Using VAZ Modular on a Mac - BootCamp - Parallels - Crossover Games?

[Winstontaneous]

I've done a search and turned up threads from the pre-VAZ Synths KVR forum era.
Want to start a new one discussing all the options in one place.

I need to get a laptop soon.
For a number of reasons (FireWire, battery life, Final Cut Pro, academic discount) I'm leaning toward a MacBook Pro.
The only software I'd really miss is VAZ Modular.

I know I can install Windows on Bootcamp, but I'd rather not do it just for one program.

The threads I saw about using Parallels/Fusion/other virtual machines indicate that it's possible, but that latency can be an issue.

I did read about the Crossover Games (WINE) option.
Doing this is it possible to connect to other Mac programs running natively using JACK or some such? Realtime latency is important as I want to use VAZ for live audio processing.

Best option of the above?
Any chance of a Mac version on the horizon? There's really no virtual modular that matches VAZ for ease of use/sound/general craziness!

Thanks!

[MadGav]

Hi Winstontaneous,

My recipe for VazMod on Crossover Games / Snow Leopard / Jack is here:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 83#4165083

It's my preferred way to run it standalone on my MacBook Pro, I also have VMWare Fusion running XP where development gets done. Converted from running VMWare off the Boot Camp partition to a straight virtual machine to save space and allow suspend.

Martin

[jparshall]

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Hi Winstontaneous,

My recipe for VazMod on Crossover Games / Snow Leopard / Jack is here:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 83#4165083

It's my preferred way to run it standalone on my MacBook Pro

Martin

Glad CrossOver is working for you for this app. I'm intrigued that you're running it on our Games product, though.

Cheers,

-jon parshall-
COO
www.codeweavers.com (http://www.codeweavers.com)

[MadGav]

Glad CrossOver is working for you for this app. I'm intrigued that you're running it on our Games product, though.

Hi Jon, a welcome surprise to find you posting here! The reason for Games is historic, when I first tried CrossOver the Games flavour was based on a later release of Wine and actually worked for me I bought a license and was able to download the Snow Leopard update just before that expired. I'm guessing I'll need to upgrade once I move to Lion so at that point I'll test the normal product.

Martin

[jparshall]

Glad CrossOver is working for you for this app. I'm intrigued that you're running it on our Games product, though.

Hi Jon, a welcome surprise to find you posting here! The reason for Games is historic, when I first tried CrossOver the Games flavour was based on a later release of Wine and actually worked for me I bought a license and was able to download the Snow Leopard update just before that expired. I'm guessing I'll need to upgrade once I move to Lion so at that point I'll test the normal product.

Martin

Just a heads up that we will be releasing a Lion build pretty quickly here, so you'll be able to make that move when you want. But yeah, you'll need to get a new license of CrossOver if your support period has expired. Thank you kindly, though, for your support--it's much appreciated!

Cheers,

-jon-

[limitedheadroom]

thanks Martin,

I managed to get VAZ running in crossover games with your instructions. There are a couple of problems, I wonder if you have any ideas, though I know this isn't a crossover support forum.

I can't stop the MIDI thru. Even though it is not ticked under the global menu. This means whenever I try to play it from Logic VAZ crashes as it is creating a MIDI feedback loop, unless I make sure I have a different track selected. This is just very difficult when editing, and too easy to create a crash. Any suggestions as to how I can stop this MIDI thru, is it maybe a WINE thing? I can't see anything anywhere that might help.

There also appears to be no way to quit VAZ at all. I have to force quit crossover. Just annoying, and have to restart audio within VAZ every time.

Finally, and least important AZ complains of a missing help file on startup.

On the plus side, latency is as low as any plugin, brilliant! Modular madness again

Any suggestions very welcome, thanks you.

[MadGav]

Hi lh,

I half suspect the MIDI thru problem is not even to do with VAZ or Crossover, maybe Logic opening both ends of the IAC driver? Will test it here!

The other bugs sounds like old version problems to me, what version are you running? (The demo *is* dated and still has these problems btw)

Martin

[MadGav]

I've just had a play with Logic + VazMod and I had problems with Logic giving system overload messages until I first turned off MIDI monitoring [R] on the VAZ track. I also worked out the more complete "fix" which is to disable input from the IAC MIDI bus used in the Environment, the essence of the trick is to route the input to a dummy object (I used a Monitor).

Martin

[limitedheadroom]

Thanks Martin,

I managed to figure out the same solution in the environment myself, also using a monitor object. Works nicely.

I thought i was using the latest (stable) release of VAZ, 3.04, although I am not at the computer with it on just now to double check. I'll try and run the beta of 3.2 and see how I get on with that, hopefully that will solve it.

Also I have found a CHM viewer of OSX, but how do I get the helpfiles? Will I need to find a windows machine, install VAZ and then copy them to my mac? or is there a way of getting them out of the installer, or downloading them somewhere, or have they been placed somewhere in the bottle I created within crossover games? I'll have a look round.

Thanks again for the help.

Dan

[MadGav]

I thought i was using the latest (stable) release of VAZ, 3.04, although I am not at the computer with it on just now to double check. I'll try and run the beta of 3.2 and see how I get on with that, hopefully that will solve it.

You'll probably see a cryptic popup error about file permissions when installing in Crossover... you can safely ignore it.

Also I have found a CHM viewer of OSX, but how do I get the helpfiles? Will I need to find a windows machine, install VAZ and then copy them to my mac? or is there a way of getting them out of the installer, or downloading them somewhere, or have they been placed somewhere in the bottle I created within crossover games? I'll have a look round.

You can dig down to the files with Finder:
/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/CrossOver Games/Bottles/<bottle name>/drive_c/Program Files/VAZ Modular/

Obviously a good idea to copy somewhere more convenient!

Martin

[Winstontaneous]

There is a "name-your-own-price" MacBundle deal right now that includes Crossover (usually $60)--as long as you pay at least the average price, which is currently $14.13.

I'm not too familiar with other apps in the bundle, though CamTasia (screen capture) and RaySupreme (3D modeling/rendering) look like fun.

Crossover-ed VAZ Modular standalone is bleeping and blooping away happily on my MacBookPro as I type this. Seems to be more stable than when I tried a Crossover demo last year.

It's such a relief to be back with VAZ...truly like reuniting with an old friend or lover. There are no native Mac programs like it, and I don't have much occasion to fire up my old XP box anymore.

One question, will Crossover-ed VAZ host Windows VSTs? When I installed VAZ through Crossover it created a C:Steinberg/VST or some such folder, but I couldn't correlate that to the Mac folder structure.

edit: reading MadGav's post above, I'll try looking in Library/Bottle location for VST folder.