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I live in the pro audio world, almost at the bleeding edge of it I might add. What the other poster stated about sub 5ms latency is true. Get yourself an HDX system and test it out. Also, there's this, this, the entire Apollo line, and even an entry level interface that's Thunderbolt based.

IMHO, nothing will compare to using a mixer, but that's for the functionality and quality. I would never pitch a Mackie as a decent recording system, live sound, sure, but, unless you've got an Onyx, it's crap for recording (and even then, just decent). A mixer to me is something like this. My interface is a Fireface 800 and I have 0 perceived latency (so long as I'm not sending anything into the DAW for processing on my cue mix, or merely playing back from the DAW and recording new tracks). To claim something as 0 latency would be incorrect for everything, there will be latency. To claim that the conversion process adds less than X ms of latency is what we're talking about, and the Thunderbolt stuff from MOTU (not even a stellar name in the industry) is leaps and bounds beyond my Fireface (it should be, my interface is 8 years old now), clocking in at sub 1ms at the hardware itself (seen in info note in the link above), with the Fireface being a respectable 5ms at the lowest.

Long story short, if you're looking for the lowest latency and a professional setup, Thunderbolt or PCIe is king. If, as it seems from the photo you posted, you're working in a prosumer or entry level situation, than USB will suffice.

(Other sources: I work in pro audio. A number of years of experience behind the board in both live and recording environments on everything from small projects to working with the likes of Bob Mintzer. Much of my knowledge comes from the real world.)

but have the best-quality DACs and filtering that you can find

For Example:
MOTU
Good enough for a single computer
The thing with this is, I don't think you will have enough outputs for surround sound, but you will get very, very good sound at least in stereo.

but have the best-quality DACs and filtering that you can find

For Example:
MOTU
Good enough for a single computer
The thing with this is, I don't think you will have enough outputs for surround sound, but you will get very, very good sound at least in stereo.

Since he plays guitar and sings he also needs the DAW to accept drivers for audio digital interface devices like MOTU or even Line 6. Without those, or without a simple way to get the software to work with them, you can't do anything reasonable with guitars or microphones. Just plugging into the computer's input gives shite sound quality which is why you need an interface.

I tried a couple years ago and gave up on Linux for recording. Someone suggested 'JACK' and Ardour but bloody hell, JACK was so convoluted and a pain to understand and never seemed to work or never worked simply, that I just said screw it and use Windows 7 with Cubase. My time is worth something too, and considering I already owned the Windows box, another 500 bucks for Cubase was a real deal compared to endless hours getting it to work on Linux (anything is easy if you know how, and I didn't know how on Linux, nor do I think it is worth the hours and hours of time to learn when I can just use something else that simply works). I want to play music when I record, not fuck around configuring the OS and drivers. On Windows I just installed the ASIO driver for my digital interface and selected it in Cubase and I was done. A couple minutes tops.

Until Linux gets its head out of its ass in terms of driver support (even if they are proprietary) I would stay well and gone away from it for recording. Unless you like spending more time configuring the workstation than actually recording stuff.

By any traditional definition of "workstation" it is not one. It is no more a workstation than the Mini is. Both need additional products to make them functional as such.

I don't think that this change is different, in spirit, from some of the changes that Apple has pushed in the past. Apple tends to jettison things that it thinks are no longer relevant to the future, e.g. SCSI, ADB, Serial ports, etc. When Apple went USB-only on the original iMac, it was a controversial move, because there wasn't much in the way of a USB device market at that point in time. Fast forward a year or so, and there were more USB devices than you could shake a mouse at. I see the Mac Pro "sneak peek" as a warning shot across the bow of the peripheral manufacturers. If manufacturers get on board with Thunderbolt, it's a pretty interesting future, I think.

My workflow already uses a combination of a fast boot/swap drive, FW800 and NAS for storage, so that won't change much with a new Mac Pro, other than needing a TB->FW adaptor somewhere (at a cost of $29 from Apple.) I'm a firm believer in the concept of storage living outside of my "compute core." I've changed computers with barely a hitch because my data lived somewhere else.

Many PCIe cards will already work in an expansion chassis. Many will not. I believe this is mostly a driver issue, other than the rare card that needs more bandwidth than Thunderbolt provides. If you are someone who needs that third (or fifth) high speed graphics card, the new Mac Pro is not for you. But realistically, what percentage of the potential market for this sort of machine is in that segment? I imagine that most PCIe cards will be made to work in an expansion chassis, or a Thunderbolt alternative will appear.

That said, I'm stuck waiting for MOTU to come up with a Thunderbolt solution for their PCI line (e.g. 2408mk3, HD192). Their adaptor card, the PCIe-424, does NOT work in an expansion chassis. If MOTU doesn't come up with a solution for using their PCI line, the ripple effect of me moving to a new Mac Pro would involve replacing audio interfaces, and my digital mixer. The follow-on costs would probably end up being more than the MacPro. I'm optimistic that MOTU, like most manufacturers will get its act together regarding Thunderbolt.

Summing up, if Apple & Intel are successful in their gamble to push the world towards Thunderbolt, in a year or so, we'll think that compute cores like the Mac Pro are the natural order. We'll wonder what all the fuss was about. Isn't this the way computers have always been?

"latency has always been high in the OS"

Nope, Windows XP worked just fine. Vista with ASIO stack is also fine. However, Vista's native stack is horrible.

"and no sane person in a studio would use a built-in soundchip in place of studio gear."

??? How do you think most of music is produced?

"for a start, where would you plug a mic or guitar?"

In your auid card's input ports ( http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/8pre ). Do you think that nothing exists but Intel HDA cards?

USB and Firewire both hook to real audio interface units well enough, although, if you want to go high end, you might still want to use a PCI interface card.

USB and Firewire both hook to real audio interface units well enough, although, if you want to go high end, you might still want to use a PCI interface card.

Get yourself a 1080/30p camcorder with HDMI out, and
an HDMI -> PCIe card
( MOTU, aka Mark Of The Unicorn
http://www.motu.com/video-products/hd-express-hdmi/ ,
and Black Magic Designs
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/ , and
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/techspecs/ ,
  ( only "shuttle" USB3 version can do 30p! ), both make one
http://www.provideocoalition.com/ for possibly others )

and you'll have ALL the data-storage-problems your heart could possibly desire!

C :

( PS: you may get better quality this-way than from recording in-camera:
some cameras send uncompressed, or unprocessed? video to the HDMI,
so you get better quality data )

Oh. I don't think a firewire audio interface would have been very useful for Apple. I seem to recall hearing about that and hoping Apple wouldn't bother. Most people don't really need/want it, even far less so than Apple TV. There's only a pretty select market for a firewire audio interface, and it's already pretty well served by M-Audio, MOTU, Edirol and others.

Although, reading that the Asteroid/Q97 device was supposedly being worked on by former Emagic employees makes me think it actually could have been a worthy addition to Apple's hardware lineup. I just still feel it might have been quite a niche kind of thing when most of the new Macs already have audio I/O ports of quite reasonable quality anyways (with even the Mac Mini having digital I/O for that matter)...

Now that high end audio interfaces can sample at 192kHz, 24-bit I doubt that pulling the analog out of storage will reveal anything new in the future. What you're saying certainly was true but won't be forever.

I'm an audio programmer/engineer and we now have these in our main room:

http://www.motu.com/products/pciaudio/HD192/

They can match any analog 2" 30ips I've heard.

if by "sound card" you allow extrapolation to the more general term "audio interface" there are plenty - M-Audio, http://www.m-audio.com/ Echo Audio http://www.echoaudio.com/ Mark of the Unicorn, http://www.motu.com/ Digidesign, http://www.digidesign.com/ RME, http://www.rme-audio.com/ Apogee, http://www.apogeedigital.com/ Edirol, http://www.edirol.com/ etc.

I wish i could say I was excited with this. Unfortunately, it's probably another project put together by individuals who don't 'get it'. Simply including Audacity & video editing software into a distribution doesn't make it multi-media centric. You have to include packages to make use of specialized AV hardware which currently don't exist.

Currently I run a 24 track based home studio and would love to convert it completely to linux. Alas though, until drivers are created for Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU - http://www.motu.com) hardware this distro is just more chaff waiting to be swept up and forgotten.

I have to agree with the parent. This is most certainly not the place to be asking this kind of question. However, I'm willing to throw in my 1.5 cents, as a musician.

Now you said this is primarily a radio show, so I'm going to take a jump here and say you won't actually be playing much live music. If this is the case, then you don't have to splurge on the much higher end stuff for that "perfect" sound. In fact, your recording quality doesn't have to be the max you can handle either. I will recommend that you do yourself a favor and go get yourself a nice quality Condenser Microphone with a pop shield(those funny felt looking disks they suspend in front). This will help reduce the wind noise generated by certain sounds you will make(Such as P's and B's).

I have to say, from experience, that my absolute favorite recording card is the Mark Of The Unicorn 828 mkII, but it has a serious amount of inputs that you may not need. You may find the Traveler or the Ultralite more your cup of tea. Either way, nothing beats getting into your local audio shop and trying one out

One final question I have is what program are you using? If you are using anything but Pro Tools, such as Cubase, then the MOTU stuff should be good for you. However, if you DO plan to use Pro Tools: then you are kind of locked into M-Audio or Digidesign. Pro Tools will only work with Digidesign/M-Audio approved hardware. Namely their own.

Don't skimp on a good mixer, be it software or a physical one; make sure your mixer is up to par with what you are doing. If you prefer to work with more physical equipment rather than virtual, then I would also recommend getting a compressor for your voice. These things can do wonders for your sound and levels

Finally, above all else: Be careful WHERE YOU RECORD!. 90% of people overlook this one critical, CRITICAL variable. You could have this amazing live sound, your could be Howard Stern (or Opie and Anthony); and if your acoustical environment is terrible: your recording will suck. There are some excellent resources out there. You just have to google for it.

I have to agree with the parent. This is most certainly not the place to be asking this kind of question. However, I'm willing to throw in my 1.5 cents, as a musician.

Now you said this is primarily a radio show, so I'm going to take a jump here and say you won't actually be playing much live music. If this is the case, then you don't have to splurge on the much higher end stuff for that "perfect" sound. In fact, your recording quality doesn't have to be the max you can handle either. I will recommend that you do yourself a favor and go get yourself a nice quality Condenser Microphone with a pop shield(those funny felt looking disks they suspend in front). This will help reduce the wind noise generated by certain sounds you will make(Such as P's and B's).

I have to say, from experience, that my absolute favorite recording card is the Mark Of The Unicorn 828 mkII, but it has a serious amount of inputs that you may not need. You may find the Traveler or the Ultralite more your cup of tea. Either way, nothing beats getting into your local audio shop and trying one out

One final question I have is what program are you using? If you are using anything but Pro Tools, such as Cubase, then the MOTU stuff should be good for you. However, if you DO plan to use Pro Tools: then you are kind of locked into M-Audio or Digidesign. Pro Tools will only work with Digidesign/M-Audio approved hardware. Namely their own.

Don't skimp on a good mixer, be it software or a physical one; make sure your mixer is up to par with what you are doing. If you prefer to work with more physical equipment rather than virtual, then I would also recommend getting a compressor for your voice. These things can do wonders for your sound and levels

Finally, above all else: Be careful WHERE YOU RECORD!. 90% of people overlook this one critical, CRITICAL variable. You could have this amazing live sound, your could be Howard Stern (or Opie and Anthony); and if your acoustical environment is terrible: your recording will suck. There are some excellent resources out there. You just have to google for it.

I have to agree with the parent. This is most certainly not the place to be asking this kind of question. However, I'm willing to throw in my 1.5 cents, as a musician.

Now you said this is primarily a radio show, so I'm going to take a jump here and say you won't actually be playing much live music. If this is the case, then you don't have to splurge on the much higher end stuff for that "perfect" sound. In fact, your recording quality doesn't have to be the max you can handle either. I will recommend that you do yourself a favor and go get yourself a nice quality Condenser Microphone with a pop shield(those funny felt looking disks they suspend in front). This will help reduce the wind noise generated by certain sounds you will make(Such as P's and B's).

I have to say, from experience, that my absolute favorite recording card is the Mark Of The Unicorn 828 mkII, but it has a serious amount of inputs that you may not need. You may find the Traveler or the Ultralite more your cup of tea. Either way, nothing beats getting into your local audio shop and trying one out

One final question I have is what program are you using? If you are using anything but Pro Tools, such as Cubase, then the MOTU stuff should be good for you. However, if you DO plan to use Pro Tools: then you are kind of locked into M-Audio or Digidesign. Pro Tools will only work with Digidesign/M-Audio approved hardware. Namely their own.

Don't skimp on a good mixer, be it software or a physical one; make sure your mixer is up to par with what you are doing. If you prefer to work with more physical equipment rather than virtual, then I would also recommend getting a compressor for your voice. These things can do wonders for your sound and levels

Finally, above all else: Be careful WHERE YOU RECORD!. 90% of people overlook this one critical, CRITICAL variable. You could have this amazing live sound, your could be Howard Stern (or Opie and Anthony); and if your acoustical environment is terrible: your recording will suck. There are some excellent resources out there. You just have to google for it.

I probably wouldn't go for an internal card. Better to have an external box in many ways. This one a friend of mine has and it's very good for the money.

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/AudiophileUS B-main.html

I've only used it on OSX but I think the drivers should be just as reliable on XP.

This one sounds even better but is more expensive and you'll need firewire.

http://www.motu.com/newsitems/traveler-press

I've got their 828mkII and this one uses the same DAC/DAC as that which sound really good.

It's hard to make a recommendation without knowing at a granular level what you want to do. How many inputs? How many outputs? Is latency an issue? What about frequency/bitrate? Digital inputs? Analog? MADI? Lightpipe? Some light reading... On the ULTRA high end, you would go with Apogee- http://www.apogeedigital.com/ - these are some of the industry's best da/ad converters; and with something like a big ben+rosetta on firewire, you'd be in good hands. Another contender could be rme http://www.rme-audio.com/ Then there's motu's line of products - http://www.motu.com/ - I've personally owned several of their interfaces and can tell you right out of the gate they're great. Good bang for the buck... Then you've got m-audio http://www.m-audio.com/ edirol http://www.edirol.com/ presonus http://www.presonus.com/

I'm just DROOLING over the new MOTU UltraLite. 8 ins, 10 outs, and not just Firewire, but bus-powered. Drag a laptop and this unit to gigs and you can multi-track everything.

I'm also an electronic drummer, and I use Ablton Live, so with this unit I could chop live loops of ANYONE on stage.

Of course, I don't have $550 to drop on one. So I'm looking at the Berhinger uca202, a $29 USB box that's stereo in/out. I'm running Sonar on a MacBook with Boot Camp, and the drivers for this internal card just blow. Really badly. Really, really badly. The latency's outrageous.

The only down side is that it only has two XLR inputs. If you need more then you should look at the 896HD which has eight XLR ins and outs. You can chain more 896's together to get more channels. I don't own one of these so I don't know how it compares to the 828.

The only down side is that it only has two XLR inputs. If you need more then you should look at the 896HD which has eight XLR ins and outs. You can chain more 896's together to get more channels. I don't own one of these so I don't know how it compares to the 828.

Oh and this might also be worth checking out: http://www.motu.com/products/pciaudio/ This box contains everything you need to turn your computer into a powerful 24-bit/96kHz digital audio workstation. The 2408mk3 provides 8 channels of pristine 96kHz analog recording and playback, combined with 24 channels of ADAT and Tascam digital I/O - the most ever offered in a single rack space audio interface. Connect up to four interfaces to the included PCI-424 card for an expanded system capable of 96 simultaneous active input and output connections at 96kHz.

It's good to know that other people have had good experiences with MOTU.

Mine has been pretty lackluster. All I can remember is being really pissed off that I had to log-in to their website to download updated drivers. (See for yourself: http://www.motu.com/download/)

If that wasn't bad enough, it took HOURS for the aproval email to arrive in my inbox. Meh.

I recommend just about anything from Mark of the Unicorn. Good hardware, good support, good bundled software, and compatibility with apps other than their own (unlike Avid/Digidesign). And they have a wide range of stuff for any size job.

And while you say you're not interested in more gear, we all know you're lying. You named too many specific items that you've tried (and likely bought). That makes you a gearslut. You're only here for the gear. Just accept that and move on.

"Creative People" may have started out using Mac's, and simply stuck with them. For example, Mac's could run music notation software or midi sequencing software a decade before PC's could even dream of doing such things. Macintoshes were the first computers I ever used as kid for that very reason. I was playing with a midi keyboard and Performer (http://www.motu.com/products/software/dp/features 50/) while other kids were playing with their first generation nintendos. For my father, as a musician/composer in the 80's the only choice was a Mac. He still uses a Mac for anything music related, and now I do to. I use linux on a PC for programming, web development and anything generally geeky, and I avoid windows at all costs.

Make that modern synth sounds, or samples. Midi is just the on/off instructions, roughly, like a piano roll. Check out this new product from MOTU of sampled sounds you can use with a sequencer:

http://www.motu.com/products/software/msi/mp3.html /en

This sounds pretty real, and I think is sort of what this article was after.

I think a lot of the "expense" is in the mixing. Last couple of sessions I did, we recorded like for 8 hours, and they spent 3 times that in mixing and mastering. The project I'm doing now I'm spending a TON of time mixing....I think that is the major expense you find in doing an album.

Save yourself time and money. Get a good keyboard, synth module, and a sequencer and do it that way. Scanning it to midi just doesn't ever work right.

where's the Maya/3DS/LW/Softimage alternative? It doesn't exist (dont be a bone head and suggest Blender here, its like comaring a 79' VW to a Ferrai).

Maya is ported. So is a little thing called Houdini. But you probably never heard of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Final Fantasy X, or X-Men...

Also, to call Blender a '79 VW compared to any of the above is ignorant. No, it's not Houdini, but it will easily take on any of the modellers you mentioned, and there are some pretty nifty renderers available, too.

What Linux really lacks is the equivalent of Digital Performer. And no, rosegarden or any of the others don't even come close. :-(

Would Pro Tools count as "damn good"?

Yes Pro Tools would certainly count as "damn good", and also happens to be in the price-range that I said "costs more than many computers". Other "damn good" interfaces come from Apogee, MOTU, and plenty of others.

Or you could use a much better program all around, like Digital Performer.

You'll find this sort of thing is widely used by the pro-audio recording industry. Most high-end units will be loaded with features you don't need though, like 8 channel recording or 24-bit 96Khz playback, although if you are an 'audiophile' with an unlimited budget / drive space, you might like to consider ripping your vinyl at better than CD quality!

Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) are well respected in the industry, but their prices are steep compared to normal soundcards. Take a look at their 828 mk II to see what $800-ish buys you.

I heard a rumor of some guy out there hacking some version of Logic software onto his iPod and connecting it to a MOTU 828 firewire recording interface. Sounds dubious to me... but could we see something like this running Audacity?

A portable high quality recording setup this compact (maybe with the MOTU Traveller instead) would be awesome.

More Firewire DV and audio stuff:

ADS Pyro A/V Link
Avid Mojo
MOTU 896HD 196kHz Firewire audio interface

Audio: Digital Performer
MIDI: Sagan Tech Metro (formerly Cakewalk Metro), though I haven't used it since 5 or so.

I'm told DP's MIDI support is also superb, but I haven't done MIDI in a while, so I can't say for sure.

I just switched from another DAW to Digital Performer and couldn't be happier (occasional crashes in 4.12 notwithstanding). It took all of about two hours for me to be comfortable with it. Some of the keystroke commands are different, and it takes a little while to be comfortable with the menu layout, but otherwise, it's just so brain-dead obvious that if you've ever used any DAW, you should feel right at home.

It will be interesting to see how MOTU is going to respond with DP5 ;-)

Yep, I was working in the software industry when the Mac came out, and the first thing my company did was make a game. They did this millipede ripoff in about 1 month, and if I remember right the major portion of the budget was spent on designing and printing the packaging. However it certainly used the mouse, and it would be difficult or impossible to duplicate Millipede so well on a mouse-less MSDOS machine.

You can try it on a Mac here: Mouse Stampede

Jason Linhart wrote the game, but I got the job of drawing most of the icons. I'm particularily proud of the swiss cheese, it's pretty hard to draw something legible in a 16x32 space in two colors!

I have a Fastlane MIDI-USB interface, and it works perfectly for me. There is a strange quirk with the setup process, though; for some reason, the Clockworks program that gets installed with the drivers (mentioned by another poster, found here) doesn't actually recognize the MIDI interface (it'll complain about no devices being connected). Audio MIDI Setup, found in /Applications/Utilities, sees it just fine, though, and you can set it up from there (create a new keyboard device and connect it to the corresponding ports on the icon).

But sadly, my Mark of the Unicorn Fastlane [motu.com] (less than two years old) was not listed in the recognized list of MIDI interfaces.

Silly question, but have you installed the USB MIDI OS X drivers from MOTU? My USB MIDI interface isn't listed by Apple, but it works with drivers supplied by Yamaha (in my case).

Obligatory on-topic observation:

On the old 400 mhz Cube, performance is so sluggish as to be confusing. Simple "Stop" and "Home" keyboard commands are slow to be recognized. On the bright side, it has the least latency of any system i've tried to multi-track with. I have at least achieved proof of concept (yes that's me, guitar, bass & 2 vox)

(non-original material and obvious copyright violation, but it's an Apple-friendly artist, sosumi).

Now my real gripe:

i finally got around to tyring out connecting the trusty old Korg M1, the original MIDI pack mule. It turns out that GarageBand has a very short list (20) of compatible MIDI interfaces, all high-end numbers from the likes of MOTU and DigiDesign.

But sadly, my Mark of the Unicorn Fastlane (less than two years old) was not listed in the recognized list of MIDI interfaces.

Since the Cube chokes up at about 6 voices of audio data, that's gonna be my limit. Once again, to play with Apple, you not only have to have the latest Apple gear, you have to keep up with the latest gear in all other related fields too. I understand needing a new computer every 4-5 years, and this is a 10-year old synth, but without sinking what looks like another 300-500 on an up-to-date MIDI converter, (or half that on a USB MIDI keyboard), I'm out of the MIDI input/ouptut game.

The thing is, I though that MIDI was a standard. I didn't realize it had layers that were already obsolete. OK, I understand GBis cheap software designed to sell computers, but as a professional musician with professional gear, I was very disappointed realize it's taking another round of hardware for my full potential as a creative musical genius to be recognized.

And, to those who say "If you're professional musician, why don't you use professional software," well, buy my wife's ebook and may be I can!

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Karma whoring meter: 4 links, 2 of which are brand new original content, never before seen on /.

I do most of my work in a sequencer (Digital Performer), and then dump the Midi file into Finale to make it look nice.

I think what is REALLY needed is some sort of OPEN FORMAT to save music files into. Perhaps this will bridge the gap. So, if I want to give a file to someone with Sibelius, they can open it. Make changes, and send it back.

But, in reality, I don't see that happening. It's a lot easier, if you are serious about it, to have both programs. Most guys I know who make a living printing/scoring music have both.

Those are all storage devices, except for the DV stuff. While the comment 2up is lame, it does raise the point that 1394 is not an island because as far as I know no one is making input devices using it. Cameras don't count.

Maybe a firewire audio interface will fit your rather stringent criteria. I don't think you'll find more conventional firewire Human Interface Devices, as there's really no market for them.

I would recommend the MOTU 828mkII; it connects by Firewire, has a plethora of onboard mixing capabilities, and costs about 2/3 of the Digi 002 Rack (not to mention is only 1U high instead of 2U).

I just got one a couple weeks ago. Pretty pleased with it. (The bundled Audiodesk software is a bit strange in some respects though... I haven't used Digital Performer, maybe it is also just as strange)

-ben

Well, you can't just buy a PC from Walmart and start recording 'Tommy' in your basement, one of the caveats is that you still need a decent audio interface, and an Audigy, while possible, is just not how most people go about it. I mean technically, you could plug an amp straight into your stock sound card 1/8" mic input and load up CoolEdit, but you'll be *seriously* lacking in quality.

If you're serious about digital mixing, Mark of the Unicorn makes some pretty affordable interfaces, an amateur producer friend of mine bought a 16-track interface and was so happy with it that he just sold his digital mixer. If you were even more serious, I'd check out Digidesign, who also make ProTools, an industry standard in terms of recording software. That stuff doesn't run cheap, but they do offer a very high quality amateur/enthusiast grade interface called the MBox for ~$400 (it also comes with a lesser version of ProTools), which isn't bad at all.

In terms of recording software, check out ProTools, Steinberg Nuendo, or CoolEdit, which is now apparently being distributed as Adobe Audtion.

We used a PII 400 and got a very reliable 5 output stream box using a multi-output card that isn't manufactured any longer. I tried a number of these cards and most of them worked well. [ As an aside, the MOTU high-end units are excellent if you are going to put the output into high-quality amps and speakers, but they are expensive.]

From the software side, we used a custom, multi-threaded MP3 player compiled using Intel's optimizing compilers (which mad a huge difference on the PII) and used a graphical front end with a screen-per-room display showing the album art (scanned in by the user or installer) along with the tracks, play lists, etc.

We did run into a control problem, even though most of our customers were using systems with centrally located gear, which was that getting a PC to run with multiple distinct (and user-uninterruptable) displays simultaneously was expensive and difficult. To supplement this, we created a serial-based interface which allowed for play lists, random play, and basic start/stop/skip controls for each room and could be combined with the GUI over a commercial home control system (like Crestron or AMX).

Basically, we would watch the serial port for commands and respond to the control system by flipping individual windows that corresponded to the room that was controlling the system at the time. The control system, in turn, would put show the screen output in a kind of touch screen mode and send mouse locations over the serial port back to our controller. This worked, but was expensive and complex to handle, since only one room could have control over the GUI at the time. For things like displaying the playing tracks and album along with the next track and providing basic control of the start/stop/skip/repeat sequences, we could send text to the control system over the serial port and it would be displayed on the screen in text fields (allowing the main display to be required only for play-list management). This helped quite a bit.

The control piece was far and away the most difficult part of the project, but since you only have to satisfy yourself, and not the marketplace, I'd suggest that you might find an 802.11-capable PDA as a controller might be useful (and fun to work on). Of course, then you have to either develop your own control protocol or use some kind of CGI and a web server to do the control, but if you separate the players into individual threads or processes that can be easily located, you should be able to send messages (UNIX signals, perhaps) to them and get the level of control that you need.

From a technical perspective, any OS that has preemptive threading and good interprocess communication should be fine for building this kind of system. We found that by creating our own player (despite the need to license the decode patent from Fraunhofer if we were to sell it commercially), we were able to get a finer control of the playback features (such as pause/skip/repeat) than by using single-shot mp3 play commands that were available at the time. I'd suggest looking for how you can get those useful features if you decide to use existing commands in a Linux environment.

Of course, on a Macintosh, you can do the playback through QuickTime, which is going to be easy and highly-controllable, so you have that oppotunity too.

In the end, we found that the customers who got it loved it, but that the installers we were trying to sell to weren't interested in buying a product that required some set-up.

O

Get a nice MOTU rackmount system and you can do a huge amount of inputs/outputs.

The interface is beautiful and flexible, and it works with lots and lots of hardware. And while you'll see Trent Reznor listed on the digidesign site as a ProTools user, a friend of mine worked for him and much of the project was done in Digital Perfomer.

Performer 4 supposedly starts shipping today! Can't wait to try it on my G4 Cube!

What software are you planning on using with the Mac? I'm very happy that Digital Performer 4 is supposed to ship today. If it works well or if you use Protools, then you could invest in a Xserver, and save like 3+ spaces in your rig.

Mackie, Alesis, M-audio, Roland, and MOTU (among others) also make professional audio interface equipment for recording and monitoring/listening.

There are a couple of Creative-licensed OEM products (Some of the Alesis stuff looks awfully familiar...) but most of these companies provide far better hardware and software for "real" sound applications. A nice audio interface w/ a pair of active studio monitors will sound worlds better than some cheap consumer surround sound system. The prices are pretty much comparable with Creative's "good" stuff.