PG-8X (2.0) released

[AnalogGuy1]

I don't know how to do it, but if there is real curiosity about how much one platform is preferred over another, one could set up a poll. (Although the folks who agree with the results will not be good sports about it , and those who disagree will say "but that's only among KVR people who frequent the forum, which is not an unbiased subsample of all audio professionals; stolen election! ")

Still, I'd be curious about it, inaccurate as it may be... I've used both, and there are advantages and disadvantages to both. The things I'd like to see in an OS made for gigging (which I understand is not what is specifically being discussed, but what I need) is ... not available, and I find required OS changes in both break backwards compatibility in frustratingly difficult-to-diagnose ways.

[machinesworking]

I don't know how to do it, but if there is real curiosity about how much one platform is preferred over another, one could set up a poll. (Although the folks who agree with the results will not be good sports about it , and those who disagree will say "but that's only among KVR people who frequent the forum, which is not an unbiased subsample of all audio professionals; stolen election! ")

Still, I'd be curious about it, inaccurate as it may be... I've used both, and there are advantages and disadvantages to both. The things I'd like to see in an OS made for gigging (which I understand is not what is specifically being discussed, but what I need) is ... not available, and I find required OS changes in both break backwards compatibility in frustratingly difficult-to-diagnose ways.

In 2006 I sat down in Berlin with one of the top guys from Ableton at at bar. They at the time were reporting a 50/50 split in Mac and PC sales. They're fully cross platform, always have been, never seem to have releases that are better on one platform like Cubase and DP have had in the past. I take them as a great example of where the market is for agnostic developers. Especially considering Macs were less than 10% of the market at that time. This is of course not good enough for internet arguments, and somehow it's a bad take...

Now KVR for decades was super PC centric, any conversation about Apple included long rants from some user or another. I wouldn't in any way say this is a place that has a balanced user base, but it's closer than it used to be. I would bet Cubase and FL forums are dominated by Windows users, whereas DP, Logic, Pro Tools forums would be for Mac. Some of this is hard to quantify as well, Reaper might be a good cross platform choice, but Logic is so cheap that it's going to take 90% of the electronic music musicians that use Mac.

Then there's plugin developers, the reports are usually 50/50 or at the least 25% Mac. So in my world at least, all evidence of where the audio market is points to around 50/50 or at most 65/35. With PCs dominating the "producer" market with FL Studio etc. and Macs still in most Pro Tools studios, used for touring bands etc.

The point remains, it's not an inconsequential amount, it does not reflect the world wide Mac to PC user base, and it's a silly argument in the first place.

[shatteredmindofbob]

Every time I see this thread bumped, I think maybe there's an update ...no, just Mac, Mac, Mac, Mac, Mac.

[IvyBirds]

Please read what I wrote first before responding. I never stated the majority of people use macs in audio, I flatly stated it's closer to 50/50 than the 15% market share.

I'll just leave this here

Where I live it’s overwhelmingly mac for audio professionals

Only it's not which is why I wrote what I wrote

I live in Seattle, it's overwhelmingly mac for audio professionals here. It really is weird how people just decide not to understand. I never see PC's dominate here, in recording studios, on stage, at audio events of any kind. Maybe in Redmond? but not surprisingly Redmond is not a musical hub of the NW.

And that's awesome but you are using that as a baseline for your 50/50 claim

The reality is Macs don't have a lot of market share and never have and never will

Apples ability to break your software with OS updates and switching CPU chips only adds to the issue

Saying goodbye to all of that was the best thing I ever did for myself and my clients

[onerob]

Please read what I wrote first before responding. I never stated the majority of people use macs in audio, I flatly stated it's closer to 50/50 than the 15% market share.

I'll just leave this here

Where I live it’s overwhelmingly mac for audio professionals

Only it's not which is why I wrote what I wrote

I live in Seattle, it's overwhelmingly mac for audio professionals here. It really is weird how people just decide not to understand. I never see PC's dominate here, in recording studios, on stage, at audio events of any kind. Maybe in Redmond? but not surprisingly Redmond is not a musical hub of the NW.

And that's awesome but you are using that as a baseline for your 50/50 claim

The reality is Macs don't have a lot of market share and never have and never will

Apples ability to break your software with OS updates and switching CPU chips only adds to the issue

Saying goodbye to all of that was the best thing I ever did for myself and my clients

The basis of the 50/50 claim is the sales figures of Ableton. That covers a lot of home DAW users.

As for commercial studios, you'd be a brave person if you claimed that Windows dominated or was even the majority in that situation. And there are other industry sectors, such as graphic design and photo/video editing, where again the Mac's market share is certainly healthy.

But yes, overall the Mac's share is 14% - ish (depends where you get your stats).

For the US there is a figure here of Windows 54.7% and Mac 30.6% (Oct 2023):
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272 ... ince-2009/

[hurricaneaudiolab]

Anyway, back to PG-8X...since it works well on an M2 in Logic under Rosetta, I'm not panicking just yet, however I REALLY hope that behind this silence, *someone* is working on it. I mean, I once thought AIR updating all their legacy plugins was an impossibility...

[machinesworking]

Anyway, back to PG-8X...since it works well on an M2 in Logic under Rosetta, I'm not panicking just yet, however I REALLY hope that behind this silence, *someone* is working on it. I mean, I once thought AIR updating all their legacy plugins was an impossibility...

Are you putting Logic under Rosetta? Bitwig here works not under Rosetta with it as a VST M2 etc.

[hurricaneaudiolab]

Are you putting Logic under Rosetta? Bitwig here works not under Rosetta with it as a VST M2 etc.

No, that is not necessary. Logic runs natively and automatically ‘rosettas’ Intel-only plugins.

[stromkraft]

Are you putting Logic under Rosetta? Bitwig here works not under Rosetta with it as a VST M2 etc.

Logic runs natively and automatically ‘rosettas’ Intel-only plugins.

This very thing is why the AUHostingCompatibilityService in the OS, not in Logic, was invented and every DAW should be able to load Intel-only AU plug-ins using this. Though any specific plug-in doesn't have to fully work just because it loads. I've seen several older ones that do play, but you cannot operate it.

There are some tools that wraps VSTs as well. In other DAWs that do support VSTs PG-8X 2 is probably best used in one of those that support full operation. To find out one may have t test them all or read the reports here and elsewhere.

[jamcat]

The reality is Macs don't have a lot of market share and never have and never will

They do in the audio industry.
And Apple’s mainstream market share has been steadily increasing for years due to the tightly integrated macOS/iOS ecosystem.

Apples ability to break your software with OS updates and switching CPU chips only adds to the issue

You fail to see that it became necessary for both Mac and Windows to move to a 21st century architecture. Apple handled it amazingly well, considering what they accomplished. Mac’s transition is now complete, and the Mac platform is now positioned to be stable for decades. But Windows has yet to embark on what will be a very messy process.

[TS-12]

Any updates on the Mac Apple-silicon native VST3 version ?

[jlgrimes11]

Please read what I wrote first before responding. I never stated the majority of people use macs in audio, I flatly stated it's closer to 50/50 than the 15% market share.

I'll just leave this here

Where I live it’s overwhelmingly mac for audio professionals

Only it's not which is why I wrote what I wrote

I live in Seattle, it's overwhelmingly mac for audio professionals here. It really is weird how people just decide not to understand. I never see PC's dominate here, in recording studios, on stage, at audio events of any kind. Maybe in Redmond? but not surprisingly Redmond is not a musical hub of the NW.

And that's awesome but you are using that as a baseline for your 50/50 claim

The reality is Macs don't have a lot of market share and never have and never will

Apples ability to break your software with OS updates and switching CPU chips only adds to the issue

Saying goodbye to all of that was the best thing I ever did for myself and my clients

Apple does have it's share of sins particularly in the way they lock down their hardware to prevent user upgrades.

Their ARM Processor thing was a good thing though.

I think Intel was slowing them down and rumor has it they tried convincing Intel to change their processor Architecture before designing their own. I heard Microsoft had similar complaints to Intel as well but Intel couldn't move fast enough or didn't want to budge.

I think sticking with Intel would have hurt Apple more than any other brand with Apple being a more high end brand there was less and less reason buying Apple. The M1 chip made Apple exciting again and that was the biggest processor leap Apple had in the industry in a long time.

[CapnLockheed]

Please read what I wrote first before responding. I never stated the majority of people use macs in audio, I flatly stated it's closer to 50/50 than the 15% market share.

I'll just leave this here

Where I live it’s overwhelmingly mac for audio professionals

Only it's not which is why I wrote what I wrote

I live in Seattle, it's overwhelmingly mac for audio professionals here. It really is weird how people just decide not to understand. I never see PC's dominate here, in recording studios, on stage, at audio events of any kind. Maybe in Redmond? but not surprisingly Redmond is not a musical hub of the NW.

And that's awesome but you are using that as a baseline for your 50/50 claim

The reality is Macs don't have a lot of market share and never have and never will

Apples ability to break your software with OS updates and switching CPU chips only adds to the issue

Saying goodbye to all of that was the best thing I ever did for myself and my clients

Apple does have it's share of sins particularly in the way they lock down their hardware to prevent user upgrades.

Their ARM Processor thing was a good thing though.

I think Intel was slowing them down and rumor has it they tried convincing Intel to change their processor Architecture before designing their own. I heard Microsoft had similar complaints to Intel as well but Intel couldn't move fast enough or didn't want to budge.

I think sticking with Intel would have hurt Apple more than any other brand with Apple being a more high end brand there was less and less reason buying Apple. The M1 chip made Apple exciting again and that was the biggest processor leap Apple had in the industry in a long time.

Spoken like a true fanboi. And here I thought this thread was about the PG-8X (2.0).
KVR....the home of the hijack.

[jamcat]

Any discussion about PG-8X is a discussion about Apple Silicon.

[Dumpster Fire]

Ideally I would like to see an Apple Silicon native, resizable VST3 (and AU, AAX, and CLAP) version of PG-8X. However, if Roland got their act together and released a better-sounding ACB version of their JX-8P plugin that includes the ability to import patches from the hardware JX-8P (as you can do on the PG-8X,) then I would consider getting that even though it would likely be priced too high at $199. Unfortunately, the current $149 Zencore version (which doesn't allow you to import patches from the hardware) is a little underwhelming, IMO. And then there are of course issues with Roland Cloud that many people seem to have.

I did send a note to the developer of TAL Software letting him know how impressed I am with his latest Alpha Juno / MKS-50 emulation and that I owned all of the company's other plugins. I of course requested JX-3P, JX-8P, and MKS-80 emulations as well. In his nice reply he politely deflected and said that he wasn't sure what would be his next plugin. He also mentioned that the hardware JX-3P doesn't support SysEx. But the MKS-30 rack version does so it would be nice to be able to import patches from that unit in any future plugin.