JACK Audio/MIDI on MacOS

Using MOD devices
1

I compiled jackd on Mac and can get a connection to my MOD Duo X.

I’m looking for ways to get audio in/out, either with something like JackRouter to give me CoreAudio devices or VST/AU Plugins that connect to jackd. Ideally both.

I compiled JackBridge (derived I believe from JackRouter but with a fixed number of inputs and outputs) - however I can’t get it to run (shm_open() failed with No such file or directory. Attaching shared memory failed (id=0)).

What are my options?

2

JackRouter does not work on macOS since 10.15, Apple removed the APIs that made it possible.
(for security reasons, obviously…)

To quote the original developer of JackRouter: (in a recent conversation with him)

I‘m currently trying to estimate the technical complexity, with all of those tricky sandbox issues. I did some tests but nothing works for now, and TBH I still don’t know how it can be done.

With Apple slowly closing down more and more of macOS, the future for JACK on it does not look very bright. Not even sure if JACK itself will work on the new macOS 11 (used for the new apple-sillicon devices)

3

Then what about a VST approach? I looked at your code for JackAss, but it’s MIDI only. Why no audio?

4

The old JackInsert plugin was something that did that, but it seems no one (or almost no one) was using that.
For sending audio data from one application to another, SoundFlower or BlackHole might work best

5

I want to route audio between my Duo X and my DAW running on macOS (in and out). This will not only allow me to record audio from the Duo X but also use it as an outboard effects unit.

JackInsert would be very useful. I had a look for the source a while back but couldn’t find it. Would it be difficult to add it back into jack2?

If JACK/CoreAudio integration is not going to be possible, then a VST/AU plugin would be the way to go. Or USB Audio I suppose, if arbitrary channels can be created as needed.

6

I spent a day or so looking into VST development, however the VST2 SDK is no longer (legally) available and the DAW I use most (Native Instruments Maschine) doesn’t support VST3 (ridiculous given it’s been around for about 10 years now).

So my next approach is to write an AudioUnit-to-JACK bridge. Unless anyone has any better ideas or suggestions.

7

For anyone finding this thread later: there is now a way to do exactly what zappso was after, on macOS 15+.

I made JackMoebius, a modern JackRouter successor: it exposes a CoreAudio app (a DAW, for example) as a JACK client, in both directions. Its output goes into the JACK graph, and JACK can feed its input, so you can send a track to any JACK device or client and bring the result back, for instance to use a hardware unit as an outboard effect. No plug-in is needed in the DAW: it just selects JackMoebius (or a dedicated card with up to 64 channels each way) in its audio settings. It’s driven from JackMate (free, MIT), a native app to manage JACK.

Feel free to have a look at it on github or on their dedicated websites (jackmate dot app and jackmoebius dot io ) .

Best, Eric