OMS, QuickTime & Alternatives

After 'QuickTime and OMS with everything' last month, Martin Russ seeks an alternative view of MIDI on the Mac.

As promised last month, here's the interview I carried out with Daniel Rose at Mark Of The Unicorn, publishers of Performer, Digital Performer, UniSyn, and other music software.

What is the state of play concerning the alleged OMS vs. FreeMIDI 'war'? Have things calmed down?

"Yes, the media hype has abated. But of course, OMS 2.0 still hasn't shipped [Apple Notes continues to wait for the full release version of OMS 2.0; meanwhile, it is freely available in alpha test version, as mentioned in June 1995's Apple Notes — Ed]. Meanwhile, FreeMIDI users have been enjoying the benefits of this advanced MIDI system."

What happens if someone needs to use OMS and FreeMIDI together — for example, if they want to try FreeStyle?

"FreeStyle users don't have to 'change to FreeMIDI'. You simply install FreeStyle and use it as normal. The FreeStyle installer gives you FreeMIDI automatically, and FreeMIDI and OMS peacefully coexist in the system. You just have to make sure that FreeMIDI is set to allow non‑FreeMIDI applications and OMS is set to allow non‑OMS applications."

It was announced recently that OMS technology will be included in Windows 95, and the next update to QuickTime. Where does this leave FreeMIDI?

"Regarding QuickTime, Apple have decided to use only the low‑level serial port driver from OMS — a small kernel of OMS code. Apple has neither purchased nor licensed OMS, nor will OMS be distributed by Apple with QuickTime. QuickTime will simply become OMS‑compatible. We will be writing code to make QuickTime compatible with FreeMIDI in exactly the same manner.

"With regard to operating systems generally, given that one of our competitors is the sole administrator of OMS development, OMS would not make a dependable base for our applications. The politics of competition aside, it's bad enough waiting for Apple to get around to issues that affect us — why be forced to wait for another third party? We would also have to sacrifice important FreeMIDI features that users of our applications are already enjoying. So, we will continue to develop FreeMIDI, knowing that by keeping it several steps ahead of other products and by handling issues that our users may encounter ourselves, we can offer real advantages to our customers."

What's the current status of your software with respect to native PowerMacs?

"Native versions are under development, but there are no announced release dates yet."

How does someone become a FreeMIDI developer?

"We're focusing our developer support efforts on relationships with other corporate developers; Lexicon, Coda, and Young Chang, to name a few, have all signed developer agreements for FreeMIDI. But we will be glad to forward a FreeMIDI Developer application form — for more details, contact Klemm Music Technology on 01462 733310, or email 100415.2665@compuserve. com."

Now that the major sequencing applications have more or less reached saturation in terms of the features that can be provided, where do you go next? Has the MIDI‑only sequencer reached the end of the road?

"I personally feel that we are nowhere near saturation with features and functionality. There is tremendous room for user interface improvement, as FreeStyle shows. Certainly, integrated digital audio will become a standard feature, but there are many other possibilities yet to pursue.

Do you have any thoughts on using OpenDoc as part of a future product? I can envisage an OpenDoc music software product where you could drop a sequencer, a score writer and a librarian into a document rather than working in three separate applications, for example...

"All I can say right now is that we share your interest in this technology."

Do you have a WWW page or an FTP site?

"Coming soon to a hard drive near you!"

Are you planning Windows versions of your software products?

"You can expect Windows UniSyn and FreeStyle in the near future."

On The Net

The problem with the majority of 'music‑orientated' World Wide Web (WWW) sites on the Internet is that they are mostly concerned with musicians and music, rather than technology. One place where this does not hold true is the excellent WWW site for the emusic‑l listserv mailing list — there's lots of detailed information on a wide range of subjects directly related to the nitty‑gritty of electronic music (in its widest sense!). The URL is sunsite. unc.edu/emusic‑l/.

As well as instructions on how to subscribe to the listserv, a set of FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), and access to back‑copy digests via the E‑music ftp site, the Web page also has links to pages covering topics like buying your first keyboard, MIDI on PowerBooks, wind controllers, notation software and lots more. Definitely worth a visit.

Hard Disk Prices

With the ongoing rush towards making everything digital, the price of hard disk drives has become one of the computer musician's major concerns — especially to anyone involved with direct‑to‑disk recording. Even without the loading of samples and audio files, I find that copying useful applications and gadgets from CD‑ROMs means that I can easily fill up disks which seemed huge only a year ago.

So, what is happening to prices? I've compiled a graph of typical prices for a plain vanilla internal 520Mb SCSI drive for the last few years. Clearly, the price has plummetted, but it seems to be bottoming out at under £200 for half a gigabyte. Furthermore, it seems that many manufacturers no longer supply drives smaller than 520Mb. This means that you can buy an internal 520Mb drive, and an external mirror of it, and it should only cost about £500. For direct‑to‑disk audio, you can expect to pay more, of course, but for ordinary storage, you may well be surprised at hard disk prices.