Fresh from the Apple Developer Connection:
Apple has interviewed music developers on the conversion process for Intel-native Universal binaries for the Intel Macs, talking to Ableton (Live 5.2), BIAS (Peak Pro, etc.), Metric Halo (drivers, plug-ins), Native Instruments (KORE), and Roland/Edirol (drivers).
The interview includes a glimpse of what goes on behind-the-scenes to drive the software we use. Ableton, for instance, uses Visual Studio on Windows and switched from CodeWarrior to Xcode for the Mac. If you’re a non-programmer, it might be worth a skim to see how Universal development is coming; for the most part, the news looks pretty good (provided developers gave themselves enough lead time). If you’re a programmer, it’s a must-read, as the developers give some tips on how to ease the process.
And as a reminder of why this is all worth it, watch MacBooks smoke PowerBooks running Peak Pro (pictured; just one example of performance gains across the board).
Going Universal: Audio Developers Catch the Wave [Apple Developer Connection]
In other Mac development news, Apple has updated its Audio Unit programming guide. It’s all you need to learn how to program audio plug-ins — provided you know MIDI, know a fair amount of DSP theory and mathematics, and are experienced with C++ programming. Yes, admittedly, that’s not a lot of you, especially with tools like Reaktor and Max/MSP that can let you build just about anything you can imagine with much more basic knowledge.
Those of you who are experienced AU developers, I’ll be curious to know if you think Apple has improved its documentation and examples with this update; I know both had been roundly criticized.
Have they improved the documentation? Look at the first page of the "guide," wherein it goes in to some detail about the fact that there is no information about programming AudioUnit Effects, which it even says are the most common form of AudioUnits. We found this dripping with irony, considering there are only really two types of AUs, and there isn't much different in the architecture between the two.
It is, in short, useless, like almost all Apple documentation about AudioUnits. We're still left with trial-and-error for most things. For a company that does both AU and VST, the guide actually points you in the wrong direction on several counts, chiefly in the area of GUIs.
As for switching to UB, the hardest thing for us was actually buying Intel Macs. It was simply a matter of recompiling, and a little bit of trial and error to find the build style that worked correctly on both platforms. It took all of four hours to do our first UB.
"wherein it goes in to some detail about the fact that there is no information about programming AudioUnit Effects, which it even says are the most common form of AudioUnits. We found this dripping with irony, considering there are only really two types of AUs, and there isn’t much different in the architecture between the two."
I think is says:"Nor does this version provide instruction on developing types of audio units other than the most common type, effect units."
Notice the the "other than"…..
People seem ready to diss without even reading this document carefully. And there are more than two types on AUs.
So it sounds like going UB was a success! Great!
Oh, dear. You're right. I stopped reading when I came to that sentence, because I was like "why should I care, then?" It is just poorly worded. Okay, back to the flip-flop factory.
Well, Chris (or anyone else), looking at the updated docs, are there any areas in particular you'd like addressed? (Especially since some of the people involved at Apple may be reading!)
Excellent blog. Easy to follow step by step instructions which seem to be absent from every other site dealing with Creating Digital Music. Would like to se.e more info on codecs.