Mac music playback woes

Posted: 01-20-2009, 10:03 PM

benyah

Guest
Posts: n/a

From a computer hardware/software company so famous for its music
creation potential, the Mac software that plays back MIDI and,
sometimes, streaming audio is woefully poor. This is true not only of
Apple, but of 3rd party developers as well. Find a truly good stand
alone MIDI playback program for the Mac - I dare you.

Take a complex MIDI file, with multiple channels/controller events/etc.
and it will stop, repeatedly, when playing back with QuickTime - the
QuickTime synthesizer will not handle it. This has been well documented
here and elsewhere - check the archives.
And now this. The report may be old news but the lack of a complete fix
for Mac music playback, other than MP3/AIFF/Apple Lossless - in other
words, anything that iTunes can handle - is still news today. If you
take a MIDI and convert it to MP3 - not problem. But for many musical
uses - an unconverted MIDI is needed. Well, there's always something to
keep an old or a new PC around for.

http://www.hos.com/

Archive News

March 2007
"Stuttering" bug in Radio Channel using Flip4Mac WMV
Dear Listeners:
We've received several reports from Mac OSX users with Flip4Mac WMV
installed. This is 3rd party software allows you to play Windows Media
streams with Apple's QuickTime player on the new Intel Macs.
When streaming the RADIO CHANNEL with this setup, after one program
finishes and a new one begins the stream may start to "stutter."* We
confirmed this behavior on our OSX systems using Flip4Mac.
We've submitted a trouble ticket to the Flip4Mac authors and should hear
back from them soon. In the meantime, if you experience this problem,
just click on the QuickTime Player "pause" button; after the stream
stops, click the "play" button. The stream will resume without
stuttering.
Thanks,
Joseph Jacobs
HOS Web Support

Responses to "Mac music playback woes"

gtr

Guest
Posts: n/a

Re: Mac music playback woes

Posted: 01-21-2009, 01:09 AM

On 2009-01-20 15:03:35 -0800, benyah <benyah@ilpm.net> said:

> From a computer hardware/software company so famous for its music
> creation potential, the Mac software that plays back MIDI and,
> sometimes, streaming audio is woefully poor. This is true not only of
> Apple, but of 3rd party developers as well. Find a truly good stand
> alone MIDI playback program for the Mac - I dare you.

Biab does very well at that. I use Logic to store and playback midi
and never have the bumps and grinds you're talking about. I'm using a
PPC G5 bought about 20 minutes before the Intel machines became
available.

I have had 8 or 10 outboard Midi processors, now down to a single
Alesis QSR. I also use a USB MidiSport 4x4 for routing the midi signal
from my computer. Never a problem not once. I used all this on the G4
that preceeded this machine, and it was just fine too. Admittedly most
of my midi output doesn't involve sending out signal to all 16 midi
channels with faux strings, brass, reeds, percussion, and so forth.
But still, many channels are used, pitch bend and all, as many as 8 or
10.

> Take a complex MIDI file, with multiple channels/controller events/etc.
> and it will stop, repeatedly, when playing back with QuickTime - the
> QuickTime synthesizer will not handle it. This has been well documented
> here and elsewhere - check the archives.

I think QuickTime is your problem.

> And now this. The report may be old news but the lack of a complete fix
> for Mac music playback, other than MP3/AIFF/Apple Lossless - in other
> words, anything that iTunes can handle - is still news today. If you
> take a MIDI and convert it to MP3 - not problem.

Of course that's not a problem, that's audio!

> But for many musical uses - an unconverted MIDI is needed. Well,
> there's always something to
> keep an old or a new PC around for.
>
> http://www.hos.com/

I signed up to listen, is that what you intended? After signing up I
was informed that I could only get a freebie listen on Sundays. By
then I'll have forgotten all of this.

> Archive News
>
> March 2007
> "Stuttering" bug in Radio Channel using Flip4Mac WMV
> Dear Listeners:
> We've received several reports from Mac OSX users with Flip4Mac WMV
> installed. This is 3rd party software allows you to play Windows Media
> streams with Apple's QuickTime player on the new Intel Macs.
> When streaming the RADIO CHANNEL with this setup, after one program
> finishes and a new one begins the stream may start to "stutter."Â* We
> confirmed this behavior on our OSX systems using Flip4Mac.
> We've submitted a trouble ticket to the Flip4Mac authors and should hear
> back from them soon. In the meantime, if you experience this problem,
> just click on the QuickTime Player "pause" button; after the stream
> stops, click the "play" button. The stream will resume without
> stuttering.
> Thanks,
> Joseph Jacobs
> HOS Web Support

Okay then. That sounds like a convergence of MicroSoft stench in the
guise of trying to make Windows Media phlegm operative seemlessly with
QuickTime AFTER a round-peg whittling by Filp4Mac. So I'm not sure
whether the difficulty is trying to work with a Windows-type product or
the hack that purports to make it vialbe or both.
--
Thank you and have a nice day.

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