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BeOS targeting Music Professionals 37

Posted by sengan from the good-idea dept.
OS News is reporting that Be Inc. is targeting music/audio professionals. This makes good sense since musicians are not averse to other platforms: in the 1980s they swarmed towards the Atari ST (in-build midi ports) which had a disproportionate number of professional music programs from Steinberg and co. Interestingly 4Front the makers of the OSS sound drivers in the kernel and the OSS API will be supporting BeOS.
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BeOS targeting Music Professionals More

BeOS targeting Music Professionals

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  • Uhh, GNU/Linux is not exactly innovative in and of itself. It has quite a few innovative features, but the basic OS is still a UNIX clone, not something Linus dreamed up one day thinking of how to make an innovative OS.
  • Posted by jonrx:

    First I heard Linux was for geeks only. Then it was _the_ internet server, and now it's supposedly to be ready for Joe user's desktop. What's the deal, does anyone actually know what's going on over there?

    Wait a minute....

    Jón :)

  • Er.. (Score:1)

    by Scott ( 1049 )
    First I heard Be was targetting the high-end graphics industry. Then I heard it was average joe user's desktop, and now it's the music sector. What's the deal, does anyone actually know what's going on over there?
  • ...and no ReBirth either... doesn't look like I'll be able to give up my MacOS-based setup anytime soon, unfortunately...

  • Logic (Score:1)

    by acb ( 2797 )
    I've looked at a demo of Logic, and went away convinced that the name was chosen ironically. The UI seemed to be somewhat less than intuitive.
  • Steinberg's higher-end system, "Nuendo," is in the process of being ported to BeOS. It's downward-compatible with Cubase VST.

    No Rebirth that I've heard of, but there are software synths--check out ObjektSynth (www.objektsynth.com), and also look for Rack747.
  • My understanding is that Nuendo does do everything Cubase does. Since all I really know about Nuendo is what I've read, I certainly wouldn't swear to it, but I'm pretty sure it does MIDI sequencing as well. It was designed to do soundtrack syncing also.
  • I can't wait....

    I might actually have to convert a Linux Box to BeOs if that happens.
  • This is great. I like Be and believe that it is the future of the desktop. I mean, a gui that has a unix shell? It doesn't get much better than that for replacing windows eh?

    And it seems that every day Be is taking advantage of what linux/gnu has already done. Between using libs and now OSS, perhaps one day there will be no difference in compiling between the two(other than asm, but then again there is nasm).

    Hmmm, have I ever told you guys the story of how I ran the BitchX config script on a be system over telnet the day after R4 was out? The thing almost gave me a makefile, other than it couldn't find the arpanet headers.... which exsisted, just not on R4 for intel yet.
  • Somebody posted a big internal newsletter?

    Who sensored it?

    Err, deleted??

    I have it saved if people need it :)

  • Er.. (Score:1)

    by fizzboy ( 6686 )
    Be's target for the past couple of years has been the multimedia development market. It says so right on their web page. Last I heard, both music and graphics are multimedia. Therefore, I think they're very much right on track. ^_^ Expect some video editing software and a 3D modeler and renderer to come out in the near future as well.

    Now, there are many BeOS users who'll tell you that it makes a great general purpose OS and, well, they'd be right. Hey, I've got pine, a browser that can read and post to /., my choice of editors (emacs, Pe, Eddie), and a compiler. What more do you need?
  • sure, the BeOS isn't a revolutionary OS, but it does take the best proven technologies and integrates them for multimedia like no other OS can claim, including linux. i'm not dissing linux, in fact i like it a lot, but for multimedia, it can't compare to BeOS. and for collective unity...well, i know your heart is in the right place, but let's not confuse things here. people cooperating together on something like linux is a powerful thing, and the results have been impressive. but to say that it will create a huge collective society where everything is shared...i don't buy it (pun absolutely intended)
  • BeOS's fate was sealed when Apple walked away from the buyout negotiations with Be and bought NeXT instead.

    Hardware is cheap. Nobody cares about squeezing maximum efficiency from a single- or dual-CPU workstation. If they did, the Macintosh, with its zero-scalabiliity, not-quite-multitasking desktop OS would be dead as a doornail by now. It's not.

    Very few people currently care about having a desktop OS that has high uptime, and fewer need one. Those that do already use Unix-family OSes. And by "care", I mean care enough to be willing to switch to something with less software.

    Most open-source developers dislike the work required to keep their software compatible with multiple non-Unixy OSes. Some software gets ported--eventually--to OS/2 and NT. But most never does. BeOS is just as far removed from Unixen, in ways that are different from both.

    The fact is, the artists and musicians that psychopath Gasse claims he's targeting don't give a damn about (and seldom know about) the internals of their OS. They just want to get their work done, which means they need apps and they need ease of use.

    First, apps:

    With MIDI connectivity standard on 99% of all x86-compatible desktop machines made in the past 6 years and hardly rocket science on Macs, what does BeOS bring to the table besides a lack of software apart from a few shareware-quality titles? What musician is going to choose an OS that can't run any of the top ten sequencing, patch-library and compositional tools?

    Now, ease of use:

    Why is the Mac so popular in design and music? Because Macs are generally maintainable by an artist or musician, and so many designers and musicians work solo out of home or in freelance situations. Sure, techies who also make music use Unix and Windows. But apart from them, when you see an artist using a Unix or NT workstation, chances are they're working in an office setting with a dedicated IT staff to shield them from most of the necessary system maintennce tasks.

    The probem with BeOS is its premise: that the Mac end-user community is crying out for a technologically superior desktop OS core to run the same GUI, the same hardware and the same kinds of apps they already use. What malarkey. They just want an applicance that works, and they've got one already. Linux, user-hostility and all, has better prospects in this market than BeOS because the developer community is so much larger and more diverse. Check back in two years. BeOS may still be around thanks to Gasse's checking account, but it won't have more than 200,000 active users.
  • I've been using an Atari 1040ST in my Midi studio for years (it now runs alongside a much larger computer). I've gotton sick of my Win9x computer (running sound forge, cakewalk and other sound related stuff) crashing and babbling everytime I turn around. At last I have an excuse to get a BeOS box running. What fun.
    Hmm? I wonder if I can network my Akai DR-16 recorder to the BeOS ? Now that would be cool.
  • One of the few reasons I keep a dos partition is to run Cakewalk, Sound Forge, and, to a lesser extent, Sonic Foundry's (the SoundForge people) ACID. It'd be great to get equal or better apps on an OS whose uptime can be measured on a calendar rather than a stopwatch. Looks like maybe that day is near! I've been dying for a reason to get Be, and now it's here. I'm a happy geek!
  • I have hounded them for Linux ports for ages, it seems like. The blanket response has always been the "Thank you for your interest. If sufficient market demands make it feasible, we will consider porting to your platform. But until that happens, there are no plans at this time." That's paraphrased, but you get the idea. A polite brush-off. If all the musicians I knew would get on their case, maybe we could persuade them to give it serious consideration. It'd be great for them to get on the BeOS bandwagon, but it would still mean another OS for me. Not that I'm not inclined to get Be in addition to my beloved Caldera OpenLinux, but it'd be nice to be able to sequence something in whatever OS I'm on when the mood strikes me without a reboot into something else, which is what I have to do now if I'm in Linux.
  • What is a "geekport" ? Sounds like some kind of cybersex application.. eheh

  • OSS (Score:1)

    by SuperDee ( 14231 )
    Oh no... Not another OSS platform... I mean, the OSS APIs sound good, but if the drivers they will be doing for Be are anything like the Linux OSS/Free drivers, they sure will stink.

  • OSS (Score:1)

    by Jeremi ( 14640 )
    I think the previous poster was referring to 4front's OSS sound drivers that it is planning to port to BeOS.

    (And assuming Be's driver model is as straightforward as the rest of their API, it should be easy for 4front to create drivers that don't stink)
  • Okay, perhaps this will create a flame war, if so, I apologize in advance. Let's have a look at what's really going on. Let's talk about innovation and duplication. Mac OS X, BeOS, Linux. All of these systems are Unix's with GUI front ends. Technologically, neither one of them is all that innovative. The GUI is 20+ years old, it was invented by Xerox many years ago. Unix is 20+ years old, it was invented by AT&T for their high speed frame relay switches. It's been 20 years, and nothing new is on the scene. C++ is an update of C. Java is an update of C++. The only real innovation that has come to pass in the last 20 years, is the GPL, open source movement. This is not a technological improvement, instead it is a social improvement. Open source will open the way for further Technological advancement, by altering the way people communicate ideas. In a world that is fast becomming a collective society, whether we like it or not, Open source is the way that future technological developments will come about. That is why I choose Linux. For the moment, GNU and Linux are on the forefront of the OSS movement. All of these other systems are simply proprietary spin offs of the idea. Sure, they have OSS parts and pieces to them, but at their heart, they are still part of a dying bread. The come from the age of proprietary software.
    In technological terms, BeOS, Mac OS X, and Linux are pretty much on similar ground. Sure, each one will have its streangths, but only one represents the future. GNU/Linux is so much more than just an OS. It represents a dream that so many before us have strived to achieve, and failed. This is the dream of Collective Unity. Think about the amazing phenominon that is GNU/Linux. Now, I don't for a moment believe that GNU/Linux will save the world, it wont. But it represents, to me, a glimmer of hope for things to come. Perhaps my words don't do justice to what we have here before us. My hope is that others too realize the far reaching implications of what is happening here. Linux breaks new ground because no generation before us could claim to have done what we are now doing. That is the heart of the matter, that is why I love Linux the way I do.
  • " something that can do SSL "
    You mean they way NetPositive 2.0.1 can?
    Get it from BeDepot.
  • While I do agree that MacOS X, BeOSs and Linux haven't made any major breakthroughs in the interface arena, Be has done some serious inovation with it's media kit.

    the new media kit provides a powerful API/framework for processing audio, video and other data in real-time. The kit handles timing, streaming, codecs, mixing and other system wides issues allowing separate programs to work together and provides a constant environment for programmers and users alike.

    While MacOS X will be a great improvment, it finaly brings the Apple up with the rest of the pack when it comes to protective memory and premtive multitasking. While I don't know what the final word is on SMP support in MacOS X, I do know that OSX is wont run on anything less that an G3. Apple hasn't created any MP systems in quite some time and the G3 isn't wasn't desinged to run in a MP system.

    The BeOS was designed with SMP and multi-threading from the begining. Most of the OS is thread safe (except for most of the posix stuff) and it breaks down nearly everything into threads. I think the BeOS has made some invoations here as well.

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