker with their ability to dish out the free advert slots on the device.

Angus Hewlett:

It’s a new channel that will no doubt get a lot of coverage – a few developers with the right products and first mover advantage will make some fast bucks for sure. After that, I don’t know. I suspect phones (and consoles – myself, I spend way more on XBox Live Arcade than on the iPhone or Android stores) are a better and more natural platform for cheap, one-shot novelty apps than desktops/laptops, simply because of how & where they fit in to peoples’ lives, but I’m ready to be proven wrong on that.

Are you concerned about Apple’s 30% cut of revenue?

Chris Randall:

Not at all. The app store runs on volume; that is its main attraction from a commerce standpoint. The trick is to take advantage of that potential volume, and the way to do that is through lowest-common-denomenator (e.g. “I Am T-Pain”) products.

Angus Hewlett:

Yes. It’s a lot more than the original generation of “app stores” (shareware ecommerce middleman sites like ShareIt, DigitalRiver, Kagi, NorthStar etc.) typically charged. We used to sell through ShareIt back in the day, they took about 10%, but once your turnover hits $10-15k a month,
it’s more economical to have a proper merchant account based shopping cart system (the hassle that entails costs a few hundred dollars a month in terms of overheads, paperwork, other bank-related BS, but it brings the average cost per transaction down to 3-5%). Also, at 10-15k a month turnover, your brand is probably well enough known that potential customers are likely to trust you somewhat as an online vendor.

Having said that – the terms-and-conditions aspect of being in an app store, especially when the operator is particular, capricious, anally retentive or all three at once (naming no names), is far more toxic than the 30% cut. Losing a predictable amount of money per sale is one thing, but failing to sell a single copy of your app – after you’ve spent months and $thousands developing it – because the store owner rejected it for reasons outside of your control is quite another.

David Viens:

30% is ridiculous. What enrages me is that users seem to think it’s normal and much less than ‘retail’ .. wuht whut??? We have never done retail ever and been using Share-It (which costs us less than 10%) for 6 years. That’s the price of a payment processor.

Sure, it doesn’t give you ‘visibility’ but what is that visibility on the 15th page of music software selection in a store? Can’t we just be as creative with our viral marketing, social network tricks as we are with the software itself?

Bandwidth price on Amazon S3 is microscopic (10 cents a GB), so not an issue, even with 100-megabyte demo downloads.

Share-it don’t care about the content, they never put their noses in our practices, suggest guidelines, or anything.

People are just getting to enjoy their new-found freedom with independent online music and fair-trade and local grown foods, however. they will let the inverse happen to software?
Will we see the movement to Fair-Trade software in 15 years?

Do you think it’s a model that could work, from a business perspective?

Angus Hewlett:

It’s a new channel, a few developers with the right products and first mover advantage will make some fast bucks. After that, I don’t know.

How well versed are you on acoustic physics in relation to loudspeakers, impedance etc.? There are some interesting parallels here with app stores – basically they are a good platform for allowing very small developers to cast a very wide net. Those of us who have a more specialist, focused audience can probably build trust with our audience via more efficient, focused channel….

It appears that plug-ins are ruled out by several of the guidelines issued by Apple. Care to comment?

Gavin Burke:

I can’t see the app store concept working for plug-ins; it’s pretty much already there with the downloads page on the Apple site.

If the app store is the only channel to purchase applications for a device that cracked software is not easily available for, then yes, it works. Otherwise, not so sure. We already have app stores for music software, like Don’t Crac[k], etc., with somewhat limited success. Also for complex niche software, it’s hard to beat the personal connections distributors have with stores and in turn with their customers. We find this especially true for Japan.

Artistic freedom and censorship

Artist and developer Kassen Oud offered some compelling thoughts on Apple’s developer “guidelines” and rules via Facebook. To him, the restrictions on what goes in the store conflict with making software art. I think it’s a reasonable and challenging point to make – just as Apple has the right to conduct their store in the way you wish, developers and artists presumably have just as much right to opt out.

To me, the big appeal to developing software for music is the chance to do something unique and individual. External limitations (like arbitrary moral guidelines or limits on the language to be used) conflict with that, to me. As the process used is important to me I need to be able to express myself about that publicly as well. This rules out Apple’s app store. With regard to code/ application distribution those are more important factors to me than the need to create applications for Apple’s app store on a Apple computer though that in and of itself would also be a prohibitive factor to me.

I don’t mean to imply that software on Apple’s platform would inherently be less “unique” or “individual”; I certainly do not wish to take anything away from my friends whose creative process wasn’t (apparently) affected by these factors and who did create very interesting works released on it, taking nothing away from their FOSS work.

Apple Developer Guidelines – Plug-ins Need Not Apply

Apple’s draft review guidelines for the Mac App Store have been widely posted, including full text. Here are the excerpts most relevant to the above discussion.

Plug-ins will almost certainly be rejected.

2.15
Apps must be self-contained, single application installation bundles, and cannot install code or resources in shared locations

(Plug-ins, by definition, install to shared Library locations, as per Apple’s own guidelines.)

Interestingly, though, hosts appear to be okay, just not the plug-ins themselves:

7.1
Apps that unlock or enable additional features or functionality with mechanisms other than the App Store will be rejected, except in cases where the application hosts plug-ins or extensions

Demos aren’t allowed.

2.6
Apps that are “beta”, “demo”, “trial”, or “test” versions will be rejected

Other guidelines are worth watching.

Various other guidelines provide fairly restrictive policies that developers will have to balance against their business interests. These aren’t unprecedented – see the strict review policies of venues like the Steam store for games. But those stores have seen their own share of developer complaints, and they’re specific to an audience (like gamers); here, it may be tougher for niche developers to justify. (That’s, at least, the feedback I’ve been hearing from music developers. For mainstream developers, the equation can be different.)

2.18
Apps that install kexts will be rejected

2.19
Apps that require license keys or implement their own copy protection will be rejected

2.20
Apps that present a license screen at launch will be rejected

2.21
Apps may not use update mechanisms outside of the App Store

2.7
Apps that duplicate apps already in the App Store may be rejected, particularly if there are many of them

Of course, some of the challenges of audio software are … unique. How many pro audio applications would meet the following guidelines?

6.3
Apps that do not use system provided items, such as buttons and icons, correctly and as described in the Apple Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines will be rejected

6.4
Apple and our customers place a high value on simple, refined, creative, well thought through interfaces. They take more work but are worth it. Apple sets a high bar. If your user interface is complex or less than very good it may be rejected

Comments from other developers are welcome. We’ll keep you posted.

For some time, the move has seemed inevitable – even more so as the rumor mill started echoing with suggestions that a native release was coming. But now, it’s happened: Pro Tools HD will now run without HD DSP hardware. And that’s not all — you can also use the same hardware with your existing DAW of choice, for users of software like Cubase and Logic.

There’s a price tag attached, though. This remains what for many would be a high-end solution. At US$3495 retail and up, it’s not competition for buying a basic interface card and Cubase. Think, instead, a more affordable and flexible way to equip studio rigs, and some potentially serious competition for vendors like Apogee, especially since you can use any DAW you want.

Just to say that again: Avid is making a version of Pro Tools HD that runs on the CPU and supports any DAW on Windows 7 or Mac OS X Snow Leopard and higher.

The AIR (Avid) user blog has some terrific analysis on the announcement even before it became public, comparing leaked price info for Native to an Apogee rig. If you haven’t been reading the AIR blog, they’ve hardly been shills for Avid; they’ve savaged some of the company’s decisions. And they’re actually pretty positive here. (Spoiler: Avid winds up being cheaper than Apogee by a few hundred bucks in their calculus.)
Is An Avid Pro Tools HD Native Core System Expensive?

What you get for that investment, though, is something worth discussing. It also reveals what’s necessary to get real, low-latency audio operation, which is relevant even if you aren’t in the market for Pro Tools|HD Native. CDM gets some insight into that from the developers.

First, Pro Tools|HD Native at a glance. Bundles:

Native core: $3495 buys you the necessary PCIe native card plus Pro Tools HD 8.5 software. The card comes with two Digilink mini ports on it.

Native core + OMNI Add an HD OMNI interface to the above. Total: US$5995.

Native core + HD I/O 8x8x8 Get a full 8x8x8 HD I/O interface. Total cost: US$6995.

Native core + HD I/O 16×16 analog US$7995.

Availability: November 4.

So, why bother with “HD Native” when there are versions like LE? The difference is that some of the more serious studio features remain:

• Surround, VCA mixing
• Destructive/track punch, advanced automation
• Solo Bus AFL/PFL, track-based input monitoring
• Sync HD support
• 9-pin Machine Control
• Venue support. (Yeah, that’s pretty huge, since Venue rigs don’t necessarily need all the TDM stuff.

This isn’t a TDM solution, though, so you don’t get TDM plug-in support, which for many is one of the big draws of Pro Tools. That includes the recently-announced HEAT, an analog-modeling sonic sweetener based on the qualities of tape. (There’s more to say about HEAT; I just got off the phone with its talented designer Dave Hill, so expect the results of that interview soon.)

It is a significant “mid-range” studio solution, and will likely fill a big need for Pro Tools customers. Avid told CDM in a briefing yesterday that they’ve gotten enormous demand for just such a solution. Just doing a discounted upgrade to HD got a big response, and users have wanted something between LE and the TDM-based HD for project or secondary studios. It also seems to me that it demonstrates Avid is willing to change, which could have greater implications down the road.

What you get is, says Avid, not a replacement for their DSP solutions, but otherwise unrestricted in sync, I/O, and functionality. It has the mixing and I/O LE lacks, and it even supports legacy “blue” HD converters (192, etc.), making it a likely candidate for upgrading studio setups that didn’t make the leap to 8.5 software.

If you don’t want to use Pro Tools as your DAW, you get 64 channels of I/O with any Core Audio (Mac) or ASIO (PC) system. Avid says they’ve tested extensively with Logic and Nuendo; Digital Performer, SONAR, and others should work, too.

And, notably, it’s a native system with extraordinarily low latency. Pro Tools|HD does .44 ms (at 96k and a 64 sample — yes, sixty-four total – buffer). But HD Native does a very respectable 1.6 ms; less than half that if you choose direct monitoring while recording, which you can do with simple stereo monitoring or even 7.1 surround setups. That’s 1.6 ms through the native setup, through PCI, and through the kernel and operating system. We’ve heard those kinds of theoretical numbers, but it’s a big deal to get it consistently on a computer system with a single, stable setup.

The Latency Story

I was curious to hear more about how Pro Tools|HD Native achieves those low latencies. The answer says something about the direction of Pro Tools, but also the potential of native computers for this sort of processing in general, regardless of the tool you use. (And that’s the sort of information we like.)

Bobby Lombardi, head of Pro Tools Product Management, explains to CDM:

The magic answer to all this is the Core Audio/ASIO “safety buffer” which is an additional layer of latency used by third party IO manufacturers (HW) manufacturers who provide Core Audio drivers for their HW. We also use a safety buffer for all of our hardware (including LE and M-Audio) that have Core Audio and ASIO drivers.

A safety buffer can have a very wide range of values. PCIe based hardware IO is the best case where manufacturers could theoretically get down to a 9 sample buffer, and go as high as several hundred samples for USB devices.

The key for a high-performance, low-latency system is PCIe-based IO and quality low-latency converters. This is the main reason why a PCI-based Pro Tools HD Native system combined with an HD IO has such exceptional latency.

The story gets even better at 96kHz sample rates where most converter latencies where the host CPU latency halves itself, and many high-end converters are capable of a low-latency converter mode without sacrificing quality. Our new HD IO and OMNI IO have such converters and perform in a low-latency performance mode when used at 88.2 and higher sample rates.

So to recap. The best possible latency story for Pro Tools HD Native using AD/DA converters is:

Pro Tools HD Native
Pro Tools HD Software @ 96kHz, 64 sample playback buffer
HD IO or HD OMNI interfaces

If anyone wants to get deeper into these issues with Avid (or anyone else), let me know; I’m game.

Don’t Write Off TDM Yet

Worth saying: this is probably good news for the future of DSP-based, TDM Pro Tools systems, not bad. The business advantage for Avid is, they sell more hardware and software, and keep more people on their platform. (I don’t think they can be faulted for that.)

But if you’re wondering, why bother with the pricier TDM systems at all, the story there doesn’t really change. As Avid puts it, TDM’s advantages don’t suffer when your CPU becomes more powerful. That just means you can use all the horsepower of the CPU and all the additional DSP processing of the HD TDM iron. Some of their customers are also using pretty extreme use cases, like recording 500 channels a time of a symphony orchestra. (I got an angry note regarding Logic Pro after writing a review of Apple’s DAW for Macworld where someone complained that Logic was choking over just sort a setup. Naturally, as a home producer, I had neither tested – nor could really conceive – what that setup looked like.)

There’s also time. Developing highly-optimized TDM plug-ins in Assembler is a different game from writing RTAS (or VST, or AU, etc.) plug-ins in C, and not everyone will port from one to the other.

What’s interesting to me, though, is that some of these issues transcend usage scenarios, budget, and the like. I don’t doubt that every musician would love 1.5 ms latency. And those fundamental architectural issues I believe will continue to be relevant for the entire musical community – whether their tools count as particularly “Pro” or not.

Let’s get this out of the way right at the beginning: dedicated audio editors are important. For sound design, for tweaking audio assets, and for just getting close to your sounds, editing waveforms in a DAW often doesn’t cut it.

That’s made a lot of Mac users unhappy, because it’s one of the few areas where the Mac platform lags seriously behind Windows in available choice. Windows users have been spoiled by choices like Sound Forge (now Sony), Adobe Audition, and Steinberg WaveLab, all three excellent editors that are functional and fast to work with. The Mac, meanwhile, has been all about BIAS Peak. And Peak has been divisive: some users love it, but others want an alternative. Possible choices like Adobe Soundbooth and Apple Soundtrack Pro, while useful in their own workflows, haven’t caught on with audio editors. (One notable “underground” choice is the favorite of many CDM readers – Audiofile Engineering’s Wave Editor – a smaller name, but I doubt WaveLab will shake the loyalty of its devoted users.) Clarification: okay, it depends on who you ask. See comments for some intelligent debate of my thesis here – yes, there are many options, including DSP Quattro and some lightweight choices like Amadeus. So, perhaps the real issue is Windows users migrating to the Mac (or cross-platform users with favored Windows editors) who don’t find something with which they’re comfortable. And yes, whether you really need a dedicated editor is all about how you work with assets – see comments.

Steinberg bringing WaveLab to the Mac is already turning a few heads, particularly among recent PC-to-Mac converts. (Even on Windows, with Adobe Audition having fallen behind, WaveLab may gain some ground.)

Don’t think it’s big news? Have a look at recent Facebook and Twitter activity and other chatter over the announcement. Amongst the elite sound design lovers, WaveLab is the news of the week. That’s a small group of people (as any of the developers of these apps will readily tell you), but they also have a big impact on the sound of media today.

The reworked interface still has a last-generation feel, but on the other hand, it’s functionality over form that defines this category. I’m still waiting to see some more material details, but Steinberg at least has a preview of what’s new in 7. Wading through their PR materials, I translate that to include:

• A new workspace UI built around dockable, scalable multiple windows and customizable toolbar. (I hate toolbars, so I may customize it by … turning it off. To each their own, though.)
• “Ground-up” re-engineering effort to support cross-platform Mac and Windows code (based on past experience, that may benefit the engineering on the Windows side, too)
• New VST3 restoration tools developed by Sonnox, including DeNoizer, DeBuzzer, DeClicker, and plug-ins gathered from Steinberg’s pro audio line, including the Nuendo Post Filter.
• New CD and DVD-A burning engine.

The inclusion of mastering and burning materials really puts this right opposite Peak – and for those of you who didn’t even bother with Peak, could fill in some key gaps in suites like Logic Studio (in case you aren’t a fan of Apple’s editor and burning tools).

I’m not a WaveLab user, though it’s always been a program I respected from a distance. So if you are an old-hat WaveLab lover, do get in touch; we may need to you to review the new release when it ships.

WaveLab 7 preview at Steinberg

Pro Tools users, already switching to the latest-and-greatest Mac or Windows operating system? Avid has added compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Windows 7 in the company’s 8.0.3 upgrade to Pro Tools. Oddly, some of the Windows support is still listed as “beta,” while the Mac support is “official.” Nonetheless, I’ve heard reports of people using Windows 7 unofficially without issue.

Here’s the status of the different operating systems and Pro Tools flavors:

Windows 7

Beta support, available to download today: Pro Tools HD 8, Pro Tools LE 8, Pro Tools M-Powered 8
Full “official” support, not yet ready for download, coming soon: Pro Tools M-Powered Essential

Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Official support, available to download today: Pro Tools HD 8, Pro Tools LE 8, Pro Tools M-Powered 8
Full “official” support, not yet ready for download, coming soon: Pro Tools M-Powered Essential

Even if you don’t use Windows 7 or Snow Leopard, you should consider downloading 8.0.3; the release includes numerous bug fixes, including solutions for some significant issues and crashes and a whole bunch of video fixes.

I’m a little disappointed that Avid is this slow with Windows 7 support, given the relatively minor differences between Windows 7 and Vista, and, well, the fact that Windows 7 is an improvement over Vista. If you’re already on Windows 7 and try the “beta” 8.0.3, let us know how it works for you. As for Snow Leopard support, Leopard works well enough that it’s still the OS release on the Mac I’m most inclined to use; there aren’t any major changes in terms of audio and music support I’ve seen that would compel me to upgrade. That could change in the future, though, if developers take advantage of some of Apple’s under-the-hood improvements in the OS.

Pro Tools 8 Product Page with downloads, changelogs

Updated – this is not a “legacy”-compatible release. Note that 8.0.3 does not have support for PowerPC architectures or some older Digidesign hardware. 8.0.1 is the last release with support for that equipment. See, previously:

DAW Day – Pro Tools 8.0.1: No Windows 7 or 10.6 Support, End of the Road for Legacy

Upshot – if you want to support that hardware, you’ll likely need to stick with Mac OS X 10.5.x and earlier. (Some users have experienced good results with Windows 7 and earlier Pro Tools versions, because the OS is so similar to Windows Vista. That’s also an officially-unsupported configuration, however.)

See comments for some largely positive results with Windows 7 and 10.6, however.

What’s in 8.0.1

If you’re an existing Pro Tools 8 owner, you’ll want 8.0.1:

• Improved interface performance (“snappiness”!)
• Improved selection drawing in audio
• Workflow improvements, fixes

Those of you who grabbed the update in the last week or two, I’ll be curious to hear what you’ve found in some of those subtler improvements. Avid, to their credit, does do a lot of work on these point releases, not only in bugfixes but in other improvements, as well.

Software update for 8.0.1 (LE + HD + M-Powered)

End of the Line

Pro Tools 8.0.1 is the end of the road for quite a range of "legacy" hardware. 8.0.1 (in one or several of its LE, HD, and M-Powered flavors) will be the last version to support:

• Original Mbox
• Expansion|HD Chassis
• Macintosh PowerPC Computers
• Pro Tools MIX-era Peripherals

See last week’s End of Software Support announcement. Now, I suppose you can look at this as glass-half-empty or glass-half-full; it means if you have a studio with that gear in it and a PowerPC-based Mac at its center, you have a stable, modern, brisk version of Pro Tools that could last you a while.

PowerPC support is generally waning; Apple also dumped PowerPC for its own Logic. But there’s still a surprising amount of life in the processor. MOTU’s Digital Performer 7, released this week (news story on that coming) will actually run on a 1 GHz G4; see their System Requirements. I wouldn’t recommend that system, necessarily, but if you’ve got a fast Mac tower with a PowerPC, it could still make a fine studio machine. And DP7 is also compatible with Pro Tools HD, including Pro Tools 8. Ableton Live, also popular around these parts, also still runs on a PowerPC.

New OSes? Not Yet.

Absent from the 8.0.1 update is support for either Snow Leopard (Leopard only is supported) on the Mac side or Windows 7. Now, in fairness, Windows 7 isn’t even shipping yet, though in stark contrast to Vista’s RTM version, developers I’ve talked to have found their software runs without modification – and can run better without intervention than under the previous Vista release, which is something that almost never happens.

Ordinarily this wouldn’t be a problem, but it does mean that studios with “legacy” gear could wind up with a version that doesn’t support Mac OS X 10.6 or Windows 7, if 8.0.1 is in fact the last version of that gear. It obviously won’t matter for the PowerPC Macs, since they run neither Windows nor Snow Leopard, but I can imagine some folks with the HD chassis or MIX peripherals who won’t be thrilled. It’s a small handful of people, but – well, before you complain in comments, yep, I’ve figured it out, too.

Snow Leopard looks like a promising upgrade for Mac users. Most importantly for music users, 10.6 is the first operating system with what looks like a mature foundation for 64-bit support in the future. Previous versions of the Mac operating system had begun this transition, but Snow Leopard is the first to have a proper 64-bit kernel mode. Also, some Mac developers are likely to be able to take advantage of new multithreading capabilities provided by OS APIs. (Others, particularly those targeting more than one OS, will continue to provide multithreading and multi-core support via their own mechanisms.)

However, there are very few scenarios that are likely to benefit from upgrading today. Nearly all software developers (Propellerhead, Avid, Ableton, Plogue, and Native Instruments) advise waiting as support stabilizes. A number of hardware issues (Digidesign, M-Audio, Tascam, PreSonus) are known to exist, and many more likely simply haven’t responded this week to our call for information. Other hardware and software issues are likely to be uncovered now that the final OS build is available for widespread testing by end users.

Also, while Apple’s own software (Finder, Mail, and other apps) appear to get performance improvements, and startup/shutdown is better, the advantages of new OS services aren’t likely to be realized immediately. In fact, even measuring what the difference will be may take additional time.

Compatibility issues should be resolved fairly quickly – which is even more reason to wait. PACE Anti-Piracy, for instance, works now, as does software and hardware for MOTU. Other updates should be available in a few weeks with enhanced compatibility, making that a better time to upgrade.

If you’re looking to reclaim hard drive space with a smaller OS, I recommend Monolingual. By removing PowerPC-native code from Intel systems that don’t need it (or visa versa), it offers the same significant disk space improvement available in Snow Leopard. (Clarification: It should achieve similar net results, though Snow Leopard nips and tucks in a different way – cutting PowerPC but adding 64-bit, while reducing elsewhere – see David Pogue in The New York Times. But that’s academic – if you need extra gigs, you can get it both ways, and I expect we’ll eventually see Monolingual on Snow Leopard, too.) It also removes extra languages you don’t need to save space – something even Snow Leopard doesn’t do. I was able to nearly halve the size of my OS install using the tool, the same gain claimed by Snow Leopard. And it’s free.

http://monolingual.sourceforge.net/

This advice doesn’t mean that Snow Leopard is a “bad” operating system – just that the OS is currently ahead of the other pieces you need to make it useful for music. Developers are largely talking about new updates in “weeks,” not months.

Another way to look at it: Snow Leopard might run just fine for you today. But it’s almost certain that it will run better – and fully supported – in a few weeks. Stay tuned.

That said, just as 10.6 is coming out, 10.5 is maturing. Ableton notes that the latest version of 10.5 is recommended for maximum graphics performance. Native Instruments now considers 10.5 its officially supported operating system. As you’ll recall, early builds of 10.5 offered a very rough road for audio, as it contained more significant under-the-hood changes than 10.6 does today. Audio and music applications simply acheive their best results on fully-mature operating systems, and they tend to require more extensive testing and tweaks by both the operating system vendor and third parties.

If you do like being on the bleeding edge, more power to you. If you encounter issues, let us know about them, and that may help get them resolved more quickly.

So… relax. And enjoy your weekend.

While you wait for full compatibility, remember you can watch updates at:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/snowleopard

MOTU has a comprehensive update page, and I’ve added the news to the http://createdigitalmusic.com/snowleopard round-up page.

That said, while MOTU has the greatest level of out-of-the-gate support I’ve seen from any vendor for 10.6, even they have run into a showstopper issue. Their Ethno Instrument isn’t yet compatible; an update is expected. Sure, that’s just one instrument. But the lesson here? If you don’t mind the occasional wrinkle, you can live on the bleeding edge. But if you want to keep your software up and running, your best bet is to be patient and wait to upgrade. That’s not to discourage you from testing the latest-and-greatest, it just means you need to have the expectations to match.

The news remains, though: MOTU does have updated drivers for those of you with MOTU hardware or software who want to get a head start on setting up Snow Leopard.

That does not seem to be the case with other hardware vendors (Pro Tools, M-Audio, Tascam, and PreSonus all suggest waiting), and even some of the drivers that will initially become available should be considered “beta.” That is, they may even be designed to work with 10.6, but could use additional testing. I think that could probably generally be said of this update for musicians – just as with any significant operating system update on any platform.