Rayzoon Technologies LLC

[Dewdman42]

NOTE: JAMSTIX OSX HAS BEEN RELEASED ON 06/24/2014. THE WORK-AROUNDS BELOW ARE NO LONGER NEEDED.


Announcing JamstixWine

OSX users, I present for you a fully self contained installation package which makes it easier then ever to install and run Jamstix on a Mac; while we wait for the forthcoming OSX release from Rayzoon. Ralph has been kind enough to host this file here for anyone to try. This release leverages the use of Wine, Reaper and other free technologies to run the existing version of Jamstix3 on your Mac, and connect with your OSX DAW.

This download includes an installer which does everything. You can be up and running in 5 minutes. Please try it out and let us know how it works for you.

http://www.rayzoontech.com/stuff/JamstixWine_1.2.zip

REQUIREMENTS

1. Snow Leopard or later
   
2. JackOSX must be installed on the machine
   

A readme is contained in the download with complete instructions for installing, as well as a tutorial for integrating Jamstix with your OSX DAW. Here is a quick summary of the steps required to install:

INSTALLATION STEPS

1. Read the readme
   
2. Download and install JackOSX (www.jackosx.com). Requires Reboot
   
3. Run the JamstixWine installer
   
4. Register Jamstix
   
5. Install drumpaks and AI paks
   
6. Try it and smile
   

Rayzoon is still working hard to create a real OSX version of Jamstix, this is only a temporary solution until that is finally released. I can say that it works quite well and is now very easy to setup. It also does not require any extra commercial software such as Parallels or Crossover.

It is possible to add other win32 VST's afterwards that you wish to host in Reaper. For example, I use OPX-Pro II in this setup, and it works very well.

Please use this thread if you have any questions about using it, and please let us know your successes too!

[vaikl]

Hey, thx for this great work! Didn't know that someone still was looking at my very old OSX guide, but yours is far better and easier!

Have installed and checked it against Live 8.3, but Live and JackOSX isn't a perfect marriage (maybe only for me). I have to start JackServer and JamstickWine before Live to let Live see the Jack outs for Wine, but this way Live is coming up as a Rewire slave automatically.

So I leave Jack aside and use IAC for MIDI and JamstickWine as a normal Rewire slave for Live and it's also working great for my soundcard (FireStudio Project) and plugs like SSD4 in Live. The MIDI latency is freaking high but I don't care as long as I can choose to either hear JS' own sounds in Wine w/ Reaper or to get MIDI in Live.

[Dewdman42]

Well first to be clear, this is not rewire. I called it pseudo rewire because in function its similar maybe, but its not actually using rewire technology at all. Live should not come up as an actual rewire slave to wine at all, its not at all related.

You should not be getting high midi latency, my midi latency here is not audible. Are you sure its midi that is late and not jamstix audio? if you try to play jamstix audio without jackosx, then what you would be hearing is actually the slow windows audio drivers in stead of ASIO, and yes its huge latency. Get JackOSX working if you want to hear Jamstix audio tight.

Even if you're not sending jamstix audio to Live, use JackOSX to send the audio from Reaper to your soundcard, as this will then use the ASIO driver in Reaper and get low latency.

[vaikl]

I know that your setup isn't real rewire. My problem is that JackOSX between my Presonus FSP driver, Wine and Live prevents the FireStudio from syncing with Live and Wine when I try to choose the Jack ports as audio channels. Don't know if it's a general Firewire issue or a problem with Live, but each time the FSP driver lose the sample rate sync and Live refuses to stream audio.

I even have to start JackServer to get MIDI out from Wine into Live. The latency is on the MIDI side, Reaper is in MIDI sync but Live is too late (around 100ms).

As I wrote I don't care about having JS sound in Live, I'm happy to trigger SSD, SD or BFD2 in Live with this solution.

[Dewdman42]

IAC midi is totally separate from jack I don't see how it would have any impact on the midi unless something in your setup is hogging the cpu. I don't have the problems you're having, so unfortunately I don't know what else to tell you.

It sounds like your soundcard must not fare well with Jack. I would check some of the forums to find out if anyone knows how to make your soundcard play well with jack. Also possibly try a previous version of JackOSX, you never know.

Jack is used widely by a lot of people and normally works very well. Sorry to hear its not so lucky for you.

In any case, the only way you can hear Jamstix play audio with low latency is using jack. Otherwise you're using winsound and the latency sucks. JamstixWine has a special ASIO driver installed that only works with jack. I have no explanation for your reported midi latency, it doesn't make sense to me that jack would have any effect on it. Its possible that something in your setup is causing the cpu to spin out of control or some other resources is jamming up, unfortunately. Very strange.

Sorry you're having problems and sorry I can't be of more help.

[Dewdman42]

oh but one thing that just occurred to me, is that Reaper might be confused trying to play when jack is not running, because reaper is setup by me with the WineASIO driver active. Its trying to find jack and if you have jack stopped, then maybe it would confuse reaper. (which is maybe why you don't get the midi unless Jack is started. See what I mean?

If you were to change the reaper audio driver to "WaveOut", then jack would not need to be running for reaper to operate, and I think the midi would be sent normally. However WaveOut has horrible audio latency and probably it will delay the midi to stay in sync with the latent audio.

Reaper has another audio driver type called "Dummy Audio". Go to preferences and try using this audio driver. It seems to disable audio altogether in reaper. I just tried it and it seems to send the midi out fine when using that audio driver. I believe jack will not need to be running in that case and hopefully this might eliminate your 100ms of midi latency

[vaikl]

[Dewdman42]

also remember that when you're ready to mix your track, you can drag the jamstix parts into reaper track, export the midi file and load it directly in live. Then it will be exactly as its supposed to be.

[Dewdman42]

another thing you might try if you haven't already, is use ASIO audio in reaper, and jack too, but don't use jack in live. Just use jack for wine.

Well then you are concern that jamstix audio is not exactly in sync with the midi. So then play with the audio buffer size in jackosx preferences. You might be able to get them with matched latency, if you want to hear jamstix audio at the same time as as BFD.

[vaikl]

[Dewdman42]

I found another trick to use when syncing Reaper with your OSX DAW, its not mentioned in the tutorial.

Basically reaper has the ability to insert a time sync track, and stripe that track with LTC time code. So do that in reaper. it will create a time sync object on a track. Double click that to edit the parameters of the LTC timecode, how long, etc. THen right click on the track to render it. This will create a WAV file somewhere.

Go find that WAV file and import it into your OSX DAW. (in the future you can reuse this. I made mine like 15 minutes long and it should work for any project now).

Now send this track from your DAW to jack router. Go back to reaper and setup a new project, insert jamstix. From the Options menu go to external time sync confg and config it to take LTC from the jack router channel you specified above. Make sure the frame rate is the same as what you encoded it with originally (and also make sure your OSX DAW is using that frame rate).

hit play on Reaper and it will wait. Hit play on your OSX DAW and reaper should start playing in sync with your host. I found its accurate within about half a smpte frame or less, which is about 1/60th of a second. Not bad.

This will then let you operate in your main DAW and use the transport controls from there.

The tutorial I provided earlier has you using the transport controls of Reaper and having the OSX DAW slave to reaper. This makes it possible to slave the other way around.

Which way is better? I don't know yet. I do think this way is tighter sync because the sync is going through Jack instead of IAC midi, but it uses considerably more CPU resources. That might be tweakable by playing with some of the options in Reaper, Im not sure.

Also, if your purpose is to record a midi track out of jamstix into your OSX DAW, then it seems that the midi coming out of Reaper should drive the timing, so that the midi notes will land in your OSX DAW at pretty much the times they are supposed to, even if the sync is not tight, the recording of midi notes would be. if you don't understand what I just said, ask me PM.

Anyway, just wanted to throw this approach out there, I do think its probably tighter sync this way, so if you're trying to playback jamstix together with other tracks on your OSX DAW, this would be tightest.

Something to try...

[zenasium]

Hello,
i follow succesful all the step to install js3 on my Imac.
I can't traduce all the feeling to see JS3 working in reaper. After that i try to drive it with Logic.
Is it anything to do (parameters, sync, or more) to get jamstix drumming in logic ? i'm honestly not familiar with reaper and was not able to drum through logic.
i think i understand that reaper must run out of logic, but what's the step i missed to get my set fully functional.
Thanks guys !!

[zenasium]

I suppose my question didn't find a answer
it's probably me that don't understand something in Dewdman installation steps. But if someone can get me more detail on how to bring it to work, i will appreciate.

[Dewdman42]

I can try to help you, but I need more information about the steps you tried to do and what exactly were the results.

[zenasium]

Thanks,
as i say, the installation run fine. when i launch reaper alone, JS is drumming.
Things are pretty much complicate when i try to trigger Js from logic. first i launch jackpilot, then reaper and at last logic. i create a new project but what did i have to do/create in logic to synchronize logic with reaper ? i'm not familiar with this and i take a look on the environment windows, but without success.
i try to use MTC, midiclock, but nothing works. I'm sure it's just a detail i miss, due to a misunderstand from logic environment and synchronization tools.
did this help you to give me help ?