Yes, Image Line, maker of FL Studio, hates Macs, so it is a reasonably big deal that they’ve just announced they’ll be porting a newly-ported plug-in to Mac.
Well, sort of a big deal, anyway. Technically, porting plug-ins between platforms is not an enormous issue; it’s primarily an issue of testing. Testing, though, means hauling Macs into your office. (I knew something was up with Cakewalk, for instance, when I saw a shiny Power Mac G5 in their testing studio.) And Windows users who touch Macs generally have to find a way to make their peace. In Image Line’s FAQ on whether they’ll ever support the Mac, they link to this movie by a guy who, erm, obviously knows nothing. Maybe he’s better with Windows? (Then again, it’s kind of fun watching him freak out.)
Anyway, it’s nothing personal that’s keeping FL Studio from running on Macs. Anyone who’s visited their FAQ in the last few years can see the answer, put plainly:
FL Studio was developed in Delphi therefore it’s almost impossible to port FL Studio to the Mac OS (or any other OS) without a complete rewrite.
Delphi? Really? Fun side note: Object Pascal, the primary language in Delphi, was developed (wait for it) at Apple (to enable the early Mac application frameworks, no less). Now, I know some people who love Object Pascal and I know nothing about it, so I’ll just stay quiet — and, as I recall, Reagan was still President when Borland was aggressively touting Pascal on the Mac, so I’ll take Image Line at their word. But beyond technical issues, as Adrian notes, shipping Mac software is indeed going to be a philosophical change for IL.
Programmers: anyone want to recommend some handy tools for the Image Line folks to port their Delphi software to Mac? Heck, I’d be more likely to run FL Studio on my PCs if I could also run it on my Macs. (That’e been my experience with Ableton Live.)
Here's what the arguably most important Pascal-based developer on the Mac had to say on this topic recently:
full context
Here's an even better source of info on how he did it: Using GNU Pascal (GPC) with BBEdit on Mac OS X Tiger. Also, here's another application written in Pascal for the Mac: GraphicConverter.
Fascinating! Well, I use a few of those programs. So, are the Image-Line folks completely full of it when they say they can't port from Borland Delphi to Mac/Xcode/GNU Pascal? (Does that translate as, they don't know how / don't care / don't want to invest the time?)
The other problems with Delphi are the Windows specific UI frameworks. These are difficult to port to OS X. They may also be using 3rd party API packages, again not available for OS X. Having the core language working on both platforms is straight forward, but having all the API's on both is harder.
The probably don't want to invest the time.
Difficult to say, because the word "Pascal" cannot be used generically. The last time anyone bothered to standardize a specification for Pascal that I'm aware of was at least a hundred years ago, and that dialect is so far behind modernity that it's like comparing C to C++. Consequently, when you say "Pascal", you must also specify a dialect. Since I am not a Pascal guy, I don't know whether the dialect of GNU Pascal tracks that of Delphi (or vice versa).
One charitable interpretation of the Image-Line position is simply that they were not aware of their options. The options are, it must be said, somewhat obscure. Of course, NOW they can't say they're not aware of their options, assuming they, like all right-thinking individuals, read this blog. (Perhaps someone with contacts there should make sure.)
P.S. I just watched that video, and creatives who take advice from a guy who tucks his T-shirt into his jeans and then adds a belt for good measure deserve what they get.
thewhiteline raises some valid issues, but they're somewhat orthogonal to the blocker Imagine-Line actually cites, which is all about Pascal. That said, based on the general attitude of the FAQ page linked above, they aren't going to make this decision on business grounds anyway, so it doesn't really matter what the technical issues are. They don't like the Mac. That's fine. They can leave the money on the table. It's their right. It's no skin off my nose because I'm a Reason bigot anyway. 🙂
Well, Image Line is a small company, with a handful of developers, catering to a niche market — I certainly won't blame them if they've put a lot of time into Windows-specific APIs (very possible), or even if they haven't.
Ah, Reason vs. FL Studio vs. Live — now that's a debate worth sinking your teeth into. Mac vs. PC, yawn.
I don't know anything about Pascal but the Reason vs FL Studio vs Live debate (read quarrel) rages over at KVRaudio.com ad nauseam.
Well, we haven't had it here. Let me just summarize: plug-ins Maelstrom live performing warp mode beats programming audio recording operator Berlin rewire synth crap awesome suckz rockz hip-hop glitch.
There, done. I think that makes everything clear.
[…] […]
The funny thing is that there IS no debate between Reason, Live, and FL because they're all good at different things. Plus they all play nicely together (most of the time that is) under Rewire.
Seriously, don't discount FL because of the developer's attitude or "unique" interface. It's the real deal. (fo shizzle ;-))
Wavetraveller, FLSampler channels, fast & easy workflow, Fruity Vocoder, Sytrus (!!!), extremely flexible routing of audio & MIDI without being confusing to new users, etc.
Those are reasons enough to check out the demo, even if it's on the spare PC that you keep tucked away in the closet (admit it Mac users, you've got at least one).
I might whip up a few tutorials soon to help give newbs an idea of the power that FL has lurking underneath.
Stay tuned.
ATA
I wonder if Borland ever thought to port to Mac? – I mean they ported Delphi to .Net and Linux…Why not Mac, too? Not least because the Pascal side of things is drying up on PC's (Don't get me wrong, I love Delphi) – Also, has anyone thought about C#? OK, it's an MS development, but designed by Pascal/ex-Borland guru
Note that C# is in fact available for Mac via Mono.
Anyway, I think the bottom line is, Mac users probably have enough music software choices that an FL Studio port wouldn't make much sense. But I do think there are opportunities for FL Studio to grow on Windows, and as Adrian says, there are a lot of unique features in each. There's no reason you couldn't assemble a super-studio with Reason, Live, and FL Studio and find reasons to use each. Not suggesting that, necessarily, but they really are that different from one another.
Boy, I sure wish they'd port FL Studio over. Then I could finally throw out my Windows box. Fruityloops is the ONLY program I use on PC anymore.
i love me some FLStudio
been using it for every record since version 3
though i do have about a million complaints about it
there are some features that i dont think i could live without
like the formula controller [whose syntax will work in the input mapping as well]
i could never get reason to play nice [read without crashing instantly when opening] so i never bothered with it.
live… awesome since day one.
FL rewired into live… the ultimate army knife for writersblock in the studio.
🙂
Don't get me started on C# in general. The important thing here is that FL Studio isn't written in C# and C# is not a first-class citizen on the Mac, so it's right out. Among languages appropriate for DAW development, the only first-class citizens on the Mac right now are C++ and Objective C. Neither help FL Studio.
Borland did in fact port Turbo Pascal to the Mac way way back in the day. It didn't last very long. There used to be a half-dozen Pascals on the Mac, but today there are no Pascals other than GNU Pascal as mentioned and linked above, and it's not exactly what I would call cushy from the perspective of a commerical developer accustomed to an IDE.
I've been using FLStudio since before the name change, and I agree with Theron, it's the only program I use on my PC anymore and would dearly love a version for mac — I think it's fairly stupid on Image Line's part not to take the time to make a port for Mac, especially if they ever want to break out of the "niche" market and into the wider mainstream. I work at a world class recording studio in Los Angeles and I can honestly say that the entire studio runs on Macs, and 99% of the clients bring in files/external hard-drives/laptops that are formatted Mac or Apple hardware. They are seriously shooting themselves in the foot with their arrogance and laziness.
I think it is ok they do not port FLS to Macs because in my opinion it is a tool for everybody and nearly everybody I know uses a PC and Win and hardly noone I know uses a mac.
And theo… I do not think that Imageline is interested in doing some serious studio stuff btw. the most studios I know use PC DAWs – but a tool to play with and learning composing by playing – and as U know there are one million games for pc while one or maximal two games for your fucking expensive and softwareunfriendly (3rd party producers) Apple crab
Word to your mother
FL Studio is the don & a lot of ppl see it as a toy completely missing its potential.
as a lot of studios (or at least the ones i`ve been in) use macs i rekon porting FLS to a mac platform would widen its user base to the more professional client changing ppls attitude to it.
plus i`m about to buy a laptop and i`d probably get a macbook pro if it ran FLS.
Wow "Me Myself & I", really intelligent post. What exactly is an Apple crab? You know a lot of people who use PC DAW's then? They must find it hard to record music considering the distraction posed by those "million" games to choose from.
They should do a complete rewrite in c++. Its faster and cross platform, and the code doesnt look like shit.
As with Theron and Theo, my Windows usage is limited to FL Studio 7 (as well as the occasional edit in Adobe Audition 2 – which has been surpassed by Soundtrack Pro on Mac anyway.) It still the best drum programming tool in my eyes, the mixer feature is incredible and the piano roll feature's ease of use allows my ideas to be put down much faster and easier than I ever could in Logic or Cubase (bearing in mind I don't use MIDI controllers to key my score in.)
But anyway, my point is that porting FL Studio to the Mac would be beneficial for the company as well as Mac users. Mac is increasingly seen as the superior system when it comes to working with digital audio. Whether that's true or not is open for debate, but Image-Line's primary objective is to make money (call me a cynic.) With the reputation Apple has in the industry, more and more musicians are switching from Windows, so surely a port would increase the amount of amateurs and professionals using FL? (imagine FL plugging into Logic/Pro Tools) Within those professionals, there would undoubtedly be some revered artists, and that would be an advertising campaign in itself…
/rant
I REALLY wish they would port it over.. I've been a die hard pc person for at least 8, 9yrs but I bought a macbook months ago.. and I swear if they
port FL over to Mac I probably wont use my home pc at all… I just need a break from microsoft.. why is vista sooo expensive and for what… I still wouldn't go on the interenet with it, and have it be my main music computer… you can get Leopard for around 100 or so, but Vista insane…
Porting FL Studio to Mac is in fact possible and not that difficult. It required only one or two developers to invest a few months work.
Delphi is essentially Pascal, and pascal code can be compiled for linux and mac using open source software packages such as GNU Pascal. Since macs now run on Intel and OSX is linux based the options are growing.
Also, there are people trying to get FL Studio 6,7 and even 8 to run on WINE with partial success.
What if Image-Line hired Codeweavers to help out?
The beta version of the port would be out in weeks.
What makes the process time intensive is possible use of ImageLine's windows APIs
and porting the user interface part of the code.
The audio engine, etc should be straight forward.
I would personally contribute $1000 to such a port, as would no doubt 1000s of others, so why not gather money for the cause, i.e. paypal address for the imageline developer……….. 🙂
PLEASE PORT FLSTUDIO TO MAC.
>Porting FL Studio to Mac is in fact possible and not that difficult. It required only one or two developers to invest a few months work.
It’s amazing what uninformed BS one can read on the internet, by people not familiar with the FL codebase, and not familiar with the (then) state of Pascal on OS X.
>Porting FL Studio to Mac is in fact possible and not that difficult. It required only one or two developers to invest a few months work.
It’s amazing what uninformed BS one can read on the internet, by people not familiar with the FL codebase, and not familiar with the (then) state of Pascal on OS X.
>Porting FL Studio to Mac is in fact possible and not that difficult. It required only one or two developers to invest a few months work.
It’s amazing what uninformed BS one can read on the internet, by people not familiar with the FL codebase, and not familiar with the (then) state of Pascal on OS X.