SOUND ON SOUND
Until recently, the benefits of the high-bandwidth IEEE 1394 interface were available only to musicians on a relatively generous budget, but now M Audio are making Firewire peripherals available at new low prices to PC and Mac users.
The tonewheel organ is back in vogue, aided by various recent 'virtual' renditions of the real thing, and Hammond's release of the New B3. But how faithful does the software sound? We look at two contenders...
MOTU's range of PCI audio interfaces is based around a single PCI card, with three different rackmounting units offering combinations of analogue and digital I/O.
Processor upgrades are a great idea for making older computers in general household use last longer. But how well does a processor speed boost translate into improved performance in musical applications on older Macintoshes? We find out...
As the Apple Music Store online music experience is unleashed on an unsuspecting world, we speculate on the reasons for the recent reduction in Powerbook prices and take a look at how plug-ins are faring under OS X.
With the largest screen ever featured on a portable computer, Apple's flagship laptop would be tempting even if it didn't offer lots of musician-friendly features such as versatile connectivity and quiet operation...
Traditionally, SCSI drives give high sequencer track counts while IDE drives are more affordable but perform less well. Can you obtain better Mac sequencer performance and save money by using multiple IDE drives? We present some evidence...
It's history in OS X, but extension management is a subject every OS 9 user has to deal with. Here, we offer some final advice on the subject and see if tweaking extensions really can boost your system's performance.
Apple's new 12-inch Powerbook seems perfect for musicians who are unable to afford a Titanium, but need something more powerful than an iBook. However, with the 800MHz G3 iBook now available at a new low price, is the extra cost of a Powerbook justified in terms of its performance?
PreSonus' eight-channel Firewire interface is the first to use Yamaha's much-touted mLAN protocol. How does it compare to the proprietary driver systems developed by the likes of MOTU and Metric Halo?