Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with osx and music

Does Cubase Mac FLAC?

motty — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:36:44 -0800

How can I make Cubase play nicely with FLAC files on OS X? I'm working on some tunes with a guy living miles away, and want to be able to send him FLAC files instead of WAVs to save bandwidth.

He's using Cubase on OS X and I'm using Ardour on Linux. While I'm happy with doing all the WAV -> FLAC -> WAV conversion myself from the commandline, he's not. Searching Cubase forums hasn't turned up anything useful on FLAC integration, and I don't have OS X or Cubase myself, so I thought I'd ask here.

Does Cubase Just Work with FLAC if it finds the libraries? Is there a Cubase plugin for FLAC that I have failed to find? Will my friend have to get hold of one of the point and click FLAC -> AIF/WAV convertors and mess around with file conversion himself?

Or is there another solution I have not thought of, such as a lossless FLAC alternative that already works with Cubase?

Cheers in advance, hivemind.

One Image, One Audio Clip: One Movie?

furtive — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:59:06 -0800

How to make a video from an audio track for Youtube? I'm on a Mac, I'd like to make a video for Youtube that just shows an image for the duration of the video. iMovie is not playing along (limiting video to 4 seconds, wtf!)

Garageband optical audio

acro — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:39:47 -0800

Using optical audio input on Macbookpro 15" and Edirol m10dx, but when I open garage band and arm the tracks it arms for .5 seconds ... then disarms. Other programs -Reaper, AudioHijackpro, Audacity all recognize the optical audio fine. Any suggestions much appreciated. Thanks MetaFilter.

Best Mac DJ software?

kdern — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:28:35 -0800

Best Mac DJ software? What OSX software do you recommend for a newbie? I'm looking for something that does enough to DJ a dance party, nothing too complicated.

Would like to know about the best free and not-free options.

I've seen these but haven't tried them yet...

Mixx (free)
DJ-1800 ($)
djay ($)
Ultramixer DJ (free and $ versions)

How do I get generative music on my desktop?

headlessagnew — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 08:21:34 -0800

I've recently started digging RjDj. Are there any (awesome) generative music applications like this for when I'm using OSX or Linux, and don't want to listen to my phone or compose my own?

Not Getting Famous on YouTube

tmcw — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:24:55 -0800

I have a song I composed / recorded / etc. I'd like to make simple video by cutting together fragments of public-domain films with this song. I have a MacBook. How to get to point B? iMovie is crashing on every import. iMovie seems to crash every time I open the "Import Movie" dialog. Not a sign of quality software.

I don't want to spend much/any money on this. I've tried writing a quick app in Processing.org to do this, but the movies I'm working with are 100-200MB mpg files, and that fills up Java's heap very, very quickly - I can't imagine throwing FFT analysis on top of that.

Are there are any open-source or cheap applications that allow fairly basic video editing capabilities like this? Anything possibly designed for VJs or very nonlinear editing like this will be? I'm a little miffed that there hasn't been an obvious, slick answer to this like there has been for 99% of my mac artsy-software needs.

Thanks for any help!

Researching going legit with dubiously sourced music collection

superfurry — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:55:59 -0800

Legitimizing iTunes Library. I have *ahem* a friend. This friend has a reasonably large digital music collection being managed by iTunes on a Mac. He would like to understand the cost of ensuring this collection is 100% legal, having realized that the vast majority of it is not. Purely out of curiosity, this *ahem* friend, has decided that maybe it would be a worthwhile thing to look into the cost of legitimately purchasing all the music in his digital collection. When this friend thinks about the fact that his largely ill-gotten music is being managed by iTunes, and that the iTunes Store probably 'stocks' a large proportion of this music, there might be a cool iTunes plugin that can do some amazing trick to give him a very good idea what the cost would be of purchasing all this music. Seems like a great opportunity for Apple to develop something like this.

Is there such a thing ? No matter whether it uses the iTunes Store, Amazon, etc.

It should be a plugin for iTunes or some other clever techy thing rather than manually doing an album count and then working it out from there.

Would also be ideal if it were OS X compatible.

Whats a good streaming source for Leopard?

DJWeezy — Wed, 21 May 2008 23:23:16 -0800

What is a good icecast source client for leopard? So I have recently begun trivia contests on some irc channels where i will host whoever wants to play some music and people will guess the song. I host these on my vps that runs icecast/shoutcast right now. Unfortunately i have yet to find a good program that will take the sound from my sound card on my mac and send it to my server for other people to listen too. When i was on windows i used oddcast. Anyone know of a good program for this? Also it need to not tell everyone what song is playing.

bonus: i was having trouble googling this, if you find one that way let me know you search terms.

fetching itunes album art in os x

willmillar — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:44:31 -0800

i have a 12,000 track itunes music library in os x. some of the tracks (~10%) have album art with them, but most do not. all tracks are tagged properly, and in theory should all have album art with them. i've tried itunes built in fetcher and many third party programs for adding album art. i can't recall names of programs, but most were very poor and would crash or not work at all. i would like to fetch art all together, because i don't want to go through 12,000 songs track-by-track. any ideas? thanks! -will

Beat Detective wanted

Jon Mitchell — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:40:31 -0800

Are there any free realtime osx beat detection plugins or applications? I have a Roland Jupiter 6 synth - it has a very basic MIDI implementation, but no way to set the arpeggiator clock via midi, just via the knob.

A realtime beat detector would at least let me tune the arpeggio clock manually to the desired tempo, or at least let me know there's no way I can coax the required tempo out of it, and change the tempo of the track accordingly.

All the Google results I've come across are for beat detecting pre-recorded tracks, not live, which isn't really what I'm after.

What tools exist for OS X to manage my music library?

Loto — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 11:17:27 -0800

What tools exist for OS X to manage my music library? My music collection is a huge mess, and I would like to fix this. I use iTunes to keep track of everything but there isn't really a way to make sweeping modifications to tags, to check the validity of the tags and titles, or to remove doubles.

My question is this: Are there any programs available for OS X (preferably free) to manage a music library? To remove multiple copies of the same song? To fix ID3 tags and song titles? Album art?

Thanks!

DJ / music player software that has easy playlist features, supports FLAC, two outputs and OSX?

rordog — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 15:50:38 -0800

DJ / music player software that has easy playlist features, supports FLAC, two outputs and OSX? We are planning on buying Native Instruments Traktor for our university run radio station. The problem is that it is overly complicated for most DJs that aren't actual DJs and are used to playing things using iTunes or Winamp (it's auto-play feature to make it play a smiple playlist is horrible). I like Songbird and the new Beatport Sync from Native Instruments, but they don't provide a second or monitor channel so that if you have a multi-channel soundcard, you can play one track while previewing another (critical to DJ'ing / radio). Is there any other software out there that supports FLAC, has two outputs and runs on OSX? Also, it needs to have playlist / auto-play capability. The closest I've seen is DJ Decks, but that is for windows.

So, a keyboard is like a metaphor for...21 guitars?

evariste — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 14:53:27 -0800

How can a keyboard represent a guitar?! As a total musical novice who has never played an instrument and knows absolutely nothing about how music is made, I decided to open up GarageBand on my Mac and try to make a song for fun.

The first thing that's blowing my mind is that you start off with a clickable piano keyboard, and can switch modes to a computer's keyboard for "musical typing". But when you change instruments to, say, a guitar or a flute, the metaphor remains a piano keyboard! And the "musical typing" thingie still has the same number of usable keyboard keys, ASDFGHJKL;' plus the black keys WETYUOP. That's like 17 keys, and if you click the thingy on the top you can move the blue focus thing and make all the keys sound different...I assume this means you're moving to a different part of the full piano or something.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but a guitar has like four or six strings. A piano keyboard has, oh, more than a hundred strings, right? Isn't there way more information here than a guitar is actually capable of expressing? So what the hell? I was thinking I would only get maybe six keys I can push on my keyboard if I switched to guitar, but I get the same number of keys and they all still work and make sounds. Furthermore, if I switch to the "picture of a piano" mode, I can drag my mouse across the entire keyboard of 100+keys, and they all make guitar-ey sounds.

I feel like I'm missing some very basic concept. Can you help me understand what's going on?

Looking for a sampler/looper/track recorder for OSX.

Chuck Cheeze — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 23:41:07 -0800

Looking for a sampler/looper/track recorder for OSX. I want to make my own version of Jay-Z's The Black Album using the Jay-Z construction set (yes I know we've had enough versions of TBA...) so I am looking for a program for OSX that i can feed MP3's into and grab segments, then loop, speed up/down, layer tracks, etc.

I don't think Garage Band works with MP3's and this sort of sampling, and I don't want something as heavy as Pro Tools.

A poem/tune: Possible to publically perform?

umbú — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:22:29 -0800

What is the easiest way to have one program running in Mac OS X while another displays keystrokes in real time? I'll explain the details inside... I've been playing around with the Native Instruments B4 II Hammond B3 organ simulator on my Powerbook G4. It allows the user to play the computer keyboard as a piano keyboard. Zxcvbnm,./ and qwertyuiop[]\ line up as rows of white piano keys, while sdghjl; and 2356790= serve as the adjacent black keys. Typing into the organ, it turns out that certain words, such as 'something,' can be made into catchy, albeit fairly dissonant, melodies.

So here's my question. If, using this system, a song was written so that typing the 'lyrics' would simultaneously provide the song's melody, what would be the easiest way to display the letters being typed on one monitor/digital projector while the NI B4 was running on another monitor?

MP3 Tag Help in OS X

gyrom — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 12:38:16 -0800

Anyone know of an applet that creates MP3 tag info from file names for Mac OS X? We just made the switch from Windows to Mac, and have only hit one snag. My SO has his entire MP3 collection sorted by file name (i.e. "Artist - Song.mp3") without any meaningful tags or metadata. Now that the PCs are gone, he's realized that iTunes doesn't care for his old naming system. I'm not up yet on Mac software so don't have any solutions at hand and haven't found anything through searches. Any suggestions from Mac-types for an applet that can create the MP3 tag info from his file names (in Mac OS X) would be greatly, greatly appreciated.

Some music doesn't load in iTunes for XP but works fine on Mac

TurkeyMustard — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 11:25:58 -0800

Some music copied from an Mac drive to a Windows drive doesn't load in iTunes on Windows XP. I have about 190GB of music (about 35,000 songs) on a FAT32 drive plugged into an ordinary tower Compaq via USB2. The music was formerly used in iTunes on Mac OS X 10.4.8 on a big HFS+ drive, but I copied it off to other drives, reformatted the big drive (which is less than three months old) as FAT32 and then copied the music back.

However, when I import the songs into iTunes for XP, only 90GB (about 19,000 songs) show up in the program. They all show up fine in iTunes for Mac OS X. Both are using the latest iTunes. I've tried numerous reimports with no luck. I've also tried a smaller drive, with a subset of files, but only part of those showed up in iTunes, too.

Thinking it might be a problem with copying, I've also copied the data over a second time to the drive reformatted as NTFS. I've also tried copying the data from Mac drives to the Windows drive using the Macdrive software to mount the Macs in Windows. I've also tried copying using SMB filesharing, using FTP, and using a weird Parallels-folder-sharing combo. All with no change in how many files import.

So, what I'm looking for is ideas on what might be the problem. Is it strange Mac-only characters or Mac-only names? I have a lot of international music with foreign characters. But shouldn't FAT32 handle accents, tildes, umlauts, and whatever just fine? Just in case, I ran a few scripts that clean up a bunch of strange characters, but it didn't seem to change the number of songs that would import.

Is it possible metadata embedded in files cannot be used? Some of the music probably does include metadata in various kinds of ID tags, and maybe also includes album art (though I have no way of determining that, I think).

Are there permissions or privileges that should be changed on the copied files?

Any ideas or tricks to try would be appreciated. I'm reluctant to just abandon 100GB of music.

AirTunes, anyone?

dance — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:36:13 -0800

Suggestions for AirTunes Fun / Hacks, please! I've just ordered an Apple Airport Express w/ AirTunes from an eBay seller. I'm very much looking forward to receiving it and playing with it. I'm looking for some tips, fun tricks/hacks and advice from owners. Ideally I'd like to use it to:

1. Extend the range of an existing unencrypted WLAN
2. Stream audio to my hi-fi.
3. Share a HP1200 with a Mac and a PC

Possible complications:
1. The WLAN AP is a WRT54G (so supposedly compatible) but it isn't mine. My neighbour very kindly shares his internet with all in range, but I very much doubt he'd be willing to allow me access to its settings to configure it if that's necessary?
2. I had wanted to use this setup for DVDs too, in conjunction with AirFoil, but I've read that delays are prohibitive.
3. The printer should ideally stay in the office, not move to the living room to be next to the AirPort Express and Hi-Fi - I guess for this I'd need two AirPorts!

So - it's up to you if you'd like to comment on the above, but what I'd also really appreciate are thoughts, experiences, hacks anecdotes from existing owners.

Thanks!

WiFi Streaming of music from computer to stereo...

Manhasset — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 12:36:49 -0800

Today I saw a Slim Devices SqueezeBox 3. Just read a review at NYT. Looks pretty neat. That said, I have zero interest or use for the radio/pandora aspect of it. However, the other features may make it worth the price tag. But, before I shell out... what are my other alternatives? (On OS X) In short, need something to:

- stream my music over wifi
- have the id tags read so they can be displayed in the other room
- hooks up to stereo
- has a remote
- works with os x
- open source would be nice but isn't mandatory

In addition, I have all my music on a separate external hard drive. Is there anything that will interface directly with the drive to take the computer out of the loop? I doubt it, but thought I'd ask.

I deleted all my music. Help.

logovisual — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 18:32:00 -0800

I just managed to delete my entire iTunes library. But I have it on my iPod. Problem is, the iPod is set to auto-update, and if I plug it into a computer with no music on it, it'll all vanish. Help. I store all my music on an external drive, since there's not enough HD on my Powerbook. I just bought a new iMac, and in the process of trying to copy my music onto the new computer (via said external hard drive), I realized that the XML files with all my listening statistics weren't on the external hard drive, they were still on the laptop. So I connected the drive back up to my laptop, grabbed the iTunes XML file and the "iTunes Library" data file, and dragged them onto the external hard drive. Problem there is, all of my MP3s -- 10,000 of them -- were inside a folder called "iTunes Library." And the iTunes Library data file replaced that. The music files are not in the Trash, there were too many of them. They're just gone.

But! I have everything stored on my 60GB iPod. How can I connect said iPod to the new Mac (which currently doesn't have any music on it) without having the new Mac wipe it clean upon first contact? I *know* there's got to be a way to do this... (And yes, this was a f***ing ridiculous newbie mistake. I'll tolerate the first five responses being of the "Ha ha!" Nelson variety as long as the sixth response tells me what to do...)

Shared iTunes on an ad-hoc WiFi network

samstarling — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 02:50:44 -0800

Can you share iTunes Music Libraries over an ad-hoc (computer to computer) network? OK, so I'm providing the music for a party and a large proportion of the music I want to use is stored on my eMac. However, I don't want to have my Mac 'on show' at the party. What I thought I could do is take my old Toshiba Tecra 8000 laptop (with Netgear WG511 card and iTunes) along, and have my Mac in a different room serving the tunes. This all works perfectly when I'm connected to a wireless base station, but not when the network is set up 'ad-hoc' - iTunes simply doesn't discover the library of my eMac's iTunes.

Am I trying to do the impossible?

Music software for OS X?

You Should See the Other Guy — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 20:07:16 -0800

OS X equivalent to Windows program Fruity Loops? I have a friend who's in the market for a new computer. He's thinking of switching to a Mac. He's asked me about music software--something I know nothing about. He loves playing with something called Fruity Loops on his XP machine. What is the OS X equivalent? Also, how does the Mac program compare to FL? What are the pros and cons of each?

iTunes alternative for OSX?

clh — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 14:35:40 -0800

Are there any other sites from which I can download music to my iTunes library on Mac OSX.3.8? The iTunes Music Store is missing a few of my favorites.

Hardware/software recommendations for MP3 DJing on a powerbook?

rfordh — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 12:21:27 -0800

I want to use my powerbook's impressive mp3 library to DJ portions/all of my radio show. What hardware/software do I need to make it happen? Specifically, should I use Traktor or something else? What kind of external soundcard do I need? What should I avoid? I need to be able to have one track playing out to the mixing board, and upcoming tracks on cue in my headphones. My understanding is that Traktor can handle sending audio on two different channels like this, and that all I need is the external hardware with enough outputs, right? Do I need something like the M-Audio Firewire Audiophile or is there a cheaper solution? Per this question I've been tagging my mp3s with bpm, but it also mentions an external mixer. Would that work as well/better than an external soundcard? Something like the Hercules DJ, or what?

Final hurdle: If I wanted to run the whole thing from the board back into my laptop to record an mp3 for podcasting, could I do that on the same hardware without problems? OS X 10.3.7 on a G4 1.5ghz powerbook with 512MB RAM, btw. Thanks.

OS X software for learning to play the piano

symbebekos — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 15:09:58 -0800

ComputerMusicFilter: Is there a good piece of OS X software for learning to play the piano? I'd like to buy one of those inexpensive USB keyboards and noodle around in GarageBand, but my actualy musical skills are sorely out of practice, and I don't think they're going to just come back to me, either.