eMac & Upgraded Titanium PowerBook

Photos courtesy of Apple

For many in the music and audio field, the removal of audio inputs from Apple computers, especially the portables (first the iBook and then the Titanium), presented an insurmountable problem since at the time it was proving very difficult to get audio working reliably via USB. Even now, nearly four years after the original iMac made USB commonplace, I receive more correspondence regarding USB audio problems than everything else put together. A recent piece praising the Emagic EMI 2|6 USB audio interface, for example, was greeted with several negative emails from readers who'd been less successful in getting it working.

The pessimists among us were fairly certain we'd never see another Mac with an audio input, though I took every opportunity to bring to Apple's attention just how difficult it was to get a reasonable quality stereo signal into a Mac these days without spending seven or eight hundred pounds on a multiple input/output FireWire box. In the old days I'd plug a guitar directly into my 'Wall Street' G3 PowerBook for all my demonstrations, and the quality was certainly good enough for an electric guitar that was going to get covered in distortion and chorus plug-ins. With the arrival of the iBook and Titanium PowerBook, I thought those days were gone forever.

However, a recent low-key announcement via the Apple web site (surprisingly without a charismatic appearance from Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs) announced two new Macs with audio inputs. Of course, the normal sleuthing is required to spot this radical turnaround as Apple themselves are far more interested in telling you all about the video refinements -- the only mention of the restored recording capability is in the technical specs. But this move does suggest that Apple have been listening to those complaining about the inconvenience of having to carry an extra box around just to make a simple audio recording, coupled with the sheer unpredictability of some USB audio interfaces. Hopefully the inclusion of audio inputs is a definite policy change and not an isolated incident.

For the musician on the move, the new upgraded Titanium PowerBook will be the most attractive machine ever built for music and audio production, and it's one of the fastest notebook computers on the planet with an 800MHz G4 processor and a 1MB level 3 cache. In addition to getting its audio inputs back, just 18 months after they seemed to be relegated to a historic footnote, the PowerBook now includes an Apple Digital Video Output allowing it to be connected directly to Apple's range of Cinema displays, including the new 23-inch High Definition Cinema display.

Apple's mobile computers have finally caught up with their deskbound counterparts, and the new Titanium can be viewed as an equal to a single-processor desktop machine. Only the dual-1GHz machine outperforms it in terms of raw speed, and as far as connectivity goes, the PCMCIA slot makes a worthy substitute for PCI now that RME have finally cracked MIDI support in their Hammerfall DSP interface (which is also sold by Steinberg as the Nuendo AudioLink). USB is fine for MIDI (especially under OS X which no longer needs OMS to enable basic MIDI I/O; and if you don't want to go with PCMCIA for audio, there's always the FireWire connector.

All the cool things about the previous Titanium series have been retained (100Mbit ethernet, built-in modem, and Airport as standard on the top model) and the only real casualty is the infra-red remote. However, given the choice between that and a stereo audio in plus direct DVI connection to a Cinema display, I know which I would rather have, and I suspect that others will agree with me. The Titanium is already the coolest lifestyle statement amongst musicians and producers, and it's the only game in town for musicians on the move, until the audio inputs are restored to the iBook range at least.

The new Anglepoise-styled iMac (reviewed in the May 2002 issue of SOS) is generally considered to be an excellent music machine for the first time buyer. However, because it suffers from a lack of audio inputs, which makes it necessary to add a USB or FireWire audio interface to your shopping list, I've still been recommending the original iMac to those wanting to get started with music. Despite the fact it only has a G3 processor, it was the only remaining Mac with an audio input. However, with a 700MHz G4 processor and restored audio recording capability (without the need for extra hardware), the new eMac is definitely the best value entry-level machine for musicians. However, the e in eMac is for education, and Apple were originally going to be selling the highly desirable eMac to this market only. Fortunately, as we were going to press, Apple have reversed this decision due to consumer pressure.

Apple Announces Latest 'Fast Cat' Upgrade To OS X At The Worldwide Developer Conference     The latest version of Mac OS X, codenamed Jaguar, was previewed at Apple's WWDC (Worldwide Developer's Conference) during the beginning of May in Cupertino. Amongst the new features aimed at general Mac users is iChat, an AIM-compatible instant messaging application allowing you to chat with anyone with a mac.com account or with AOL Instant Messager. You can also chat to anyone on your local ethernet or Airport networks, which could be pretty useful. Other highlights include Address Book, Sherlock 3, and an intelligent junk mail filter for Mail. Aside from these additions for Internet junkies, there are many improvements to the software technologies under the OS X bonnet. Quartz Extreme will provide hardware acceleration for Quartz graphics if you have a supported graphics card, which should solve the sometimes sluggish feel of the user interface. With the graphics card taking care of the visuals, the G4 processor is left to run the actual programs more efficiently. And multimedia authors will be particularly interested in QuickTime 6, especially with the inclusion of codecs for MPEG-4 video and AAC (Advanced Audio Coding), which provides higher-quality audio than MP3 at half the bandwidth. However, far more interesting to those of us who primarily use a Mac for music and audio is the addition of Control Panel access to OS X's audio and MIDI capabilities. In the example illustrated, Jaguar is reporting on the G4 iMac's built-in audio capabilities (which don't include an audio input), so the input section isn't displaying any data. Jaguar's new Audio MIDI setup control panel. The section to be looking at is the Output Stream drop-down menu, which allows you to select which of the multiple output stream channels you're working with. In other words, multi-channel audio input and output at OS level is finally a reality on the Mac platform. Each of these output streams can be set differently, and although I haven't seen the contents of the System Output drop-down menu, it's good to know that you can now change the configurations of multiple output streams. This means that you could have your DVD player outputting surround sound through an Emagic EMI 2|6, for example, while your mastering software routes through the AES-EBU output on a M Audio Delta card, and the irritating error noises from your desktop system can be confined to the stereo output on the Mac itself. Of course, the audio input section will not be blank when this control panel is opened on a new Titanium or eMac, or indeed a PowerMac with a Delta 1010 or one of the other M Audio products that already have OS X drivers. But for now, at least it's reassuring to finally see evidence of multi-channel output on the Mac OS. All Apple-based audio developers at the recent AES show were being pretty tight-lipped about OS X release dates, but this isn't surprising since Apple haven't announced a date for Jaguar's release (although the MacWorld show in New York this summer seems likely). Steinberg were showing a more complete version of Nuendo running on OS X, and Yamaha assured me unofficially that mLAN would be compatible with the developments in Jaguar (as discussed in May 2002's Apple Notes). However, both companies were confining themselves to saying that this compatibility was entirely dependent on when Apple choose to release Jaguar.

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