I have been a victim for several years of having curricular responsibility for labs running both Mac and Windows (8-9 on the Macs, 98-2000-now XPpro on the Windows), and we still can't get our Tech people to get MIDI on the XP machines to work very well. I'm not saying it is not possible, but it doesn't just happen--it's definitely not a priority of the OS development. I have to say that after my experience with X so far, it really does beat the others in terms of ease of setup (if you have modern hardware and up-to-date drivers, true) and especially in performance.
I'm not worried about AMS growing up, because I expect it to pretty quickly.
Tim
On Saturday, August 30, 2003, at 09:48 AM, Robert Patterson Finale wrote:
I agree with Tim Thompson that it "just works". I'm not quite so sanguine about it, however. I've never used MIDI on a Wintel box, so I can't compare the experiences, but in OSX you must have the proper drivers for your MIDI interface, which is probably very similar to Win. So far, I have not had any trouble finding drivers, but you want to be sure you have them before you switch.
I have my old serial MIDI interface and my new Digi 002. I can hook these up at the same time and the whole thing works together flawlessly. I've even tried hooking my kbd in and outs to different interfaces--no problem.
If your MIDI needs are simple, then I whole-heartedly agree with Tim's assessment. If they are more complex, then there are some issues. Audio Midi Setup (the OSX midi setup utility) is quite rough around the edges. It has no Undo, and you can easily accidentally do major damage to your setup with no way to undo it. I fairly quickly learned always to work on copies of my setup. Also, many of its setup options are confusing and/or misleading and/or ignored by MIDI apps. There is no consensus among MIDI apps on whether and how much attention to pay to the device settings in Audio Midi Setup.
A bigger issue is device lists and patch lists. One would have thought that CoreMIDI would have centralized and codified this essential feature of a professional midi system, but they did not (at least as of yet). As a result, each of the major players has rolled their own solution. Heck, they can't even agree where to put the files, for goodness sake. The result is that your MIDI setup experience is completely different in every program. The most seamless I've used is Digital Performer 4.
Eventually, these problems will work themselves out as best practices emerge. And hopefully Apple will provide guidance in the form of revised CoreMIDI API to help solve them. (And updates of Audio Midi Setup!) In the mean time, you can find out everything you ever wanted to know in the MIDI forums at www.osxaudio.com.
Eden - Lawrence D. wrote:
Is MIDI implementation still a problem with this OS?
-- Robert Patterson
http://RobertGPatterson.com
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