Apple Logic Pro /LogicExpress Discussion

> Apple's reaction to the book, according to Young and 
> corroborated by the corporate communications director for the 
> publisher, was to remove Wiley & Sons' other 
> Macintosh-related technical books from the shelves of Apple 
> retail stores. Wiley publishes technical volumes including 
> the popular "For Dummies" series. 

Has this been verified? If true, it says a lot about Job's ego. Very
interesting indeed.

Kamm

Kamm Schreiner wrote:
> 
> Has this been verified? If true, it says a lot about Job's ego.

Or about the amount of BS in the book.

More likely Steve's ego, though, I reckon! ;-)

> Very interesting indeed.

You betcha! :-)

> Or about the amount of BS in the book.

Potentially, but I have a feeling we'd see a lawsuit in that case. ;)

Kamm

Kamm Schreiner wrote:

>>Or about the amount of BS in the book.
> 
> Potentially, but I have a feeling we'd see a lawsuit in that case. ;)

Oh yeah - of course! What else would you do when you're (seemingly) 
keeping an army of lawyers employed?

'Censors' is a pretty strong term. Decisions about what products to carry
in a retail store are a far cry from censorship.

-- 
 agreenbu @ nyx . net                             andrew michael greenburg

> 'Censors' is a pretty strong term. Decisions about what 
> products to carry in a retail store are a far cry from censorship.

I do think that censor is an inaccurate term. Doesn't seem to fit at all to
be honest. I think a headline more like "Apple throws temper tantrum" might
be more accurate. He he. :)

Kamm

Kamm Schreiner <kamm@...> wrote:
: 
: > 'Censors' is a pretty strong term. Decisions about what 
: > products to carry in a retail store are a far cry from censorship.
: 
: I do think that censor is an inaccurate term. Doesn't seem to fit at all to
: be honest. I think a headline more like "Apple throws temper tantrum" might
: be more accurate. He he. :)

Yeah, it does seem pretty silly to throw out the entire publisher based on
one title that they don't agree with.

-- 
 agreenbu @ nyx . net                             andrew michael greenburg

The subject says it all.

Kamm

> responsible for the high priced Macs we buy too - as Kamm as 
> pointed out, you can get a PC for half the price. 

I don't think I said "half", but in general I do think PCs are less
expensive. (Please. Let's not start a PC vs. Mac war! I'm just responding to
a statement quoting me that I don't think is completely accurate, even
though it does express my general thoughts on the matter.)

The one exception is the Dual CPU G5's which there simply isn't anything
close to in the PC world. I really give Apple kudos for those machines.
Everything about them is top notch. I'd really like to have one myself and I
just might in the not too distant future. :)

Kamm

> > responsible for the high priced Macs we buy too - as Kamm as
> > pointed out, you can get a PC for half the price.
>
> I don't think I said "half", but in general I do think PCs are less
> expensive. (Please. Let's not start a PC vs. Mac war! I'm just responding
> to a statement quoting me that I don't think is completely accurate, even
> though it does express my general thoughts on the matter.)

It's true that they are more expensive by the megahertz. The notion that this 
has anything to do with Steve Job's personal characteristics is of course 
completely silly. It has more to do with the more expensive components and 
the fact that PCs are made by thousands of Japanese cloners which pushes down 
the price a bit. Apples, Suns, SGI's, they're all more expensive than PCs.

(And worth it) ;)

Maurits.

> It's true that they are more expensive by the megahertz. The 
> notion that this has anything to do with Steve Job's personal 
> characteristics is of course completely silly. It has more to 
> do with the more expensive components and the fact that PCs 
> are made by thousands of Japanese cloners which pushes down 
> the price a bit. Apples, Suns, SGI's, they're all more 
> expensive than PCs.

I thought I asked us *not* to get into a PC vs. Mac war. Again, I was
correcting a statement quoting me and the rest of the post was very Mac
friendly, so I'm not sure why you are getting your panties in a bunch over
it. Please. Let's refrain from further discussion on it.

PLEASE!

Kamm

Sorry Kamm, did you actually READ what I wrote? I'm not even disagreeing with 
you, let alone getting my panties in a bunch!

> I thought I asked us *not* to get into a PC vs. Mac war.

Why on earth is that a PC vs Mac war..?

> Again, I was 
> correcting a statement quoting me and the rest of the post was very Mac
> friendly,

Yes, that too, and in fact I totally agree with your statement.. What I 
disagree with is that the price difference has anything to do with Steve 
Jobs' arrogance. That wasn't your statement was it?

> so I'm not sure why you are getting your panties in a bunch over 
> it.

Sorry you've really completely lost me. :)

> Please. Let's refrain from further discussion on it. 

Well I'd like to know what exactly I said wrong.. either one of us is 
completely misunderstanding the other..

Maurits.

> How is it not? You were comparing Macs and PCs were you not?

I was missing the war aspect.. I was in fact agreeing with you.

> > > so I'm not sure why you are getting your panties in a bunch over it.
> >
> > Sorry you've really completely lost me. :)
>
> I believe it is a British thing. Refers to one's panties creeping up
> between one's butt cheeks which is rather irritating. It is meant to be a
> somewhat humorous way to describe someone being irritated. In this case my
> feeling that you were somewhat irritated with my post.

I understood all that, but where exactly did you see any irritation? (Towards 
you that is - I am getting irritated with silly assumptions like "It's 
probably Steve Job's arrogance that makes Macs more expensive than PCs". But 
that wasn't your statement, and neither does it have anything to do with Mac 
vs PC wars.)

> I think I explained that above. If you weren't irritated with my post,
> please accept my apology for misinterpreting.

Well this doesn't leave me any less confused than I was. :o)

Geez, people on this list are uptight...

Maurits.

I read a post on another list saying that the new PowerMacs will only run
Tiger - not Panther. I don't know if it is true, but I thought I'd mention
it in case anyone on the list is contemplating a purchase.

Kamm

Kamm Schreiner <kamm@...> wrote:
: 
: I read a post on another list saying that the new PowerMacs will only run
: Tiger - not Panther. I don't know if it is true, but I thought I'd mention
: it in case anyone on the list is contemplating a purchase.

Well, I know that they ship with Tiger, but I haven't read anything that
says that they *won't* boot 10.3.9.

Of course, with all of the new features in 10.4, I would probably want to
use it anyway, as long as it doesn't break too much existing software.

-- 
 agreenbu @ nyx . net                             andrew michael greenburg

I'm with you. But if you have a G5, isn't Tiger gonna give you better 
performance?

GAmoore@... wrote:

>> Of course, with all of the new features in 10.4, I would probably want to
>> use it anyway, as long as it doesn't break too much existing software.
>
>
>
> There is nothing I really need in Tiger. I don't want a bunch of 
> widgets running constantly anyway.
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> > I'm with you. But if you have a G5, isn't Tiger gonna give you better
> > performance?
>
> I think Apple always says that.

And so far it's been true (WHEN they claimed it).

> Haven't they gotten the OS to be efficient 
> after all these years? I think its a lot like Adobe Photoshop or even
> textbook new editions - they come out every so often whether there is
> anything really new or not. It has more to do with their marketing plan and
> revenue stream than it does a "must have" feature. I was reading that many
> other people are similarly not thrilled by Tiger.

Then again nobody has used it yet. And especially something like coreaudio is 
relatively new and heavily under development, so when we're throwing 
assumptions again anyway, one might as well assume that the whole audio 
engine has become more efficient and hence most likely faster.

Besides, the internal architectural improvements between 10.1, 10.2 and 10.3 
were impressive to say the least, and there I'm not talking about gadgets 
like Expose and stuff. I see no historical reason to be this sceptical about 
10.4 (or Apple's claim that it has improved efficiency in, amongst other 
things, CoreAudio), and no other reason either, other then just wanting to be 
negative.

Maurits.

GAmoore@... wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 4/27/05 2:15:07 PM, ngold@... writes:
> 
> 
>> I'm with you. But if you have a G5, isn't Tiger gonna give you better
>> performance?
> 
> 
> 
> I think Apple always says that. Haven't they gotten the OS to be 
> efficient after all these years? I think its a lot like Adobe Photoshop 
> or even textbook new editions - they come out every so often whether 
> there is anything really new or not. It has more to do with their 
> marketing plan and revenue stream than it does a "must have" feature. I 
> was reading that many other people are similarly not thrilled by Tiger.

Guess you werent one of those folks that plunked down the money for 
10.0, then watched and experienced as 10.1,10.2,10.3 got extremely 
faster and more stable with each revision eh?

I just had a great idea! If you folks dont agree with Apple and their 
release schedule, DONT BUY IT!
I cant believe the amount of whining about an OS that none of you have 
even played with yet, and barely even seen screenshots of..
Theres been a flood of complaints about the new G5s announced today both 
here, OSXAudio, Slashdot, etc...
Funny it seems alot of the people complaining are those that already 
have G5s and are mad that they havent broken the 3Ghz barrier or gone 
dual core yet (which is still just vaporware to us at this point folks).
Do those dual 1.8/2.0/2.5 G5s really impede your performance that much 
that you needed to run out and buy a 3Ghz dual core G5 today??
Hell send me your SINGLE 1.6 or 1.8. I still get all my work done rather 
happily on a single G4/800 Id gladly take one of those sloooooooooooow 
and so behind the times G5s everyones been griping about.

Guess you cant please everyone, seems like Apple zealots are some of the 
toughest bunches to even get a damn smile out of!

Why is it lately the Logic Cafe has been more about the 
Apple/Emagic/Logic/I need a 12Thz Powermac G12 to cook for me Crybaby 
Cafe instead?

-- 
Chris

http://www.descentrecords.com

GAmoore@... <GAmoore@...> wrote:
: > Of course, with all of the new features in 10.4, I would probably want to
: > use it anyway, as long as it doesn't break too much existing software.
: 
: There is nothing I really need in Tiger. I don't want a bunch of widgets 
: running constantly anyway.

How about audio interface aggregation?
BTW, the widgets don't consume CPU when the dashboard is not up.

-- 
 agreenbu @ nyx . net                             andrew michael greenburg

> There is nothing I really need in Tiger. I don't want a bunch 
> of widgets running constantly anyway. 

I'm with you there. Little gadget windows all over the place would be
distracting to me, but I am very much anticipating being able to hook up
*and use* two audio devices at the same time. That will be awesome. I also
think that Automator may potentially be a very nice thing. I'm looking
forward to it too.

While we're on the topic of new features in Tiger, I'm hoping that they've
made a small, but, in my mind, extremely important change to Expose. The
idea of Expose is to show you all open windows, but it doesn't. If you've
minimized a window to the dock, that window does not appear when you invoke
Expose. Doesn't this bother anyone else? For me it makes Expose pretty much
useless because I frequently minimize windows. I'm just curious because it
seems like such an obvious oversight to me.

Kamm

In a message dated 4/27/05 2:48:00 PM, maurits@... writes:

>> > isn't Tiger gonna give you better performance?
>> I think Apple always says that.
>
>And so far it's been true (WHEN they claimed it).,,,
>Then again nobody has used it yet. And especially something like coreaudio
>is 
>relatively new and heavily under development, so when we're throwing 
>assumptions again anyway, one might as well assume that the whole audio
>engine has become more efficient and hence most likely faster.
>
>Besides, the internal architectural improvements between 10.1, 10.2 and
>10.3 were impressive to say the least, and there I'm not talking about 
gadgets
>like Expose and stuff. I see no historical reason to be this sceptical
>about 10.4 (or Apple's claim that it has improved efficiency in, amongst 
other
things, CoreAudio), and no other reason either, other then just wanting
>to be negative.


There is this recurring logic - through the X series and even back with 
system 7 when the PowerPC chip came out. The marketing is always "faster and 
better" but then a few years down the line, there is tacit admission that the 
previous version wasn't up to snuff, wasn't properly coded or optmized and perhaps 
rushed out the door, and so the ever new system is going to now solve that 
problem. And clearly you buy right into it.

I don't know were you got your info about CoreAudio - but are saying it was 
crap to begin with (which may very well be true) and all of the people 
complaining about it were chastised unfairly by Apple apologists. Or are you saying 
its a minor imperceptible change?

I think by this time, we are all aware of bogus claims all companies make. We 
need to see some numbers. IF Tiger is more efficent - then how much more 
efficient? 5%? or 10% or 20%? Lets see some benchmark data - running a blur filter 
in Photoshop, running X Space Designer Reverbs, etc. Show me the numbers, 
otherwise its all BS.

As I said before - the main thing they seem to be selling is Widgets (which 
they shamelessly ripped off from Konfabulator without any royalties) and 
Spotlight so you can search your files ... kinda like the enhanced Sherlock of 7 
years ago. I have yet to see a single factor in Tiger that will make a machine 
run more efficiently or better for music applicatoins.

Even that guy Raskin who is credited as being the father of the mac, whom 
died just in the past few months, made some comment to this affect - that apple 
is making a consumer toy, not a serious machine.

In a message dated 4/27/05 4:08:50 PM, kamm@... writes:

>The
>idea of Expose is to show you all open windows, but it doesn't. If you've
>minimized a window to the dock, that window does not appear when you invoke
>Expose. Doesn't this bother anyone else? For me it makes Expose pretty
>much
>useless because I frequently minimize windows. I'm just curious because
>it
>seems like such an obvious oversight to me.
>


Expose was one of the reasons I bought Panther. But I am rather tired of it 
and I am always hitting the hot corners by accident. These gimmicks wear thin 
and I am afraid TIger is all gimmick. I did discover - purely by accident a 
useful trick - command M seems to move an open window to the dock. I have yet to 
find a key command to move a window back to the desktop however.

> Expose was one of the reasons I bought Panther. But I am 
> rather tired of it and I am always hitting the hot corners by 
> accident.

Yep. It didn't take long for me to turn off Exposé's mouse features. It is
keyboard only for me. I think Apple could cure the mouse problem if they'd
give us the option of not having Exposé activate unless the mouse stays in a
corner for at least a user defined period of time. Half a second would
probably be enough. The problem is that I frequently move the mouse to a
corner (or edge) as a way of getting a starting point for another action or
for finding the mouse cursor. Then boom Exposé pops up. In these cases my
mouse pointer does not stay in the corner but for an instant. A delay would
cure the problem and make Exposé useable for me with the mouse.

> command M seems to move an open window to the dock. I 
> have yet to find a key command to move a window back to the 
> desktop however.

I don't think that you'll ever see such a thing because you can have an
unlimited number of windows in the Dock and the OS would have no way to know
which window it is that you want to bring back to the desktop. I suppose you
could make it a FIFO, but I think that that would have limited usefulness.

Kamm

From: GAmoore@...

>There is nothing I really need in Tiger. I don't want a bunch of widgets
>running constantly anyway.

There's something I really need: 64-bit memory access! Once Logic 
gets that going, you'll be able to load almost 8GB of sample starts, 
which is enough to load orchestral templates on one machine. Right 
now I have three Windows machines in addition to a G4. (I just 
ordered a dual 2.5 refurb to use as  a Logic machine.)

Plus with 64 bits the horsepower should increase too.

Tiger is the next generation of computing. It's probably going to 
take a while before we see these improvements, but it's not just 
Widgets (which you can hide anyway). This is a huge deal - don't 
sneeze at it!
-- 
Nick Batzdorf - editor
Virtual Instruments magazine
(the world of softsynths and samplers)
www.Virtualinstrumentsmag.com
1-877 VImagzn (846-2496), 818/905-9101, cell 590-9101

> Well thats good to know! At least somebody actually knows something about
> Tiger! That sounds good. I would hope that Apple themselves would send out
> some messages to the Digital Audio community detailing these improvements.

They do, but nobody bothers to read them (the specs are quite clear).

By the way, I just read on LUG that Panther was seen to run on the new G5s (as 
was to be expected).

Maurits.

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars

very thorough review. Tiger looks like a no-brainer for G5 owners esp.



GAmoore@... wrote:

>
> In a message dated 4/28/05 10:54:25 PM, maurits@... writes:
>
>> They do, but nobody bothers to read them (the specs are quite clear).
>
>
>
> Where are those specs? I have perused the Tiger section of the Apple 
> website and didn't find much detail about the things Nick said.
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Aye rote:

>There's something I really need: 64-bit memory access! Once Logic
>gets that going, you'll be able to load almost 8GB of sample starts,
>which is enough to load orchestral templates on one machine.

The almost 8GB limit is only because that's what one machine can hold 
right now, by the way. Tiger can access way, way more memory than 
that.
-- 
Nick Batzdorf - editor
Virtual Instruments magazine
(the world of softsynths and samplers)
www.Virtualinstrumentsmag.com
1-877 VImagzn (846-2496), 818/905-9101, cell 590-9101

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/64bit/

That's a link to the 64-bit bumph.

I suspect that the reason they're not shouting about it is that it's 
too technical for marketing.
-- 
Nick Batzdorf - editor
Virtual Instruments magazine
(the world of softsynths and samplers)
www.Virtualinstrumentsmag.com
1-877 VImagzn (846-2496), 818/905-9101, cell 590-9101

Nick Batzdorf <recording@...> wrote:
: Aye rote:
: 
: >There's something I really need: 64-bit memory access! Once Logic
: >gets that going, you'll be able to load almost 8GB of sample starts,
: >which is enough to load orchestral templates on one machine.
: 
: The almost 8GB limit is only because that's what one machine can hold 
: right now, by the way. Tiger can access way, way more memory than 
: that.

Of course, keep in mind that Logic will need to be updated to take
advantage of 64-bit addressing. The current version will still only be
able to use up to 4GB of memory.

-- 
 agreenbu @ nyx . net                             andrew michael greenburg

Might be slightly OT but do i need to buy the family
pack if i want to install Tiger on both my G5 and my
emac?
Thanks, JP


--- GAmoore@... wrote:

> Hey I got Tiger at 6 pm at Tustin Microcenter for
> $79 after rebate, and 
> installed it on my G3 ibook, and it seems to run
> fine. The guy at the apple store 
> told me this is the first OS with 64 bit, and later
> apps like Photoshop (and 
> Logic presumably) will use 64bit to run fast.
> 
> At least for now there are those widgets! They are
> actually cool. The apple 
> guy also showed me some cool keycommands - like
> Control F2 which allows you to 
> arrow through all the menus... and Control F3 which
> allows you to arrow 
> through the dock items. Those will be quite useful
> along with the Command M 
> (minimize) which sends windows to dock. (You can
> retrieve them by Control F3 then 
> arrow left to go around).
> 
> Did anyone else get this weird notice yesterday that
> the Logic 7.1 upgrade 
> won't ship to end of May yesterday, then today I get
> another message from Apple 
> that is already shipped?
>

> http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/64bit/
> 
> That's a link to the 64-bit bumph.
> 
> I suspect that the reason they're not shouting about it is 
> that it's too technical for marketing.

Actually, I suspect it is because Tiger is only 64 bit in a small way. It is
not a true 64 bit OS. The GUI is still 32 bit. What Apple has done is to
give access to more memory to certain types of applications and access to 64
bit math routines too. It isn't at all clear to me that Logic will be able
to make use of that because it is a GUI app. Does anyone on the list have a
clear understanding of what can and can't be done in the 64 bit world using
Tiger. It sounds to me like only command line apps will be able to use 64
bit memory access.

Below is what Apples says about what kind of apps can be 64 bit under Tiger
- note that they specifically say that those applications are executed from
a command line:

"The focus of Tiger's 64-bit support is to enable C and C++ applications
that are most likely to benefit immediately from a larger address space.
These include scientific data processing applications, rendering engines,
and high load servers. These applications have naturally large data sets.
Typically, these applications are faceless-meaning that they don't have a
GUI-and are executed from the command line."

> Does anyone 
> on the list have a clear understanding of what can and can't 
> be done in the 64 bit world using Tiger. It sounds to me like 
> only command line apps will be able to use 64 bit memory access.

I think I've answered my own question. It appears the answer is yes, Logic
can access more memory if it can separate out certain tasks that don't
require a GUI and make them 64 bit apps that the 32 bit portion of Logic can
control and access through a shared area of memory.

Question. What will this buy us ("us" being Logic users)? Has anyone on this
list that has a full 2 Gig of memory in their machine ever run out of
memory? Just curious.

Kamm

GAmoore@... <GAmoore@...> wrote:
: 
: I imagine that there are various system calls that can be made, and some are 
: 64b and some 32b. For graphics, the mac used to have a "toolbox" of system 
: calls that you would use when you program. For example, if you want to draw a 
: window of a certain size and dimensions, you make a call. Then the OS does that 
: for you. In the same way, there can be math operations called from programming 
: languages, which may or may not be 32 bit or 64 bit. The key thing will be the 
: math processing (in Photoshop and Logic) that will help speed things up. So 
: any app can use both types of data processing at the same time.

The idea is that there would be two separate processes that communicate
with each other, a 32-bit GUI and a 64-bit engine. It would require some
clever design, but it would allow applications to take advantage of 64-bit
processing without being fully 64-bit.

: In the case of Logic, I guess that audio processing and plugs and VI's would 
: be enhanced by 64bit -although I am a litttle unclear if it only applies to 
: integer operations (vectors) or floating point which is not referred to in bit 
: size.

Floating point actually does have a bit size. It applies to precision,
though, and not to maximum/minimum values. I'm not sure what, if any,
dependency float precision has on operating system or CPU/FPU support.

: See how Apple hypes each minor thing, I am surprised they have not hyped 
: Logic as the "first 64 bit music app". That absence seems to indicate that it will 
: come along later...maybe LP7.5 for $99 upgrade or something.

Well, no existing pre-10.4 app is going to run anything 64-bit without a
rewrite. I would expect to see it in Final Cut Pro first.

-- 
 agreenbu @ nyx . net                             andrew michael greenburg

> Well, no existing pre-10.4 app is going to run anything 
> 64-bit without a rewrite. I would expect to see it in Final 
> Cut Pro first.

Yes! Video is where I think 64 bit memory access has the potential to be
extremely useful. I'm not really convinced that it will be very helpful to
DAWs though - at least not until the entire app can be 64 bit so that speed
increases can be better realized. I don't really see the 2 Gigabyte limit we
currently have as much of a limit in realistic terms.

Kamm

Op Monday 02 May 2005 19:57, schreef GAmoore@...:
> although I am a litttle unclear if it only applies to
> integer operations (vectors) or floating point which is not referred to in
> bit size.

It is actually (up to now it was 32-bit float, ie 8 bits mantissa and 24 bits 
precision). If the G5's coprocessor is capable of making 64 bit calculations 
and the OS supports an interface for it, then Logic will most likely use it 
at some point.

Maurits.

> Video and audio have a lot in common - large file sizes, real 
> time need for speed, real time operations.

Yes, but video is *much* larger than audio. You can fit an awful lot of 24
bit audio into 2 Gigs.


> I think 64 bit is faster in the sense that twice as much data 
> can be processed at a time - but only in certain situations. 
> I can see how a 64 bit graphics board would be able to grab 
> chunks of pixels twice as fast, and process them twice as 
> fast. However, that task is done by the graphics board not the OS.
> 
> So midi data could be grabbed twice as fast and sent out - 
> but Midi is the least intensive aspect of the whole process. 
> If a floating point number is now 40 bits of decimal and 24 
> bits of exponent as opposed to 20 and 12 (in 32 bit) I don't 
> see a bit of increase. 

I agree. It will be more accurate, but I'm not sure that will be audible.


> I think that Logic does audio in floating point (you might 
> recall some discussion from a few years ago about 900db of 
> signalo to noise ratio). 

Talk about hearing a pin drop...  :)


> By the way, the widgets are already getting old - like 
> Expose. And I got a tip on another list to turn off Spotlight 
> - because it does a lot of stuff on your disk and would 
> interfer with getting the best processing power.

Yea, it has to get the information somehow and probably indexes your hard
drive while it thinks you aren't using your computer. It is probably not an
issue for most Mac users, but I could see how it might be if you are running
a DAW and are already low on CPU or your drive's throughput is already maxed
out.

> Another aside, I saw on the Apple store where they are 
> selling new G5/dual 1.8 for $1499. Maybe Kamm will make the switch? 

Not until I've closed on my new home and am confident of my financial
situation. It is very tempting though!

Kamm

Op Monday 02 May 2005 20:33, schreef GAmoore@...:

> and process them twice as fast. However, that task is done by the graphics
> board not the OS.

The OS drives it though.

> So midi data could be grabbed twice as fast and sent out - but Midi is the
> least intensive aspect of the whole process.

Not only that, but MIDI is also 8 bit. :o) But really anything that has to do 
with data transfer can be done twice as fast as long as the corresponding bus 
and chip is 64-bit as well. And datatransfer between chips is really the main 
limiting factor on the speed of a computer in general.

> If a floating point number is 
> now 40 bits of decimal and 24 bits of exponent as opposed to 20 and 12 (in
> 32 bit) I don't see a bit of increase.
>
> I think that Logic does audio in floating point (you might recall some
> discussion from a few years ago about 900db of signalo to noise ratio).

Yep, and more precision means less range loss on signals that pass through 
effects softly. And better summing (oh dear, I said the s-word) ;o)

Maurits

Maurits van de Kamp <maurits@...> wrote:
: Op Monday 02 May 2005 19:57, schreef GAmoore@...:
: > although I am a litttle unclear if it only applies to
: > integer operations (vectors) or floating point which is not referred to in
: > bit size.
: 
: It is actually (up to now it was 32-bit float, ie 8 bits mantissa and 24 bits 
: precision). If the G5's coprocessor is capable of making 64 bit calculations 
: and the OS supports an interface for it, then Logic will most likely use it 
: at some point.
: 
: Maurits.

Macs have supported 64-bit floats for years. Floating point does not have
the same hard limitations that integer math does in this regard.

10.4 adds native support for 'long double' types, which vary between 80
and 128 bits depending on implementation (80 bits is the standard).

-- 
 agreenbu @ nyx . net                             andrew michael greenburg

Sorry I have to correct my own nonsense here..;)

> It is actually (up to now it was 32-bit float, ie 8 bits mantissa and 24
> bits precision).

The precision is in the mantissa and it's not divided like this - so ignore my 
gibberish.. it's 32 bit float anyway! :o) (Yes MacOS knows double, but Logic 
is using 32 bit floats. This choice could have been made because 32 bit 
communication makes 64 bit float handling twice as slow, but I don't know if 
the internal communication between G4 core and FPU was done in 32 bits as 
well).

Maurits.

> 64-bit memory space isn't going to speed things up; in fact, I'd
> imagine that 64-bit apps may well run more slowly on many machines.

64 bit space can indeed slow things down when you don't need it and badly 
implement it (and drag along 3 bytes when you only need the fourth). Could be 
that this is the case here, but high-end stuff like Logic will most likely 
know what to do with it.

> reception programs, and now no searchlight. Those apps, even when "idle"
> are still lurking in the backgroun - taking up ram, taking clock cycles to
> check if the computer is idle so they can spring to life, or sending out
> internet messages. With the fragility of music on G5, I would not take any
> chances.

I agree that less is better, but what fragility? With my G4 I was constantly 
maxing out my processor, but now I jumped from 400MHz to 2x1.8GHz, the least 
of my worries are a few more background processes. (Btw, even before Tiger 
you already have a few dozen background tasks running). Besides, coreaudio 
being part of the operating system and knowing that it has to get its data 
out in time, will eat processor time away from apps like Spotlight or 
Dashboard when it needs to. And apps don't eat cycles to check if the 
computer is idle, they GET cycles when it is. (Unix-based system have this 
neat thing called "nice-levels" and any "expert" should know what that 
means).

Sorry to be sceptical about the sceptic, but his sceptisism seems to have more 
of a marketing basis than a technical one. And the real advantages of Tiger 
aren't in the fancy gadgets at all, they are in the technical details and 
we've seen a few links about them here already that show it's not just all 
hype.

Maurits.

> There are some shareware and terminal commands which show the processes
> running and how much CPU they are taking. I was shocked to find 40 things
> running at one time - all kinds of hidden processes.

Yes, actually this is quite normal in any modern system. (It even was in 
Window 95 but there this was well hidden). But if you look closer you'll see 
that most are 0% CPU most of the time. This is what "smooth multitasking" was 
all about when that was hyped years ago, like 64 bit is now. :o) You give 
processes priority, you can give them nicelevels so they only run when 
nothing important is going on, etc etc. And the whole big deal about 
CoreAudio is that it's part of the operating system and therefore can take 
all the cycles it needs.

> And I was also shocked 
> to find out the Photoshop was taking a huge hit on my CPU even when totally
> idle.

This does happen with some apps but it should be an exception. Still, don't be 
mislead by the %CPU number; if it was using CPU on a nice-level, it was doing 
it just because noone else wanted it.

> I worked on a song last week - it had about 8 audio tracks, maybe 8 virtual
> instruments and some plugs. And yet I was getting audio overload messages
> in Logic. So I feel I need all the power and stability I can get.

It has nothing to do with stability, but as for the power you might find that 
this number doesn't really drop significantly if you have other stuff running 
in the background, at least if it doesn't make your system swap the whole 
time or demands a high priority for another reason.

Maurits.

>Message: 2\ufffd\ufffd\ufffd\ufffd\ufffd\ufffd\ufffd\ufffd
>    Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 13:37:58 -0600
>    From: amgmamgma <agreenbu@...>
>Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: New PowerMacs run Tiger only?
>
>Nick Batzdorf <recording@...> wrote:
>: Aye rote:
>:
>: >There's something I really need: 64-bit memory access! Once Logic
>: >gets that going, you'll be able to load almost 8GB of sample starts,
>: >which is enough to load orchestral templates on one machine.
>:
>: The almost 8GB limit is only because that's what one machine can hold
>: right now, by the way. Tiger can access way, way more memory than
>: that.
>
>Of course, keep in mind that Logic will need to be updated to take
>advantage of 64-bit addressing. The current version will still only be
>able to use up to 4GB of memory.

That was my subsequent post. :)
-- 
Nick Batzdorf - editor
Virtual Instruments magazine
(the world of softsynths and samplers)
www.Virtualinstrumentsmag.com
1-877 VImagzn (846-2496), 818/905-9101, cell 590-9101

From: "Kamm Schreiner" <kamm@...>

>  > Does anyone
>>  on the list have a clear understanding of what can and can't
>>  be done in the 64 bit world using Tiger. It sounds to me like
>>  only command line apps will be able to use 64 bit memory access.
>
>I think I've answered my own question. It appears the answer is yes, Logic
>can access more memory i

IF!

>f it can separate out certain tasks that don't
>require a GUI and make them 64 bit apps that the 32 bit portion of Logic can
>control and access through a shared area of memory.
>Question. What will this buy us ("us" being Logic users)? Has anyone on this
>list that has a full 2 Gig of memory in their machine ever run out of
>memory? Just curious.

Yes. If you want to load large orchestral sample library templates - 
e.g. Vienna Symphonic Library, East West Quantum Leap, Sonic 
Implants... - you want to load more than 3GB of sample starts, which 
is the max in Panther. 3GB is pretty good - about three Giga 
machines' worth - but it's still not quite enough.

The samples stream off hard drives, but they still need a head-start buffer.
-- 
Nick Batzdorf - editor
Virtual Instruments magazine
(the world of softsynths and samplers)
www.Virtualinstrumentsmag.com
1-877 VImagzn (846-2496), 818/905-9101, cell 590-9101

>Regarding spotlight, I think it is common knowledge that you don't want any
>garbage apps running while you are doing audio. No screensavers, no fax
>reception programs, and now no searchlight. Those apps, even when 
>"idle" are still
>lurking in the backgroun - taking up ram, taking clock cycles to check if the
>computer is idle so they can spring to life, or sending out internet messages.
>With the fragility of music on G5, I would not take any chances.

I disagree with all of that. There's nothing to say that Spotlight is 
going to do bad stuff in the background, and there's nothing fragile 
at all about music on any computer these days. Ten years ago you had 
to worry about the menu clock taking up CPU. Those days are ancient 
history.

And if you have enough RAM, the background RAM isn't important - in 
other words, in Panther you can have 8GB in a G5 and Logic can still 
only use 4GB (which after Logic and overhead leaves 3GB for loading 
samples). System memory is outside that 4GB; I have 5GB in my new G5 
for that reason.

I also want to explain this thing about large sample library 
templates once more, because the conversation here is missing the 
point. More horsepower out of a G5 would be fine, but I haven't heard 
anyone complain about a dual 2.5 lacking muscle. That's not it.

The big deal is 64-bit memory addressing! Even if you don't use every 
one of 15 violin articulations, you don't want to have to stop to 
load and unload programs all the time. You want those programs loaded 
so you can try different ones until you find the right one for the 
note or phrase.

So today, composers use multiple Giga machines (I have two PCs + one 
running Kontakt) in order to have large templates loaded. Polyphony 
is also an issue, but not that much of an issue; you can get around 
that on a single machine by using multiple drives on separate busses, 
and also with RAID...except that it doesn't seem to help on Macs for 
some reason.

But anyway, if you can load, say 6GB of samples, that's the 
equivalent of six Giga machines. That's the big deal with 64-bit 
computing.

I just wanted to put a fine point on this so y'all understand.
-- 
Nick Batzdorf - editor
Virtual Instruments magazine
(the world of softsynths and samplers)
www.Virtualinstrumentsmag.com
1-877 VImagzn (846-2496), 818/905-9101, cell 590-9101

Maurits van de Kamp <maurits@...> wrote:
: Sorry I have to correct my own nonsense here..;)
: 
: > It is actually (up to now it was 32-bit float, ie 8 bits mantissa and 24
: > bits precision).
: 
: The precision is in the mantissa and it's not divided like this - so ignore my 
: gibberish.. it's 32 bit float anyway! :o) (Yes MacOS knows double, but Logic 
: is using 32 bit floats. This choice could have been made because 32 bit 
: communication makes 64 bit float handling twice as slow, but I don't know if 
: the internal communication between G4 core and FPU was done in 32 bits as 
: well).

I remember reading somewhere that the G3 processor handled double
precision floats just as fast as single precision floats, but I don't know
how reputable that source was.

-- 
 agreenbu @ nyx . net                             andrew michael greenburg

GAmoore@... <GAmoore@...> wrote:
: > And apps don't eat cycles to check if the
: > computer is idle, they GET cycles when it is. (Unix-based system have this
: > neat thing called "nice-levels" and any "expert" should know what that
: > means).
: > 
: 
: There are some shareware and terminal commands which show the processes 
: running and how much CPU they are taking. I was shocked to find 40 things running 
: at one time - all kinds of hidden processes. And I was also shocked to find out 
: the Photoshop was taking a huge hit on my CPU even when totally idle.

This would indicate a problem specific to Photoshop to me.

FWIW, on my system now I see the following processes all using 0.00 % of
CPU:

Dock
Alerts Daemon
Microsoft AU Daemon
Safari
iTunes Helper
iCalAlarmScheduler
Database Daemon
Finder

They're all using a little bit of memory, sure, but an idle program should
NOT consume CPU when it's just sitting there unless it's poorly designed.
Are you sure that Photoshop wasn't doing anything?

-- 
 agreenbu @ nyx . net                             andrew michael greenburg