No support for third party developers?

[mike_c]

I've just heard that third party developers are being given NO support in terms of making audio/midi apps work with the 001. Developers want to make their software run on the 001, but digi has not provided them with software development kits. Digi, is this really true?

Mike

[YAR-X]

mike c
this is a serious situation
can we have any word from the Digi-Wizards

[peppertree]

http://www.emagic.de/ :

No Developer Support for Digi 001

In spite of repeated enquiries from Emagic, Digidesign does not offer developer support for their new Digi 001 at present. Therefore Emagic cannot currently recommend the use of Logic Audio together with the Digi 001.


As a software strategist; what this means to me is that the product manager is saying "We're going to make our MIDI implementation mandatory on the 001, at least for a while, to force purchasers to at least try it, and hopefully get their custom. Spending less on Logic, they might buy more of our RTAS plugins; or more software upgrades."

Of course, it might be the project manager saying "We need all hands on deck shipping this thing, we can't have 3rd parties to babysit right now." Probably a bit of both; the two managers would agree to it once they both saw their benefits.

I'm quite lukewarm on this approach; but it is immature, and damaging, to not keep 3rd parties in the loop and have them bitch about it on page 1 of their website. The immaturity will either be in Palo Alto or Rellingen depending on who you work for.

[haze]

While i can understand frustration from
people wanting to use their sequencing
software of choice (i've used Cubase, so it may be less of a sacrifice), one of the main benefits
of the 001, to me, is that there is only one finger
to point, one website to bombard, one phone number to speed dial when problems raise their ugly heads.

It's hard for me to believe that Digi won't
make several upgrades to the software, especially on the midi side, to compete with
seqencers that have been around for years. I for one, am really bummed at the lack of
notation (I'm a singer-songwriter eager
to record audio, but i also score for
live cello, violin, and horn sections).

I would gladly pay extra for many of the
features that are currently lacking on
PT 5.0 LE, but, hold out the hope that
they will become available in time.

[mike_c]

Digi?

[Avid]

The statement by Emagic is not accurate, but I need to find out the exact details and status of our Software Developer's Kit v2.0, which will allow better integration with the 001. The previous version 1.0 does allow for limited access of the 001 using Direct I/O. Not as much yet as we or Emagic would like, but the new SDK isn't done yet. We had a great many new products all coming out at the same time. This new SDK v2.0 is important, but no more so than everything else we are doing at the moment.

Anyway, I'll get the information from the informed parties and give you the scoop when I have all of the answers.

I think for starters you will probably see a re-wording on the Emagic site, as what they have there now is a gross exaggeration and mis-representation of a temporary situation. Could just be a language thing.
I'll get back to you.

------------------
Bruce Paine
eMarketing

[audiotech]

To Bruce Paine: does 'limited access' mean it works at all? On the other side of the room from me is a G4/350 with PT5LE on 001 and Logic 4.0.7 (and 4.0.6 and 4.0.5 and 4.0.4...) set to direct i/o. On launch, it says 'Error code -6011 was returned by direct i/o driver'. It then says 'undefined recursion - exit' 5 times before loading. Audio tracks are disabled once it's running. If I set to Mac AV and not direct i/o the 6011 goes away but not the 'undefined recursion' messages.

If I remove the DAE the 'undefined recursion' messages go away but of course OMS blows up because it can't identify the 001 interface - and then Logic blows up later on because there's no MIDI i/o. Now I'm sure I didn't have the 'undefined recursion' messages when I was running the PT5LE beta that was shipped to us dealers and which time-bombed last week.

Is all this what you mean by 'limited access' or do I have a bigger problem somewhere? I've been trying to get some sort of result out of this rig (however bad) for days because I'm due to deliver it to an end user on Thursday. The end user of course saw all the earlier stuff about logic supporting 001 and I don't know how happy he's going to be when he sees this...should I be able to get anything going at all? (There's no point in asking Emagic while they've got THAT message on their web site.)



[This message has been edited by audiotech (edited 11-30-99).]

[Ask the Developer Guy]

Hi Folks,

This is Ed Gray, Manager of the Digidesign Developer program. I want to tell you what I know about sequencer support for Digi 001 and invite any of you to e-mail or call me at the number below. First and foremost, Bruce's statement is accurate, Emagic has a complete developer kit for Direct I/O (it's version 2.2 for those of you like Bruce who like to keep track of things like this) which supports Pro Tools 5.0 and identifies the Digi 001 as a supported device. Emagic was informed even before the AES convention that their sequencers and comparable products would be supported by Digi 001. So why the message on Emagic's home page saying that we do not support it? I believe that it was a combination of some communication breakdown between Digidesign and Emagic and Digidesign's need to be cautious about publishing a statement of support until our companies have had a chance to test our products together. But again, the statement that we have provided no support to Emagic is false and I've asked them to remove that from their web site immediately and for both of us to cooperate rapidly to make robust and well-documented support available.

The technical problems experienced by "audiotech" are an example of why Digidesign and Emagic need to test Digi 001 with Logic Audio, and with any other applications that want to support 001 through Direct I/O. (Direct I/O, by the way, describes the simple software developer kit and libraries that allow third party applications using their own mixing engines to directly access the input/output capabilities of Digidesign hardware).

Audiotech, your problems appear to be related to a design issue with Direct I/O, in which Direct I/O clients like Logic conflict with the 001 OMS MIDI driver, that we are addressing actively right now. We will let you and other users know how to troubleshoot these issues with Logic and other applications as soon as we can. I will forward your system description and your descrtiption of your problems to Digidesign customer service so that they are addressed. We will make sure in the next few days that Emagic and Digidesign have the latest versions of Logic and of Digi 001 to test our applications together thoroughly so that we can build a support "answerbase" of information to help users that are using both products together - in other words, we will do our best to close this loop as soon as possible but it will not be immediate.
Please call me in the meantime if you want to discuss this further. Please also check back frequently to the Digidesign support area on our web site for late-breaking information about this issue.

On a final note, the development relationship between Emagic and Digidesign remains extremely valuable. From our TDM systems to Digi 001, we have every intention to cooperate with each other to make sure that our products work reliably together and that when problems like this arise, we're both quick to troubleshoot them.

Thanks

Ed Gray
Manager, Developer Group
Digidesign
650.842.7775

[peppertree]

Well that was certainly awesome customer feedback response! Kudos.

[haze]

Peppertree,

Did you get your rig set up yet with
the Roland effects processor?

haze