1. What Audio Card Should I Buy For My New Mac?

No single question comes to me more often than this one, I think because it's an question that so many people wish had a different answer. There are many audio cards available for Macs, it's just that not many of them are inexpensive. Personally I use a 1212 from Korg, and it is a fine performer, in fact, I recommend it to many people who write to me. The 1212 has stereo analog, stereo S/PDIF and ADAT Lightpipe in and out. The analog to digital converters are quite good, and all the connectors means that one will rarely be in a place where this card can't hook up to something in the room. The Korg card also has regularly updated and supported ASIO drivers, so I know it will work with all of the apps I use. The other cards out there, in no particular order, are as follows.

Mark of the Unicorn has been very successful with their 2408 interface, and for good reason. For under a thousand dollars, you get up to 24 channels in and out of a single rack space box, ASIO and DAE support, ADAT, TDIF, and eight 20 bit analog I/O, and naturally great integration with Digital Performer. The I/O can also be configured as you wish, with all ADAT, all TDIF, or eight of each or whatever. Wordclock is also included. Digidesign has been making Mac audio hardware pretty much since there was such a critter. From the Audiomedia III card to Pro Tools, to the new Pro Tools Mix system (Mix means onboard DSP without extra cards), their cards give everthing from simple stereo analog and digital I/O up to DSP cards and 24 bit converters and all manner high end toys. A new entrant into the Mac hardware world, RME Audio is a German company whose hardware is distributed stateside by Sek'd. They make mostly digital only cards for not apalling amounts of money, and have a rep for very high quality. Check out their website for lots of good info about cards and converters. They also take a refreshingly open attitude about driver support, which no includes, WinNT, Win95/98, MacOS (Win and Mac drivers include ASIO), BeOS, and soon Linux/OSS. Gotta love a company who will let you use their cards with anything that has a PCI slot. Staying in the Central European groove, Emagic also makes the Audiowerk 8 card. Eight analog ins with stereo digital I/O and at some point ASIO drivers. Excellent choice for Logic users.

Ask around any high end pro studio with an interest in computers who DOESN'T use Pro Tools, and chances are they have some number of StudI/O cards from Sonorus. Another company with wide ranging driver support, this card has four TOSLINK connectors which can be software switched from S/PDIF to ADAT Lightpipe, giving options ranging from 4 to 16 simultaneous channels in and out of the box. Ensoniq makes the Paris sytem, which integrates, audio I/O, a mixer like hardware control surface, DSP, and software. They also have many near fanatical users with email accounts, and with this many people saying this many good things about this system it can't be anything but pretty nice. Also, it was designed with help from Mix columnist Stephen St. Croix, a legit audio pro and fine writer about issues relating to audio who sometimes makes more jokes per page than I do. Midiman is a well known value oriented company with a history of excellent PC products, and they have recently started writing ASIO and Sound Manager drivers for some of their cards, stop by their web site for more info.

Just a few more to go. Event released ASIO drivers for their Layla system recently, and the chorus of PC users waiting for their drivers was deafening. Reports on the system have been good, but check up on the support and other issues with this company. Drop by Dejanews again and read what some people have to say. Lucid Technology makes some very nice digital only audio cards, and some mouth watering converters. Can't go wrong with any of them.

There is another family of cards that mix audio I/O with various amounts of mixing and DSP built in. The Lexicon Studio, Yamaha DSP Factory, and the Creamware SCOPE/Pulsar platform are all ready or coming for the Mac.

2. Are G3 Upgrade Cards OK For Audio Applications? Which Card Should I Buy?

This is another tricky one. I wouldn't write the column for xlr8yourmac if I were not a believer in tweaking, upgrading, and generally getting your hands dirty with the computer hardware. However, upgrading and tweaking is not for everybody, and often you will have to solve your own problems if they arise later. Tech support lines can't or won't be able to help you after you say the following. "What's my system? Oh, nothing special. Power Computing Power Tower Pro with 512MB of RAM, one ATI card for one monitor, an iX card for the other one, two ATTO SCSI boards for the external RAID tower, an Audiomedia III and an Event Darla that's using Layla drivers but I hacked 'em last week so I can't imagine why that would be a problem, there's also an overclocked G3 upgrade processor board, and one of those ADB FM Radio tuners. The boot drive is the internal 2GB SCSI drive that came with the machine, and it's partitioned into six bootable volumes, OS 8.5, OS8.1 (for when I use it as an Appleshare IP server), OS 7.6.1 'cause I have two shareware apps that don't work under OS 8, MkLinux, Linuxppc, and BeOS release 4. I can't decide which RAID drivers I wanna use, so I keep on switching those back and forth. So why can't I print out my scores from my house to my work printer using IP printing and a modem?"

With that warning, Macs are made with processors that can be upgraded, and it is my sincere belief that the Good Lord wouldn't give us the capability to upgrade processors if he didn't expect us to use it. So, if you have a machine that needs a little performance bump and you are otherwise happy with what you are getting, a G3 (and maybe someday a G4) upgrade may be just the thing. Now, which one to buy. First, look at the G3 Zone here at xlr8yourmac [and the G3 Upgrade Owners Report and FAQ-Mike], and be sure that some other card you may already have hasn't already made the decision for you. Then, if all appears OK, answer the following question, do I want maximum performance and tweakability, or do I want maximum compatibility? If you want max performance, probably you want a card based on the Powerlogix designs, like a Power Force or a Rail Gun. If you want maximum compatibility, probably the way to go is Newer Technology. Also, consult the vendor or vendors of your favoite apps and see what they have to say. For instance, Steinberg officially states that Cubase is not compatible with any of the Powerforce design cards, and only supports the Newer cards for upgraded machines. They have also been at most lukewarm about non-Apple branded machines of any kind. That said, I run Cubase all the time on a clone with a Powerlogix card. I can't vouch for other users, and I don't get processor upgrade cards for testing, so your mileage may vary. [A recent owner of Logic Audio says his 7500 with PowerForce G3 220/110 crashes repeatedly-Mike]

So I hear you all saying, "stop it with the funny stories and tell me which card to buy ya clown." Well, I don't know. Consult the rest of this site, your software and hardware vendors, and decide which kind of user you are. Then, take a trip over to Dejanews and see if anybody else has anything to say about the question, in fact, I often consult Dejanews about any decision more important than whether I should have fries or rings with that. Once you make a decision, be damn sure you can get your money back if things don't work out. I buy almost everything I get from one of three places, Botton Line, MacGurus, or Small Dog, and that's where I shopped even before I starting writing for Mike and I discovered that two of the three are site sponsors. If you call these people and talk to them about your situation, and express your concerns about audio hardware compatibility, I can't imagine you will go wrong.

3. Do I Need An Audio Card, Or Is The Mini-Jack On The Back Of My Mac Good Enough?

Another one bound to produce controversy. Yes, Virginia, you can make a record with that mini-jack, but I sure wouldn't if I could avoid it. The gain stage is not defeatable and expects a mic level input, and the converters on board are not exactly state of the art. That said, I never tell anyone to wait until they can afford something to make music. If you can't afford a better card, then have at it and I hope you are the next Beck. To me, it speaks volumes that Apple still lets buyers know that they can use their plain talk mic with their new G3, and I think that if possible, use nothing but the plain talk mic in that little jack.

4. Why Don't You Ever Talk About This Totally Bitchin' Audio App/Audio Card/DAW That I Use And Think Is Really Great?

I get a lot of emails asking why I don't mention certain applications or DAWs or plug-ins or whatever. I am a single individual, with a fairly high stress full time job working on computers, and I do as good a job on this page as I can in what I loosely call my free time, since I probably should be doing something else with it anyway. I'm not trying to play some martyr trip here, and the amount of work that I do on this page isn't even a tenth of what Mr. Maximum Impact Mike does on the rest of xlr8yourmac [I have no other life -Mike ;-], but the fact remains that I am just a guy with a Mac and some audio apps who likes to record and mix and master and play with sound. Because of this, what I write about will by definition be more limited than what you can find on some other sites where many people contribute, like harmony central or a host of others. I assure you that there are many ways to skin the audio cat, and just because I use Cubase and SonicWORX and a Korg 1212 card does not mean that I think that you can't use Performer, Paris, Sound Designer, and an Audiomedia III. Really, I promise.

In addition, I try to keep this site kind of interesting with reviews. I have the Metasynth and Vision DSP coming up, and both of them are wonderful apps. If you as a reader think that I really should review something, let me know. However, I have written to pretty much everybody and have gotten very little response, in fact, often the smaller, more personality driven companies get back to me and the bigger ones do not. It's just the nature of the web and this column-I don't get the same kind of response as you would if you called from Electronic Musician. Put another way, if you know of some way to convince somebody to loan me a $3000 audio workstation for a few months so I can work with it and review it, not only will I like you, I'll buy you a drink at Mac World next fall. But other than that, I'm gonna continue to tell people what I can while still holding my job and making some of my own music.

5. Why Do You Always Criticize Apple? Are You From The Dark Side Of The Force?

I calls 'em like I sees 'em. For every person like me screaming for more attention for Mac audio, there are a dozen graphics, video, and publishing people asking for more resources to be dedicated to those applications. I also want a strong, competitive, long lasting Apple computer, and I want hardware to be as configurable, available, and in the same price ballpark as PC hardware. I'm greedy, kids, and I think you should be as well.

6. Do Software Or Hardware Companies Pay You For Reviews? What Is Your Relationship With The Companies Who Send You Things For Review?

I don not get paid in any way at all for anything I do for this site or my part of it. All advertising revenue goes to Mike and the main site, which is as it should be. I DO get the software that I review for free, but never with any strings attached. I generally send reviews to the companies before I post them to be sure that I don't miss anything too glaring, but any responses regarding content will be posted in a distinct "manufacturers respnose" section. I have been pleasantly surprised with the willingness of audio soft companies to have their stuff reviewed honestly and without condition. Most of the tools we have these days are fantastic, and they know it and just want the word sent out.

7. Is There Some Way To Use Dedicated Hardware DSP For Audio Processing? Native Processing Is Really Cool, But I Can't Even Get Two Reverbs Working.

There has been one and only one for years, the TDM system used in high end Pro Tools installations. The Yamaha DSP Factory and Creamware Pulsar and SCOPE systems are two newer entries, though they take different approaches. The DSP Factory uses proprietary Yamaha silicon for roughly the performance of an 01V on a card, while the Pulsar lets the user choose to use the DSP on the card for synthesizers, mixers, audio DSP, or third party applications written for the platform. One of these days, native processing will do all of the work and we won't need outboard DSP, but it ain't here yet.

8. What The Devil Is Wordclock? In Fact, Why Do Words Need Clocks Anyway? Do Words Need To Tell Time?

Wordclock is a very high resolution clocking signal for audio. The sample rate (nubmer of times per second that an audio signal is sampled, or the number of snapshots taken per second to represent a constantly changing audio signal) of a CD is 44.1 kilohertz, a DAT deck samples at 48 kilohertz, and those snazzy new DVDs can sample at up to 96 kilohertz. So, if you are transfering audio between machines, they need to know where all those sample are supposed to line up. At that kind of resolution, no two clocks, no matter how accurate, will be exactly the same. Normally, your Mac will play according to the internal, and very stable clock that Apple had the good sense to put there, but let's say you are going to transfer audio digitaly from your DAT deck. Even though each clock may be within a hair's breadth of the other, that will not be close enough to produce a stable coppy, little pops and clicks will most likely show up. So. you have to tell your Mac, "use the clock in the DAT to decide where your samples are, not your internal clock." Even that's fairly straightforward. Now let's say you need to transfer eight tracks of ADAT audio to your mac, while staying synced to a video deck via a SMPTE sync box, and recording eight more tracks through an outbaord converter, and playing back a stereo mix of your drums that you recorded last week. Now you're totally hosed, with four 44.1 clocks running at the same time (ADAT, converters, internal Mac, sync box). Think of it this way, if four people in four different rooms using four different clocks had to note the same event, how likely is it that they will all record the same time. No make those people be accureate to one fourty four thousandth of a second. So, one device has to be the master clock, and ALL of the others have to slave to it, or all the people in all of those rooms have to be looking at the same clock. Often people will use a special, super accurate, expensive clock to slave all of the devices, in less demanding situations, certain boxes can spit out master wordclock while simultaneously sending out a couple of other sync signals.

For the more casual recordist, the critical thing to remember is that to interface with the rest of the world, your rig has to be able to slave to another clock some way or another. Depending on what you do, that may be to a lot of devices, or maybe just a DAT deck. You'll read lots of articles in the audio porn mags about how "jitter" (inaccuracy) creeps in, and most clocks aren't really accurate enough, and the square waves need to be more square, and the clock signal can spill over into your audio singals if not shielded properly, and so on and so forth. It's all true, but the fact is, you MUST have some wordclock capability and flexability in your rig or your audio just stays in your house forever.

Send Thad Feedback at: tcb@caliban.grendelnet.com

For the latest issue of the Audio Column (news/tips and more) and links to back issues see: www.xlr8yourmac.com/audio/