Tim Hanlon of gizmag.com recently got an IdeaPad S10 – Lenovo’s lovely, $400 “netbook” – to test. He didn’t just do the usual benchmarks, though. His review also included the unlikely choice of Ableton Live and, thanks to a free ExpressCard slot, a MOTU Traveler FireWire interface.
On a purely technical level, how does Windows Vista work with a leading pro audio application? A lot of that depends on just how much the developer does to tune their software, and to hook into some of the new audio technologies in the OS.
I wanted to know more about how Cakewalk’s SONAR 8 DAW was specifically optimized for Windows Vista. SONAR 7 was already out in front with support for Vista’s audio plumbing, but SONAR 8 promises quite a bit more. With the help of CTO Noel Borthwick, we were able to go through internal engineering documents and communication and get the full story. (Noel, who has a resume as a Linux programmer as well as leading the top Windows audio developer’s technical efforts, has been very frank in the past about Vista, walking us through changes before launch and real world experiences one year later.)
As Noel puts it, this is “more minute detail than most sane people would care to read,” but that’s just the kind of detail we like. If you just want to know whether your software will work, this is overkill. But for those of you who, like us, are interested in why some things work, this is a good place to start. I also sincerely hope other developers on Windows will start to invest more time in some of these details.
If SONAR 8’s music features are what interest you, see our first look:
I’ll repeat my current recommendation on Windows. If you’ve got a system running XP and you’re happy, I’d stick with it. But I see no reason to avoid SP1, unless you have a specifically incompatible setup, now that SP1 and driver updates have brought some maturity to the platform. I find the new OS more usable and, with the right software and drivers, even more stable. (This is not what I would have said before SP1, especially early after launch.) In fact, this walk-through with Noel demonstrates why, in the case of a SONAR system, you might be happier under Vista, on a point by point basis. I’ll avoid the “versus Mac” or “versus Linux” arguments, as those tend to get more complex and abstract, but there’s some good stuff here for those of you with Windows experience.
And yes, if any developer would like to do a similar tour on the Mac or Linux, I’m all ears. But just in case you think I’m crazy when I say there is some really robust stuff for audio in Vista, now you’ll know just what I mean.
Macworld, naturally, spends a lot of time focused intently on Apple hardware while I get distracted by beatboxing parrots and modular synthesizers built out of yarn and rubber bands. They have an excellent write-up of the significance of the MacBook Pro Santa Rosa upgrades, with comments on their benchmarks of the equivalent refreshed MacBooks:
MacBook Pro knows the way to Santa Rosa
One thing I was a little unclear on in my previous story is what matters in Santa Rosa, Intel’s latest architecture platform. (They didn’t call it Core 3 Duo, but then, consistent branding and Intel don’t generally go together.) As with Core 2 Duo over Core Duo, we’re getting incremental performance enhancements relative to the previous generation. Each step is relatively small, but they start to add up — hence, Apple quotes 50% gains over the original Core Duo. (And that’s why they dumped PowerPC, which in the mobile space was starting to practically paddle backwards.)
The key differences as far as raw performance: faster front-side bus (800MHz instead of 667), which for audio is a big deal, faster clock speeds on the models themselves at the same price, and fast RAM, plus a faster GPU for GPU-related tasks. (And, um, any day now we’ll start to see audio on the GPU — it’s tough to program, and GPUs are only now becoming the norm, and CPU cycles are getting cheaper, but it will happen.)
Also, none of this was meant to say “eBay your MacBook Pro.” PowerBook G4, maybe, but the first-gen MacBook Pro is still a terrific audio machine, with a GPU that’s no slouch. My main laptop right now is a first-gen MacBook (no Pro), and it blazes through everything I throw at it.
Apple has unveiled its revised MacBook Pros today, with some subtle but significant improvements. I spoke to Apple a few minutes ago to get some of the details on what’s new.
The new MacBook Pro includes new, faster CPUs and the Santa Rosa Intel architecture refresh to the Core 2 Duo, delivering 2.2GHz and 2.4GHz brains and 4MB L2 cache. That should translate to a marginal but very measurable performance improvement, without having to spend a penny today over what you did yesterday. Santa Rosa also allows memory expansion to 4GB, huge news for anyone working extensively with sample libraries. There are also improved displays with LED backlighting and the addition of the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT GPU, basically a generation ahead the ATI X1600 in the original MBP (itself a very respectable card). We’ve got more on the visual side of the equation on Create Digital Motion, basically because I’m rapidly developing GPU lust.
What does this mean for music? Not the earth-shaking shift from G4 to Core Duo, but still some very good news. Think faster performance in audio apps, more memory for samples, and better displays and graphics. I know plenty of people on the fence on the MacBook Pro. Apple has the latest and greatest from Intel at roughly the same time as their PC-only competitors, so this should mean you can make an educated purchase decision today. And yeah, this might be my first choice even when I have to run Windows. (Come on, sometimes you need to make some beats in FL Studio or do your accounting.)
As widely expected, Apple has given its MacBook Core 2 Duo CPUs, as with its existing MacBook Pro. The MacBook ships with either a 1.83Ghz Core 2 Duo chip with a 2MB L2 cache or a 2 GHz CPU with a 4GB L2 cache. To me, the added MHz along with the added cache and better specs make the higher-end white MacBook the sweet spot as far as value. (There’s still a “color tax” on the black MacBook, which remains at $1499.)
Does this MacBook now become the perfect music laptop? How should you configure it? Does Core 2 Duo matter? What’s the best music laptop choice at this point? Impressions and discussion, after the jump:
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