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Audiosculpt for Catalina

Hi,

When can we expect Audiosculpt to be available in Catalina? I saw a few other threads in which this is asked but no definitive answer. Any updates? How much work is required to support it in Catalina?

Thanks,

Derya

3 Likes

Dear Developers,

I’m also curious about this. The quality of synthesis I get from Audio Sculpt is yet to be matched. I use it in my work every day. If Audio Sculpt is left behind, I hope the same doesn’t happen to SuperVP tools in Max. This would really be devastating.

Should I maintain a legacy computer just to be able to work with this program? Actually, I’m willing to do that. It’s that important for me.

Cordialement,
Maija

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Hello.

The situation is unfortunately difficult but not without hope.

The bad news:

  • The version 3 of AudioSculpt is a 32bit application and the internal frameworks are outdated so that the effort to make it work for a 64 bit architecture cannot be invested. Therefore a completely new implementation is required.

The good news:

  • Both kernels SuperVP and PM2 have been 64bit since many years and are therefore not concerned. Both will therefore continue to be maintained, and have recently been updated to run under Catalina (see messages in other threads) and are currently in the process to be adapted for ARM.

The perspective

  • The work for a replacement of AudioSculpt is steadily advancing. IrcamLAB TS (updated recently to IrcamLAB TS2) are first results of his work. They demonstrate the new GUI framework, spectrogram display, and new approach integrating the SuperVP engine as a dynamic library that limited in AS3 to the real time preview. Currently the plan is to use these new frameworks and the new engine interface to include as many AS3 features as possible. A considerable problem are that all the file based parameter controls (in AS3 SuperVP is run as a program reading parameter files) would need to be adapted.

So far the plan. What exactly we will be able to integrate and how it will be made accessible is unfortunately not yet perfectly clear, the timing also remains to be defined. As you know there are not extremely many developers at IRCAM, and they have to do multiple things. I would expect there exists a clearer view by time of the IRCAM Forum in Spring. For the moment if you rely on AudioSculpt I am afraid you better keep a legacy machine around.

Sorry for the inconvenience
Axel

4 Likes

Hi,

The easiest way to run 32-bit apps after updating to Catalina (or Big Sur) is through virtual machines (e.g., Oracle’s VM Virtualbox, VMware Fusion, Parallels Desktop) running a pre-Catalina macOS.

Catalina made it harder, not impossible…

I’m sure AudioSculpt runs on a virtual machine without any hassle.

All the best,
AntĂłnio

Hello Antonio

That’s a good point - indeed this could work.

Best
Axel

There could be an issue with activation key registration though if you use a virtual machine. Maintaining a legacy computer would be safer for that alone. You might have to register anew from within the VM, assuming you have a currently active subscription, but the worst is that it could work at first then stop working at any time because it could fail to find the registered key.

2 Likes

Dear All,

Some insight: I am using AS on a High Sierra VM hosted on Linux. I can say it is a very lousy experience, since apple made sure you cannot have audio working correctly on it. If you upgrade the OS, you’ll loose the audio driver!

Concerning the activation key, there is no problem in that. It is still activated and working. I use this for test purpose only. The ideal solution is to build a GUI interface dor SuperVp and Pm2 for a multiplateforn usage, such as QT or anything approaching. But as Axel states, this is time consuming, and the lack of developers and their (our) unfortunate time consuming Multi-tasking issues make it difficult to follow.
Hope that all settles down, and we can get to do interesting and useful tools in the future.

Best
K

Hi Frédéric, Karim,

I’ve never had any of those issues with VMware Fusion 11 (with which I’ve made a few macOS and Windows virtual machines.) VMware Fusion even allows for shared folders between host and guests (virtual machines) and end-users to connect any apps on the host system to a virtual machine.

This said, I’ve only used virtual machines on host macOS systems, I’ve never tried it on any other OS. Besides that, I’ve also disabled SIP, the T2 security chip, and the gatekeeper on my Mid 2020 iMac running Catalina.

All the best,
AntĂłnio

Dear Axel,

Thank you for your reply!

I wanted to express my deepest admiration for your work: this software and SuperVP. It is in the core of my electronic composing. It is used excessively on the sound files as well as on the live processing. I could not imagine surviving without it.

Indeed, I looked at the virtual machine options, but then thought that if I want to keep my CPU reliable and not anything weird happening without me knowing (now, that’s a challenge…), I rather keep a legacy machine. I’ve now downgraded to Mojave and will keep this mid-2017 MacBook Pro as the AudioSculpt and also other older apps machine. The idea of having a virtual CPU and then performing a concert with a hugely complex Max patch, although not on the virtual machine, is raising my pulse already.

Excited to see what IrcamLAB TS2 becomes! If someone needs input on how a composer works and would like to work within this framework, I’m happy to collaborate.

I’m interested in the fully command line version of superVP. Cannot remember if we had examples on that during Cursus. If there is any tutorial, I would be happy to study that. Sorry, if this is a question someone has already answered!

Cordialement,
Maija

Hi! Already asked about such a tutorial myself here: Tutorial for supervp and pm2, it looks like there is none.

I share the same sentiment with you that this forum has awesome tools to make experimental/interesting/noisy :stuck_out_tongue: music. The platform support issues are quite concerning though :frowning:

2 Likes

Hi Maija, heyho666,

The best way I know in order to learn the Anasynth command-line tools is either through OpenMusic’s LISP listener, Max/MSP’s console, or AudioSculpt’s own console view. It takes some time, but it’s not that hard.

And I totally agree, Maija, virtual machines are most definitely not reliable enough for live settings… Better stick to bare metal in such cases.

All the best,
AntĂłnio

1 Like

Dear ASusers,
I would like to express the same feelings that Maja wrote concerning the greatness and future of AS (the graphical interface), also in the name of our students, who find this software absolutely great.
It’s wonderful to know that SuperVP and pm2 will continue to work, so that one can control them from, for instance, OpenMusic, but I know of many beginners (in many countries) that cannot use AS because they have Catalina. Some computer music classes in several universities will also only subscribe to the Ircam Forum when AS will work again.
Having been in touch with the very good developers of TS2 and having tried this application, I am worried about all the compromises needed to make if fit into the commercial world, although I understand the needs for that, which would imply a substantial loss of the flexibility of the interface and a certain decrease of the quality of the sound results due to the (for the time being) exclusive usage of the real-time engine.
But I am sure that you will find a way that will allow creative composers, who will use this software in a way that professional users might never think of, to get back to this impressive and unique software.
Good luck for that!
Marco

PS: One can also access the command line in the bottom window of the AS interface, and cut&paste it into a terminal.

1 Like

Hi Estudio,

As far as I know, AudioSculpt 4 is still in development, and it’s going to be quite distinct from IrcamLab TS 2 (which is indeed very limited when compared to AudioSculpt 3), and more in line with the previous generation of AudioSculpt.

As Axel from the Anasynth team hinted at above, IRCAM software development faces several (and severe) constraints, especially in terms of its workforce and development schedules. As far as I can see, it’s been like this for quite some time…

As a side note, I’m tired of all this “creatives” vs “professionals” talk we hear everywhere now… It’s just dull-brained marketspeak, it’s phony.

All the best,
AntĂłnio

Dear all.

Many thanks for your many comments! I am really happy to have a discussion here on the Forum.
I mean that is what it is for. My reply is probably too long - sorry for this - but there were a lot of remarks.

@Maija, @heyho666, @EStudio
I am obviously very happy with your positive feedback indicating apparently that Forum software in general and AS/SuperVP/Pm2 in particular are well received by you and/or your students.

@Maija,@heyho666 - command line and tutorials: For most users command line is a show stopper - they wont even consider it. That’s why these interfaces are not teached in the IRCAM cursus and there are no tutorials. While it helps to have some understanding of the underlying signal processing algorithms, the options you find in AS dialogs are mostly one to one translations from command line parameters, so besides a more complexe presentation it is not more complexe in itself. Please don’t hesitate to pose yor questions here in the Forum. For the moment there were so few that I managed to answer all of those left handedly.

@EStudio. Many users found AudioSculpt that basically translates the command line of SuperVP into a dialog, too complexe. therefore we try to hide these … but generally we don’t drop them.

I am worried about all the compromises needed to make if fit into the commercial world, although I understand the needs for that, which would imply a substantial loss of the flexibility of the interface and a certain decrease of the quality of the sound results due to the (for the time being) exclusive usage of the real-time engine.

Concerning real time engine. This is a common misunderstanding. Together with my colleague Frederic Cornu we invested quite some time to make supervp fast, notably by means of using all the SIMD features of modern processors. I don’t deny that additionnally computers have become stronger, which certainly helps as well. So we dont rely on a real time engine in SuperVP! What you do in Max, IrcamLAB TS, on the command line, in OpenMusic (which uses command line), or in AudioSculpt, if you provide the same options you get the same result (besides rounding errors on different operation systems).It is only the interface that changes here!
There are other (non ircam) tools that favor low quality for lower cost - SuperVP (and therefore all derived products) will not do that other than letting you choose options that are faster. For example frequency domain transposition is faster but lower quality. you can select this in Max but as far as I know it is not even available in IrcamLab TS 2 !
The compromise is the other way around - you cannot run as many SuperVP objects in Max in parallel as you would like to, but we won’t compromise quality.

For friends of the command line: IrcamLAB TS2 even preserves the display of the SuperVP command line options - for the effects and the spectrogram, just click the SuperVP button, there you find the corresponding command line options. These are a litle bit different because there are
no sound files or parameter files to read, and sample rate, number of channels and so on has to be provided explicitly on the command line.

So all options are there, you find them all in the SuperVP help, but transporting a treatment from IrcamLAB TS to command line is certainly more difficult. This was a choice, on the other hand I don’t think many people ever did that.

In conclusion: there is no decrease in sound quality by design! If you have impression you have a problem with quality, then this would be a bug and you should report it!

Now flexibility: Very obviously, when it comes to signal processing and analysis and compared to AS3, there are many things missing in IrcamLAB TS2. But, I would say that the things that are already available in TS2 offer at least the same and most of the time more flexibility ! You gained “editing” (we had complaints for about 10years that this was missing), you have BPFs for all effects many of which were not available in AS3 (e.g. maxF0, sinusoidal remixing), you can tune all automation parameters (BPFs) interactively with real time feedback which was previously only possible in preview mode and only for 2 effects, there is much better multi channel support.

So I repeat, there are many parts missing, but still with respect to flexibility for me there is a considerable step forward.

Personally, I go with Maija and am curious what the developers manage to propose for the missing parts.

Best
Axel

3 Likes

Hi,

For anyone interested in SuperVP as a command-line tool, there’s also the SuperVP Documentation folder in AudioSculpt’s main folder. It describes every SuperVP command option, and contains lots of examples.

All the best,
AntĂłnio

1 Like

Thanks for pointing it out! Are you referring to the “SuperVP Documentation” folder? That looks very similar to the help we would get from the command line help, I did not notice any usage examples, could you point us to the examples? I guess I am looking for beginner-level, introductory examples. It might just be me but it is not super obvious how to even specify a file path. Thanks!

Hi Derya,

Yes, that’s exactly the folder I was referring to. Every SuperVP command option has at least one example on it. The file path is specified in the standard way, and always written between quotation marks (e.g., "/Users/username/foldername/filename.extension".)

If you’re not used to relying on command-line tools, you can always start with the SuperVP library for OpenMusic or the SuperVP package for Max/MSP. And like I pointed out earlier in this thread, OM’s LISP listener and Max’s console are great ways to get into the command-line tools.

All the best,
AntĂłnio

1 Like

Thanks, I think I will start new threads for supervp command line questions but, what is wrong with the command below?

>supervp "input_file" -age -5  "output_file"

Initializing...

SuperVP::Parameter Error::leccmd::

fatal error: unexpected parameter input_file! Output filename has to be last parameter

Hi Derya,

Write it like this: supervp -S"input_file" -age -5 "output_file" — and no, it’s not missing a space between -S and “input_file”, it’s really written like that.

Unless I’m missing something, that should fix it.

All the best,
AntĂłnio

Thanks, that indeed seemed to do something, but I got another error. I am probably making an obvious mistake here - I obviously do not understand most of the technical background of the tool, I am just trying to have fun with it by tinkering :slight_smile:

Initializing...

SuperVP::Parameter Error::checkpar::

cannot use dilation factor without FFT analysis 

Done.