Bias Peak -"Legacy" software question

[mikes425]

This is one of the few forums where some diehards like me have posted about still using the fantastic Bias Peak. I've been running it on a 2018 Mac in Mojave...The end of the line AFAIK for it to run as it requires 32-bit and is broken in anything beyond Mojave. It also requires files to be written to an HFS+ formatted external HD. App will work in Mojave with APFS formatting, but scratch disk has to be HFS+. All that said...Wondering if anyone who knows anything about Peak can tell me whether it could run in a VM environment, on a Mac Mini M2 Pro. Peak in its last incarnation was native Intel compatible but i have little knowledge about VM ware. Thanks for any help. I realize its an obscure question.

[Guitar Gaz]

If you look back on this forum you would see I regularly updated everyone on Bias Peak on each new iteration of Mac OS long after Bias Peak was supposed to be dead. I finally had to give it up when it ceased to work and reluctantly switched to DSP Quattro. I know nothing about VM but would be interested to hear your progress.

[mikehalloran]

Likewise, I still have a license and hardware that can make it work but I would have to set it up to do so. While I am curious as to whether or not it can be made to work on a VM, I can't imagine ever doing so.

Once I saw that DSP-Q could do what I needed and that RX Advanced was better than Sound Soap (now taken over by Antares), I had no desire to revisit BIAS PEAK. I recycled the box, documentation and dongle last year.

[mikes425]

Greetings, I have virtually a career-long - decades - history with Peak, became a beta tester after Peak 6 for Pro 7 and Studio...worked with Steve Berkeley on promotional videos and we continue to keep in touch but sadly any hope for a resurrection seems dashed at this point...probably more like 10 years ago actually... I use it to this day on a Mojave OS 2018 Mini. Nothing has EVER rivaled the UI and precision of cut/paste tape style, responsive waveform editing...the sheer simplicity. I contributed some input to Thomas for Twisted Wave, demoing some of the Peak attributes which he considered and he did make some adjustments in a recent upgrade but still - idiosyncracies of other T.W. and needless complexity of other DAWs have never matched Peak's brilliantly simple and straightforward intuitive replication of analog style editing that I grew up with in broadcasting. Yes, I would love to move on...but everything else has been a compromise and I've tried EVERYthing EVER. It requires a video demo to convey to a lot of people what Peak does without need for multiple "extra steps" - there's literally nothing between you and the action you're performing. That plus the coding that allows for the precision and real time scrub responsiveness to rapidly cut/copy/paste (no "ripple" or "drawing two regions' together to 'create' an edit......just as simple as a basic word processor 'used' to be LOL) And of course the single waveform view that doesn't jump all over when you want to just put your cursor anywhere - honestly, some of these components weren't necessarily intentional..it just was the logic of things at the time of the initial design. I value any tool that makes the task at hand as simple as humanly possible. Peak just does it. Well..there i go evangelizing again. Sad that so few have any idea of it..sadder than it couldn't be resurrected. ANYway... my chief curiosity per my question would be...whether being Intel native...it would be able to live on a VM platform IF that platform is on an M2, not-intel - mac. Perhaps that should have been my question...

[mikehalloran]

There are a number of VM gurus over at MacRumors. I should think that, if anyone can help you, they can.

Porting to 64 bit any other way is probably out of the question till the patents on 6 and 7 expire in another 5 years or so.

[mikes425]

Thanks! Great idea! Will ask around there...

[apanacci]

I was a PEAK 7 user for years. Did not know it worked on Mojave. I have a 2009 Mac Pro and a 2012 MacPro both with Mojave. Can you tell me how I can get it to work on those machines please, thanks !

[apanacci]

Thanks for the info. Got it working !

[David Polich]

Just for the record, the very latest version of DSP Quattro 5 sounds as good as BIAS Peak 7 and has more features. And looks and works a lot like Peak did.

[mikes425]

Just a theoretical question here about this and never really thought of it. Any chance any version of Peak could operate under Rosetta or Rosetta 2 - in a newer OS than Monterey (whether on an Intel OR Silicon Mac)?

As far DSP Quattro 5...hmm...i guess in the experimentation i've done with it, it didn't really feel as intuitive at all as far as cut/paste editing, audible scrub of waveform... that's mainly my purpose of Peak. Maybe there's something way different in
v 5?

[mikehalloran]

Just a theoretical question here about this and never really thought of it. Any chance any version of Peak could operate under Rosetta or Rosetta 2 - in a newer OS than Monterey (whether on an Intel OR Silicon Mac)?

No. It has to be 64bit. Mojave was the end of the line for 32bit apps. Some 32bit apps can be made to work in a virtual machine (the OP question) but I have no idea if PEAK Pro is one of them.

Rosetta 2 allows many Intel apps to work over Apple Silicon. Rosetta allowed many PPC apps to work on Intel machines over macOS 10.6 and 10.7 around fifteen years ago.

As far DSP Quattro 5...hmm...i guess in the experimentation i've done with it, it didn't really feel as intuitive at all as far as cut/paste editing, audible scrub of waveform... that's mainly my purpose of Peak. Maybe there's something way different in
v 5?

Many improvements in DSP-Q 5 over the years and the current 5.9.3 is very good. I liked PEAK but am never going back—even though I have a couple of 2012 MacBook Pros, one running Mojave.

It used to be that submitting proof of PEAK ownership allowed one to purchase DSP-Q for $49. I have no idea if that is still true. I looked in my DSP-Q folder and there is the PEAK license scan that I sent to Stefano over a decade ago.

[mikes425]

No. It has to be 64bit. Mojave was the end of the line for 32bit apps. Some 32bit apps can be made to work in a virtual machine (the OP question) but I have no idea if PEAK Pro is one of them.

As far DSP Quattro 5...hmm...i guess in the experimentation i've done with it, it didn't really feel as intuitive at all as far as cut/paste editing, audible scrub of waveform... that's mainly my purpose of Peak. Maybe there's something way different in v 5?

Many improvements in DSP-Q 5 over the years and the current 5.9.3 is very good. I liked PEAK but am never going back—even though I have a couple of 2012 MacBook Pros, one running Mojave.

Another hope dashed on Peak LOL.

I guess i don't see much similarity to Peak, when you reference DSP Quattro -- and again i use Peak primarily as a simple straightforward Recording platform with its waveform rapidfire cut/paste editing --and hugely rely on the precision audible scrub-ability AND "all in one window" simplicity of same. I don't see DSP Quattro doing anything like that in my previous trials. Out of the gate when I've opened it up, I don't have, for example an ability to track audio and get a visible waveform view as I'm recording. I'm gathering we have different purposes - the closest reference i can give is Twisted Wave...and DSP Q doesn't appear to have any simple straightforward intuitiveness by comparison...so i'm wondering if i'm missing something as far as maybe, how to pare down the interface/ UI?

That said, i sense i'll continue to need to keep an Intel Mini in the workflow somehow to keep using Peak. I wonder what the most drop-dead-simple way would be to "network" the 2018 Mini with a new Mac Pro M2. Basic Mac file sharing? I'd love to be able to just "drag and drop" an audio file created on the intel straight over to the desktop of the M2 Mini (or vice versa) back and forth.

[mikehalloran]

There are many ways to transfer files between Macs. The simplest one I use is Dropbox. You do not have to zip them anymore (I need to double-check that with Mojave). As long as you don't need more than 2GB and/or access it from more than three devices, the free version works nicely. Paid versions begin with 2TB storage and unlimited access.

Place an alias to the Dropbox app on your desktop. Easy.

It's fast enough with most internet connections that you can work the file in the cloud but not simultaneously—having it open on two Macs will create a duplicate. Dragging the file to your desktop removes it from the cloud.