Apple Updates Logic Pro and MainStage, Adds 64-Bit Compatibility

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com/2010/01/12/apple-updates-logic-pro-and-mainstage-adds-64-bit-compatibility/)

The Loop notes (http://www.loopinsight.com/2010/01/12/logic-pro-mainstage-get-64-bit-support/) that Apple has released Logic Pro 9.1 and MainStage 2.1, bringing several bug fixes to the company's professional audio applications (http://www.apple.com/logicstudio/), as well as 64-bit compatibility for users running Mac OS X 10.6.2 or later.Adding 64-bit support to Logic 9.1 and MainStage 2.1 effectively removes the memory limit imposed on 32-bit applications running under Mac OS X. When running the apps in 64-bit mode, users can take advantage of any memory left after allocating the system, plug-ins and other apps.As addressed in an Apple FAQ support document (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3989), users of 32-bit plug-ins will be able to use Logic Pro and MainStage in 64-bit mode, with Apple's new 32-bit Audio Unit Bridge serving to provide compatibility with those plug-ins.

The report also notes that there are several features in Logic Pro (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3171) and MainStage (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3190) that are not yet functional in 64-bit mode, so users should make note of those limitations before deciding which mode to use. Full details of the changes in Logic Pro 9.1 (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2565) and MainStage 2.1 (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2566) are available in release notes posted on Apple's site.

Apple released (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/07/23/apple-updates-final-cut-studio-final-cut-server-and-logic-studio/) its updated Logic Studio suite in July and had issued a couple of minor (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/09/22/apple-releases-logic-pro-9-0-1-logic-express-9-0-1-and-mainstage-2-0-1/) updates (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/10/12/apple-releases-logic-pro-9-0-2/) before today's major point release.

Article Link: Apple Updates Logic Pro and MainStage, Adds 64-Bit Compatibility (http://www.macrumors.com/2010/01/12/apple-updates-logic-pro-and-mainstage-adds-64-bit-compatibility/)

[guzhogi]

Yay 64-bitty goodness!

[Kilamite]

FCS next..?

[NewSc2]

omg srsly? Bug Fixes? A .1 update? 64-bit?? :D

I was thinking of moving most of my production to Ableton cuz of all the little annoying bugs and memory errors. This might keep me on Logic.

[MrCrowbar]

omg srsly? Bug Fixes? A .1 update? 64-bit?? :D

I was thinking of moving most of my production to Ableton cuz of all the little annoying bugs and memory errors. This might keep me on Logic.

I know your pain. I'm used to Logic 8's bugs but I'm slowly getting used to Logic 9's bugs. Will give the update a try, looks like they fixed quite a lot of stuff.

[Plumbstone]

let's hope this fixes the memory bug from hell.....

It has been slowing me down massively.

updating now...

[Icaras]

YES! Finally! Downloading...

[dillacom]

FCS! FCS! FCS! please?

[uraniumwilly]

64 bit? Hint: Wrap your arms tightly around your old audio apps, no matter what these people say about clarity. Remember that rush and return to old 60s and 70s gear? The value of old amplifiers and equalizers and mixing boards sky-rocketed. Vintage 16 bit recording is going to be huge in a few years after people complain about the weird lack of character and hyper-clarity of 64 bit recording.

For convenience we'll record in 16 bit and then edit in 64 bit.

Think of one word, people: TONE.

[NewSc2]

64 bit? Hint: Wrap your arms tightly around your old audio apps, no matter what these people say about clarity. Remember that rush and return to old 60s and 70s gear? The value of old amplifiers and equalizers and mixing boards sky-rocketed. Vintage 16 bit recording is going to be huge in a few years after people complain about the weird lack of character and hyper-clarity of 64 bit recording.

For convenience we'll record in 16 bit and then edit in 64 bit.

Think of one word, people: TONE.

64-bit is NOT relating to the sound quality. This update is upgrading the program's architecture to accommodate more RAM -- right now 32-bit caps off at 4GB of RAM. Lots of sample libraries are 2GB+, and Logic users have been running into memory issues.

Right now all (most?) audio programs have internal 32-bit editing, regardless if you choose to record in 16-bit or 24-bit. I don't believe there are any 64-bit capable audio interfaces out right now.

[ChrisA]

For convenience we'll record in 16 bit and then edit in 64 bit.

Is this NOT about 64-bit samples. This is about the width of pointers on the software. 32 bit pointers allow you to "only" address 4GB or memory per process.

Going to 64 bits means now you can use four billion gigabytes of RAM (Yes, I'm not kidding) should you happen to have that much installed in your Mac.

Nothing to do with Sample size.

How much data can you fit into a 64 bit space? About 45,000 years of streaming video.

[J the Ninja]

Nothing for Soundtrack Pro? Bastards. :P Hope that comes in another update. Now I suddenly feel hopeful for a 64bit update in the FCS apps that can...(Motion and STP are both Cocoa, are they not?)

[TheSpaz]

Is there an update for Logic Express too or just Logic Pro?

[3NV7]

64-bit is NOT relating to the sound quality. This update is upgrading the program's architecture to accommodate more RAM -- right now 32-bit caps off at 4GB of RAM. Lots of sample libraries are 2GB+, and Logic users have been running into memory issues.

Right now all (most?) audio programs have internal 32-bit editing, regardless if you choose to record in 16-bit or 24-bit. I don't believe there are any 64-bit capable audio interfaces out right now.

I think uraniumwilly was making a joke. I hope.

[Mattie Num Nums]

YES! About time! I am very excited about this news. I have some pops though since moving from Logic 7 that have plagued me maybe a new update will help that too :)

[Queso]

Is there an update for Logic Express too or just Logic Pro?
Nothing in my Software Update. If the patch only adds 64-bit I'll be surprised if we see an Express version of it.

[Plumbstone]

So...

My early 2008 macpro 8core unfortunately isn't 64bit compatible so I am running the 32bit version of logic 9 and it seems loads better, some of my biggest projects still give me an error but no crashes, and my medium sized projects which were giving memory issues seem to be OK.

Genius.

(although I stil may get a 12-core...)

[peletrane]

Almost finished downloading. Excellent news!

[SeattleMoose]

For giving some TLC to my beloved application LP9!!!!!!

:D

[McBeats]

YESSS! this means that Logic will utilize more than 4 GB of RAM? if so, ROCK ON!

[jonohayes]

i don't get these updates in software update on my mac.


could some one post the links please?

[Snowcat001]

Great!

Now APERTURE 3.0 @64bit with improved features!

Please be a major app on the tablet so regular mbp users can upgrade as well :-)

[uraniumwilly]

I think uraniumwilly was making a joke. I hope.

Indeed. Crappy, poorly executed, lame joke.

[cmaier]

Ok, now Aperture X please.

[xparaparafreakx]

64 bit? Hint: Wrap your arms tightly around your old audio apps, no matter what these people say about clarity. Remember that rush and return to old 60s and 70s gear? The value of old amplifiers and equalizers and mixing boards sky-rocketed. Vintage 16 bit recording is going to be huge in a few years after people complain about the weird lack of character and hyper-clarity of 64 bit recording.

For convenience we'll record in 16 bit and then edit in 64 bit.

Think of one word, people: TONE.

LOL. I just fell down and died laughing.

But really, lets hope no one starts doing comparing 32 and 64.

Any word on the people using Logic 8. I guess that mean im gonna pay for 9.

No rewire for 64-bit. I wonder how many people are using rewire.

[rockstarjoe]

LOL. I just fell down and died laughing.

But really, lets hope no one starts doing comparing 32 and 64.

Any word on the people using Logic 8. I guess that mean im gonna pay for 9.

No rewire for 64-bit. I wonder how many people are using rewire.

No rewire is a BIG bummer for me. I read through the list and didn't see anything that really bothered me until I got to that. Nuts!

[natallica]

I'm assuming you have to boot into the 64-bit kernel for this to work?

I'm just wondering. I'm still running Logic on my 10.5 machine.

-- N

[TheSpaz]

I'm assuming you have to boot into the 64-bit kernel for this to work?

I'm just wondering. I'm still running Logic on my 10.5 machine.

-- N

No. Almost every app in Snow Leopard (except for iTunes and DVD Player) is 64bit and runs 64bit even with the 32bit kernel. You do not need a 64bit kernel to run a 64bit app.

[j33pd0g]

I'm running Logic 9 on 10.5.8, and I gotta say... it's smooth, and hassle free. No problems. I haven't upgraded to SL yet, because I'm in the middle of too many projects. I suppose this update is only beneficial to those running SL?

[Mattie Num Nums]

No rewire is a BIG bummer for me. I read through the list and didn't see anything that really bothered me until I got to that. Nuts!

I agree. Rewire is huge for me. What scares me more about Rewire is that its such a finicky marriage anyways.

[pounce]

just got the update, I'll be taking it for a drive tonight to see what I think. Seems like there are plenty of bug fixes here, so this looks like a move in the right direction.

[MorphingDragon]

FCS next..?

FCS is going to take hellova time porting to 64-bit.

[csimmons]

No rewire is a BIG bummer for me. I read through the list and didn't see anything that really bothered me until I got to that. Nuts!

No Rewire is not such a big deal for me. No REX file import or edit in 64 bit mode is a very big deal, since I use a lot of loops. Guess 'll staying 32 bit (which is fine for audio work)

The bug fixes are great, addressing a lot of issues I was having with LP9. Thanks Apple!:D

[AidenShaw]

FCS is going to take hellova time porting to 64-bit.

I thought that The Steve said that it was only a matter of checking one box in Xcode to make universal 64/32 bit binaries.

;)

You didn't believe him either, I take it?

[4God]

So...

My early 2008 macpro 8core unfortunately isn't 64bit compatible....

Why not? I thought my Early '08 2.8 8 core was.

[AidenShaw]

Why not? I thought my Early '08 2.8 8 core was.

Having a 64-bit Intel CPU doesn't mean that Apple supports the 64-bit kernel on your system.

You can run 64-bit apps with a 32-bit kernel, but performance suffers due to the shifts between 32-bit mode and 64-bit mode.

[MorphingDragon]

I thought that The Steve said that it was only a matter of checking one box in Xcode to make universal 64/32 bit binaries.

;)

You didn't believe him either, I take it?

If its pure Objective-C/Cocoa thats true.

If it has C++ or C they need to be ported. FCS was probably made in Carbon so...

[aafuss1]

Would the Express version get 64bit support?

How important is that to users of the Express compared to the Pro version?

BTW-here wasn't a 9.0.2 version for Express and updates for the Express version often come a bit later.

[Queso]

How important is that to users of the Express compared to the Pro version?
I can't speak for others who use it, but I doubt any of my creations would make use of 64-bit memory addressing. 64-bit is definitely a studio requirement IMO.

[cmaier]

Having a 64-bit Intel CPU doesn't mean that Apple supports the 64-bit kernel on your system.

You can run 64-bit apps with a 32-bit kernel, but performance suffers due to the shifts between 32-bit mode and 64-bit mode.

No it doesn't. (To be clear - performance isn't as good as with a 64-bit kernal, but not because of "shifts" between modes.)

[Maserati7200]

Excellent. The more apps going 64 bit the better.

[ChrisA]

I thought that The Steve said that it was only a matter of checking one box in Xcode to make universal 64/32 bit binaries.

He is mostly correct. It is all it should take. But you can't believe how many times in typical code we assume pointers are 32-bits wide. You think by now we'd have learned to use the sieof() operator. But ay code this big has a long history and was written by a large revolving group over a decade and it takes a long time to find al the subtle bugs that checking that box exposes that remain hidden when the box is unchecked.

[Iggy]

Just lost a weeks work because of a project file that crashed Logic on startup in 9.0.2 with only three days until deadline. If I update again now am I only going to end up with a Logic that is EVEN MORE buggy?!

[HLdan]

Wish they would put out iTunes 64 bit for Snow Leopard and iWork. :rolleyes:

[cmaier]

Wish they would put out iTunes 64 bit for Snow Leopard and iWork. :rolleyes:

iTunes needs to be ripped up and rewritten from scratch, for lots of reasons.

[NewSc2]

Indeed. Crappy, poorly executed, lame joke.

:p Don't start off a joke with a plausible point. People are still using their old Akai samplers, you know :D

[kainjow]

Wish they would put out iTunes 64 bit for Snow Leopard and iWork. :rolleyes:

hey, just be happy that you have Stickies in 64-bit :p

[MacFly123]

FCS next..?

FCS! FCS! FCS! please?

FCS is going to take hellova time porting to 64-bit.

I thought that The Steve said that it was only a matter of checking one box in Xcode to make universal 64/32 bit binaries.

;)

You didn't believe him either, I take it?

If its pure Objective-C/Cocoa thats true.

If it has C++ or C they need to be ported. FCS was probably made in Carbon so...

I was really disappointed when Final Cut Studio 3 came out and was not revamped! It took them forever and didn't even have that many new features, so I figured it was a given. But I guess not! :(

I want Final Cut Studio rewritten in Cocoa, 64bit, Open CL, Grand Central, and reskinned UI (especially Color), and much more of Shake baked into Motion!!!!!!!!!! :mad:

[P-Worm]

I was really disappointed when Final Cut Studio 3 came out and was not revamped! It took them forever and didn't even have that many new features, so I figured it was a given. But I guess not! :(

I want Final Cut Studio rewritten in Cocoa, 64bit, Open CL, Grand Central, and reskinned UI (especially Color), and much more of Shake baked into Motion!!!!!!!!!! :mad:

You do realize that what you're demanding is A LOT of work, right?

P-Worm

[-groovatious-]

Lack of Rewire support is a deal breaker.

[al2o3cr]

64 bit? Hint: Wrap your arms tightly around your old audio apps, no matter what these people say about clarity. Remember that rush and return to old 60s and 70s gear? The value of old amplifiers and equalizers and mixing boards sky-rocketed. Vintage 16 bit recording is going to be huge in a few years after people complain about the weird lack of character and hyper-clarity of 64 bit recording.

For convenience we'll record in 16 bit and then edit in 64 bit.

Think of one word, people: TONE.

To anybody arguing with this - just don't. It's either sarcasm, or Poe's law in effect. I'm sure you could actually find an "audiophile" that would tell you they could hear the difference between 32 bit addressing and 64, but he'd be the kind of toolbag that spends $500 on an Ethernet cable, or $300 on an "acoustically balanced" wooden KNOB...

[oban14]

So...

My early 2008 macpro 8core unfortunately isn't 64bit compatible so I am running the 32bit version of logic 9 and it seems loads better, some of my biggest projects still give me an error but no crashes, and my medium sized projects which were giving memory issues seem to be OK.

Genius.

(although I stil may get a 12-core...)

I own the same Mac Pro and have never heard of it not being 64 bit compatible. I have booted snow leopard in 64 bit.

What makes you think it isn't 64 bit compatible?

[Anaemik]

Right now all (most?) audio programs have internal 32-bit editing, regardless if you choose to record in 16-bit or 24-bit. I don't believe there are any 64-bit capable audio interfaces out right now.

By editing I assume you mean processing? If so, then yes, most modern DAWs process all audio internally at 32bit float. ProTools, however, I believe processes at 48 bit integer, and Reaper is 64 bit float throughout. I believe there's also a version of Sonar with a 64 bit engine, although I haven't looked into this enough to confirm.

[ManWithAPlan]

I own the same Mac Pro and have never heard of it not being 64 bit compatible. I have booted snow leopard in 64 bit.

What makes you think it isn't 64 bit compatible?

Agreed. I too own an Early 2008 Mac Pro with 8 cores and its been running Snow Leopard Server in 64 bit mode since October. It defaults to 32bit when you first install, but you change the switch from the cli to force 64-bit OS automatically as the new default per Apple guideline on this. With 32GB of RAM, I enjoy a nice performance boost with many apps, soon to be Logic included.

[Anaemik]

To anybody arguing with this - just don't. It's either sarcasm, or Poe's law in effect. I'm sure you could actually find an "audiophile" that would tell you they could hear the difference between 32 bit addressing and 64, but he'd be the kind of toolbag that spends $500 on an Ethernet cable, or $300 on an "acoustically balanced" wooden KNOB...

No audiophile would have a case for sound quality differences in 64 bit addressing. They may have a case when it came to 64 bit processing by the engine, but this would in all likelihood tend to go unnoticed under most conditions.

As there seems to be a bunch of confusion on this issue, here's a quote by Reaper's Justin Frankel explaining their decision to use a 64 bit *engine*.

For the purposes of this post I'll compare 64 bit floating point with 32 bit floating point. Integer samples have their own advantages and disadvantages compared to floating point.

As a bit of background, floating point numbers are capable of representing a range of numbers that is MUCH larger than an integer sample of the same number of bits, which is useful, but the drawback is that they can't represent EXACTLY many numbers in that range.

Both 32 bit and 64 bit floating point numbers can exactly represent any normalized 24 bit integer sample.

However when processing audio (applying FX, summing signals, etc), there are operations that can end up with results that will not be exactly represented by the floating point numbers. So tiny errors are introduced.

These errors are arguably not a big deal, as they are very small and should typically be well below the precision of any ADC or DAC anyway, but they can also add up. Using 64 bit floating point keeps these errors many orders of magnitude smaller.

The chief disadvantages that I can see for 64 bit floating point are increased memory use, increased memory bandwidth use (which also leads to increased CPU use, though less and less on the newer Athlon64 and Core2s), and more chance of denormalization related slowdown.

We chose at the start to use 64 bit throughout, planning on newer faster machines with more memory and memory bandwidth, and so that we wouldn't have to deal with upgrading everything if it became important later.

[puckhead193]

FCS next..?

maybe with new mac pros in a few weeks :p

[csimmons]

By editing I assume you mean processing? If so, then yes, most modern DAWs process all audio internally at 32bit float. ProTools, however, I believe processes at 48 bit integer, and Reaper is 64 bit float throughout. I believe there's also a version of Sonar with a 64 bit engine, although I haven't looked into this enough to confirm.

Pro Tools processes at 48 bit fixed point engine, while Logic and a few other DAW's use 32 bit floating point integer.

[-=XX=-Nephilim]

No rewire is a BIG bummer for me. I read through the list and didn't see anything that really bothered me until I got to that. Nuts!

No Rewire means further waiting for me...

I use Logic EXCLUSIVELY in the company of Reason...

So pass for me for now...

[Anaemik]

Pro Tools processes at 48 bit fixed point engine, while Logic and a few other DAW's use 32 bit floating point integer.

That's what I said :) But "floating point integer" is a contradiction in terms. Integer in this case would mean "fixed point". So it can't be "floating point, fixed point" ;)

[lPHONE]

bye bye Pro Tools

[champ01]

bye bye Pro Tools

Whatever!

Some use Protools, some use Cubase, some run Ableton, others run Logic

Why do people always think that with 1 update users gonna drop their DAW.

Nobody does!!! ;)

[nrajack]

A couple of things:
For those bitching about lack of Rewire support - get on Propellerhead's case about that. Unless and until they update rewire to 64 bit, we'll always have that problem. And they've shown no urge to do the update. Of course, you could always use both the 32 bit version and 64 bit versions of Logic on the same machine depending on whether you need Rewire.

Sonar 8 has the ability to work with a 32 bit or 64 bit processing engine, whether on a 32 bit cpu machine or a 64 bit processor machine, 32 bit or 64 bit os.

[csimmons]

That's what I said :) But "floating point integer" is a contradiction in terms. Integer in this case would mean "fixed point". So it can't be "floating point, fixed point" ;)

Sorry, of course you're right, my bad! :eek::p

[csimmons]

A couple of things:
For those bitching about lack of Rewire support - get on Propellerhead's case about that. Unless and until they update rewire to 64 bit, we'll always have that problem. And they've shown no urge to do the update. Of course, you could always use both the 32 bit version and 64 bit versions of Logic on the same machine depending on whether you need Rewire.


Right. The ball is now squarely in the 3rd party vendors court.

Oh well; good thing that Logic 9 has the fabulous Flex mode "slicing", which should compensate for the lack of 64-bit Recycle support. Lack of MP3 conversion is also not such a big deal, since I do all conversion in iTunes or Waveburner anyway.

[MorphingDragon]

To anybody arguing with this - just don't. It's either sarcasm, or Poe's law in effect. I'm sure you could actually find an "audiophile" that would tell you they could hear the difference between 32 bit addressing and 64, but he'd be the kind of toolbag that spends $500 on an Ethernet cable, or $300 on an "acoustically balanced" wooden KNOB...

I can tell the difference between 16 and 24 for sure. Just like I can tell between .AAC and .FLAC/WAV. But 32 to 64, thats above human recognition in difference. Its as useless as 48-bit colour.

[edmundo]

If its pure Objective-C/Cocoa thats true.

If it has C++ or C they need to be ported. FCS was probably made in Carbon so...
Depending on the way C is coded, there should be no need for "port" either. Sadly, most C code just assumes 32bit pointers, or 32bit int, or sizeof(void*) == sizeof(int). All of which might be wrong in 64bit (in the case of OSX, it's LP64 so pointers are 64bit, int is 32 and sizeof(void*) != sizeof(int)). If it's not the software's C code it's the libraries it calls instead.

And of course iTunes uses Carbon, which doesn't exist as a 64b API.

[MorphingDragon]

Depending on the way C is coded, there should be no need for "port" either. Sadly, most C code just assumes 32bit pointers, or 32bit int, or sizeof(void*) == sizeof(int). All of which might be wrong in 64bit (in the case of OSX, it's LP64 so pointers are 64bit, int is 32 and sizeof(void*) != sizeof(int)). If it's not the software's C code it's the libraries it calls instead.

And of course iTunes uses Carbon, which doesn't exist as a 64b API.

iTunes 9 and Finder 10.6 are Cocoa.

[Anaemik]

I can tell the difference between 16 and 24 for sure. Just like I can tell between .AAC and .FLAC/WAV. But 32 to 64, thats above human recognition in difference. Its as useless as 48-bit colour.

It's not to do with the final output resolution, it's to do with how audio is summed and processed internally before being passed to a final 16 or 24 bit file. When audio streams (effectively numbers) are being processed with EQ, reverb, delays etc, effectively large calculations are being made which benefit from a high bit depth. If your DAW only processed internally at 16 or 24 bits, you would almost certainly notice the effect of anything more than the most trivial of processing or summing.

On a side note, 48 bit colour is only 16 bits per channel. That's most certainly not useless at all, and I'm completely puzzled as to why you might claim it is.

[milo]

No REX file import or edit in 64 bit mode is a very big deal, since I use a lot of loops.

Have you tried out Stylus RMX? It can import REX loops, and gives a lot of flexibility in using them.

Having a 64-bit Intel CPU doesn't mean that Apple supports the 64-bit kernel on your system.

You can run 64-bit apps with a 32-bit kernel, but performance suffers due to the shifts between 32-bit mode and 64-bit mode.

But even with 32 bit kernel, you can still run the app in 64 bit mode, with most of the benefit. And performance should still be better than running the app at 32 - from benchmarks I've seen, running 64 bit kernel only gives about 5% additional performance. If there have been benchmarks with a bigger difference I'd like to see them.

Just lost a weeks work because of a project file that crashed Logic on startup in 9.0.2 with only three days until deadline. If I update again now am I only going to end up with a Logic that is EVEN MORE buggy?!

Haven't heard of any new bugs. It's a free update and it leaves 9.0.2 intact on your hard drive, so I don't see much downside to trying it out.

You do realize that what you're demanding is A LOT of work, right?

You do realize that Apple has had years already to update to Cocoa and prep for 64 bit, right?

Lack of Rewire support is a deal breaker.

I assume the guys who wrote Rewire will have to update it to 64 bit. Either way, it should get updated in a future release, as well as all the others on that list. Euphonix already released an update last night.

[milo]

Why do people always think that with 1 update users gonna drop their DAW.

Not with one update. The question is whether we'll see PT 64 in six months, or a year, or longer. They still aren't running 64 on the PC.

iTunes 9 and Finder 10.6 are Cocoa.

So what's the holdup going 64 bit?

[Winni]

So what's the holdup going 64 bit?

What would be the benefit? There is zero reason to upgrade Finder and iTunes to 64-Bit versions, because they wouldn't benefit from it at all. It would only add more development and debugging complexity to applications that just do not require the wider address range for the things that they do.

Video editing, image processing and huge hard disk recording projects can take advantage of a 64-Bit address space. File copying and simple audio playback certainly don't.

If Finder finally became truly multi-threaded, now THAT would bring some directly noticeable benefits and it would immediately reduce the amounts of spinning beach balls that we always have to see.

[csimmons]

Have you tried out Stylus RMX? It can import REX loops, and gives a lot of flexibility in using them.


I own all of Spectrasonics products since 2002, so yes. :D The issue is that Propellerheads has not yet made Recycle or Rewire 64-bit compatible, and I believe that Stylus is 64-bit only in the respect of how much memory it can address; the audio engine itself is still 32-bit. Don't quote me on that, though.

Anyway, the REX thing is easily worked around in Logic 9 via the Flex mode SLICING + the new "Convert to Sampler Track" command, which does what Recycle basically does.

[Digitalclips]

Agreed. I too own an Early 2008 Mac Pro with 8 cores and its been running Snow Leopard Server in 64 bit mode since October. It defaults to 32bit when you first install, but you change the switch from the cli to force 64-bit OS automatically as the new default per Apple guideline on this. With 32GB of RAM, I enjoy a nice performance boost with many apps, soon to be Logic included.

I find all my old apps work fine booted into 64 bit kernel.

Here are some useful threads for the curious on this subject.

http://osxdaily.com/category/snow-leopard/page/2/

http://osxdaily.com/2009/09/10/force-snow-leopard-to-use-64-bit-kernel/#comments

[SpinThis!]

iTunes 9 and Finder 10.6 are Cocoa.
iTunes is still Carbon.

[pbrooks]

I updated and now Logic 9.1 crashes when I attempt to open an audio region in the editing window.

[eVasilis]

What would be the benefit? There is zero reason to upgrade Finder and iTunes to 64-Bit versions, because they wouldn't benefit from it at all. It would only add more development and debugging complexity to applications that just do not require the wider address range for the things that they do.

Video editing, image processing and huge hard disk recording projects can take advantage of a 64-Bit address space. File copying and simple audio playback certainly don't.

If Finder finally became truly multi-threaded, now THAT would bring some directly noticeable benefits and it would immediately reduce the amounts of spinning beach balls that we always have to see.

With 10.6 the finder became a 64 bit app.

[edmundo]

iTunes 9 and Finder 10.6 are Cocoa.

Finder yes, it was recoded for 10.6 (and not improved in the least) so it's now a 64bit cocoa POS instead of a 32b Carbon one.

iTunes on the other hand, definitely not. It's still Carbon to and through.
So what's the holdup going 64 bit?

The finder is already a 64bit app, just open your Activity Monitor, scroll to the Finder process and if you enabled the "Kind" column you'll see "Intel (64 bit)".

About iTunes, MorphingDragon is mistaken, it's still a Carbon app and that's why it's still 32b.

[pherplexed]

is it fair to assume that if an app still uses that little watch icon instead of the beachball when the app is thinking that it's still Carbon-based?

iTunes, Photoshop, FinalCut...they all use that icon where everything else uses the beachball.

[MorphingDragon]

On a side note, 48 bit colour is only 16 bits per channel. That's most certainly not useless at all, and I'm completely puzzled as to why you might claim it is.

Because the amount of colours it gives are above the human level of recognition. A full HD screen still cant display every single colour of the 24-bit RGB spectrum if every pixel was a different shade.

[MorphingDragon]

Dp

[MacFly123]

You do realize that what you're demanding is A LOT of work, right?

P-Worm

Yes I do, but they will have had almost 3 years by the time they release FCS 4 and lets face it, FCS needs the changes I outlined badly! They need to stay on top and pave the way for the next 10 years! I think it is doable for sure!

[Digitalclips]

Yes I do, but they will have had almost 3 years by the time they release FCS 4 and lets face it, FCS needs the changes I outlined badly! They need to stay on top and pave the way for the next 10 years! I think it is doable for sure!

I agree. I read many people speculating Apple are more concerned with mass market products than professional user products but they have the $s to do both and I truly want to see all Pro Apps upgraded and blowing our minds. I am both a pro user and a mass market user. I am a big kid again with our ATV, iPhones and Touches and MacBooks. However, I work for a living with a Mac Pro 8 Core and Apple's pro apps and I really feel they are way over due for a major update.

[killmoms]

Because the amount of colours it gives are above the human level of recognition. A full HD screen still cant display every single colour of the 24-bit RGB spectrum if every pixel was a different shade.
Again, not the point. Higher bit-depths are used for video for the same reason they're used in audio—to preserve fidelity and fend off compounded computational errors through multiple iterations of image processing. In the case of film and video, 10-bit per channel (or higher) precision is used so that smooth, subtle gradients are preserved. 8bpc color (and especially processing only in 8-bit) can quickly lead to banded gradients that would be very noticeable on, say, film-out. It's not about displaying every possible color at once—it's about accurately displaying the limited number of colors within any one frame (and making sure precision is maintained through processing).

[MorphingDragon]

Again, not the point. Higher bit-depths are used for video for the same reason they're used in audio—to preserve fidelity and fend off compounded computational errors through multiple iterations of image processing. In the case of film and video, 10-bit per channel (or higher) precision is used so that smooth, subtle gradients are preserved. 8bpc color (and especially processing only in 8-bit) can quickly lead to banded gradients that would be very noticeable on, say, film-out. It's not about displaying every possible color at once—it's about accurately displaying the limited number of colors within any one frame (and making sure precision is maintained through processing).

My argument is that the higher bitrate is useless once it goes above the human level of recognition. I'm all for improving the tech if the outcome is actually noticeable. But until then those Computational Errors are probably far less than the flaws of our ear construction.

Plus if you record at 16-bit anyway it makes no difference. You cant magically gain quality. You can guesstimate, but its forever lost.

IE 8 -> 10 Video

[Anaemik]

My argument is that the higher bitrate is useless once it goes above the human level of recognition.

Apart from this argument being specious, it's also confused. What's the "human level of recognition" for bit depths? There isn't one, because bit depth simply defines digital resolution, and we are not digital beings. Sure, it's very easy to spot something where there is clearly not enough bit depth to accurately recreate the analogue waveform, but there's no notional maximum that has been declared as "beyond human distinction". I think you're confusing bit depth with sampling frequency which is a totally different ballgame. You may have a real, viable argument if you were making the case that recording with a sampling frequency of 768Khz (for eg) has no discernible benefit, as the theoretical maximum for human hearing is about 20Khz, so 768k would be overkill (even when factoring Nyquist into the equation).

I'm all for improving the tech if the outcome is actually noticeable. But until then those Computational Errors are probably far less than the flaws of our ear construction.

Plus if you record at 16-bit anyway it makes no difference. You cant magically gain quality. You can guesstimate, but its forever lost.


Once again, I don't think you're grasping the core of the principles behind this stuff. Higher internal bitrates in the audio/image/video processing engine are not about directly improving what has already been recorded - they are about ensuring no lack of degradation when large computations are applied to the original data (beyond those that you actually intend). To discard Computational Errors as being trivial compared to the design of the ear is, in all likelihood, to not understand how processing and summing in low-bit-depth engines can produce rounding errors that have a significant and noticeable impact on the data. Ever seen posterization or banding in an image? Rounding errors. Ever heard an early digital recording that sounded "harsh" or "grainy"? Rounding errors. Were these errors below the threshold of human detection? Absolutely not.

[MacFly123]

I agree. I read many people speculating Apple are more concerned with mass market products than professional user products but they have the $s to do both and I truly want to see all Pro Apps upgraded and blowing our minds. I am both a pro user and a mass market user. I am a big kid again with our ATV, iPhones and Touches and MacBooks. However, I work for a living with a Mac Pro 8 Core and Apple's pro apps and I really feel they are way over due for a major update.

I am same as you, consumer, and pro by profession. Heres to hoping for a 64 bit update like Logic, and a nice new FCS 4!

[oban14]

My argument is that the higher bitrate is useless once it goes above the human level of recognition. I'm all for improving the tech if the outcome is actually noticeable. But until then those Computational Errors are probably far less than the flaws of our ear construction.

Plus if you record at 16-bit anyway it makes no difference. You cant magically gain quality. You can guesstimate, but its forever lost.

IE 8 -> 10 Video

I think you're missing his point. If you record at the limit of what humans can see/hear and then later compress/process the sound or video, you are lowing the fidelity to a point where humans can tell the difference.

I'm sure an MP3 from a 24 bit master will sound better than one recorded in 16, 12 or 8 bit... even if the end result in both cases is a 320k MP3.

[Maserati7200]

What would be the benefit? There is zero reason to upgrade Finder and iTunes to 64-Bit versions, because they wouldn't benefit from it at all. It would only add more development and debugging complexity to applications that just do not require the wider address range for the things that they do.

Video editing, image processing and huge hard disk recording projects can take advantage of a 64-Bit address space. File copying and simple audio playback certainly don't.

If Finder finally became truly multi-threaded, now THAT would bring some directly noticeable benefits and it would immediately reduce the amounts of spinning beach balls that we always have to see.
Actually, The Finder is 64 bit. And it is a lot faster than the 32 bit finder in Leopard. Going 64 bit makes a good difference

[hanspeters]

I agree. Rewire is huge for me. What scares me more about Rewire is that its such a finicky marriage anyways.

I would expect that ReWire support will take a while, because it relies on a 64-bit version of the ReWire library, which comes from Propellerhead - and probably also on the availability of 64-bit ReWire slave applications (e.g. Reason or Live). I don't think there is anything Apple can do.

[edmundo]

Actually, The Finder is 64 bit. And it is a lot faster than the 32 bit finder in Leopard. Going 64 bit makes a good difference
The responsiveness difference might (and probably does) come from having been ported from a crusty old Carbon codebase to a more modern Cocoa one. There's no reason for 64b to have any impact on something like the Finder: it wouldn't benefit at all from lifting the VMEM limit, and it has no reason to benefit much (if at all) from the extra registers.

[Henri Gaudier]

So .. as it stands, which, in performance terms, is better? 32 or 64? And by performance terms I don't mean what is and isn't implemented, I mean the working experience, responsiveness etc. And if on a lower powered machine does one enable higher track/plug counts than the other. That kind of thing. Cheers.

[milo]

What would be the benefit? There is zero reason to upgrade Finder and iTunes to 64-Bit versions, because they wouldn't benefit from it at all.

What makes you think that? iTunes is one of the slowest, worst performing apps on OSX. 64 bit would likely provide at least some performance boost (ALL other 64 bit apps have so far). It's not all about memory. And Apple has managed to get most of their other free apps to 64 bit, once the app is Cocoa (which it really should be anyway) it's really not much more complexity beyond that at all.

I own all of Spectrasonics products since 2002, so yes. :D The issue is that Propellerheads has not yet made Recycle or Rewire 64-bit compatible, and I believe that Stylus is 64-bit only in the respect of how much memory it can address; the audio engine itself is still 32-bit. Don't quote me on that, though.

I was talking about importing REX loops into Stylus - they become additional loops within Stylus which I find much more handy and flexible than dragging in audio loops.

The responsiveness difference might (and probably does) come from having been ported from a crusty old Carbon codebase to a more modern Cocoa one. There's no reason for 64b to have any impact on something like the Finder: it wouldn't benefit at all from lifting the VMEM limit, and it has no reason to benefit much (if at all) from the extra registers.

Maybe some, but there IS a performance boost from going 64 bit. It's obvious by benchmarking the same app in 64 bit, then launching it again in 32.

[milo]

So .. as it stands, which, in performance terms, is better? 32 or 64? And by performance terms I don't mean what is and isn't implemented, I mean the working experience, responsiveness etc. And if on a lower powered machine does one enable higher track/plug counts than the other. That kind of thing. Cheers.

64 definitely is noticeably more responsive. And when using 64 bit plugins, it is more CPU efficient as well, meaning probably more plugin counts.

[edmundo]

Maybe some, but there IS a performance boost from going 64 bit. It's obvious by benchmarking the same app in 64 bit, then launching it again in 32.
On most applications, it's anecdotic (though depending on the exact application having double the number of registers might make quite a difference in responsiveness given how register-starved x86 tends to be).

The biggest gain on everything-to-64 as far as I'm concerned (apart from applications which *do* need it running better) instead of mixing and matching 64 and 32b is that you don't have to load the 32b subsystem (and libraries and everything) so you waste less memory.

[ManWithAPlan]

Guys,

I have tried the Software Update like 20 times, and my Mac Pro 2008 still does not even see this update available for Logic Studio and Mainstage. I do own the apps, just bought them 3 months ago, and I'm currently on 9.0.2 of logic pro. Why doesn't my mac see this update like it sees all others?

The only change I've made to these apps is that I created a separate folder under Applications specifically for all the Logic Studio apps, so they all live in there. But this should not make the updates stop working.

Weird, help please?? Thanks all.

[DMann]

The only change I've made to these apps is that I created a separate folder under Applications specifically for all the Logic Studio apps, so they all live in there. But this should not make the updates stop working.

Weird, help please?? Thanks all.

Try taking the Logic Studio Apps out of the sub-folder and back into the Application Folder, so that Software Update can detect their presence.

This ought to work.

[Henri Gaudier]

I've just trawled through this discussion -

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/371545-logic-pro-multicore-benchmarktest.html

- and something terrible occurs. (You'll have to stick with it) Simply put, the 2008 Mac Pro is better or the same as the 2009. Leopard gives the same performance or better than Snow Leopard does and HT is a disaster. So .. here we are in 2010 with the all new stripped down rewritten from the ground up SL and prices are sky high and the tech is no better than 2 years ago. Effectively staying still for 2 years in computers seems impossible but with Logic and either a quad 2,66 or Octo 2,26 Pro Apple has achieved just that.

And will it get worse?