Those of you in the market for a new MacBook Pro are no doubt already tuned into the product news. So let’s talk about what isn’t changed on the new MacBook line, because it’s a good thing.

• You still get FireWire 800 ports on all models, including the entry-level 13″ machine.
• ExpressCard is still standard on the 17″ MacBook Pro.
• Your dongles for video adapters still work.

I’m researching implications for audio of the new Thunderbolt connection. My guess is it’s a little too early to say; 10 GBps storage sounds fantastic, but it’s far beyond the needs of all but the craziest audio applications. (That is, fast FireWire and USB drives work really well already.)

Where you’ll see it in audio is likely two places: one, more high-performance audio I/O, and two, clearing the bottleneck with DSP chips that has long plagued external hardware DSP. The latter is maybe a bit ironic as we look at ongoing performance gains from GPUs and integrated architectures there, but it’s no accident that Universal Audio and Avid are excited about it, as they have DSP products. And enthusiasm from Avid and Apogee means you can expect to see high-end audio with lots of I/O for this format. See the Intel technology page. As for specifics, we’ll be watching.

For adoption, this is certainly big news. Thunderbolt faced a chicken and egg problem; Apple is the 800-lb chicken.

The short version of the other specs: these machines are faster. Again, though, current audio applications run pretty well on the previous machines; I’m pleased to say we’re now in a place where people aren’t red-lining their CPU every day.

In fact, for those reasons, if you want a bargain on a MacBook Pro for audio work, now could be a great time to pick up a closeout on the old machine. On the audio side, the new models are largely appealing because their Thunderbolt port ensures future-proofing for whatever comes next – without having to give up the I/O on the previous models.

More discussion on the Motion side, focusing, naturally, on what we know about the graphics chips:
MacBook Pro Revision Updates GPU, adds Thunderbolt, but No New Display Dongles (Phew)

And yes, you have choices in this competitive marketplace, including PCs. But there you go – anyone who thought we’d see a step backward in I/O today can now exhale. And anyone looking for greater architecture performance, your machines have arrived. And anyone saying that laptops aren’t still awesome and improving in the age of low-end mobile and tablets? You’re just kinda all-around wrong. As for tomorrow, well, who knows, who knows…

As you no doubt heard, Apple today refreshed their MacBook lineup with across-the-board adjustments to pricing. I’ll let other sites comment on the news more generally, as this is a music site, not a notebook site. But the big news for audio in terms of I/O, just so you don’t miss that:

• FireWire on more models: Finally, you can again get a 13” MacBook (now called MacBook Pro) with onboard FireWire – a FW800 connector. That’ll restore the use of audio interfaces and certain high-speed storage, and means the MacBook is again a good choice as an audio machine at the US$1199 base price point.
• ExpressCard on fewer models: Oddly, the addition of a lowly SD card slot (nice for photography and mobile recorders) has supplanted the ExpressCard slot on the 15” MacBook Pro. If you want ExpressCard, you have to buy the 17” – which, in turn, loses the SD card slot.

Now, generally the news here is pretty good. For music, you probably aren’t too concerned about the GPU, so the 15” MacBook Pro at US$1699 is looking like a nice deal. But PC users are no doubt puzzled, given that all of these connections are standard equipment on the vast majority of PC notebooks, including ones that cost less than a grand. And there still aren’t as many USB ports as you’d like – you get two ports on all but the 17” model, which has three, and very often only one of those may actually be usable because of power issues.

MacBook Pro [Apple]

The battery life is also greatly improved, but unfortunately is no longer user-upgradeable. See further comments on CDMotion.

I’ve been waiting for the near-ubiquitous ExpressCard slot on laptops to see some audio goodness, so one of the more welcome announcements of NAMM is that there’s now finally an ExpressCard-enabled version of the Universal Audio platform. The UAD is a DSP platform for computers, with an emphasis on high-quality, boutique mastering and effects plug-ins, including some recent, familiar emulations of classic Roland and Moog gear. UA’s stuff really does sound great, and host support has been improving (look for the key words “latency compensation” in your host of choice). So it’s about time that laptop users get in on some of the fun the desktop users have had.

The surprise is, the UAD-2 SOLO doesn’t cost that much – $500 includes the card plus the “1176SE Compressor/Limiter, Pultec EQP-1A Equalizer, RealVerb Pro Room Modeler, and CS-1 Channel Strip.” That’s a premium over native plug-ins, but then you have access to other UA plugs later on. In other news, Antares and Manley Labs signed onto UA’s platform, so more stuff is coming.

And by the way, while the forums rip into the choice of DAW, this stuff will work everywhere – even, via RTAS, Pro Tools.

Universal’s stuff isn’t for everyone, but I’m pleased that laptop users are getting something more out of a slot on their machine. (You’ll find ExpressCard on most PCs and the MacBook Pro, as well.) I hope this is the first of more hardware to come.

http://www.uaudio.com/

Mastering – spoiled for choice? This means in mastering choices, you’ve got the UAD, IK’s T-RackS 3 announced at the end of last year, and iZotope’s Ozone 4 announced at NAMM. I’ll be talking to some folks in New York who know something about mastering (i.e., are not me). (One of them is a big Cubase fan, so I expect he’ll also be all over Cubase 5 – and he makes records that make real money, whereas I make records that go nicely with experimental modern dance.)

Each of these products goes a different direction, but the honest truth is almost any DAW will start you out with a pretty great selection of effects tools, and for a small chunk of change, you can add on with something like the UAD, T-RackS, and iZotope. None of this changes your actual skill level or the quality of your ears, but it does help keep your wallet from being the major barrier.

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.

The inclusion of an ExpressCard/34 slot opens the IdeaPad up to a range of high-bandwidth applications. The most relevant for me as a musician was the possibility of using one on stage alongside a professional audio interface. Taking your expensive (and for some, irreplaceable) main rig out on tour and having to constantly keep an eye out for people putting their beer down on the stage next to it is a stressful affair, and the thought of using a relatively cheap, incredibly portable, and ultimately replaceable machine instead was always incredibly attractive – and I’m very glad to say, now possible.

We used a Silicon Memory ExpressCard/34 adapter that added an additional USB 2.0 port and two FireWire 400 ports, although any adapter based on a Texas Instruments FireWire chipset should work with a vast majority with audio interfaces. Windows XP Home recognized the adapter and installed the drivers automatically without needing a driver CD, and we quickly had the MOTU Traveler interface up and running.

My current Ableton Live set sat at a perfectly manageable 15% CPU usage for a majority of the time, however you will need to watch the CPU intensive plugs. One particularly long reverb tail using Ableton’s built-in reverb used up 25% of the CPU on its own.

Check out the full story on Gizmag:

Lenovo’s IdeaPad S10 Reviewed

One major catch, before you get too excited: Tim has the same problem I have universally with these ExpressCards. They just stick our awkwardly. They’re even worse on the full-sized slots on bigger laptops. Chancing an audio interface popping out while playing pretty much kill the appeal for me, especially when there are plenty of workable USB2 audio interfaces out there (including from MOTU). MacBook, you’re not off the hook yet, because this just means I want more USB slots, but I digress.

The bigger message here to me: software developers ought to pick up a couple of these machines and think about what will run on them. With zillions of these netbooks now shipping, why not? They’re not going to replace even standard laptops, but it’s an opportunity to sell more software by targeting these boxes, or even testing lighter-weight software on them. (Imagine notation or quick drum machines.) I don’t really miss the days when we ran Ableton Live on 400MHz G3s, but, well, we did.

And Tim has a point: next time you’re playing a frightening club with chicken wire and angry drunks, here’s your machine! Actually, that S10 is cute. Maybe just bring a tarp and some tazers.

Speaking of Rain Recording, Rain is about the only vendor I’ve found that offers a 2-port FireWire ExpressCard known to work well with audio interfaces. Now, your mileage may vary depending on the chipset in your laptop, but based on what I’ve been hearing, this looks like a good option. I’ve also seen a cheap (US$30) card floating around some random Internet vendors; it’s so cheap, I’m probably going to buy one just to see if it works. I’ll report back.

2 Port FireWire Express Card (formerly ADS Tech PYRO1394a) [Rain Recording]

I get nothing out of this, for the record; Rain actually hopes you’ll get this card with one of their laptops, but I’m just as curious to hear how it works on other machines. Of course, this would be a nice add-on not only for PCs, but also potentially for MacBook Pro users wanting dedicated FW400 ports and the TI controller – theoretically, at least. Let us know what happens if you take the plunge.

If you’ve had experience with different chipsets and ExpressCard slots on Mac or PC, we’d love to hear it. And I hope to offer my own tests soon.

Updated: The StarTech EC13942 also shares the TI chipset and is available from a number of vendors if that’s a vendor you prefer. It’s the only one endorsed by PreSonus aside from this former ADS Tech card that Rain sells — and may give you better results with other, non-PreSonus hardware, based on reports I’ve read. See PreSonus’ official word on the matter:

Presonus Hardware Compatibility: Approved Chipsets [PDF]

There’s a certain company — don’t want to name names, but it makes very popular products and rhymes with “Migidesign” — that sells decent audio converters and DSP systems at very expensive prices. They lock you into a single software solution, and when you want to go mobile, you have to give up all the pro-level audio equipment or lug studio-size gear with you.

Native alternatives have always let you choose your audio system, and that’s a good thing. This year, Apple worked with Apogee to allow users of Logic and other native platforms to use what most people feel are superior converters. And whereas running native on the CPU used to cause some serious problems compared to dedicated DSP hardware, modern Intel chips give you more capabilities than you could ever use. So far, so good. But the problem of mobility remained: the need for PCI Express slots means you have to lug around a tower.

Enter the ExpressCard slot on the MacBook Pro. By providing PCIe-style bandwidth, it’s now possible to use the same audio hardware on the road with a laptop as in a studio with a desktop. I got to talk with the top product experts from both Apogee and Apple about the new solution: Symphony Mobile. They’re very excited about it, of course, but I don’t think they’ll be alone:

Symphony Mobile Product Page, which explains a lot about how the system works

One cable to rule them all: You have to buy all new audio hardware to go mobile, right? Wrong. Unplug your audio I/O hardware, then plug the same cable into an ExpressCard interface for a MacBook Pro. That’s all it takes. You still have to buy the ExpressCard adapter, but you don’t have to buy two sets of converters.

Total software flexibility: Apple of course wanted to talk about their integration with Logic Pro, which is very nice and adds some great mixing functionality. But it’s important to note that, not only do you have the flexibility of AU plug-ins in Logic instead of a proprietary DSP system, the Apogee hardware is Core Audio-compatible and works with any app on the Mac. DP, Cubase, even Ableton Live? Use whatever you like, and switch if you like. There’s nothing inherently wrong with going all Pro Tools, all the time, but I have to observe that the alternative actually lets you choose instead of your hardware choosing for you.

High-end I/O on the road: The solution scales from simple 2 in / 2 out all the way to 32 channels of 192kHz, 24-bit sound, and the MacBook Pro and Core Duo will scale with it (thanks, Intel), all with 1.6 ms of latency — well below the threshold of what almost anyone can hear.

Apple also had some interesting benchmarks to talk about. They’ve got their quad Mac Pro running 30 Sculpture instrument instances as opposed to the quad G5′s 17, ran 1.8X the number of Platinum Reverb effects, and 174 MBit/s data throughput from the Mac Pro’s new four drive bays, compared to 61 MBit/s on the G5. Track count: 256 at 192k. As I found last year in Core Duo (not even Core 2 Duo) MacBook Pro tests, the new Intel laptop does decently on its own, with some 240 Platinum Reverb instances compared to 30 on a PowerBook G4, so production on the road is a reality. Apple’s tests aren’t real world, but they do indicate that processing headroom is not going to be a major problem.

So, everyone’s dumping Pro Tools, then? Don’t bet on it: I think studios will remain stubbornly loyal to the system they’ve already invested in, and Apple hasn’t answered questions (yet) about how they can compete with Pro Tools’ saturation in fields like post production. That said, this does demonstrate the flexibility native systems offer, and someone is going to take advantage of it.

By the way, one thing Apple is not doing at NAMM is announcing any new software. I’ll admit; I’m disappointed, and I think the Apogee announcement will have an even greater impact once Apple has some newer software to show with it. But I’m guessing that the absence of any pro apps at NAMM and any consumer apps at Macworld means Apple’s software pipeline is waiting on the release of Leopard. Granted, we’re spoiled as it is with how quickly software in general is updated, but given the timing in the past, it seems at least possible that these will coincide with the new OS. Whatever the reason (and maybe it is just the existing development cycle), I know there are (of course) new versions of GarageBand, Logic Pro, and Apple’s other software in the works, and you’ll hear about them here when they’re official.

Previously:
Mac Pro Watch: Apogee Syphony Drivers with 2ms Latency; 64-Channel Surround Installation

Look Out, Pro Tools: New High-end Apple + Apogee Audio Pairing