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# Cooledit for Mac OS? And I mean really as good (or better?) I am DJ, I also make songs myself using the multitrack technology of it; I also want to be able to process my soundfiles with compression and effects wherever needed.
Finale, Logic, Reason to name a few, or may be GarageBand? Want some free/shareware? Look here on Apple or Versiontracker

# Instead of Office, Openoffice?
Actually I found Office 2004 quite good, but yes, OpenOffice will do.

# good ssh programs like securecrt? (I love the program, will be tabbed in next version)... It's convenience ...
/usr/bin/ssh :-)

# good editors like Editplus ? (It just works - always - have an old license and it still works perfect...
XCode, Eclipse [sun.com], or the famous BBEdit.

# does it work good with windows sharing (netbios) ? (I know about Samba but sometimes got probs with it - its not exactly point-and-click there unless using Webmin or such ..
All built-in, just browse to your Windows PC/server and double click to mount the shared volume, not even need to map a network drive.

# Needs to work 24/7, no overheating issues like my Compaq EVO N1000v laptop (which needs to be issued back to Compaq because of failing parts - 5th time!!) and Compaq finds it normal?
May be don't shut it down?
Just never lock it inside a closed cabinet :-)

# Stuff like Paintshop Pro (Like it more over photoshop ; less bloated and faster)?
I like Photoshop, may be it is bloat, but hey, it is FAST!

# good and easy desktop player like winamp ? (RIP)
iTunes, man, iTunes!

# Can I turn off automatic updates?
Yes, one mouse click away in an obvious place (System Preferences -> Software Update)

# I am accustomed with Slackware, NetBSD and Solaris. Is OS X as maintainable as Slackware? Everything through the prompt using Bash?
Yes and more, there is the Apple Script, a global scripting system to let you control every OS X compliant app, and you can do it via the shell, too.

• SW1000XG
• 01X

I didn't post above, but I currently use both XP and 2000 daily. Make your own decisions but I also use OS X daily and it's far and away the most pleasant working environment I've encountered to date. That doesn't mean it's perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but that's not the point now, is it.

As for "OS 9," um, who's talking about OS 9?

If you want Unix, install Linux... FreeBSD... SuSE... Debian... Lycoris... Lindows... There are choices in the Windows world.

Well, by the time I've finished clicking through the (Continue) buttons in an OS X install I've managed to install both the entire GUI environment and the entire Unix OS. I can also install other Unix systems on Mac hardware, but frankly I've got everything I need right here.

I don't need to install anything else except Logic Pro 6, Ableton Live, MetaSynth, ArtMatic Pro, MetaTrack, Voyager, VTrack, Absynth, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, OmniDiskSweeper, Studiometry, FileMakerPro, Adobe Creative Suite, LaunchBar, MySQL, Perl 5.8.3, Fink, Plone, Keynote, BBEdit, FastTrack Schedule Pro, Sonasphere, Toast 6, ZBrush, and a few more but I'll get to those tomorrow.

I run all these (plus my email, internet, contacts management, calendaring, etc) in the same operating environment; not an emulation shell, not after dual-booting, but in the very same operating system and simultaneously.

To top it all off OS X comes with a full set of developer tools, documentation and optimization utilities, plus Cocoa+Obj-C is a match made in heaven.

There's no need to pay Apple for a decent Unix experience.

Well, I believe there is. I enjoy the ability to support quality whether it's a film, a restaurant, a music venue, a book, clothing, my neighborhood, an artist, etc. every single day.

The hardware is just a hunk of material until you've discovered/designed an interface with which to use it. Solely on a base consumer level, I'm very happy to pay Apple for what is, in daily practice, a superior computer operating system. From the level of both a technology consultant and a media creator, the solution is very simple.

OS X is a very impressive "Holy Grail" for all my current activities. Strap me in because I'm ready to get to work.

In 2002, Apple bought the German company eMagic and, overnight, dumped Windows users of Logic, a high-end music production software. Apple claimed exactly what Adobe is claiming today, that the Windows version of Logic is not commercially viable.

But can I run Logic on it?
Oh, I guess I need a different 64-bit machine.

Don't forget that Apple now owns eMagic and thus Logic, one of the best Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) on the market. For super-high-end mixing and finalizing, ProTools and the like probably still rule the market, but many, many top artists and indi folk are using Logic for at least composition and sound creation/munging, only jumping to ProTools for the mix down.

And whether the artists are using Logic, ProTools, Cubase, or what have you, the large majority are doing it on a mac. So the artist loyalty to the brand is even greater than you suggest.

It's Logic not ProTools, but yeah.

While Logic itself can have a bit of a steep learning curve, there are now brilliant books and active, friendly mailing lists available to help you out. And the notation part of the program has always been pretty intuitive. Plus, as an organ player, you might appreciate that Logic has what I feel is the best B3 plug in ever made (Logic comes with a 30 day demo of this, and all its virtual instruments for you to mess around with). And if, down the road, you decide you want to take your notating to the next level and produce/mix/record/arrange/whatever, Logic will be able to take you there.

There are three different versions of Logic,

• Logic Audio
• Logic Gold, and
• Logic Platinum

They differ mostly in how many audio tracks you can arrange with, what DSP effects ship with each one, and other minor stuff like being able to draw automation curves. Feature comparison charts are available. For what you describe, you would need nothing more than Logic Audio, but the upgrade path to Gold and Platinum is clear and affordable should you decide you need more later on.

While Logic itself can have a bit of a steep learning curve, there are now brilliant books and active, friendly mailing lists available to help you out. And the notation part of the program has always been pretty intuitive. Plus, as an organ player, you might appreciate that Logic has what I feel is the best B3 plug in ever made (Logic comes with a 30 day demo of this, and all its virtual instruments for you to mess around with). And if, down the road, you decide you want to take your notating to the next level and produce/mix/record/arrange/whatever, Logic will be able to take you there.

There are three different versions of Logic,

• Logic Audio
• Logic Gold, and
• Logic Platinum

They differ mostly in how many audio tracks you can arrange with, what DSP effects ship with each one, and other minor stuff like being able to draw automation curves. Feature comparison charts are available. For what you describe, you would need nothing more than Logic Audio, but the upgrade path to Gold and Platinum is clear and affordable should you decide you need more later on.

While Logic itself can have a bit of a steep learning curve, there are now brilliant books and active, friendly mailing lists available to help you out. And the notation part of the program has always been pretty intuitive. Plus, as an organ player, you might appreciate that Logic has what I feel is the best B3 plug in ever made (Logic comes with a 30 day demo of this, and all its virtual instruments for you to mess around with). And if, down the road, you decide you want to take your notating to the next level and produce/mix/record/arrange/whatever, Logic will be able to take you there.

There are three different versions of Logic,

• Logic Audio
• Logic Gold, and
• Logic Platinum

They differ mostly in how many audio tracks you can arrange with, what DSP effects ship with each one, and other minor stuff like being able to draw automation curves. Feature comparison charts are available. For what you describe, you would need nothing more than Logic Audio, but the upgrade path to Gold and Platinum is clear and affordable should you decide you need more later on.

Finale - this is like the Microsoft Office of music notation - seems easy to use at first, really annoying once you try to do more complicated things, but has thousands of features. No other program has as many features as Finale, even though Finale implements many of them quite poorly. Totally unintuitive and not very Mac-like. Unfortunately, Finale files are the standard file format in the industry, so if you're going to be trading sheet music with other composers, you'll need to have Finale. See also their low-end versions, Finale Allegro and PrintMusic - there's nothing at all wrong with these if you don't need the features they leave out - mainly the ability to work with large scores and do part extraction.

Sibelius - intuitive, Mac-like. Easier to use than Finale, though some things take some getting used to. Not quite as powerful. Buggy - not more so than Finale, but in different ways. In theory it can open Finale files - not sure how well it really works.

Low-end WYSIWYG notation software:

Harmony Assistant

Lime Music Notation

Unix (may work on Mac OS X with Apple's X11):

Rosegarden

Text-based (no GUI, but renders nice output):

MusicTeX

Lilypond

Sequencers (may do a little bit of notation):

Intuem

Cubase et. al from Steinberg

Logic Audio

Please feel free to add and re-post. If someone wants to compile prices for all of these, that would be great.

My speculation: The 'optical audio' that this ad touts is an implementation of Yamaha's mLAN, a joint project between Apple and Yamaha begun in 1999.

mLAN essentially allows the transfer of all audio-related signals - be they MIDI, audio, whatever - over 1 firewire cable.

yamaha press release, mlan, 2000 [opens in new window]

Now, why would Apple release a G5-based PPC with a dedicated mLAN port? I think Apple's hiring of Doug Wyatt - the guy who invented MIDI Timecode at Opcode - as well as Apple's aquisition of eMagic - in addition to their collaboration with Yamaha on the mLAN spec - would give Apple every incentive to put an 'mLAN' port on the back of their computer, even if it is only another firewire port.

Keep in mind that OSX has MIDI capability built-in - unlike any other OS. ALso, with the addition of a simple mLAN port, Apple can now state that their PPC is music-production ready right out of the box.
Doug Wyatt hired by apple
eMagic Corporate info

"Hate to break it to you, but only the part that is open source, is what they stole from open source community...and if you knew anything about programming, you would know that it takes more than just source from the UNIX portion to write software."

Oh, I see... You know little or nothing about OS X... Please take some time to learn what you are talking about as to not seem like a jackass in the future. Darwin was not stolen... It is still open source with concurrent x86 builds. Cocoa is an amazing API. Project Builder is pretty nice as well. Does Microsoft provide developers with this? Sure they do, right? Is Microsoft's Windows Media Server open source; and will it run on Linux, Solaris and Windows NT/2000 - hmmm...

MSDN.com just gives you the info you need when you need it right? "Cut and Dry - it is not bloated at all. ;-)

"I work in the radio field, and the only decent application that runs on Mac is Protools. Everything else we use is PC only"

Ah, Radio... what a cutting edge field... I hear that is where things are headed - FM. Ha. Developers are all over it.

Protools is nice, but I am sure you have heard of Logicand Cubase right? BTW, no more Logic for pc - mac bought Emagic.

Radio Automation software - you mean a digital media player with an integrated database? (a few open source apps that cover this)

News Delivery Software.... You mean a newswire?

Satellite Control Software - well - you sure that WIN32 is the only platform supported?

All these apps that you claim are not being written for mac - where are they? You use WIN32 applications at the 'radio station' - woohoo. Your point?

Why isn't Microsoft getting any of these or these? When is the last time that Microsoft invented something as influential as Firewire? Where are these apps you speak of?

Yes, please go on - moron.

Something that should be mentioned is that the closest competition to Pro Tools, Logic Audio, was acquired by Apple last year.

ptfree is not the same as protools - ptfree is limited in the number of audio and midi channels, does not work with any of the digidesign hardware, and has limited plugin usage

read more
http://www.digidesign.com/ptfree/ptfree_qa.html

in general, the midi implementation in protools is limited compared to emagic's logic audio

other really good music production suites that won't break the home studio bank

Tracktion

Fruity Loops

Reason

some electronic music producers who use the big software tools occasionally screw around with the cheaper packages and then show how you can make the original song using them - such is the case with Infected Mushroom's "Dancing with Kadafi"
http://www.infected-mushroom.net/Studio/Html/Studi o_Menu.htm

It seems that Gateway includes music downloads with EMusic as a part of their promotions to get people to buy their boxes ... And EMagic, well, that's part of UMG.

There's an interesting Freudian slip for you. EMusic is part of UMG, yes, but Emagic, the software company that created the Logic Audio series of MIDI sequencing/music production software, was bought out by Apple earlier this year. New versions of Logic Audio are now exclusive to OSX and use its Audio Units plug-in protocol exclusively. (Though there's a new wrapper out for Steinberg VST-based plug-ins.)

Apple has always been one to encourage creativity among its user base. One has to wonder if a UMG purchase might lead to giving their more creative customers a bigger stage for showcasing their talents. Ah, synergy...

Please, people, if you don't know what s/he's asking, keep your trap shut, m'kay? We're talking audio here, so signal-to-noise ratio counts, you see...

But, do you want to go the hardware or software recording route?

If you have a decent enough computer (G3 macs or PII upwards x86s will do the trick for about 16 tracks), you might consider getting a good soundcard.

I personally use a M-Audio Delta44, 4 inputs, 4 outputs, nothing more. Perfect for recording. They have nice break-out boxes, so you don't have to crouch behind your computer when plugging in your guitars, basses or mics, they work under Macs, PC's and have linux support via ALSA (yes, linux can do multitracking as well). When you need more tracks, you can just add more cards and get 8/8 or up to 16/16 in/out-system.

As for recording software, well... my delta came with a cut-down version of Logic Audio, which should be good enough for start. Most 'pro-sumer' soundcards come up with basic software, so you shouldn't need to cough up any more money for it in the beginning.

Other software: Cubase is nice, and there's nice 'lite'-versions for beginners (some soundcards come with this instead of logic). Cakewalk is quite popular as well.

If you just want audio recording (the aforementioned do MIDI as well), then there's Cool Edit Pro. For free, there's Audacity (audacity does Windows, Linux and Mac) which is proficient enough multitrack audio editor. SLab is a good linux multitrack recorder.

And mp3, well, you don't want to use mp3 for multitrack recording, but most modern software can import mp3-sounds, and output the result to mp3 (some of them [cool edit/audacity] can do ogg as well)

If you want a proper hardware recorder (which are nice, since you can take them to your rehersal space, summer cottage, ..., what have you), then there's plenty to choose from. Most of these are a couple of years old, so you can find them for reasonable prices used (or even new!)

Roland VS-8xx series, they're nice, compact, can do 4-track recording, and 8-track playback. Loads of features, and useful later on even if you grow out of this one. Earlier models had inbuilt harddrives, the later ones have ZIP-drives (if I remember correctly). If you can get one for cheap (and i think you should), then go for this one.

Korg D-8. A bit easier to operate, but quite useful nevertheless.

And i think Fostex had some as well, just keep your eyes open in the pawnshops.

It is good to see one thing in Nashville related to music moving forward. I have lived in Nashville on and off for 8 years and have watched the music industry and scene slowly dissolve. I used to work for a company that manufactured a headphone system, custom built computers using all the great software and hardware and sold an array of digital hardware to studios. Well, the studios started going away, then other music related companies started going away and I got laid off. If you drove down music row today you would see more "For Lease" signs than you would business signs. The irony of this is the DJ scene in Nashville is almost non-existent. There is nowhere to go and see good Techno/Jungle/etc... Practically all the music scene is dead, everything from country to Hip-Hop. I know this because I am part of it. Once again, it is good to see a company here staying alive and actually being on top.

Sure, there'll be a new iApp or two

Yup, expect iMusic or something like this, since Apple bought eMagic this summer :-) :-)

Either do it the right way, or do it completely differently because you have a good reason to. The thing you really want to avoid is doing it "any old" way, or just not giving a shit about it.

I have two kinds of apps (UI-wise) in Mac OS X: ones that follow the standard conventions precisely, and ones that go totally against it in an obvious way and for good reason. The standard apps are legion, but here's an example of one that went against the grain: Emagic EXS24

Here's a screenshot of the EXS24's interface itself: EXS24 UI.

The key is that it's very hard to confuse the typical UI with a way-out one ... when I open the EXS24 I get the picture right away that I'm not in Kansas. It's more of a musical instrument, or a self-contained "device". I can work with it by just moving sliders and discovering sounds. That's much, much, better "non-standard" behavior than when you press Command+F and you don't get the app's Find command, when that works in EVERY other app.

Either do it the right way, or do it completely differently because you have a good reason to. The thing you really want to avoid is doing it "any old" way, or just not giving a shit about it.

I have two kinds of apps (UI-wise) in Mac OS X: ones that follow the standard conventions precisely, and ones that go totally against it in an obvious way and for good reason. The standard apps are legion, but here's an example of one that went against the grain: Emagic EXS24

Here's a screenshot of the EXS24's interface itself: EXS24 UI.

The key is that it's very hard to confuse the typical UI with a way-out one ... when I open the EXS24 I get the picture right away that I'm not in Kansas. It's more of a musical instrument, or a self-contained "device". I can work with it by just moving sliders and discovering sounds. That's much, much, better "non-standard" behavior than when you press Command+F and you don't get the app's Find command, when that works in EVERY other app.

Well, Emagic is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple. How long do you think it will be before Logic is available for OS X?

AND there are a whole host of good hardware video and audio cards coming out that enable a bunch of good realtime effects and whatnot for finalcut. Bottom line, avid is old news, and I think we'll quickly see FCP as the broadcast standard inside of 3 years.

now that apple has purchased germany's emagic, the makers of the logic series of midi / audio sequencers - i'm sure we'll see an OSX port of LA platinum - their flagship product in the not-too-distant future. Originally an Atari program, Logic found a home on Macs and had an arguably decent port to windows. With the apple buyout the windows version is history (this fall). Who knows, maybe some enterprising coder will be able to port the BSD/Power PC version to a workable Intel/Linux version?

I agree with all those users who think cubase is a dog with fleas....sonic foundry on the other hand -- pretty much rules.

Think about it: somebody who wants to get into computer music can buy a PC and pay $$$ for Cubase or get a Mac and a deeply discounted copy of Logic.

This is a brilliant way for Apple to even out the costs of pro solutions without lowering the price of their CPUs.

Of course, blurring that party line, Apple just bought Emagic, publisher of several pro audio production and mastering tools -- including WaveBurner Pro, my choice for audio CD mastering and IMHO a ton better than Jam. I actually bought Toast with Jam but returned it due to (1) crossfade limitations and (2) WaveBurner Pro having a far better visual interface.

WB Pro does audio mastering right, but I still need a good tool for data burning; I was going to just get Toast sans Jam, but with this DRM news I may be shopping for an alternative.

Of course, blurring that party line, Apple just bought Emagic, publisher of several pro audio production and mastering tools -- including WaveBurner Pro, my choice for audio CD mastering and IMHO a ton better than Jam. I actually bought Toast with Jam but returned it due to (1) crossfade limitations and (2) WaveBurner Pro having a far better visual interface.

WB Pro does audio mastering right, but I still need a good tool for data burning; I was going to just get Toast sans Jam, but with this DRM news I may be shopping for an alternative.

You might be interested to know that Apple just bought Emagic, and is accelerating development of Logic Audio 5 for OS X - to be called Logic Audio Titanium, I think. Competitively speaking, would that qualify as a kick in the ass?

stage4 has a short article about today's announcement that Apple has aquired Emagic who make popular music applications such as Logic Audio.

The piece talks about what this will mean for users and how it will benefit Apple. The article ends by calling for Apple to release a rack mounted G4 designed for recording studio use.

• The days of playing sequences off a DAT are not numbered -- they're already long gone. Laptops have been used as sequencers to drive outboard MIDI gear for almost as long as there have been laptops (for me it started in 1992 with an Atari STacy). The new development, as mentioned in the CNN article, is using software synths (usually VSTi's) as live performance tools.

• I disagree that there are "limitations to the power and ability of software synthesizers". By example, I offer Absynth from Native Instruments. From the 68-stage envelopes(!) to the wave fractalization and spectral editing tools, this offers sound shaping tools that no hardware synth can compete with.

• Up until recently, you could argue that the latency problem with software synths kept them second-class citizens behind hardware boxes -- you'd hit a key and get your note a split-second later. This final limitation has been defeated with the advent of faster computers and cheap professional audio hardware. I use a 1.2 GHz computer and a $300 Emagic EMI audio interface, and my softsynth latency is about 2.5ms. Not perfect, but it actually beats some of my hardware synths. (Hit a fat chord with layered patches on an Emu Morpheus sometime and you'll see what I mean -- you get a flam, not a unison attack.) And when you play back sequenced software instruments, they're sample-accurate.

• The days of playing sequences off a DAT are not numbered -- they're already long gone. Laptops have been used as sequencers to drive outboard MIDI gear for almost as long as there have been laptops (for me it started in 1992 with an Atari STacy). The new development, as mentioned in the CNN article, is using software synths (usually VSTi's) as live performance tools.

• I disagree that there are "limitations to the power and ability of software synthesizers". By example, I offer Absynth from Native Instruments. From the 68-stage envelopes(!) to the wave fractalization and spectral editing tools, this offers sound shaping tools that no hardware synth can compete with.

• Up until recently, you could argue that the latency problem with software synths kept them second-class citizens behind hardware boxes -- you'd hit a key and get your note a split-second later. This final limitation has been defeated with the advent of faster computers and cheap professional audio hardware. I use a 1.2 GHz computer and a $300 Emagic EMI audio interface, and my softsynth latency is about 2.5ms. Not perfect, but it actually beats some of my hardware synths. (Hit a fat chord with layered patches on an Emu Morpheus sometime and you'll see what I mean -- you get a flam, not a unison attack.) And when you play back sequenced software instruments, they're sample-accurate.

• http://www.kvr-vst.com - My favorite VST (softsynth and effect plugin) news and discussion site.
• http://www.em411.com - Another computer music news site.
• http://www.computermusic.co.uk/ - Lovely Computer Music magazine
• http://www.steinberg.net - Steinberg, makers of "Cubase" ... a software sequencer, music work environment and more.
• http://www.emagic.de - Makers of "Logic". A lot like Cubase. Sequencer holy warrior fanatics will track me down and rip me apart for mentioning Cubase first.
• http://www.cycling74.com/ - Makers of sound programming thingies Max/MSP and Pluggo. Pretty complicated, but reportedly worthwhile.
• http://microsound.org/ - Home of arguably the most snobbiest "experimental music" and computer music mailing list on the net. Plenty of interesting stuff here too. Prepare to listen to various 30 minute plus "masterpieces" of quiet shuffling sounds, only.
• http://www.nativeinstruments.de/index.php?home_us - (English Link) Stylish softsynth and plugin rockstar company. They make some incredible products. Geeks will have hard-ons for Reaktor.
• http://www.refx.net - Maker of interesting VST plugins, notably "QuadraSID" which is a sound plugin based on the Commodore 64's famous, classic "SID" chip.

ZAP (an acronym for "Zero-loss Audio Packer") is, as its name implies, lossless, and the ZAP app has the ability to play back audio from a compressed archive.

The ZAP application compresses raw audio files to about 40-to-70% of their original size. This is much better smaller than typical .zip or .sit compression on audio files.

Archives can be made self-extracting. I find this useful if I do an audio project for which the files total about a gig in size but want to back it up to a single CDR.

Interestingly, I just looked at emagic's web site, and they do not have a link for ZAP. Maybe their site is incomplete, or maybe they have discontinued the product.

USB does not have to be too slow for audio...

If you're using pro audio software, you're more than likely using ASIO drivers.

There are some USB devices out there that have a low latency, such as the Emagic 2|6, and (not quite as good) the M-Audio Quattro.

The problem seems to be that developing decent low latency drivers is a major part of the cost of these devices, so a lot of the low end ones just use the generic USB audio drivers provided with either Win or Mac. These drivers both suck.... lots...

For a decent roundup of effective latency on various cards, check out KVR's site.

I still prefeer to use:

MIDIMAN Audio Quattro
and/or
EMagic EMI 2|6

for the real professional on the road with a laptop.

I have to say that I have been more than impressed with my new iBook.

I run it mostly in OS 10.1 for work (Sysadmin at a Linux-based ISP), but for my vacation last week, I set it up with a USB audio input, a USB MIDI interface, a good mixer, a big fat Firewire Drive and some multitrack MIDI/Audio software.

It was running OS 9.2.1 with all this stuff for the whole week and performed impeccably, My friend and I got hours and hours of stuff recorded during the week and had no trouble at all.

It was fast enough to handle real-time effects, the hard drive was fast enough to handle about 10 simultaneous audio tracks. Multiple MIDI tracks are no problem even for a C64, so there was no thought of a problem with that.

My little iBook has turned out to be a very good portable recording studio, and it only took about 4 hours of configuration (including wiring everything and installing all of the software) to get all of the hardware and software working together.

I just want all of this stuff to work under 10.1. My external hardware does, I just need software. Logic Audio [www.emagic.de] is apparently being released in early January, and I'm saving up my loot for that.

I have also run the same app on G3 Macs running at the same clock speed, and the G4 is capable of running easily double the number of software DSP plug-ins as the G3.

My lowly G4/350 also seems to run more plug-ins than Pentium-III computers at twice the clock speed.

I am not one to fudge facts because I'm an Apple-holic, I was as shocked as anybody to see my software perform this well on my machine.

I just bought an iBook 500 a couple weeks ago, and I am somewhat disappointed at the performance of Logic Audio on it. That being said, it really performs quite well, but it still lacks the capabilities of my G4/350 tower.

BTW Logic Audio is an OS 9 app. Possibly the best AltiVec optimizations I've heard of to date.

Actually, this is totally wrong. Price out some of the lower end Digidesign or MOTU cards/racks, then tell me how far that amount would have gotten you 25 years ago (adjusted for inflation, of course). The big difference is that your home recorded music can end up on CD sounding good rather than a self released cassette. Remember those?

Since, the "near death" of Apple a couple years ago, most major third party hardware and software is available for both Windows and Mac OS, with the same functionality. And yes, you do need third party hardware, even on the Mac. To name a few of the major players: Steinberg, Emagic, Opcode, Sonic Foundry, etc.

A short history on music production and distribution:
blah, blah, blah

This amusingly myopic regurgitation of dated rock critic wisdom is so terrible that I'll bring up only the worst points of it and then point you to some good resources so you can get a better handle on things.

The major problem with your "history" is that it neglects to mention black people until Public Enemy and NWA. Don't forget that the black community has played a major role in the invention of every American music, from jazz to rap to techno. Furthermore, they've had their own distribution channels in the past, and still do today.

While perhaps making for convenient comparisons to Britney, et al. , your explanation of the differences between AM/FM and 33/45 are grossly exagerated and, in some cases, incorrect. A lot of this has to do with the fact that you forgot black people, whose music is often more appropriately presented in a singles format.

Perhaps you best check out these places:
All Music
The Mechanic's Guide to Putting Out Records, Cassettes and CDs
Home Recording at About.com

Even simple mp3 players like SoundPlay are capable, in Be, of playing multiple tracks simultaneously, even at different speeds. If you are in to making music on computers you really should give Be a look. The free version of R5 should be available on the 28th.

-=RR=-

Even simple mp3 players like SoundPlay are capable, in Be, of playing multiple tracks simultaneously, even at different speeds. If you are in to making music on computers you really should give Be a look. The free version of R5 should be available on the 28th.

-=RR=-