article from april 2000 claiming oms is unstable with mac os 9

[supernova777]

http://www.steveoppenheimer.com/sound/editorials/no_joke.html
http://www.steveoppenheimer.com/sound/editorials/index.html

Steve Oppenheimer apparently wrote for "Electronic  Musician" magazine

It's No Joke
By Steve Oppenheimer
April 2000

Once upon a time, Opcode was a hotbed of invention. Sequencer was an early Mac favorite, and Vision's graphical user interface quickly earned the program a large, loyal following. Standard MIDI Files, MIDI Time Code, and the first digital audio sequencer (Studio Vision) were all developed at Opcode by Dave Oppenheim, Ray Spears, and friends. Galaxy Plus Editors was not the first MIDI patch editor/librarian, but it did introduce refinements and innovations. IRCAM created the Max MIDI programming environment, but Opcode's David Zicarelli developed it into a commercial product.

 

Opcode Systems' apparent demise (or at least, its current MIA status) touches much of the Mac-based music community. Many Mac musicians are especially concerned about the freeware Open Music System (OMS) system extension, which provides a common timing reference for MIDI applications and routes MIDI data between compatible applications and MIDI interfaces. OMS is a de facto industry standard: a wide variety of Mac software developers have adopted OMS, and some Mac applications cannot run properly without it.

 

Opcode was in trouble long before Gibson Musical Instruments purchased it. The Gibson deal promised to provide cash that would enable Opcode to pull itself back together, but recovery was likely to be slow. Furthermore, Gibson's previous attempts to revive troubled high-tech companies, such as the once-proud Oberheim, had been unimpressive. Indeed, within a relatively short time, the Gibson-Opcode acquisition deteriorated into a grim nightmare of litigation that froze the Opcode product line. Meanwhile, competing products were aggressively on the move.

 

Today, you can still buy Vision DSP and Studio Vision online (www.opcode.com), but the engineers who created them have moved on, and development appears to have ended. Opcode's Web site makes no mention of Galaxy Plus Editors; presumably it is history. Fortunately, there are excellent alternatives to these programs.

 

Max, on the other hand, is unique, and it is a must-have for a small group of hard-core electronic musicians. Because demand is low, Max is unlikely to enrich Gibson, and I would love to see Gibson sell the program to Zicarelli (now the reigning guru at Cycling '74), who almost certainly would develop it further.

 

OMS presents a thornier problem. It is critical to many MIDI studios, but it generates no cash. And OMS 2.3.8 is written in old 680x0 code, not native PowerPC code. It's unstable under Mac OS 9 and will surely be incompatible with Mac OS X. As an industry standard, it must be rewritten or replaced by someone who has the full confidence of Mac software developers. That's not going to be Gibson. OMS is dead unless Gibson either open-sources it for public development or transfers it to someone who can solve both the technical and the political problems.

 

Fortunately, OMS might not be an issue for long because original OMS author Doug Wyatt recently joined Apple Computer. Apple won't comment on Wyatt's duties, but the grapevine has it that he's going to create a modern MIDI solution for Mac OS X. I hope he'll create a native PowerPC solution for OS 9, too.

 

If Apple replaces OMS and Max finds a proper home, Mac users can settle back and calmly watch Opcode reemerge or rest in peace. And that's no April Fools' joke.

[supernova777]

http://www.dougwyatt.net/background/
http://www.oreilly.com/digitalmedia/2005/08/10/wyatt.html
http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/digitalmedia/2007/06/15/digital-media-insider-podcast-14-doug-wyatt.html
http://www.sonosphere.com/Doug/about/

named as the original developer of OMS by the above article

While in Silicon Valley at Opcode, Doug created the Open Music System (OMS). OMS was a single point of unification between various MIDI devices (keyboards, samplers, effects, mixers), and software applications including Pro Tools, Digital Performer and Studio Vision. Because of OMS’ importance to the success of the personal computer-based digital audio workstation, in 2000, Keyboard magazine hailed it as one of the greatest technological achievements of the previous 25 years

Doug moved back to Ithaca in 1991 and became more deeply influenced by the music of his friend David Borden. He began injecting elements of deliberate counterpoint into his compositions, with results occasionally reminiscent of Borden and other minimalists using synthesizers, such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass.

From 1987 until early 1999 I was a programmer for Opcode Systems, Inc.. In my employment there I created the Open Music System (OMS), a set of MIDI system services for Macintosh and Windows. If you’re familiar with Opcode software, you might curious to know that I also wrote the Acadia audio subsystem, Vision’s track overview and part of its MIDI-to-notation code, the Studio 4 and 5 software, and version 1 of Galaxy Plus Editors.

http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=1027

i read that he worked for the creators of mixman studio in 1999-2000
http://web.archive.org/web/20001205125200/http://www.beatnik.com/

The
Acadia audio system
(new in 4.1)
provides advanced processing and rout-
ing capabilities for ASIO-compatible audio
hardware. Included with Vision are
Opcode ASIO drivers for Sound Manager
and Digidesign Direct IO (supporting the
Audiomedia III and other PCI audio cards
from Digidesign, see the Vision
“read me” file for a complete list).
The Acadia audio system provides:
• 4 bands of real-time EQ per audio
channel;
• 4 VST plug-ins per audio channel;
• 4 sends per audio channel, routeable
to outputs or busses;
• 16 nameable audio busses for sub-
mixes and routings

wait.. ASIO driver? for sound manager??? does this mean asio driver for the built in sound hardware in every mac?
or is this saying that it can make an audiomediaIII handle the system audio .........?
whatever it is http://web.archive.org/web/20050403184350/http://www.fm-music.com/v/newmac.html this page says it doesnt work with g4s....

After running a Doug Dayson induced test, it would seem that the Opcode Sound Manager ASIO driver doesn't work on G4s. Try an ASIO compliant audio card instead.

so it sounds like this "asio sound manager opcode driver" was a hack?? to use built in audio from power macintosh (beige) to get really good performance without even having an audio card?

http://www.tufts.edu/programs/mma/emid/visiondocs/quickstart.pdf
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/opcodeusers/conversations/messages/9348
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan99/articles/opcode477.htm
http://www.houseofsynth.com/hos-downloads/manuals/Opcode/Opcode-Vision-and-Opcode-Studio-Vision-Pro-Version-4.1-Manual-Supplement-1998.pdf

[supernova777]

http://duc.avid.com/archive/index.php/t-34813.html

ASIO (Audio Stream Input Output) drivers interface between the software and hardware (internal Macintosh audio system or audio card). In essence, an ASIO driver is a modular software interface via which audio data is transported. ASIO drivers are far more efficient than MacOS Sound Manager or Windows MME drivers and allow direct access to the card's functions.

The advantage of ASIO drivers to us users is that it opens up a whole range of hardware options, so you can freely pick the sound hardware that appeals most to your sensibilities and/or budget - provided it has an ASIO driver.

The SVP implementation of ASIO is in the form of Opcode's Acadia audio system. There are Acadia files on the CD optimized for the whole range of PowerPC processors. You want the Acadia file in the same folder as SVP, not in the extensions folder. fl important

To find the appropriate Acadia audio device you select the hardware set-up. A sound control panel appears with a drop-sown menu listing the installed ASIO drivers to choose from. From there, you can select sync source and access other special card setup functions.

If you are using MACOS9, there is are new Acadias that fix a "file read error" bug for SVP 4.2.x and 4.5.1 available on the Opcode website. (Prior MAC OS versions don’t need the fix)

aha so this might be the reason or origin of the comments saying that SVP doesnt like mac os 9.. and runs better on mac os 8.6 - but perhaps these issues were dealt with just before opcodes untimely demise!




here is an image representing all the critical parts of a functional studio vision setup.
in this illustrated caes.. its vision DSP but it would be the same for studio vision pro aswell..

[Metrophage]

wait.. ASIO driver? for sound manager??? does this mean asio driver for the built in sound hardware in every mac?
or is this saying that it can make an audiomediaIII handle the system audio .........?
whatever it is http://web.archive.org/web/20050403184350/http://www.fm-music.com/v/newmac.html this page says it doesnt work with g4s....

so it sounds like this "asio sound manager opcode driver" was a hack?? to use built in audio from power macintosh (beige) to get really good performance without even having an audio card?

I think of the ASIO as just an alternate driver. Like how if you put an extension in the extensions folder, it works for anything on your system. But if you've got something more specific, you can just put it in the root folder of your application to use with that. Similarly, hosts with ASIO support just have their own optional drivers, which are as hacky as the developers made them. My uninformed opinion is that developers tried to optimize them for performance rather than universality. This coupled with the obvious lack of foresight with regards to future processor types renders this sort of work specific to a certain time.

IIRC I am almost certain that I have used the ASIO Sound Manager with a G4. Several G4s. Perhaps this was fixed later?

[supernova777]

i think u are right.. there was updated acadia subsystems released.. pretty sure they are in the opcode yahoo users group for download i saw something that said use these acadias if the others dont work

i think Acadia can be thought of similarly to how we would view "DAE" for pro tools...

DAE -> pro tools
Acadia -> Studio Vison

same type of relationship

[GaryN]

http://www.steveoppenheimer.com/sound/editorials/no_joke.html
http://www.steveoppenheimer.com/sound/editorials/index.html

Steve Oppenheimer apparently wrote for "Electronic  Musician" magazine

It's No Joke
By Steve Oppenheimer
April 2000

Once upon a time, Opcode was a hotbed of invention...

FWIW: While I don't have the deep-in-the-woods knowledge of programming that Mr. O has, I have used OMS, StudioVision and Galaxy for over 10 years under a variety of configurations from OS8 on a 68k Plus through OS9 on a G3 to 9.2.2 on an G4 MDD and I've never found it to be particularly "unstable"… certainly no more so than the OS itself