DSP Quattro 5.1 is here...

[Michael Canavan]

This is a nice update to a very capable app, but I still prefer and use DSP Quattro 4 99% of the time. 5.1 at least lets you edit files without having to create a new project, but it's still way more complicated than it needs to be for most things I use it for. 4 feels like a handy utility, compared to to 5, which seems more for large complicated operations. I sure miss Peak

I bought 5 but use 4 (every day) so I don't have to create a project. I use it a lot to generate DDP files, mp3's etc for distribution and the project step is unnecessary for me. Can I do that in 5.1 without creating a project? I'm on the road, but will try it when I get home.[/quote]
Yes that was one of the improvements to DSPQ 5 that 5.1 brought. I whined pretty badly in an email about it when 5 hit.

I have simple DSPQ needs and 5.1 works great here, I like the new interface and after a while you get used to the new layout. It's one guy, he does fantastic work I think, and it's not expensive.

[bayswater]

Went to have a look for 5.1 and saw that 5.2 is in the user area.

[mikehalloran]

I don’t look at 4 anymore. 5.2 does anything I need DSP-Q to do.

[EMRR]

Just moved up to 5.2.1 from 4, starting to look around. Had to trash the shared folder to get it to authorize.

[bayswater]

Just moved up to 5.2.1 from 4, starting to look around. Had to trash the shared folder to get it to authorize.

Yes, that shared folder thing is a PITA. I wish vendors didn't use it. It often leads to problems. Maybe it's yet another Apple security feature to save us from ourselves.

[philbrown]

Because of various other upgrades, I finally had to make the jump to 5.2.1. Once I approached it like a whole new program, after a few days of hair-pulling I made peace with it and admit it actually makes a bit more sense than 4 now. Like any program there are a few issues. It does seem a tad bit slower at the tasks I do every day- working with hour long files and it won't open sd2 files which has caused me a bit of grief with a client, but other than that I'm pretty happy with v5 since the latest update.

[mikehalloran]

4 is a distant memory now—all I recall is that I used to know it. 5 just makes more sense.

Won’t handle SD2? My first reaction was that I’ve recently remastered DP projects going back to 1998 so… Then I realized that I had bounced them to .wav in DP 9.52 first.

[bayswater]

it won't open sd2 files

I rarely see sd2 files any more, but DP will still export them. So I exported wavs to sd2, mono, stereo, deinterleaved and interleaved, and all were read by DSP-Q 5.2.1 using the AudioFiles drop down on the left panel, and these could be dragged into the editors and other windows.

It wasn't obvious how to get deinterleaved to show up as a stereo file in the editor. And once they're in DSP-Q, they are saved in the project package as CAF files, and there does not appear to be a sd2 export option.

[philbrown]

it won't open sd2 files

I rarely see sd2 files any more, but DP will still export them. So I exported wavs to sd2, mono, stereo, deinterleaved and interleaved, and all were read by DSP-Q 5.2.1 using the AudioFiles drop down on the left panel, and these could be dragged into the editors and other windows.

It wasn't obvious how to get deinterleaved to show up as a stereo file in the editor. And once they're in DSP-Q, they are saved in the project package as CAF files, and there does not appear to be a sd2 export option.

My client still uses Peak (yep) and has sent me sd2 files for close to 20 years and old habits are hard to break. It's vital in my workflow that I have all her markers in the file and I never figured out a way for DP to read those markers. If any of you knows a way, let me know. [We could have a whole discussion about that.] So... I can't drop her sd2 file into DP and export to wav as a workaround because DP loses the markers. A couple more months and I think she'll get in WAV habit!

[bayswater]

I never figured out a way for DP to read those markers. If any of you knows a way, let me know.

No luck here. I created a file with markers and regions in DSP-Q, exported as sd2 and brought into DP. None of the metadata survived. None of the various audio doodads on my system seemed to even recognize it as an SD2. Perhaps CoreAudio itself doesn't know what it is.

[sdaino]

I never figured out a way for DP to read those markers. If any of you knows a way, let me know.

No luck here. I created a file with markers and regions in DSP-Q, exported as sd2 and brought into DP. None of the metadata survived. None of the various audio doodads on my system seemed to even recognize it as an SD2. Perhaps CoreAudio itself doesn't know what it is.

Hello everybody,

on last versions of MacOS, there is a problem for reading/writing sd2. The MacOS library used for accessing MacOS files including a resource "fork" are declared deprecated since MacOS 10.8 - and yes, sd2 audio files use also a resource "fork".

Resource forks had existed widely on MacOS classic, but they had never been well seen on unix OS (have you never seen those hidden files starting with a "._" when moving your folder from MacOS to other platforms?).

I would be very surprised if DP still use sd2 audio files as preferred file format nowadays. Is it really still using sd2 audio files?

DSP-Quattro v5 has been totally rewritten from scratch, and we took a lot of attention to avoid any call to deprecated MacOS library functions. For this, it uses a call to a pretty obscure and not documented function of CoreAudio which still exists for reading sd2. But we had to remove our custom library to read/write the resource forks of sd2 files, which was including also loops, markers and regions.

If you feel that it is still important to support sd2 audio files, it would be easier to build a tool to translate sd2 audio files to/from AIFF/WAVE. Maybe this tool will still be able to run in the next couple of years...

I can investigate for that. What do you think, would be it useful?

Thank you for your suggestions,
Stefano
http://www.dsp-quattro.com

[bayswater]

Stefano, I'd agree that there can't be many still using sd2 files. When this thread came up, I googled the topic to see what I could find about sd2 support, and it seems to have pretty much disappeared from the landscape. I noticed that while DSP-Q will export to sd2 there is a warning that loops etc might not be saved.

I suppose there will always be a few people who have to or want to keep using sd2 files, but as with other things that are no longer supported, a lot of us keep an old Mac in place. I have an old mini on 10.6.8 with old versions of DP and Cubase on it. Others have systems capable of running OS 9.