Rayzoon Technologies LLC

[Ralph [RZ]]

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


Ok, i'll try to keep it simple. If any questions occur, i'll answer them if possible.

My setup is a 27" iMac i5 quad with 8GB RAM, 1TB disk and OSX 10.6.3.

1.) You need Parallels Desktop for Mac Version 5 and above, available here: http://www.parallels.com/, and a clean Windows installation disk. With Parallels you can setup and run different OS like Windows 7, XP, several Linuxes all in parallel as Virtual Machines, but for my test i use Windows XP Pro SP3.

I cannot describe the Parallels setup and configuration in detail here, but it's worth to spend some time on the good manuals and the initial setup is guided and simple. After the program is installed and ready you are able to install XP just the way you would on a normal PC. After that you have to install an OS-specific pack of tools which is also provided by Parallels Desktop. All necessary items to let XP run under OSX are configured automatically. There's no need for additional drivers for external hardware because all audio is handled via OSX. I recommend ASIO4ALL as the audio driver on the VM.

You are also able to copy and install an existing Windows PC system partition one to one via a LAN connection. It's like re-installing from a C: partition backup. You'll need a little app running on that windows machine; it's free available from Parallels. There are many, many more features in Parallels Desktop to play with;-)

After installation of Windows is done you can finetune the VM. I've set up mine with 2GB RAM and have no problems with running bigger apps on both OSX and XP in parallel, even a Ubuntu Linux VM with 2GB RAM can run beside the others.
You can also share your Mac folders and all the "My documents" folders on the Windows VM, but that seems to lead in a problem with Jamstix as described in the other thread. Ralph is working on that, but you can disable sharing and work with a normal "My documents" folder in XP.

The VM is provided with a virtual ethernet port to communicate with OSX and getting LAN or internet access. It is connected with an IP address via DHCP. This is the important link for using ipMIDI, the next step.


2.) Get ipMIDI from here: http://nerds.de/en/ipmidi.html. You can try it for 60 minutes runtime on every reboot 30 days long. Later you only pay for the Windows app; the app needed on the OSX side is a free download!

ipMIDI does exactly what it is named for: It prepares Windows to provide up to 20 ethernet "channels" (they are ports) to send and receive MIDI data over them via IP. There's nothing big to configure - install it, then a little task bar icon is displayed and by clicking right on it you can select which number of channels you want to use (after a reboot) and, if necessary, you can "mute" single or all channels. That's all (the "loop" feature is described in the ipMIDI manual, but doesn't interest here). See

On the Mac side ipMIDI installs itself as a object in the MIDI configuration pane available in the Audio/MIDI configuration app. There you can select the number of channels as described above for Windows. Ready you go to setup Live!


3.) Run Live (i have 8.1.3) on OSX and open the preferences window. In the MIDI Sync tab you'll see one or more new MIDI ports, depending on how much channels you have ipMIDI configured to use (see above). They are labeled "ipMIDI (Port x)" where x is a number between 1 and 20. You now have to activate the Track switch of the input ports you want to use. To test the JS3/BFD-setup i use the first input, "ipMIDI (Port 1)".

If you want to synchronize Live on Windows with Live on OSX you also must switch the Sync option of one of the ipMIDI ports on, so that the MIDI sync signals can be routed between the two Live instances. To get to fast results i have activated both, an input and an output ipMIDI port with Track and Sync both activated. That's not ideal, you could test some combinations for yourself.

Last step in OSX: Load a drum engine in a Live MIDI track (i use BFD2 in this example). Select "ipMIDI (port1)" under the "MIDI from" popup as input. Leave the rest as you like. Over to XP now.


4.) Start your Windows VM and load Live. Go to the preferences window and do exactly the same things you've done in the OSX instance of Live (making the track and sync switches for input and output ipMIDI (for this example) active). Note that these MIDI ports here are labeled "x Ethernet MIDI" where x is also numbered from 1 to 20!

Load Jamstix3 in a MIDI track, go to its Mixer view and make the "MIDI only" switch active. Now you will hear no sound of JS in the Windows instance of Live, but he MIDI notes will be sent.

Make a new MIDI track and select the Jamstix3 track as the "MIDI from" input. Don't forget to set the popup below to "jamstix3", not "Pre-FX" or "Post-FX"! Go to the "MIDI To" popup window and select "1 Ethernet MIDI". Now you send the MIDI notes from JS3 via ipMIDIs ethernet channel 1 to the OSX pendant of ipMIDI which will route it into Live on ipMIDI (port1)!

Make sure that JS3 is playing something with MIDI (you have the little green MIDI indicator down in the Mixer view) and that your drum engine is loaded with a kit and samples. Hit the play button in the Windows instance of Live and hear your drums in OSX!


5.) If you want to synchronize both instances of Live and you had setup the ipMIDI ports as described above with the sync switch activated, all you have to do in Live is to select the "EXT" button (external sync) in the upper left corner in the instance of Live that you want to be the sync slave. I have tested it and it works in both ways - Windows Live as master/OSX Live as slave and vice versa.


Some points at the end:
- I haven't tested the setup with other DAW software yet. But if they support MIDI-input and MIDI sync over ethernet they should work in general.
- The necessary note mapping steps for JS3 kits and your drum engine kits are described in the JS manual.
- Maybe in sync'ed mode you'll see some small "jitter" in the Beat display on the OSX instance of Live. I was running a complex Prog Metal Jam Session in the Windows JS3 together with some instruments sequenced by the OSX Live instance and didn't hear at any time non-synced events.
- You can put your Virtual Machines on other partitions or external hard drives (i don't recommend network drives) if they are fast - really fast - enough. The faster the better, as always;-)

ipMIDI Setup window on XP:

Live preferences ipMIDI on OSX:

Live track setup BFD2:

Live preferences ipMIDI on XP:

Live JS3 track setup on XP:
_________________
Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

[A/V4U]

Thanks Ralph and vaikl. This is great and I think you made a lot of people happy...[who ever was asking or waiting for OSX release...] I'm already ipMIDI owner so thats just to buy Mac and I'm ready to go...hehe. JK..... really appreceate your support.

[Doc]

Thanks to Vaikl for the time spent figuring this out and writing the tutorial.
I tested this procedure with a Windows XP box in VMware Fusion on my Macbook Pro.
Conclusion: It doesn´t work, unfortunately. I can´t get the Midi Out of XP to my Mac (host is also Live 8.1.3).
Also the system loses way too much performance running Live on both Max and XP box and dedicating much morew RAM to the XP box than under normal circumstances .
So it´s back to Bootcamp for me which is a fine solution until JS for Mac will be out because that´s a very performant system on my Mac.

[vaikl]

Doc, sorry that it doesn't work on VMs Fusion. Many of the problems that can occur but weren't described in my quick guide are related to network config issues, because ipMIDI sends MIDI data over ethernet ports.

My XP VM is configured to use the "Shared Networking" option in Parallels which is the same as the "NAT" option in VMs Fusion. The XP VM gets an IP address from a small internal DHCP server running in the Parallels Desktop application in OSX. My OSX system has a dedicated IP address.

Do you have NAT as the networking connection type activated in Fusion for your XP? Can you ping the network address for your macbook from inside the XP VM?

The other two options setting up the network that both Fusion and Parallels offer, are Host-only and Bridging mode. In Host-only the VM cannot communicate with the "outer world" behind the OSX host, because it sits behind a firewall. This firewall can prevent ipMIDI to get IP packets into OSX. The Bridging mode makes the VM to be a total independent network node and thus the IP packets going out to your network router may not "coming back" to OSX due to routing issues.

Performance is critical to run DAWs in Virtual machines, i know. Therefore the bootcamp solution may be better for your setup.

[Doc]

[vaikl]

Some important additions on networking and synchronization!!!

1.) In the quick guide i wrote that the "Loop" switch in the ipMIDI config panel is of no interest for now. That's true if you only want to synchronize the OSX instance of Live as a MIDI clock slave and the XP instance as master. That works always.

"Loop" means loopback and that means MIDI data is leaving your machine *and* is available for other programs on your machine. In sync mode this leads to a hanging MIDI clock loop.

2.) In answer to Docs post i described the three modes of networking connection that are usual for Virtualization Software like VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop. My error was that in fact i use the Bridging Mode, not the NAT Mode!!!

Background info: ipMIDIs additional ethernet ports are not routable for a router in your network! You'll never get them over an internet connection or to another subnet on your local network.

In NAT mode your XP VM gets a DHCP-generated IP address beginning with 10.x.x.x. You can send ipMIDI packets (they are in fact multicast UDP packets) to OSX and any other workstation in your home LAN but you can't get any MIDI data back from there. So syncing OSX(as master)->XP VM(slave) won't work!

In Bridging Mode your VM gets an IP address in the range of the addresses of your LAN, i.e. if you use 192.168.1.x and subnet mask 255.255.255.0, your VM gets another 192.168.1.x address which is free (that works the same way for DHCP). This time your XP VM is a total independent network machine in the same subnet as OSX and ipMIDI can see it to send MIDI data.

Conclusion: Setup your XP VM in Bridging Mode and turn the ipMIDI Loop Switch off on both sides.

[Doc]

I see. Thanks for your clarification.

[gilgamesh_one]

I'm still running Jamstix with Reaper via Crossover Pro 7 on Leopard, but only Crossover 8+ work on Snow Leopard. Jamstix 2/3 "work" on Crossover Pro 8 under Snow Leopard--except for the audio jam function, which doesn't work for me at all. Has anyone had any luck with running Jamstix on Crossover under Snow Leopard?

[Dewdman42]

Using crossover is still the preferable solution over any VM solution such as Fusion or parallels, but it often requires a lot of fiddling to keep working right. However, when it does, its absolutely the best solution.

[rafi_jon]

Thank you for the useful information!

[Dewdman42]

I've posted a new easy installer to use Jamstix on OSX. See this sticky thread:

http://rayzoon2.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6169

cheers