Computer / Software

It's been possible to make music on Apple laptops for many years now, but creating a working mobile system is harder than it looks. Fortunately, one SOS contributor has years of experience to pass on...

Although Centrino laptops have advantages in terms of weight and battery life, standard Pentium 4 CPUs still offer the ultimate in performance, and Nu Systems's desktop replacement machine is a processing heavyweight.

This month we not only compare the hard-drive speed performance of USB and Firewire, but also take a look at a MIDI latency-testing utility and see how a handful of MIDI interfaces measure up.

Extra DSP assistance to help your PC's processor cope with effects treatments used to be the province of the pro. Now there's a wide range of DSP-equipped cards to fit all budgets — but many people don't realise the latency issues that might be involved in using some of them.

Apple continued to demonstrate a commitment to music in January at both the San Francisco Macworld and LA Winter NAMM shows, as well as releasing G5-based Xserve machines. And this month we continue exploring the G5's performance in a musical context.

Do you use a software studio with plug-in effects but crave the effects quality that your favourite hardware processor used to provide? Well, you can have the best of both worlds... as this article explains.

We return to the great Page File controversy of 2003... as well as keeping you stocked with the usual cocktail of PC news and tips.

As more musicians and audio professionals begin to embrace G5 Power Macs, we take a look at quantifying just how much host-based DSP power you can expect. Plus, news of the 20-inch iMac and an explanation of 'Journaling'.

With the promise of improved battery life and more compact designs with no compromise in performance, Intel's Centrino technology should be the answer to the mobile musician's prayers. But does the promise hold true when running the most demanding music and audio software?

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?

Few products have been hyped as much as Apple's new G5 range of 64-bit personal computers — but how good are they for making and recording music in the real world? We test the 2GHz Dual Processor model...

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.

A frequently recurring question from new sequencer/DAW users is what else they need to set up a complete studio. We show you how to create the most simple usable system, and how to expand and adapt it to more demanding applications.

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...

More and more musicians are turning to systems based around a laptop PC, and Intel's new Pentium-M processor — as found in this model from Maxdata and SME Solutions — seems to perform well with music applications.

My guitar player's girlfriend has a four-year-old Gateway Pentium III laptop with 64MB RAM and Windows 98SE installed, and she has agreed to let me do whatever I need to so that we can use it for music. How do we wipe the thing clean and end up with Windows XP for an OS, 320MB of RAM and Emagic Logic Audio Platinum on there?

There's plenty to investigate in this month's Apple Notes, from the Windows version of iTunes to the latest major update to OS X.

With the release in the UK of XP Media Center Edition, Microsoft aim to make Windows PCs a modern equivalent of the radiogram — the heart of a complete music and video home. entertainment system.