tombax wrote:Do the Audio Unit instruments, such as the ones which come with Logic, work in the same way as VSTs? That is, would I be able to use them in Notion?
Not directly, but indirectly is possible and practical . . . DETAILS AND TIPSThe Audio Unit (AU) technology is unique to the Mac, and it is nice and in some instances favored by Mac Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) applications, but it does
not work with NOTION 3 or NOTION 4, since NOTION uses the Steinberg VST technology (VSTi for virtual instruments and VST for effects plug-ins) . . .
Most third-party virtual instruments and effects plug-ins support several technologies, including AU, VSTi, and VST, but AU is a Mac-only technology . . .
I do everything on a 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro (early-2008) with 20GB of memory running Mac OS X 10.8.3 (Mountain Lion), and everything in the digital music production universe works . . .
I have Logic Pro 9 (Apple), but I only use it to help Logic Pro 9 folks discover how to get Logic Pro 9 working with NOTION for doing things like ReWire, so while Logic Pro 9 is nice and full-featured, it is
not my primary DAW application . . .
Digital Performer 8 (MOTU) is my primary DAW application, and it is very easy to use on the Mac, since the MOTU folks only did Mac stuff for a long time, although there now is a Windows version of Digital Performer 8, which is the first Windows version that MOTU has done. For reference, MOTU hardware has Mac and Windows drivers and so forth, but this is the first version of Digital Performer that has a Windows version . . .
Regarding the apparent "kicking and screaming" aspect of switching to the Mac, until Mac OS X and the original iPod were released I did everything in Windows, so I understand this aspect of switching, although for me it was more a matter of being fascinated by Aqua (the visual interface for Mac OS X) and the iPod, as well as being vastly annoyed by Microsoft when they destroyed Visual Basic and then started doing all the paranoid Windows licensing nonsense . . .
Basically, there will be a few things that will take a bit of acclimation, a few of which will take time (primarily the keyboard differences if you are a touch typist), but most of which are pleasant and happy surprises:
(1) The "delete" and "backspace" keys on an Apple keyboard are the opposite of the keys on an Windows keyboard . . .
(2) Mac keyboards have "control", "option", and "command" keys, where the "command" key is the one you will use for cut, copy, and paste . . .
(3) There are no viruses or any of that nonsense, but it is good to keep current on updates to Mac OS X and Firefox, since the subhuman mutants occasionally find a strange and bizarre portal that might be used for a virus or whatever, but Apple and the Firefox folks discover it and then close it with updates . . .
(4) Everything on the Mac is of the highest quality; everything you need other than an external digital audio interface for XLR microphones, real instruments, and a physical MIDI interface is there; and it "just works" (or in the preferred Mac terminology, "happens
automagically"), which is one of the reasons that I recommend the Mac for doing digital music production, where for example Mac OS X Core Audio is designed specifically to work the hardware and operating system, so it "just works" without you needing to mess with it or to know anything about it, and another very nice and helpful aspect of the Mac is that it has built-in "virtual MIDI cables", which make it easy to use NOTION 4 External MIDI staves to control standalone virtual instruments and Reason (Propellerhead Software), where for example you can use music notation in NOTION 4 to control and to play synthesizers in Reason 6.5, and you can do this with virtual instruments that have standalone user interfaces, as well . . .
(5) Installing software designed for the Mac usually involves dragging the application icon and dropping it on the "Applications" folder, followed by accepting the license agreement and pressing a "Install" key and entering the Admin password, which basically as simple as installing software can be, which is a key aspect of the design philosophy of Apple computers, which specifically is that the computer never should bother the human . . .
(6) As a general rule, if you want to do something on the Mac but do not know how to do it, then try to imagine how someone who really wanted to make it as easy as possible would design it. In some respects, this is the most difficult aspect to understand when folks switch from Windows to the Mac, and the reason is that the design philosophy for Windows is based in part on Bill Gates being an obsessive-compulsive geek whose father is an attorney, hence doing even the most trivial activities on a Windows computer involves elaborate procedures, verification steps, negotiating, team meetings, and so forth and so on, while on the Mac it is done in the most simple way possible . . .
(7) Some of the user interface stuff will be a bit different, but it makes sense after a while, where in some respects as noted (
see above) what happens is that you expect there to be a complex and annoying way to do something, so you look for it but never find it. Then after a while you discover the easy and simple way to do it, where the good aspect is that this soon becomes intuitive, at which time you realize that Apple computers are designed specifically
not to bother and to annoy humans, which in the grand scheme of everything maps to your entering what one might call a "normal" universe and exiting a "neurotic" universe, where as another example Windows constantly wants to tell you what it is doing, often in excruciatingly abstruse detail, and it wants you to acknowledge that you understand and agree. In contrast, Apple computers mostly just do it without bothering and annoying you . . .
THOUGHTSThe following video demonstrates a 64-bit ReWire 2 session where Digital Performer 8 is the ReWire 2 host controller and both NOTION 4 and Reason 6.5 are ReWire 2 slaves, with NOTION 4 also controlling and playing Reason 6.5 via music notation on NOTION 4 External MIDI staves, which is pretty much everything one can do, other than also recording real instruments and singing in Digital Performer 8, Logic Pro 9, or Reason 6.5, where for reference NOTION 4 also can control and play real MIDI instruments like a KORG Triton Music Workstation (88-Keys), and you can use external signal processors with Digital Performer 8 via a MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid external digital audio interface like the one here in the sound isolation studio, where the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid is used to connect microphones and real instruments and to digitize their analog signals so that the Mac Pro and its digital music production software can use the audio . . .
Digital Performer 8, NOTION 4, Reason 6.5, External MIDI, ReWire 2 on the Mac -- QuickTime Movie -- MOV (63.7MB, approximately 14 minutes and 45 seconds)In theory, it should be possible to do this on a Windows machine, but I have no way to prove it here in the sound isolation studio, so all I can state as fact and prove is that it works very nicely on the Mac, where once you get your Mac, I can provide a bit of expert help in getting everything configured and so forth, which is another outstanding aspect of the Mac, since the user interface and other things are not constantly moving targets, in the sense of needing to do things a bit differently depending on the version of Windows, sound card, specific hardware drivers, account and security privileges, and so forth and so on . . .
And regarding the Audio Units (AU) in Logic Pro 9, while you cannot use them in NOTION, you can export MIDI from NOTION and import it to Logic Pro 9 to play the AU virtual instruments, and I think you can send MIDI directly to Logic Pro 9 via NOTION 4 External MID staves, although I have not tried this specifically with Logic Pro 9. I did it with the standalone Aria player, and it works nicely, so based on that experiment, I think there should be a way to do it with Logic Pro 9, so there is a way to use AU virtual instruments with NOTION 4 . . .
On a related note, Propellerhead Software just released Reason 7, so I need to do the upgrade, and they released a new technology called "Rack Extensions" a while ago, where Rack Extensions are a lot of FUN and extend and enhance the virtual instruments and effects that come with Reason, which is important since Rack Extensions include components designed and programmed by third-party developers but, of course, verified and approved by Propellerhead Software . . .
In the complete system I use, NOTION 4 is the foundation; Digital Performer 8 and Logic Pro 9 are the DAW applications; and Reason 6.5 (soon to be Reason 7) enhanced and extended with Rack Extensions is the combination DAW application and sequence-based synthesizer, all of which work very nicely on the Mac, as does using and recording real instruments and singing, including MIDI keyboards and synthesizers, in the DAW applications, where the external digital audio and MIDI interface is the MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid, which when combined with a nice set of virtual instruments and effects plug-ins maps to being able to do
everything, which I have verified here in the sound isolation studio on the Mac Pro, which is important, because instead of being something you should in theory be able to do, (a) it is something that you can do on the Mac and (b) I can prove it, hence there is no uncertainty or doubt, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous!