Computer / Software

Is PC processing power finally matching the aspirations of PC musicians? PC Notes debates the issue, as well as bringing you another crop of news, tips and ideas.

Most hardware devices you use with your PC require drivers — but what happens to them and their associated files when you change the hardware or update to new drivers? Unfortunately, they hang about in various locations, cluttering your hard drive and storing up problems for the future. We explain how to make a clean sweep and get rid of them once and for all.

In an extended Apple Notes column we take an exclusive look at the 30-inch Cinema display from a musician and audio engineer's perspective, and evaluate the performance of the new dual-2.5GHz Power Mac G5 with our usual series of performance tests.

PC Notes comes across CD-burning problems, offers some Gigastudio 3 tips, and warns against a possible pitfall when updating a Cubase SX3 dongle.

You're planning to change your PC hard drives, so you just unplug the old ones, plug in the new ones, and off you go, right? Wrong!! There's many a slip, and this month we aim to help you avoid all of them.

Another crop of news, advice and tips is presented in the latest instalment of our essential Apple users' column.

Intel abandon their 4GHz Pentium processor speed target and shift their attention to the dual-core technology first espoused by AMD. Whatever is going on?

I have a problem that I am tearing my hair out trying to fix. I have a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 laptop with 1GB of RAM, an 80GB...

If you are tempted to go and make a cup of tea in the gap between pressing a note on your keyboard and hearing it play on your soft synth, you need help! Read on...

Intel's Prescott Pentium 4 chips have proved too hot for many music PC builders to handle, but Philip Rees have used them to build machines that are both powerful and impressively quiet.

There's no shortage of Apple news this month, including the release of new versions of Logic, a revision to the iBook line and a new, cheaper G5 model.

AMD's Opteron range of CPUs are popular with musicians and ready for 64-bit computing — so how does Inta Audio's Opteron PC compare with typical Intel machines?

Apple's original iMac marked the beginning of a turnaround for the company, and despite the consumer-oriented nature of the product, iMacs have found a place in many a home studio over the years. With the iMac range finally inheriting a G5 processor, have Apple created the perfect entry-level machine for demanding Mac musicians on a budget?

I'm a DJ who's looking to get into the production side of things (house and techno). I was going to opt for a PC over Mac. What should I be looking for in terms of processor speed, memory, soundcard and so on?

The PCI standard has more ins and outs than you might be aware of. We attempt to sort them out, as well as highlight a problem that can cause software authorisations to expire before their time.

We discuss Apple's brand-new iMac, investigate how much power a musician can really expect from the latest Powerbooks, and explain how to save some hard disk space when installing Mac OS X.

Many of the unwanted hums, clicks, and whirrs that compromise the performance of your computer studio are nothing to do with software. We take a look at what causes them, and how to banish them for good!

In recent months, SOS's online Mac Music forum has highlighted the difficulty with achieving the same number of channels of audio I/O under Mac OS X and Logic that were possible under OS 9. We investigate the problems and provide some solutions.

The Windows XP Service Pack 2 is out, and it offers valuable bug fixes as well as enhanced Internet security measures. But as reports of a few audio-related problems surface, should musicians go ahead and install it?

The Jack low-latency sound server has been ported to OS X from Linux. We discuss its background and implications.

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.