Really bad news for me. Apple just bought Emagic. They will discontinue their Windows products as of September 30. So, all the megamoney I have spent on their stuff, including the terrible Audiowerk8 sound card, all the freaking books and learning disks, and other stuff---not to mention the program itself, which I just spent $200 to upgrade to 5.0---is for nought. My sequencer history is a disaster. I started with Opcode Vision when they announced all their plans for Windows support. Later: they just let the Windows product go to waste, and then they went out of business. So, I tune in to Logic. They suggest I buy their freaking sound card to work with the product, but it loves to crash the system. They suggest I add a DSP Factory (Yamaha) card, but then all their plans to support that card evaporate. And now this. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars wasted, yet again. So, where now? The buggy Cubase? (Is it still that way?) (Worst-company- in-the-world) MOTU Digital Performer? Cakewalk? Part of me just says Eat the Cake. While all the flips, flops, and fads have come and gone, they have become better and better. And they are Windows-developed and Windows-based, so the program is probably stable. Heeelp! What do you all think? Enjoy, Tim

Hello, really bad news, that emagic is bought by apple :-)))) If they discontinue windows support and development I will change to Propellerhead's solutions because the buggy stuff from Steinberg is not my deal.... Sincerely Frank Roland

--- In logic-users@y..., Tim Snyder <tim@C...> wrote: > My sequencer history is a disaster. snip > So, where now? The buggy Cubase? (Is it still that way?) (Worst- company- > in-the-world) MOTU Digital Performer? Cakewalk? > > Part of me just says Eat the Cake. While all the flips, flops, and > fads have come and gone, they have become better and better. And they > are Windows-developed and Windows-based, so the program is probably > stable. > > Heeelp! What do you all think? > > Enjoy, > Tim I am thinking this guy is right. My PC sequencer and digital audio history has been a nightmare. First early Cakewalk, a toy. Lured away by Cubase VST, a total mess of a product, nothing was ever the same as you had left it when you resumed a session. Lured away by Logic Gold, better stability, but my Gina never worked with it. Constant freezes, gave up on digital audio after many hours of Echo and Emagic support. There is a standoff between these 2 companies because of the Gina's crummy ASIO drivers and Logic's EASI based audio engine. I don't understand the low level tech details on this conflict. Did anyone ever get Gina working with Logic? Bought new high end XP machine thinking this will help. Ordered Logic Gold 5.0 upgrade. The Emagic rep said 2 weeks. 2 months later I called back. He said then it could be six months to delivery (no guarantee of this) and that they were waiting to get the bugs out of the already released Platinum 5 before releasing Gold. So Emagic guinea pigs its high end users? Obviously a lie. He then generously offered to send me Platinum at a reduced price, as a special favor to get me "up and running". Brand new clean XP machine. Installed the MOTU with new drivers, installed Gina with new drivers, installed Platinum. Tried the audio and it crashed. And crashed. And crashed. Again...YAWN...hours of phone support with Echo and Emagic to no avail. Emagic then told me their program just doesn't work with the Echo cards and they recommend M-Audio cards. Ummm...Emagic...what about that compatibility list on your site that I used to choose my audio card? !!! I will not go back to Cubase it sucks and is unreliable, I have heard this again and again from fellow composers. I will not use a Mac since I am a UNIX and Windows programmer (sound familiar) and Mac doesn't play in my business world. I totally resent Apple for this and it has only added to the bad taste they always left in my mouth. So yeah I am also looking into Cakewalk and will start researching how solidly it performs audio wise and with what cards. I don't need a lot of bells and whistles just something very reliable. Or...hey anybody want to write a sequencer/audio workstation with me? I want to make music not get sucked into this idiotic platform war. Bye Emagic.

> Ummm...Emagic...what about that compatibility list on your site that > I used to choose my audio card? I don't know when you bought your card, but I remember using that list several years ago, and the echo cards were definitely not strongly recommended. The comment was "sort of works" or something like that. It was certainly enough to steer me away. Gregory

> So yeah I am also looking into Cakewalk and will start researching > how solidly it performs audio wise and with what cards. I don't need > a lot of bells and whistles just something very reliable. Or...hey > anybody want to write a sequencer/audio workstation with me? Please let us know what you find out. > I want to make music not get sucked into this idiotic platform war. Ditto.