Soundflower or Jack OSX ?

[Chris T]

I'm running DP7.21 on OS10.6.8.

I was previously using Plogues Bidule in Rewire, but I need a system that utilizes the 8 cores on my machine (late 2007 Intel Mac). I have 16GB RAM, but unless I'm using more than 1 core, the power of my Mac is wasted.

I run a wide range of VIs in Bidule: NI Kontakt (and other Komplete), LOTS of Omnisphere (poss RMX), Real Guitar etc etc.

I'm considering Soundflower, Jack OSX or Audio Hijack (?) to route multiple (16+ stereo) channels back into DP.

Does anyone have a preference or know which is most stable / has least latency etc?...

Also, since Plogue defaults to Rewire once you've opened DP, would using something like SF conflict with any pre-existing Rewire routing?

thanks

[Phil O]

A while back I posted that Soundflower was buggy on my system. Since then they seem to have fixed the problems. The latest release is working fine for me with both Snow Leopard and Lion, and IMO it's much easier to use than Jack.

Phil

[Chris T]

Thanks Phil.

In what way is it easier to use? And any idea how the 2 compare as far as audio latency?...

[Phil O]

I never actually got Jack to work. It was quite a while ago when I tried it, so I don't remember the details. All I remember is thinking it was a PIA. As far as latency is concerned, I really don't know which is better. Sorry.

Phil

[bayswater]

It looks like Jack OS hasn't been updated for OS X for a while, and there are reports it doesn't work with Lion. I have not had any problems with Soundflower in 10.6.8.

[Chris T]

Hmm interesting. Thanks for the info. Anybody use any other program for routing audio into DP internally apart from these two?

[Michael Canavan]

The last version of Jack was three months ago, so not too bad in terms of updating. There's apparently a Lion compatible beta you can use as well.

Normally I would have said no contest that Soundflower is better/easier but the latest version of Jack includes MIDI streaming, haven't checked it out yet but the leaves just tempo matching between applications to worry about if they haven't implemented it yet. So I'm stoked to install and check it out! Jack could end up becoming the best way to deal with hosts like Mainstage and say starting a song in Live and wanting to use DP alongside it without losing the ability to host Audio Units.

[bayswater]

What I saw was that Jack "should" work with Lion, and comments from users that it doesn't.

[Chris T]

Interesting. Actually I need to route MIDI from DP into Plogue also, without using Rewire. How would I do this if I routed audio from Plogue to DP through Soundflower?

And if I used the latest vs of Jack, how many channels/ports would it have in order to route MIDI? I run a lot of multi-VIs in Plogue so I'd need a good load of MIDI ins.

As I understand it, I wouldn't be able to route the MIDI using Rewire because then I'd be forced to use the audio, right? I mean, the whole point of avoiding Rewire is so that I maximize my multi-core processing power (and Rewire only uses 1 processor..).

[bayswater]

Interapplication MIDI, comes with OS X as a CoreMIDI thing, works with DP. Might work with Bidule presuming it also supports CoreMIDI.

[Dwetmaster]

I've always used either IAC driver or DP's interapplication MIDI to communicate with other software like bidule. It always worked.

I've always been confused about soundflower because I use external word-clock sync and when I enable soundflower, I always end up hearing clicks and pops... I guess I should read a bit more on it.

[reedster]

Over here SF worked fine with DP/Bidule. Recently started using Jack.
Jack works but feels more cumbersome.

Start up process:
Launch and start Jack Pilot / Launch Bidule, open template / Launch DP open project / go back to Jack Pilot, open Routing, Load Studio Setup /

At this point things are stable. When opening a new DP project with the same virtual inputs and outputs, Jack (surprisingly to me) requires a new Load Studio Setup to resume passing audio from Bidule to DP.

I guess I expect Jack to remember the setup and when inputs and outputs become available to reconnect automagically.

Any suggestions on how to streamline the process would be welcome. thanks

reedster

[Michael Canavan]

@reedster,
I was reading the manual last night, and you can save connections as presets apparently, so that would be the way to do it.

Again, I haven't set up Jack for anything really complex, but the advantages over Soundflower so far seem to be:
AU/VST plug in, so a single track can be routed to Jack while the rest gets routed elsewhere etc.

More than 16 in/out virtual 'tracks'.

MIDI streaming.

complex routing can be saved as a preset.


The advantages of Soundflower are that it's dead easy, you just set it up and you route audio etc.

It should be mentioned that Audio Highjack is a great cheap application that allows you to use audio units on the system output of your Mac. I think you could pull off something like that in Jack, but it might cause a feedback loop, not sure.

[Michael Canavan]

@bayswater,
This is the link that talks about Jacks current state.
It's in the download section, slightly confusing place to put "news", but there you go.
http://www.jackosx.com/download.html

[bayswater]

@bayswater,
This is the link that talks about Jacks current state.
It's in the download section, slightly confusing place to put "news", but there you go.
http://www.jackosx.com/download.html

Right. I had heard about this somewhere. Odd that he's still posting it as a 10.7 version. Thanks.