64 bit Zebra

[beej]

So, has the "forward process" seen any speeding up with the appearance of AUs? The answer is: No, not at all.

I can't be that definitive really - time will tell. There are things that I like with AU's over VST and I think it has quite a few advantages, but it's an old argument I don't really wish to revisit here. Obviously, Vista is the new thing for PC users, and I'm not really sure whether it really is something new or just the same old Windows.

While I may agree on that, the fastest latencies are still possible with properly ASIO driven cards under Windows. So, where's the advances of that build in technology for me, as a user?

Well, I can't speak for you, I can only speak for me...

So far, none of that stuff has even remotely changed my mind. All of Apples moves have been bad for me as a user.

Well let's look at the two biggest in recent years:

- Apple's move from OS9 to OSX -, OSX is *much much* better.
- Apple's move from PPC to Intel has meant the processors speeds have moved forward significantly so your MacBook Pro can do significantly more than my Powerbook G4, despite my Powerbook costing significantly more money.

These have all been potentially costly, and painful transitions, but they have undoubtedly resulted in the better products and systems in the long run. I for one would rather be on Windows than on a G4 with OS9...

Anyway, I don't really want to get into a whole Apple thing, this isn't the place for that and the arguments are well practised. I get as tired of the "Apple suck" "No, Microsoft suck" arguments because they are all pointless. They are businesses and are ultimaetly working for their own ends, and there will always be things that you'd want to do differently if you were in charge...

[Sascha Franck]

There are things that I like with AU's over VST and I think it has quite a few advantages,

I will stop instantly to discuss any other issues (because this isn't the place to do so indeed), but this point I'm *really* interested in.
Which are the things you like over VSTs in AUs?
And as we are discussing in the U-He forum: All U-He products behave exactly the same on both my PC and my Mac. The same goes for NIs stuff. And several others. Can't see any advance of any platform over the other (others than OSX/Logic being ridiculously slow when it comes to any graphic related issues, such as GUI refreshing and the likes), so this is a statement that truly makes me wonder.

[beej]

Oh crap, here we go again...

Amongst other things, I like the fact that one component file can supply multiple plugins in various hosts (for example, the Zebra2 component includes Zebra and Zrev). I like the fact that you no longer need seperate plugins for an instrument version and an FX version of synths to pass audio in. I like the fact that I don't need to go hunting around in the registry and random system files when stuff doesn't work. I like the fact that when I install something I don't have random problems or installation errors because some bizarrely named DLL file is missing or is the wrong version. I like the fact that when I install a plugin the installer won't break because the windows installer is an old version in an old service pack. I like the fact that the AU spec is part of the operating system, and not a third-party spec that is unsupported and unknown as such by the OS. I like the fact that there are system defined plugin locations, and not totally arbitrary locations that may or may not work for some applications, so you have to install multiple VST plugins in multiple plugin folder locations.

I like the fact that when I get an AU format plugin, I can generally rely on it working, rather than being flaky - AU Validation, though cursed by many, at least provides some kind of standard to check against. Of course, AU Validation alone doesn't mean a plugin will work correctly, I realise that, but I have a far far greater reliability level with AU's on the Mac than I ever had with the VST format on the PC (I can only relay my experiences here, and I largely used Logic on the PC, so most of my experiences are with VST's in Logic back in the Logic 4.x to 5.x days - some time ago now, and I'm sure things on the PC are better and more stable these days than they were).

These are some of the things that have contributed to my positive experiences with Mac AU plugins. To counter that, there have been versions of OSX that have caused problems with plugins, the 10.4.9 AU validation thing caused a lot of problems, but I'm wise enough not to blindly update without getting feedback on OSX updates first, so it didn't bite me (yet). I also appreciate that VST is a cross-platform spec which makes sense for developers, although generally speaking devs who are going to put the effort into developing Mac versions are probably going to care enough to make an AU version now anyway, as it really is the standard on Macs - the amount of Mac software supporting Mac VST format is declining rapidly, which lessons the cross-platform nature of the VST SDK anyway.

Of course ultimately, the main point of a plugin format is so you can buy, install and use third-party plugins within a main application, and with properly developed products, both VST and AU do this - I'm not saying I think VST is an unsuitable plugin format - I'm just giving you reasons why I prefer the AU format. I can't rely speak from a developers point of view, as I'm not one...

I'm sure you'll now write a long post taking each of my points and providing reasons why my opinions are wrong, not that I'm worried about that, I've given up caring about VST plugins a long time ago, and my plugin life has been going along just fine, thank you..! Never been better, in fact..

[egbert]

I thought you didn't want to make this a Mac V PC flamewar?

I'm not going to bite off all the inflammatory guff above but I am baffled by this claim: Do you really believe that you need to do multiple installs of plugins to run a DAW on PC? I never have. I have at least 5 different hosts running here and they all share the same VST Plugins folder with no duplicates.

And c'mon - the fact that an msi installer file (hardly any audio apps use these anyway) needs a newer version of an OS file (which you can download and install) - well that is really pretty comparable to saying your new Mac application doesn't want to install on a 5 year old version of OSX. Can you run a five year old version of OSX on your new MacIntel? Of course you can't. I don't think either circumstance is anything to bitch about.

[beej]

I thought you didn't want to make this a Mac V PC flamewar?

I don't, I was asked to talk about my opinions.

Do you really believe that you need to do multiple installs of plugins to run a DAW on PC? I never have.

Good for you. Back in the day, Wavelab's plugin folder was different to Cubases, and Logic had it's own one. I vaguely remember that in some cases it wasn't possible to use the same location in some different apps, or shortcuts didn't work, I really can't remember the details now. But yes, I had to do multiple installs in some cases. Whether this is necessary these days, I have no idea. The point is, with OS defined plugin locations, which aren't as such an "AU spec" thing anyway, make this stuff easier.

And c'mon - the fact that an msi installer file (hardly any audio apps use these anyway) needs a newer version of an OS file (which you can download and install) - well that is really pretty comparable to saying your new Mac application doesn't want to install on a 5 year old version of OSX. Can you run a five year old version of OSX on your new MacIntel? Of course you can't. I don't think either circumstance is anything to bitch about.

I'm not *bitching*, I'm mentioning my experiences, as these experiences have informed my opinions, and yes, these installer issues *have* affected me recently, and required quite a bit of faffing around and research to track down and fix - for instance, the installer issue didn't say "You need a new version of the Windows Installer to install this", it said "This installation failed due to a missing DLL."

In any case, I'm not here to cause arguments - Sascha was interested, and I can rely on Sascha to have a discussion (as we have many times before) with differing opinions without it turning into a flamewar.

[Sascha Franck]

See beej, most of the things you mentioned are OS related, they have not much to do with the plugin format per se. I may even agree on some of the points you made - yet, it's not even remotely good to show me how the AU format is any better for myself (as a mere end user). It might be fine for developers. But on the other hand, it really isn't, as all slightly larger companies will have to develop for an additional format - I mean, they can't just drop VST development in favour of AU. Some of them (such as Urs) seem to dig the AU format, others see it as a curse.

To me, the biggest flaw is the non-existing backwards compatibility. Even in case I have the same plugin (same version number that is) in VST and AU format, Logic won't automatically load the AU version when transfering older songs from a Windows machine (or even from an older Mac). As long as VST was supported, this worked just fine.
And well, personally I can't see what I get in trade for giving up backwards compatibility. Yeah, sure, one file only for both an instrument and an FX version. But how hard is it to drag two DLLs to your VST folder? Or have the installer do it automatically?
Sharing plugins between hosts has been possible since they existed under Windows. Sure, a tiny little bit of manual work was required in the beginning (such as creating a shortcut), but these days most hosts will even scan for plugin folders automatically.
Compatibility and reliability? Sorry but there's nothing that AUs have in advance regarding that. I can make Logic crash reproduceable using plugins that perfectly passed AU validation. And well, regarding plugin stability (or compatibility), you really shouldn't use Logic as a reference. Logic/Win has always been the least compatible host regarding VST plugins.

As said, while I *may* agree on the advances for developers, as a user I have yet to see the really groundbreaking advances of AU plugins over VST ones. Especially in Logic, which is implementing some plugin functionality so badly that I can just shake my head in disbelief (sidechain and/or MIDI in FX plugins). In fact, Logic (which was starting the "AU hype") is still one of the worst hosts when dealing with whatever plugins.
And of course we don't even need to talk about any functionality. There's no advances regarding functionality and/or efficiency.
And in the end, it's still the lack of any backwards compatibility which is really winding me up. First AU *instead* of VST (not as an addition) then UB. Ok, UBs are at least backwards compatible to their pre-UB equivalents, but a rather huge company such as NI has almost stopped porting their old plugins to UB, possibly because they find Apples tactics just as stupid as I do.

And no, I don't have anything to say against or in favour of either platform, but regarding compatibility, VST is clearly winning big freaking time.

[beej]

Yes, I understand and agree with many of your points and alluded to many of them in my post already

[Sascha Franck]

Yes, I understand and agree with many of your points and alluded to many of them in my post already

Yeah, I know. And I haven't been writing to entirely disagree with you either.
My personal bottomline would just be something like this: So far, developing a new, additional plugin format hasn't shown me any advances justifying all the efforts (something it seems to be) supporting it. Hence, I would perfectly understand any developers boycotting the AU format - as a Logic user, I'm happy that they don't do so, though.

[egbert]

I think it is terrible that people working with music (midi and audio) are being expected to cop not only incompatibility between recording systems but failure of backwards compatibility.

Think about analog audio. If you record to 24 track 2" tape, or 2 track 1/2"tape anywhere in the world you can take the tape to another studio, put it on another machine and hear the same set of tracks or the same mix. You can remix or edit your work 30 years later if you want to.

The same sort of thing applies with other art forms - writers who have their manuscripts in digital form can keep moving them forward to their latest word-processing or publishing tools. Work that you wrote in 1982 can still be used in 2007 and there is no indication that this will not go on for ever, provided you archive to new media now and again.

We have standard midi files and standard audio files but the file formats for defining the way the are laid out together are incompatible between hosts and nowadays between versions of the same host! FFS. No third party softwares are emerging to deal with this (in a way analagous the ways sample converter software works.) When you think of the work that Apple did to translate 68000 code to PowerPC so that Mac users could run their old programs on the PowerMacs - the scale of that task completely trivialises the job of getting Logic to import older Mac and PC song files properly.

Musicians/producers should be demanding an open format so that something that is tracked in Reaper or whatever can be brought into the studio and be further edited and mixed on any other compatible host. Currently all the DAW companies simply want to sell us the same shit over and over again and the new shit won't even play your old tunes!

[bmrzycki]

Musicians/producers should be demanding an open format so that something that is tracked in Reaper or whatever can be brought into the studio and be further edited and mixed on any other compatible host. Currently all the DAW companies simply want to sell us the same shit over and over again and the new shit won't even play your old tunes!

It's interesting you bring up Reaper; from what I've seen, the .RPS format is all flat text similar to .h2p in scope (although .h2p does have scripting).

I think the problem goes even deeper than between hosts or OS'. If you don't have the same plugins in an FX chain, different DAWs will react differently. Some will quietly load the track w/o the FX chain and not mention anything, others load with warnings, and some others will fail to load the project completely.

If you freeze/render your tracks and use something like Reaper's RPS format that's about as close to usable as there is today. At least with something like that you can always write (or find) a simple text converter to some future format should one emerge. Unfortunately this means a lot of the dynamic properties of the original project are lost; things like automation or the ability to change a subtle FX variation in the middle of an audio chain.

I know Reaper isn't considered "professional" software but I think it'll be the small companies like this and XT2 that try the different things. Just like Urs said earlier about the small guys more willing to try new things.

And regarding the whole AU vs VST format thing. The biggest gripe I have about AU is if the plugin saves in .aupreset format. You can't load that on anything but another Mac running the AU. At least with a the VST you can run the .fxp/.fxb's on windows and mac no problems. I discovered that pretty quickly when using Filterscape on both (hope .h2p gets in there eventually).

Then again, I use Reaper and Live and have never bothered with Logic. As long as the developer provides an intel mac binary for a VST or AU I'm happy.

[beej]

Think about analog audio. If you record to 24 track 2" tape, or 2 track 1/2"tape anywhere in the world you can take the tape to another studio, put it on another machine and hear the same set of tracks or the same mix. You can remix or edit your work 30 years later if you want to.

Yeah, but all tape is is an archive of your raw recordings, it doesn't contain the settings for your mix or your outboard FX settings and so on. In the same way, you could have a bunch of raw audio files, wav format, aiff format, whatever, and you could remix those anywhere - in fact, in many more places than you could find a working and well maintained 2" tape machine.

People are not going to "forget" how to read a WAV or AIFF file, because, short of some minor header stuff, it's basically raw sample data.

Now, a whole mix relying on various third-party plugins is a different matter.

[egbert]

People are not going to "forget" how to read a WAV or AIFF file, because, short of some minor header stuff, it's basically raw sample data.

Now, a whole mix relying on various third-party plugins is a different matter.

That's the problem I am drawing attention to. We, the customers, need to prevail upon the vendors to fix it. I agree with the earlier poster that it will be most likely newcomers like EnergyXT2 and Reaper which deliver this sort of open access to your mix data. If the new hosts offer this then the old guard may feel the pressure to follow suit.

Full automation of parameters and patches soft synths and samplers is probably too much to expect at this stage but control of midi and audio files (levels, pan, location of all nonlinear edited sections of the source file on the timeline) would be a snap. Settings for track plugins, groups and sends should be feasible too.

[Sascha Franck]

I've already been tinkering about these compatibility things a while ago.
I think almost everything would theoretically be possible. But the "industry" (whatever that might be) doesn't seem to agree.
As a simple example: We already have OMF and we have MIDI files. Now, how hard could it be to combine the two? And as we all know, it's still not possible.
And instead of finally making things easier for the end user, all the big companies are even making it harder by introducing yet another proprietary format, Ex-Emagic actually being the worst of the bunch. "Oh no, ASIO's so bad, let's implement EASI". What a royal flop! And they even sort of repeated it with Core Audio - which, admittedly, is working quite ok-ish, yet, ASIO seems to beat it in terms of small latencies (and that's what all these driver formats mainly are about). "Oh, VST?!? No, the format of the dark side! Let's get rid of it and re-invent the wheel!". "Oh, FXP/B? What a nonsense format, let's replace it with our own, regardless whether almost any other host supports FXP/B just fine!" Another royal flop - with a funny/sad sidenote; They couldn't even think of a proper file extension for their plugin presets, so they used .pst, which often is registered to MS' Outlook already (not that anybody would try to doubleclick .pst files or open them anywhere, but when you search for FX presets, the last thing you want are any Outlook supplement files in your search results).

The story continues. With almost all hosts now coming with an all-around package of instruments and FX, things aren't getting any easier. Regardless of the host we're talking about, most of the plugins coming with hosts are proprietary, no matter whether it's Logic, Cubase, Sonar, Samplitude, Live, Reason or whatever.
With Emagic so much praising the all so shiny AU "standard", you'd think that they'd use it for their own plugins as well, so one could use them in other hosts. But no. They just don't *want* you to do that. And it's not a copy protection issue either - heck, they could be protected via the Logic dongle. Same with the newer Steinberg plugins. Even if they're still coming as DLLs, you'll get a message such as "this is not Cubase SX" when you try to open them anywhere else. You can't even open them in a sub-host. Which is a bloody shame (same goes for the Logic plugins) as sub-hosts such as Energy XT and Bidule offer an incredible amount of options none of the bigger sequencers has on board.

Bottomline: Instead of seeing things become more compatible, they're getting even less compatible. The bigger companies just want you to use all the proprietary stuff, so you can never ever switch hosts again without major headaches. And don't even think about platform switching...

[beej]

Good points, all, Sascha.

We already have OMF and we have MIDI files. Now, how hard could it be to combine the two?

There will always be proprietry file formats for specific pieces of software, which we all understand. The difficulty of making a new open format is how much you can standardise. Let's say the users started to demand an open DAW format that supported: audio and MIDI, mix settings (levels, pans), perhaps some more complicated mixer setups (aux sends, returns etc), third-party plugins where they exist on both the source and the destination. Would that be enough? Do people "really" need this? If we do require this, then maybe it is up to the users to demand this and try and get some support from the developers.

"Oh no, ASIO's so bad, let's implement EASI".

Yes I agree. It would be nice to understand the reasons why they did this, because then you may be able to make more sense of why they did this. The longtime Steinymagic rivalries had much to do with this I'm sure. I can think of all sorts of reasons why, but it would all be conjecture. They certainly didn't do it for no reason at all...

And they even sort of repeated it with Core Audio - which, admittedly, is working quite ok-ish, yet, ASIO seems to beat it in terms of small latencies (and that's what all these driver formats mainly are about).

Core Audio was a little different, it already existed as Apple needed a core audio framework for OSX, and they had that a long time before they acquired emagic.

"Oh, FXP/B? What a nonsense format, let's replace it with our own, regardless whether almost any other host supports FXP/B just fine!" Another royal flop - with a funny/sad sidenote;

Again, it's difficult to make a judgement because we only see the results of those decisions, and not the contributing factors. If we understood those, we'd be in a better position to decide for ourselves whether these decisions were valid or unjustified.

With Emagic so much praising the all so shiny AU "standard", you'd think that they'd use it for their own plugins as well, so one could use them in other hosts. But no. They just don't *want* you to do that.

This is just companies trying to sell their products, which they have a right to do. The Logic instruments and FX are not plugins, they never have been, they are part of Logic - they just happen to behave inside Logic in the same way as third-party plugins. Emapple never wanted to get into the third-party plugins business, instead they wanted to add value to Logic, which they did. Yes, it would be nice to use them inside other hosts, but then it might be nice to use Logic's audio-to-score function inside Live - well you can't, it's a feature of Logic, and you have to use Logic to do it - the instruments/FX are no different. Live in recent times are going the same way - instruments which are built into Live (still purchased separately like the emagic instruments were) and cannot be used outside of Live.

The fact that it *could* be done is kinda irrelevant really.

So we get back to the proprietry nature of things. How much effort *should* a developer spend to ultimately make it easy for people to transition away from their product? Developers are not unreasonably trying to lock you into a product, they all offer various inport and export options, but in order to develop a reliable, open DAW (hey, maybe I should trademark "openDAW", I like that!) file formt, it would take significant work and cooperation between companies. Would that feature add significant value to the product? Would it be a threat to business? Do people want yet another file format to deal with?

This should really go t it's own thread, it doesn't have much to do with Urs, really...

[egbert]

I am old enough to remember the introduction of MIDI. Before MIDI, Roland and Sequential Circuits and the rest of the big players had their own proprietary formats for encoding sequencing data and patch storage etc. You could buy an all-Roland rig with sequencer, keyboard and sound modules etc and it would be completely incompatible with the other companies' products. This encouraged you to stick with one manufacturer and discouraged mixing and matching or switching.

All of this diversity and incompatibility is pretty much replicated with the multiple file formats for software based audio/midi/fx sequencer-hosts. It will take the same shift in mind-set by vendors to let all these things play nice together. It is not impossible or necessarily particularly hard to do away with the current plethora of proprietary formats - define a standard and allow hosts to import and export files in this format.