Rain Recording make audio-ready notebooks – that is, they’re pre-tested to function well with audio software, with Windows tweaks, driver selection, and configuration all chosen and tested for music and visual production, and no crapware installed. They’re one of a handful of music-friendly vendors that does that (see also: PCAudioLabs, etc.). Given that the PC music making experience can range from awesome to awful depending on which hardware and (particularly) drivers you’re on, that’s no small matter.

Rain has always styled themselves a premium brand. But the latest Diablo really does go to extremes spec-wise. It’ll cost you – base price starts at US$4000, though that’s not as high-end as these sort of desktop specs commanded more recently. Intel and AMD/ATI really are economizing, even at the high end. But cost aside, this machine really maxes out components. You have to admire the results:

• Quad CPUs: up to 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Quad 12MB/1066 MHz “Montevina” Centrino 2 — the most powerful brain you can put in a laptop right now
• Up to 8 GB DDR3 RAM (and if you boot a 64-bit operating system like Vista x64 or – cough – Linux, you can use all of it)
• ATI Radeon MR HD3870/512M DDR3 RAM — just about the most powerful GPU (and some people do prefer ATI to NVIDIA), giving you up to two discrete GPUs
• 17″ display at 1920×1200
• Optional dual 320GB 7200RPM SATA drives with 16MB cache
• 1x eSATA, 3X USB2, 3xFireWire (yeah, you read that right – one onboard FireWire, plus two more using a bundled, TI chipset PCI ExpressCard that pops into that slot, also standard on the lower-cost LiveBook)
• 1 x HDMI, 1 x VGA, card reader, headphone out, mic in, gigabit RJ45 Ethernet, fingerprint scanner

The key specs, of course, are the quad CPU, that ATI GPU, and the maxed-out-res 17″ display. Given those specs, the weight actually isn’t all that bad – 8 lbs. with the 12-cell battery (which you’re going to want, as this machine is likely to suck up electricity in a hurry).

Apple’s airtight secrecy has allowed it to do some wonderful things. But what happens when it’s difficult to tell the path of future operating systems? That’s the situation I’m trying to tackle with Mac OS X Leopard and now the upcoming Mac OS X “Snow Leopard.” The good news is, Apple says they’re focused on improving the "quality" of the OS. The bad news is, it’s not clear what the plan is for the existing 10.5 OS — or what it will take for OS changes to sync up with what we need as musicians and audio producers.

Ha, dual core? How last year can you get? It’s all about eight-core now, baby:

The Pro Tools HD 7.3.1 cs3 update can be installed over Pro Tools HD 7.3 or Pro Tools HD 7.3.1, and includes all updates that were previously made available in the 7.3.1, 7.3.1cs1 and 7.3.1cs2 releases. Pro Tools HD 7.3.1 cs3 is currently available as a free download for registered Pro Tools HD 7.3 users. For details visit the Digidesign support web page at: www.digidesign.com/support.

Given that Digidesign built their business on taking processing off the CPU and onto dedicated DSP hardware, it is pretty funny that they’re now pushing native processing — even if Pro Tools itself still benefits from enhanced computing power. That said, is there really anything stopping Digi from going native somewhere down the road? (Speaking of which, where’s the LE support, which would actually run native on these cores?) Either way, it’s nice to see Digi being aggressive in this space. Fully supporting additional cores does actually require some effort on the part of the developer. It’ll be interesting to see if all these extra cores can really benefit real-world situations. In the meantime, I find even a lower-end dual-core Intel chip — even on a laptop — to be plenty luxurious for music production, which is really good news for mobile music creation or going digital on a budget.

For all the talk of Apple needing to create a Pro Tools killer, though, this should remind you again that Apple wins either way. Even as Windows has made inroads in the audio market, Pro Tools users still lean Mac. Want Logic? Apple will sell you a computer. Want Pro Tools? Apple will sell you a computer. Want Ableton Live? Max/MSP? Ardour? Live coding in ChucK? Apple will … you get the idea. Plenty of PC musicians out there (I’m one of them, about half of the time), but Apple has a lucrative market in music creation. Nice to reflect on that, given at one point the company was in such trouble it looked like music might get jettisoned altogether. Apple can remain cozy with Avid, even as direct competitors.