AMBIENT - Standalone Module (PC & MAC)

[aldusmanutius]

I followed up and have this to report:

I would appear that Ambient and OS X together on an Intel Atom 1.66 processor are not happy campers.

Neither of my Dell Mini Hackintoshes would run Ambient (I knew I was pressing my luck w/ the 10" one which only has 1GB RAM, but I had hopes for the 9" which has 2 GB). That is to say they would load it, try to run a sample, but the best I could get was machine-gun/motorboat chopping of the audio. The 9" machine runs the last version of Leopard; the 10" runs Snow Leopard. Both machines run bidule and use Kore Player as a plugin; I use them almost constantly in both studio and live performance. So while this is an admittedly "unscientific" test, it does suggest certain conclusions.

There probably is a minimum suggested processor speed for effectively using Ambient. Can't tell if there is a minimum RAM config needed (I'd need a Windows license to test that and my only other machine is a PowerPC and I'm pretty sure I can't use it on that). Oh, well. It was all part of a master plan to be able to use Ambient in live performance with a pair of netbooks and it looks like I will have to lug the larger, heavier MacBook Pro. Which said machine does a WONDERFUL job of running Ambient and I'm using it to start work on a new album even now...

Some additional comments and one future feature request:

1. I'm happy with the interface. I have no problem with using the "Shift" key to do precise tweaking of the paramters.

2. As someone who needs as few distractions as possible when playing, I also appreciate the "Mouseover" labels. While I may forget from session to session what's what on the knobs, a quick trail across the trackpad or roll of the mouse and I'm ready to go.

3. Future Feature Request: Live "real-time" input? It's easy enough now to use it for laying down "beds" based on prior work, but a lot of what I've been doing of late is creating those beds in real time and layering over them. Might one such "real-time" approach be the VST/AU plug-in? Sorry, I'm not enough of a programmer to know, but I do use bidule with a fair number of AUs and VST plugins to "evolve" my sounds.

I guess the highest praise I can give is "This is software well-worth paying for!"

Thanks!

Ah, thanks ... I have a 9" MINI, similarly configured, but with double the RAM; will try it on that and see if does the same thing ... otherwise LOVE it and can't wait to spend some serious studio time with it...

Thanks for the feedback & yes you should give me a kick for my cheeky cognitive learn comment

we'll look at this option for v4

In relation to the Dell 10" issue - that has not been reported by anyone else so we have to conclude you have a RAM/computer issue. I've experienced the same issues with my old acer laptop. At the moment, there is no solution though we will be looking into making it less CPU intensive for the next version.

[room]

But why use a hackintosh? Surely it is not such a pure operating system.

There are straight versions of Ambient for Apple & PC now?

[aldusmanutius]

Hi!
Not to digress into an OS discussion, but it's somewhat germane...

The reason for using a Hackintosh is purely pragmatic: the 10" Dell Mini is half the size, and importantly, weight of my MacBook Pro. And both of the Hackintoshes are "dedicated" machines, i.e., everything extraneous to music performance and production has been removed, is turned off, or not installed on them. And the cost was a factor as well. Goddess knows, I LOVE my Apple hardware, but I just don't have the funding support to buy three dedicated Mac Airs, or hire Sherpas to carry the MacPro desktop configs I'd love to use.

You raise the issue of "purity" of operating system: While there are a number of flavors of Hackintosh installs out there, the Dell hardware platform has offered the closest thing to a "pure" approach. Because it uses an unaltered version of the Mac operating system, it verges on the "dual-boot"...the Dell EFI is used to allow the machine to boot OS X and install, creating a machine that will actuall identify under the Systems Preferences as being a Mac AirBook (this was the same chip that Apple used; I think Apple has since upgraded the chip on the Air, but since it's out of my meager price range I haven't kept up with it). So we wind up with a machine that runs OS X with VERY minor tweaking to make it work (for example, the issue of screen size: Apple doesn't make a 9" or 10" screen, so there are AppleScript tools to adjust the display).

At a time when chips are sold as commodities and computers have dropped in price as to become "appliances", we need to look at how we use the technologies. OS X is a very elegant OS and Linux is gaining in smoothness of use and configuration. Linux has given us the ability to utilize older hardware; Hackintosh (especially with the Dell EFI install) has allowed us to maintain the use of software we already own without spending five times as much for a dedicated piece of hardware.

I'd love it if someone could confirm that Ambient runs on an Atom 1.66 natively under OS X (i.e., does some out there have an older MacBook Air to test this on?).

In the mean time, as I said previously, I LOVE this software and encourage folks to buy it. Now if I could just get people to buy some CDs so I could buy a couple of Macbooks...*GRIN

But why use a hackintosh? Surely it is not such a pure operating system.

There are straight versions of Ambient for Apple & PC now?

[room]

All the best with the CDs and getting pure hardware!

It is true I know nothing of the hackintosh platform .... I just know that Ambient has worked on 40+ Mac users computers + my own mac mini ....

Thanks aldusmanutius & all the best .

David

[opus_diaboli]

Hi,

I've some ideas for upcoming releases:

- what about an initialize button to set all parameters to 0 (except the pitch knob which should be 1 and the sample length knob which should be set to max).
- snapshot buttons (maybe 4 of them) would be very nice, so that you can quickly store, compare and tweak the sound
- save settings with (a reference to) the loaded sample (would be very nice as well!)

[dotl]

The Live version will come.

I'm really waiting for this one! I've just bought the last album by Christopher but the software i need in Max4Live version. Soon???

BTW, regarding the album...Too bad that's packaged in a sleeve

[room]

I have spoken to Paypal who have confirmed that there is an issue with Paypal Buttons in internet explorer version 8 - this is causing the "Fatal Failure" message.

Please use IE 7 or Firefox / or any other.

Many thanks

David

[synthtweaker]

The latest September 2010 issue of Sound on Sound magazine included a brief but very positive review of the Ambient module in case you missed it David.

[MWSOS]

The latest September 2010 issue of Sound on Sound magazine included a brief but very positive review of the Ambient module in case you missed it David.

Hi synthtweaker!

David does know about this - he emailed his thanks to me last Friday for the Ambient mini-reivew in my SOS PC Notes column

It's a wonderful utility!


Martin

[Echoes in the Attic]

The Live version will come.

I'm really waiting for this one! I've just bought the last album by Christopher but the software i need in Max4Live version. Soon???

+1. Looking forward to forking over the cash once this is out.

[room]

David does know about this - he emailed his thanks to me last Friday for the Ambient mini-reivew in my SOS PC Notes column
It's a wonderful utility! 8)Martin

Yes big thanks to Martin for his coverage - which is both positive and insightful... (i.e., we have completely underpriced the software!!!!) to read more - go and get your copy of SoS - its a great mag!

Best wishes

David

[michael2]

nice plug, but I have a question. when loading files into it (.aif), I have noticed that I get an occasional crackling sound. the audio itself sounds great, but the crackling comes in and I can't figure out why. no peaks in the original audio file, and I haven't tweaked the controls (was meaning to layer a few instances of ambient in my DAW and edit from there).

any ideas, or has anyone else had this issue? love the plug though.

[aldusmanutius]

Hmmm...you're using a very similar setup to mine (I'm the one who was doing some serious stress-testing of configurations with Snow Leopard, Leopard, and a couple of Dell netbook Hackintoshes). I'm guessing that we're hearing the machine...which DAW are you using, BTW, that you are able to layer Ambient in.

My MBP has done this once or twice as well, with no ill-effects to the final audio output (I've been experimenting with doing straight-to-disk recording of the sample running through Ambient). Interestingly enough, I installed Ambient on my PPC G5, a 2.0 Ghz dual-processor/October Surprise model with 9 GB of RAM and it runs fine.

THE FOLLOWING IS NOT A CRITICISM: IT'S DATA POINTS FOR REFERENCE!

I'm beginning to think that there are some minimum performance requirements, but unfortunately I have no data (all anecdotal at this point) beyond my own observations and tests.

Has anyone else tried to run Ambient on ANY machines using the Intel Atom 1.6 processor? That's the one that a lot of netbooks use. Please, it would be very helpful to know...

To David, keep up the good work! It's great software (I LIKE the existing interface) and hopefully we will all have brilliant examples showcasing your hard work.

Best,

Dennis

nice plug, but I have a question. when loading files into it (.aif), I have noticed that I get an occasional crackling sound. the audio itself sounds great, but the crackling comes in and I can't figure out why. no peaks in the original audio file, and I haven't tweaked the controls (was meaning to layer a few instances of ambient in my DAW and edit from there).

any ideas, or has anyone else had this issue? love the plug though.

[michael2]

Hmmm...you're using a very similar setup to mine (I'm the one who was doing some serious stress-testing of configurations with Snow Leopard, Leopard, and a couple of Dell netbook Hackintoshes). I'm guessing that we're hearing the machine...which DAW are you using, BTW, that you are able to layer Ambient in.

My MBP has done this once or twice as well, with no ill-effects to the final audio output (I've been experimenting with doing straight-to-disk recording of the sample running through Ambient). Interestingly enough, I installed Ambient on my PPC G5, a 2.0 Ghz dual-processor/October Surprise model with 9 GB of RAM and it runs fine.

THE FOLLOWING IS NOT A CRITICISM: IT'S DATA POINTS FOR REFERENCE!

I'm beginning to think that there are some minimum performance requirements, but unfortunately I have no data (all anecdotal at this point) beyond my own observations and tests.

Has anyone else tried to run Ambient on ANY machines using the Intel Atom 1.6 processor? That's the one that a lot of netbooks use. Please, it would be very helpful to know...

To David, keep up the good work! It's great software (I LIKE the existing interface) and hopefully we will all have brilliant examples showcasing your hard work.

Best,

Dennis

nice plug, but I have a question. when loading files into it (.aif), I have noticed that I get an occasional crackling sound. the audio itself sounds great, but the crackling comes in and I can't figure out why. no peaks in the original audio file, and I haven't tweaked the controls (was meaning to layer a few instances of ambient in my DAW and edit from there).

any ideas, or has anyone else had this issue? love the plug though.

will keep trying, maybe there's something I'm doing wrong. I'm using Logic 9, but I wasn't routing it in via soundflower or anything like that. just dropping the files into a folder and then dragging them into Logic.

[Yasha]

Yesterday I was running a flute loop through Ambient while controlling pitch, grain size and amplitude with a Wacom tablet via Osculator. It was gorgeous. I will be working out a way today to play Ambient with my wind controller.

The only issue I have with Ambient is that the amplitude control applies to the final output, including the delay and reverb. The feature request I would make would be to have a volume control for the signal prior to those effects, so that one could use breath or tablet pressure to control the amplitude envelope, allowing the sound to fade out. Then Ambient could be played more like a breathing instrument.