Computer / Software

Shareware might be cheap, but it can also make you very cheerful. We round up some of the best of the current PC music shareware scene.

Mac OS 10.3 (Panther) has been with us a few months, and has been dissected and evaluated to destruction in the mainstream computer press — but just how useful are its new features for Mac-based musicians and engineers?

Why does software always crash irrecoverably when you are at your busiest? And why are technical support lines unable to help you when you need them most? We offer some advice on how to avoid phoning them in the first place...

The launch of Mac OS 10.4, codenamed Tiger, is just around the corner, but in the meantime there's the 1.1 update of GarageBand to be going on with. We reveal the improvements, as well as investigate MIDI configuration problems in OS X.

The Harbal EQ-matching program benefits from some worthwhile tweaks. We report them, and discuss some new information about Longhorn: the next incarnation of the Windows OS.

Thanks to the Internet and the generosity of talented programmers all over the world, it's possible to assemble a PC music software suite for no money at all. We round up some of the best download sites and freebie programs.

Gmedia continue their quest to render the best of the world's keyboards in software form. But will it give OSCar fans a case of the grouches?

The music world is going soft — but the economics of software production run up hard against the inadequacies of software protection. Cutting Edge speculates on a possible solution.

If you are relatively new to PC music, it can seem like a maze of acronyms and mystifying computer-related terms — so here's a useful glossary to clear up any confusion.

Steinberg have made available the results from a set of uniform Cubase SX tests that pitted different computers against each other — but what does it all mean for your choice of processor?

As Apple's recent Panther operating system upgrade is adopted by the Mac community, the usual problems that accompany such a major change begin to surface. We take a closer look at the issues worth considering before making the jump to Panther, and report on Apple's new iBook G4.

Ever accidentally thrown away computer data that you should have kept? This month we have the technology, and we can rebuild it.

Do you have elderly Windows or MS-DOS software that refuses to run under Windows XP? If so, there may still be a way to get it working. Find out how...