If anyone can get to this, it would be a great idea. I might even consider using a frequent flyer ticket for this. not sure yet. --p ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To: various folks cc: mma(a)midi.org From: RonKuper(a)Cakewalk.com Subject: FW: [mma-members] Announcement: Item #183 Unified Audio Plug-In Architecture Hi folks, The following announcement may be of interest to you. The initial discussion on this proposal will be held at NAMM in about 2 weeks. Note that this meeting is not restricted to MMA members, so I would urge anyone who is interested and would like to attend, to please do so. Also, as far as I know you do not need a NAMM convention badge to attend this meeting. The meeting will be held on Sunday, January 19 from 4:30 PM - 5:45 PM at the Anaheim Marriott. I'm not sure what the actual conference room will be; so far it's only been designated as "MMA Meeting Room A". I hope to see you there! ---------- Ron Kuper Cakewalk ******************************************** MIDI MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION MEMBERS FORUM ******************************************** A new MMA working group has been formed for discussion of a Unified Audio Plug-In Architecture. The proposal from Ron Kuper of Cakewalk is attached below. The Working Group Chair is Ron Kuper (Cakewalk). The TSB Representative is David Miller (Microsoft). For the moment, discussion will take place on the mma-members mailing list. If the email traffic gets heavy, a new separate working group mailing list will be created. A discussion session will take place following the AGM on Sunday January 19th. Please respond to this message if you would like to join the working group. ===================================================== Item # 183 - Unified Audio Plug-In Architecture Submitted by: Ron Kuper Company: Cakewalk The professional audio market offers a variety of audio plug-in formats, some hardware based, some software based, all entirely incompatible. These plug-in formats include Audio Units (Apple), DirectX (Microsoft), DXi (Cakewalk), JACK (Linux), LADSPA (Linux), MAS (MOTU), MFX (Cakewalk), OPT (Yamaha), ReWire (Propellerheads), RTAS (Digidesign), TDM (Digidesign), VST (Steinberg), VSTi (Steinberg). While these are touted as standards, they are in fact proprietary, and the companies responsible for their development assume a heavy documentation and support burden. Furthermore, unlike true standards such as MIDI, they do not actually enable interoperability between vendors. Instead, they fragment the music software industry into "tribes" of vendor allegiance. The large number of competing formats means that audio plug-in developers must either incur the high cost of developing for multiple formats, or else take the business risk of focusing on a single format. Host application vendors face the same dilemma when choosing which formats to support in their applications. We propose to develop a single audio plug-in framework, a cross-platform standard for audio plug-ins and software synthesizers. The key design objectives for this standard are: - Transport neutral: can stream in memory, PCI, Ethernet, WiFi, etc. - Low-overhead - Adaptive to hardware - Platform and programming-language neutral - Compatible with existing standards, e.g., MIDI (for parameterization and data); XMF (for serialization); AAF (for project interchange) - Easy to "wrap" in existing formats such as DirectX or VST What is encouraging is that all of these standards differ only in terms of programming interface. They all provide equivalent levels of functionality. The goal then is to define a standard core level of functionality that will support all of the common features among existing plugin standards, yet be easily encapsulated by the vendor specific interfaces. In other words, the goal would not be to replace TDM, DirectX, VST, etc with a common interface, but rather to define a low-level interface to a reusable DSP core that could be then packaged as TDM, DirectX, VST, etc. ----------------------------------------------- The contents of this message are Copyright 2002 MIDI Manufacturers Association Incorporated and not to be reproduced or distributed in any form without express written permission.