I not undertstand some times to the devellopers. USUALLY , the major number of users on MAC are graphic designer, or people related to sound, music, recording production etc etc. This second grup of guys its very very high number of guys, and we usually want use lot of free VST not available for mac, but we cant !! If paralleles add SOME TIME MIDI , we can send midi in out from windows to parallales and from paralleels to windows !! and run any vst hosted under windows, conect lot of synths, or software from mac to windows and from widnows to mac !!! etc ect etc etc. Add MIDI to paralles its really more usefull............please !!! DO IT!!
Yes, I would agree that MIDI would be necessary for myself and other musicians. I am sure there are a significant number of us out there. When will MIDI be available? By the way, I have been informed there is a program called Crossover that does the same thing as Parallels, and Crossover has a new beta patch that allows users to use MIDI. Crossover is cheaper than Parallels and doesn't require a Windows license, so I am perplexed how Crossover can have MID function in their PC virtualization software, while Parallels cannot. Can someone explain this to me? MIDI is just a USB connection, and not even a very complicated one at that.
If MIDI is just using a USB, then doesn't it work? Just pass the USB device to the Windows side, no? I have no problemos with USB on the latest builds, using iMacs, MBPs, and an XServe.
Oh, lord I'd love to have good MIDI support, although truth be told I haven't tried running it yet. A dream would be to get Stanford's Planet CCRMA Linux in a virtual machine (lots of free and open source music software). Parallels wouldn't allow the low latency of a straight run, but it would be very cool to still play around...
OK, I confess I am not yet a Parallels owner, nor even an owner of an Intel Mac - though I soon intend to be - however, I have heard NOTHING from anyone - on this site, or anywhere else - who can verify that MIDI is implemented, and that it works. Yes, MIDI uses USB, but the question is, can anyone verify that MIDI is actually working in Parallels?
Sorry, didn't get the call in Friday, I'll do it Monday or Tuesday. I should be talking to him about some other business matters at that point.
I am very much interested in the answer to this as well, before I spend a bunch of time trying to install MIDI drivers on my currently working VM of Parallels 3.0 Windows XP...
He said what I suspected, as long as the USB works, if the MIDI is going through the USB it will work on Parallels. Grab the trial and give it a test-spin.
Um.... AFAIK there is software that can stream MIDI over TCP/IP. In other words, install this on your mac, and your VM, then work out how to get it all talking, and presto. Full MIDI with Parallels, and the developers don't have to waste their time on a feature that will only be useful to less than 1% of their users!
Uhmm....no need to do that. It absolutely works. I installed the drivers for an M-Audio MidiSport 2x2, plugged it into the USB, it works fine. You don't have to do any weird TCP/IP stuff. And BTW, there are plenty of people (more than 1%) using Virtual Machines for MIDI related applications. Some of us actually work (as opposed to playing games)
Glad it works. I would agree with forgie though, most installs are home/non-audio business. Sorry to break it to you.
Running Ableton, Fruity Loops etc with XP in Para with Midi ability?!?! Before i go out and spend about $5000 on a brand new Mac Pro for producing music can someone please give me a staight answer regarding using parallels with XP, running software like Ableton Live, Cubase, Logic Pro, Fruity Loops and Reason and being able to use MIDI stabily through USB? Also if VST's will run in exactly the same way as running on a normal standard PC? I would be super grateful for the info as i really need a Mac due to my PC being utterly garbage. Thank you all for your replys if someone can and also apologies if this answer is already answered above, i don't understand some of the jargon. Many Thanks and Greetings from Scotland to all, Alan
The answer is simple. Crossover is no PC virtualization software and hence they didn't have the same problems to solve and since they cannot run Windows (because that is not what Crossover does) no Windows licence is required. Crossover is a commercial implementation of Wine. Wine makes Windows programs run on UNIX systems, including Linux and Mac OS X. Wine does not virtualize anything, it is a combination of a set of libraries that add Win32 calls to a UNIX API and a loader that can load a Windows format binary into UNIX memory. A similar software exists for OS/2 named "Odin" (used to be called "Win32-OS/2" and is based on IBM's Open32 API extension for OS/2). Whether or not a MIDI port is easy to virtualize I do not know, but I can tell you, as a non-musician, that there is probably absolutely no demand for the feature among most Parallels users. And I don't think there are enough musicians who a) use a Mac and b) want to use Windows software to justify adding a feature that most people do not want or need.
Follow-up Question Thank you for explaining Crossover and how it functions. Being somewhat PC-challenged, I do not fully understand the explanation, but I appreciate it nonetheless. However, here is my next question: assuming that I can get MIDI to run on both Crossover AND Parallels, which woud be the better system (on an Intel Mac)? Since I will probably need to only run 1 program (ie, my Windows music MIDI program), my main concerns would be stability, reliability, and speed. And, also, since this is my profession, I cannot afford to spend hours a day troubleshooting an issue which, as you point out, would be such an esoteric issue to a typical customer support line.
ernieman, Well, crossover would probably be easier on the system. As to stability, Parallels is pretty easy, and if you use it's supported features it will run quite stably. I would just try and run Crossover first though, if you don't need to introduce the complication of virtualization, don't.
(Think of Crossover as something that makes your Windows program into a bad foreign-looking Mac program whereas Parallels makes your Mac into a Windows computer.) Crossover either works or it doesn't. There is little in-between. If your MIDI app works with Crossover, you should use Crossover. If it doesn't, use Parallels. I know the answer sounds stupid, but it really is the case that Crossover is a bit of a either-or solution. But since Parallels doesn't support MIDI (apparently), Crossover will be your only choice for the moment (don't know about Fusion). Download their demo and try it. If it works, buy it. I have Crossover but don't really use it. But I have seen Wine (the software Crossover is a distribution of) on Linux and it can work very well.
