Hi again -
I'm on an iBook G4 and use Soundflower/Bed all the time without a hitch, sorry you had a bad time.
Despite M8 being primarily a live visual performance tool, many of the ideas I look forward to seeing in future releases come from using various studio NLE and compositing tools - Final Cut, After Effects, where for instance it's possible to nudge a video clip forward or back along a timeline by a few frames. This sort of capability might allow the tight syncing you are looking for but is not available in M8 2.5.
To get this level of 'studio' organisation for your material in a live audience situation whilst retaining the ability to go with the flow & feel, to still 'play' the visuals, might
possibly be a nirvana that Yves and Boris are working towards (my words) in the future - lots of us hope so anyway. But then they will probably come up with something amazingly different which will please me even more. Give me the unexpected.
The accurate answer to your question:
Surely there is a SIMPLE way to trigger Modul8 with audio from a file, so that one can sync audio-visuals tightly?
is no.
There are ways to make great visuals relatively easily that have certain elements of their movement, fading, effects and colouring loosely synced with audio using M8 but as far as I am aware they all involve some level of live play, compromise, trial & error or workaround.
I think M8 may not be the tool you are looking for.
In fact, whilst I'm being philosophical, M8 isn't
exactly the tool I am looking for either, we all always want more.
But as a way of creating WOW visuals with what can only be described as a minimal learning curve it is way out there.
If you want to give it another go, to make it work for you, then here are a few more ideas:
Try importing an audio clip into M8 so it plays alongside your visuals as one of the layers.
M8 supports fading for audio as well as video from one layer set to another.
For this you will need to make a QT .mov of your audio with a blank video frame or two in order to play it within M8. You can't just drop audio files into M8.
Try the Logical Record facility in M8. This records the movements of knobs and sliders in the GUI as you play which can then be played back repeatedly.
It is crudely possible to amend this visual recording over and over until you have the visuals you want.
Once satisfied you can then export the video using Render Logical Record. This video can then be easily combined with your audio using QT.
There are also interesting possibilities for using midi, although that really is a bag of worms compared to audio routing. Search this forum for Ableton and Numerology references.
That's it. I;m taking the dog for a walk to clear my head.
This post is scratch and play - probably red wine flavour.
Happy New Year. )))