The ASIO Music Player thread

[nateman831]

I wanted to start a thread to discuss what “music players” have ASIO support

Why ASIO?

Well, for some (usually high end) interfaces, ASIO is the only option - there is no Sound Manager support. Also, I just think it sounds better…

After taking a look around, it's not looking good.  I don't see anything like SoundJam, or Audion, etc. In fact, I tried many, MANY more players, and none of them supported ASIO - until you get to actual music production apps.

Which is where I'm looking at the moment - which of course is using an app for a purpose it wasn't really designed for

Top Criteria:
(1) ASIO support
(2) "Playlists"
(3) MP3 support


APPS TESTED SO FAR:

** Spark XL 2.80 **

This is - so far - the best I've found... It's stable. Supports "playlists". Supports AIFF, WAV, and probably a few other formats, BUT NOT mp3.

Problems:

(1) won’t let me import MOST of my library - even though they’re supported formats - It doesn’t even “see” them
(2) doesn't progress to the next song in the playlist after finishing the previous one. Maybe there is a way to do it, but I just haven't figured it out yet.
(3) makes a mess of my hard disk, creating .OVW files (800 kb a piece) next to all the original audio files


** PlayerPro 5.8 or later **

On the upside, this supports MP3, besides WAV, AIFF, and many other formats. It also has a playlist. Technically, it should support ASIO, but this turns out to be where the problems begin

Problems:

(1) Doesn’t actually seem to support ASIO - or maybe just not in OS 9.  The selection for ASIO is there, but when you select it, it says the driver is not working
*The freeware version lets you go a step further, and select the appropriate ASIO driver, but then it just ends up routing through whatever’s chosen in Sound Manager
(2) PlayerPro is less stable than Spark XL - especially once you choose ASIO


That's all I have for now... Not a promising start.

If anyone is aware of any fixes for the above mentioned problems, please feel free to chime in.
Or, if anyone can recommend any other apps to check out, just let me know.

Thanks!

[IIO]

the first thing i ever made with max was a video player with asio - because there were none.

for music, spark was my choice in OSX for a while... because it at least had a rudimentary file brower / playlist.

in OS9 it is looking bad. i prefer apps like quicktime player which can pla bothy compressed audio and 32 bit, but none of them has asio support.

[Philgood]

I wonder the ASIO part not working because you didn’t put the driver inside the folder?

[nateman831]

in OS9 it is looking bad. i prefer apps like quicktime player which can pla bothy compressed audio and 32 bit, but none of them has asio support.

Thanks for the input - that's kinda what I was afraid of...

for music, spark was my choice in OSX for a while... because it at least had a rudimentary file brower / playlist.

In Spark XL, were you able to progress in the "playlist" from one song to the next? For me, it either stops playing, or repeats the same song

[nateman831]

I wonder the ASIO part not working because you didn’t put the driver inside the folder?

Def always a good thing to check... Unfortunately, the driver was in the folder. For Spark, it worked, for PlayerPro, it did not...

[IIO]

In Spark XL, were you able to progress in the "playlist" from one song to the next? For me, it either stops playing, or repeats the same song

can´t remember. i used it to play my own songs, not as a radio. (i am not a big fan of playlists and catalogs, mildly put, i am an everything-via-finder person)

for example i used it as 32 bit float to mp3 encoder, for it has better quality than QT6/media cleaner in OS9.

to be honest, the autocreation of these seperate waveform files is a PITA.

[DieHard]

Can't remember if you can do lists... but will it can definitely go ASIO or non-ASIO, also you have real time effects like multi-band compression & EQ while playing, maybe you could "script" or macro a palylist

SonicWORX Power Bundle

http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,856.0.html

Also, check here:

http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=2071.0

lastly, there is "MoreAmp"
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,480.0[/url.html

Remember, many Pro sound cards can "route" mac system sound to your sound card, so if you find an awesome program that does not offer ASIO support, you should invest in a card/interface that can route "system sound" to your audio system