OMS Future ?

[Victor Pozas]

What's the future of us with OMS and the upcoming OS X?
I've been reading lots of e-mails complaining of the lack of new synths/patches in OMS.

Is DIGI thinking about an OMS successor?

2 years without an update of a program (oms) is too much!!!!

[mike connelly]

OMS will be dead in OSX, but apple is supposedly developing pro-quality midi and multichannel audio drivers (I've even heard rumors of a plugin format) at the OS level. Supposedly it will do all OMS does and more (with better timing, etc) - they've had some of the former opcode/oms guys working on it.

Not sure how much (if any) will be working when X 1.0 ships, I suspect it will take a little while to get it all working.


Mike

[dcornutt]

Mike,
I've wondered about this too..OS X.

I heard..I guess about 2 years ago now..that some of the OMS/Opcode people were hired by apple to develop built in midi support. I haven't heard about any mulitchannel audio support via a new "soundmanager" type deal..but..man O man..would that be GREAT!

And..I would hope that Digi would support it.
But..seeing that Digi is moving away from any support outside of PTle..and its proprietary drivers for other DAW's..well, I'd just say..the reality of all this just seems to move further away all the time.

I would assume that where we would start seeing signs of this would be in Quicktime?

And..all the "previews" I've seen of OS X..just have new "looking" sound control panels.

Couple that with Apple removing the sound input for the new G4's and it looks, for all practical purposes, like Apple is ALSO moving away from providing any kind of built in audio/midi support. It appears they are going to be depending on an outside source for such support.

My personal opinion is..that in order to write a multichannel audio driver for OS X..it would HAVE to break classic Mac OS.

So, in that regard..we probably won't see multi channel audio support until the apps that use it are written in cocoa..not carbon.
Anyties to classic mac OS..would not support it..as far as I understand things.

Considering..the s-l-o-w..move that most companies plan to make to OS X...(I believe digi won't even "carbonize" until way late in the game)...it appears..at least right now..it will be a very long time before we see these things.

I would suggest..that to speed all this up..Apple would need to make this cool and long overdue support..available in OS X..so that people know its there..and avaialble..and that it could be utiltized..if the software your using was written to take advantage of it.

But, I've seen the shots from the latest builds of OSX..and..Quicktime 5..and..there is no sign of any midi support..or..audio support other than status quo of soundmanager.

If anybody knows different..please let us know. I haven't heard a peep out of Apple in YEARS about anything releated to midi or audio.

dcornutt

[kav]

I heard that apple were working on implementing the new MLAN protocol, hence all your audio periferal comunication would be done via firewire.
the future is looking good, and uncomplicated

[mike connelly]

"Couple that with Apple removing the sound input for the new G4's and it looks, for all practical purposes, like Apple is ALSO moving away from providing any kind of built in audio/midi support."

Apple has never provided midi support at the hardware level, I wouldn't make any assumptions based on an 1/8" plug (most consumers probably don't use it, and most people recording music want something better). After all, they just shipped iTunes and soundblaster is starting to make mac cards.

"My personal opinion is..that in order to write a multichannel audio driver for OS X..it would HAVE to break classic Mac OS."

That's already a given - classic won't talk to pci cards, so all audio apps need to be updated to carbon.

"So, in that regard..we probably won't see multi channel audio support until the apps that use it are written in cocoa..not carbon."

Cocoa/carbon doesn't matter. Classic won't work for audio apps (at least ones that talk to audio cards), but either cocoa or carbon will work fine (and if done right, the user can't tell the difference).

"Considering..the s-l-o-w..move that most companies plan to make to OS X...(I believe digi won't even "carbonize" until way late in the game)...it appears..at least right now..it will be a very long time before we see these things."

I assume a long wait from digi, but supposedly nuendo was written as a carbon app from the start. There's a big incentive for companies to be early X supporters.

"Anyties to classic mac OS..would not support it..as far as I understand things."

True.

"But, I've seen the shots from the latest builds of OSX..and..Quicktime 5..and..there is no sign of any midi support..or..audio support other than status quo of soundmanager."

I think most of the development is under the hood at this point - until you run an audio/midi app, there's nothing to see.


Mike

[dcornutt]

Thanks for the info Mike.

[F Umminger]

Considering..the s-l-o-w..move that most companies plan to make to OS X...(I believe digi won't even "carbonize" until way late in the game)...it appears..at least right now..it will be a very long time before we see these things.


Actually, Digi has been working on Carbonization and OSX for a while now. We have to since we do not know how long Apple will ship OS 9 after OSX is released.

Frederick Umminger
Digidesign Plugin Engineer


[This message has been edited by F Umminger (edited March 01, 2001).]

[dcornutt]

Thanks for the update Fred :-)

Lets hope "carbon dating" proves more sucessful than the "altivec" experiment.

I've seen a few posts here and there from programmers who have claimed that even carbon updating is a pain in the rear and time intensive. They also went on a rant about lack of development tools, changes in direction from Apple..etc. The end result was, they were not going to even think of updating for OS X..if ever, until way late in the game.
I didn't see/hear this from anyone at Digi..so it's good to see at least some sign its moving forward..(even if it sort of sounds like a litte "begrudgingly"..as in..we "have" to) :-)

I am hopeful that OS X will really be great. So far..reports are a mixed bag. I heard it's getting faster than monkey snot as they are pulling the debugging code out. But, Im also seeing reports like..no DVD player support..etc.

When I heard that, I kindof sucked air thru my teeth and said...lets hope thats the only report we see like that. Kind of makes you wonder you know..since they have the new Superdrive..and iDVD..etc...that I guess won't work now.

Did you check out the xlr8yourmac.com performance test of the new 733 G4? Ouch.
Seems OS 9.1 doesn't recognize the level 2 or 3 cache. Small oversite I guess. Ouch.

As you could imagine, the performance was dismal. Hope they get that fixed soon.

Anyway, I realize you can't talk much about all the body parts you have down in the basement, but..thanks for the heads up about carbon. Thats encouraging to say the least.

dcornutt