Recording - February 2010 - 64

In absence of fact, rumor happily takes the field, and some of the ideas flying around the Internet were fascinating if not downright inflammatory. A quick search of the various audio-technology gossip sites unearths all sorts of scenarios: Mackie hacked the drivers. Mackie “reverse engineered” the drivers, which technically may not be illegal. Mackie’s guerilla marketing is strongarming Digi to give in. Digi can break the Mackie products and orphan their users with a simple software tweak and is waiting for Mackie to hang itself. Digi is being forced to deal with the fact that not everyone likes having to use Digi’s (or M-Audio’s) hardware with Pro Tools. Avid is suing Mackie. Avid is buying Mackie. Avid and Mackie were in cahoots all along, this is all just viral marketing to generate buzz. And so on. (Special thanks to the fellow on Gearslutz.com who linked to my blog—I got one of the advance publicity units—with the tagline, “Good to Editorial by Mike Metlay It Starts With A Handshake s I write this, we’re looking forward to the upcoming NAMM Show, where a lot of you will be reading these words in copies of our magazine you’ve picked up on the show floor. This year my job of writing a NAMM-relevant editorial has been made easy by a pair of companies who have decided to do something we don’t see often enough in the world of music technology: to shake hands. This week, LOUD Technologies (Mackie’s parent company) and Avid (which includes Digidesign) announced that they’d signed an agreement licensing the use of Mackie’s Onyx-i FireWire recording mixers with Digidesign’s Pro Tools M-Powered 8 DAW software. What does this particular handshake mean? If you’ve been living in a cave for the past few months: Mackie hinted in August, and officially announced in September, that it would release a separately-purchased Universal Driver for its Onyx-i mixers, one that would include support for Pro Tools MPowered 8. The early units sent to the press contained instruction sheets stating that Pro Tools would see the Onyx-i as a ProFire 2626—an approved product for Pro Tools M-Powered that’s made by M-Audio, another Avid brand—and that this was “ normal when an Onyx-i mixer is installed and in perfect working order.” Avid’s only comment at the time was, and I quote: “Avid (Digidesign) has not approved or tested Mackie equipment to be interoperable with any of its solutions. Pro Tools M-Powered is only licensed for use with our M-Audio peripheral products.” Mackie’s press releases in September called the drivers “licensed” by whom? By Mackie, of course. see that amidst all the hoopla and made-up shayet somebody actualy tells it how it is”. Aw shucks.) Aside from the very real and interesting question of whether reverseengineering a driver and writing new code does in fact constitute breaking a software license agreement, there wasn’t a lot of substance to any of this. Everyone was wondering what would happen next, and I suppose from a reality-TV standpoint, the simple act of shaking hands was a real letdown. A lot of folks were left shaking their heads and wondering how Avid could possibly miss such a golden opportunity. An opportunity to do what? To litigate against a well-established competitor at a time when the economy is a shambles and the music gear industry is working hard to get itself healthy again? To block an attempt to widen the scope of its own software platform, even if from an outside source, and to deliberately sabotage its growth? To give itself a reputation as a vindictive and selfish corporate giant? Those aren’t precisely telling arguments in favor of attacking Mackie. On the other hand, taking a deep breath and offering a handshake, unlikely as it seems, may gain Avid some significant benefits. (We’ll take it as read that Mackie benefits by not being sued ) M-Audio builds good interfaces that beginning users can afford, and Pro Tools M-Powered lets people get into the world of Pro Tools (still the world’s most widely established DAW) for very little money. But there will always be people who want different approaches to music-gear problems, and a high-quality analog mixing board with the usual amenities is an appealing alternative to rack interfaces and mixing in the box (M-Audio’s worthy NRV10 FireWire mixer notwithstanding). Some sales will be lost on M-Audio hardware, but all those people are still buying into Pro Tools and in the long run, buying into a DAW is a much tighter marriage than buying into an interface. Why not allow a company with proven and well-liked hardware a chance to attract more users to the world of Pro Tools? This may be a one-time thing, or it may be the start of something bigger. It’s too early to tell. Sometimes we settle on standards by battle and attrition—we’re down to only three plug-in standards and four or five driver protocols, after how many years?—but it’s not entirely unrealistic for good things to start with a handshake. I mean, look at MIDI! And look what happened the last time Mackie and Digidesign shook hands: we got the HUI Protocol, which is still the world’s best-established standard for control surfaces communicating with DAWs, regardless of who makes them. We could sneer that “Mackie got away with it” (with what?) or that “Avid caved in” (to what?) or any number of other things. But one thing is sure: instead of a fight, we got a handshake. And in today’s world, that in itself is something to celebrate. Mike Metlay (mike@recordingmag.com) is the Associate Editor of Recording. RECORDING FEBRUARY 2010
http://www.Gearslutz.com

Recording - February 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - February 2010

Recording - February 2010
Fade In
Contents
Talkback
Fast Forward
Recording Lead Vocals—All About Isolation and Rejection
Euphonix MC Control
Avant Electronics BV-1
Avid Digidesign Eleven Rack
Recording’s Vocal Column
PreSonus Studio Channel
KRK ERGO System
Readers’ Tapes
Recording’s Keyboard Column
TASCAM DR-100
Camel Audio Alchemy
Advertiser Index
Fade Out
Recording - February 2010 - Recording - February 2010
Recording - February 2010 - Cover2
Recording - February 2010 - 1
Recording - February 2010 - Fade In
Recording - February 2010 - 3
Recording - February 2010 - Contents
Recording - February 2010 - 5
Recording - February 2010 - Talkback
Recording - February 2010 - 7
Recording - February 2010 - Fast Forward
Recording - February 2010 - 9
Recording - February 2010 - Recording Lead Vocals—All About Isolation and Rejection
Recording - February 2010 - 11
Recording - February 2010 - 12
Recording - February 2010 - 13
Recording - February 2010 - 14
Recording - February 2010 - 15
Recording - February 2010 - 16
Recording - February 2010 - 17
Recording - February 2010 - 18
Recording - February 2010 - 19
Recording - February 2010 - Euphonix MC Control
Recording - February 2010 - 21
Recording - February 2010 - 22
Recording - February 2010 - 23
Recording - February 2010 - Avant Electronics BV-1
Recording - February 2010 - 25
Recording - February 2010 - Avid Digidesign Eleven Rack
Recording - February 2010 - 27
Recording - February 2010 - 28
Recording - February 2010 - 29
Recording - February 2010 - 30
Recording - February 2010 - 31
Recording - February 2010 - Recording’s Vocal Column
Recording - February 2010 - 33
Recording - February 2010 - PreSonus Studio Channel
Recording - February 2010 - 35
Recording - February 2010 - KRK ERGO System
Recording - February 2010 - 37
Recording - February 2010 - 38
Recording - February 2010 - 39
Recording - February 2010 - Readers’ Tapes
Recording - February 2010 - 41
Recording - February 2010 - 42
Recording - February 2010 - 43
Recording - February 2010 - 44
Recording - February 2010 - 45
Recording - February 2010 - Recording’s Keyboard Column
Recording - February 2010 - 47
Recording - February 2010 - 48
Recording - February 2010 - 49
Recording - February 2010 - 50
Recording - February 2010 - 51
Recording - February 2010 - TASCAM DR-100
Recording - February 2010 - 53
Recording - February 2010 - Camel Audio Alchemy
Recording - February 2010 - 55
Recording - February 2010 - 56
Recording - February 2010 - Advertiser Index
Recording - February 2010 - 58
Recording - February 2010 - 59
Recording - February 2010 - 60
Recording - February 2010 - 61
Recording - February 2010 - 62
Recording - February 2010 - 63
Recording - February 2010 - Fade Out
Recording - February 2010 - Cover3
Recording - February 2010 - Cover4
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