Emagic Announces New Audio Streaming Standard

EASI - The Enhanced Audio Streaming Interface

March 3, 1999 -- Emagic has released a new audio streaming standard called the Enhanced Audio Streaming Interface, or EASI. It is an effort to create a common interface for all audio hardware, similar to Steinberg's cross-platform ASIO technology, or Sound Manager on the Mac and DirectSound on Windows. However Emagic felt there were at least some holes in each of these existing standards, and set out to create their own which will be public and open to all developers from the start. A preliminary EASI standard definition is already available on Emagic's web site (www.emagic.de) which includes some sample code showing how the protocol works.

EASI is a layer that resides between a software applications, such as a sequencer or audio editor, and the audio hardware. The software must be written to conform to the EASI protocol, and audio cards that support the standard will come with EASI drivers, which are also called plug-ins (Note that these EASI plug-ins are not for adding audio effects, like VST plug-ins.) EASI provides for essential capabilities such as multiple channels, full-duplex operation, and sample accurate synchronization. It also holds some promise for reducing the amount of work the computer's CPU must perform by taking advantage of any hardware acceleration features. These features could be things like input monitoring, level metering, and hardware mixing/routing that are built into an audio card. Should the audio hardware not offer these features, an EASI host (e.g. the sequencing program) handles the work in software.

For hardware developers, the EASI drivers are relatively simple and the code is very platform independent to reduce total driver development time. Additionally, the EASI standard (for both plug-ins and hosts) is public with no licensing fees or non disclosure agreements required (Many smaller developers have complained about difficulties getting ASIO information and SDKs from Steinberg, however Steinberg is a bit more reserved to ensure they can provide service to their developers that Emagic may not provide)

EASI is not just some proposed format - Emagic is already using it in the audio engine of Logic Audio 4.0. Parts of the standard are not concrete yet, and Emagic will certainly be adding new features and refining EASI in response to developer requests and to support new features in audio hardware.

So now the question is, will developers support this new standard? Being an open standard, you can expect to see many small or even shareware developers include EASI support, but only if the hardware drivers are out there. Emagic may provide some drivers themselves for common hardware such as what is built into Macintosh computers, and Sonorus has already jumped on board announcing forthcoming EASI support. It's critical that other hardware developers follow this lead for EASI to succeed.

For more information, visit Emagic at www.emagic.de.