Computer / Software

Apple have long been criticised for charging a premium for their products, making the Mac platform a more costly choice than the alternatives. With the newly released Mac Mini, Apple hope to change this perception, but is there enough Mac in the Mac Mini to make it useful for musicians?

Although intended as an entry-level application to introduce new people to computer-based music making, Apple's GarageBand has received acclaim from beginners and professionals alike. We look at version 2, which adds score editing, multitrack audio recording, and more...

If you are tempted to approach the dizzy heights of 4GB of RAM in your PC, as supported by most motherboards, there are a few things to bear in mind.

Did you know that sensibly partitioning your hard drive or, if it's already partitioned, simply swapping the positions of your audio and sample partitions could result in a significant improvement in PC audio performance? We explain the whys and wherefores.

I am very interested in purchasing Garritan Personal Orchestra as reviewed in the October 2004 edition of ...

We've discussed Logic's distributed audio processing in past Apple Notes columns, but this month we offer some tips on setting up Logic Node to run on a network of headless Macs, along with some advice on Firewire-based networking.

We tackle a Directmusic timing problem in Cubase SX and Nuendo, catch up with Gigastudio news, and bring some great freebie plug-ins and VSTis to your attention...

Apple kicked off a potentially exciting year for their customers at the 2005 Macworld show in San Francisco with a host of new and updated products, including the most affordable Macintosh computer the company has ever brought to market.

The AMD Athlon 64-based music computers from UK retailer Dawsons Music offer performance comparable to the very fastest Pentium 4 CPUs, and are ready to take advantage of 64-bit music software once it becomes available.

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?