PowerSounds: The Complete Amateur's Guide to Pro Audio on the PowerBook by Remy Davison So you've done the DAE on your CDs and burnt a CDR using DAO? Want to go further? Okay, not too much further, but dabbling on the fringes of pro audio. You've got your Black Mac PowerBook. Or a (Key Lime) iBook SE on order. That's a good start. Now all you need is software. I'm betting here that using Toast didn't tax your brain too much. After all, you're a Mac user: Drag. Drop. Burn. Make coffee and play a round of poker. Bingo. Your Toast's done (don't bother with the poker if you're packing one of those fancy 12x burners).Or 16x since Yamaha just announced one. But you're not here to Learn to Burn. We're looking at the musical Mac here. Not just MP3s you're committing to CD. We're talking about audio editing. Music. Vocal. Sound effects. Whatever. How much power are we talking about here? I'm gonna need a G4 for sure, right? Wrong. You and your (i)PowerBook are all you need. Let's face it: when you're dealing with audio mixing and editing, it's portability you want. To work in a studio. Or a theatre. Or a concert hall. So you can play people the sounds you've mixed. So you can change it on the spot. And you try lugging that G4 tower everywhere you go. Oh, and don't forget the monitor, keyboard and (Pro) mouse. No, no, no. You're doing it all wrong. What you need for this audio business is a 'Book. Either a charcoal or a coloured one. Right. Now you've got the right gear. Let's go. Whatyoutalkinabout, Willis? Every PowerBook since the 500 series supports 16-bit audio data in hardware (OK, the Duo 2300 aside, but Duos always were lousy sound machines). Some (iBook, 5300, 190, 1400) have particularly nasty speakers. But that doesn't affect audio output or input through your home (or somebody else's) stereo system. Sure, there's better than 16-bit digital audio (24-bit, for example), but 16-bit is generally known as 'CD-quality' sound. Which means for all but the most professional purposes, it's pretty good. How do you get audio in and out of your 'Book? Depends. Take a walk 'round the back for a start. Got an iBook? Walk to the side. Got it? Good. On a PB, you'll find stereo mini-jacks (3.5mm) which are your audio in/out connectors. Yes, lousy connectors, the pros sneer (but don't they always?). But good enough for our purposes. Unless you've got a PB190, in which case forget audio input. If you're an iBooker, you'll need one of those USB input devices, so you can get analogue, line-level sound into your Mac. Line-level inputs and outputs to your stereo amplifier will produce sound indistinguishable from, say, your hi-fi's CD player. So you can hook up those huge surround-sound speakers and watch a DVD. Or annoy your neighbours by playing Quake through them with volume set to 10 (or 11). More importantly, you can send audio from cassette, DAT, LPs or even 8-track cartridges if you want an digital copy of important audio. For those who archive audio data, this is an exceptional way of preserving old recordings (which, of course, deteriorate) by making copies onto CD. All you need is love. Well - all you need is a CD burner. Beyond the Toaster Sure, Toast's okay. It burns decent data and audio CDs. You may've even played around with CDSpin Doctor, converting all your old vinyl to CD. But you've only dipped a toe in the world of pro audio. Now, before indignant mail starts flying, nuking my Em@iler in-box, let's lay down the parameters here: we're not talking about installing DigiDesign cards and 64-track mixers. We'll leave that to the people who know what they're doing. But for recording, mixing and mastering your band's first CD, all that's needed is you and the 'Book (a modicum of musical talent helps too). And, since iCEO Steve declared desktop video the biggest thing since - uh, Betamax movies? - adding soundtracks and voices to your film/video projects might just be what you were looking for. According to the musicians I've met (through a thick fog of...er...smoke), the Mac is the platform of choice if you're serious about audio. In my experience, this is undoubtedly the case. By and large, the audio software available is professional, slick and mostly well thought-out. But despite the fact that a fair slice of audio software operation is intuitive, given the relative consistency of application design conforming to the Mac's Human Interface Guidelines, pro audio is one area where you really will have to RTFM (Read The Beautifully-Presented PDF Manual). Jamming For a gentle learning curve, the natural step up from Toast is Adaptec's Jam 2.6 ($299; owners of older versions can upgrade free). Jam does only one thing (really): it burns audio CDs. But it's what you can do to the audio before you burn that makes it interesting. Jam lets you index parts of tracks; insert user-specified gaps, pauses and loops. It also lets you commence and stop a track at any point you wish, adding a variety of crossfades. For loud or low-volume sections of a track, Jam supports reducing or boosting sound levels to ensure consistency of volume. Like Toast, Jam's interface is intuitive and is essentially drag and drop. With version 2.6, MP3 files can be dumped on Jam's window and burnt to CD, while decoding on the fly. I've had no problems with it (although the 2.6 updater really only works on Jam 2.1, not 2.5 as advertised). Of course, you can also drop .AIFF files on Jam. Previewing tracks is much more flexible than on Toast, with Apple CD player-type controls for fast-forwarding and so on. Jam also does no damage to your audio files; all information you input does not affect the original track at all. Personally, I use Jam all the time, even without burning a CD. I do some sound fx and music background for theatre productions and I simply set up the whole show in Jam. Of course, I burn a CD as backup. Jam does have its limitations. It doesn't pretend to be a pro audio editor and it won't import tracks from CD (nuisance - why does Toast do it and not Jam?). Admittedly, Jam comes with Toast's Audio Extractor (not a good extractor), but it should be integrated into the application. Oh, and like Toast, Jam doesn't like VBR (variable bitrate) MP3s. Is Jam worth the money? At $299, Jam seems a little pricey; for this amount of money, it's not going to appeal to the casual music maker. But I do like it, although I use it a lot. One thing in its favour is that it works with all 68040 and PPC Macs - until now. Jam 2.6 asks for a PPC on my Quadra 700 burning Machine. For 040s, use Jam 2.5. Also, until recently, Jam wasn't updated for while, which means I had to hack it to get it to support my Yamaha 6416S burner. Adaptec: drop the price and you'll sell a lot more copies. Or pack it full of more (useful) features. Do you want it to be a pro audio editor or what? One thing's for sure: you're not entirely certain which market you're targeting. Are you? Raygunning No, not Reagan (we're talking first-class sound, not B-grade movies). RayGun ($99) is a handy piece of software. It can install plug-ins into other compatible sound software (like Peak or Adobe's Premiere). RayGun has a self-contained hyperengine which functions as a standalone application which serves as a mini-Peak. You can cut, paste, slice and dice AIFF, WAV or MP3 audio into anything you want. Not as sophisticated as Peak, but a lot cheaper. I used its plugin in Peak to rip all of this hiss off an AIFF track pulled off the radio (it was talkback - no music). RayGun was impressive in the way it removed the hiss, snap, crackle and pop from the recording to virtually zero. There's a demo available from Arboretum's website. For the price, it looks like a pretty decent piece of software and is far cheaper than most of the others. Mastering Jam's main competitor is MasterList from DigiDesign ($495). Essentially, MasterList does what Jam does. However, although some reviewers have suggested MasterList is superior to Jam, I don't agree. For serious audio editing, both MasterList and Jam offer the option to send a track to an advanced audio editor like Peak or Premiere. MasterList, of course, burns CDs as well. But I think Jam's feature set has surpassed it with version 2.6. MasterList doesn't let you import MP3 for example. And, horror of horrors, it doesn't support drag and drop. Its interface is not nearly as friendly as Jam's either. And, infuriatingly like Jam, it won't import from an audio CD either. Most of the rest of MasterList is much like Jam; you can set tracks' commencement and finishing times, insert pauses, silences and zero time gaps between tracks. But considering the company whence it originates, it's not a particularly mature or feature-packed piece of software. Bottom line? If I were choosing CD burning and audio editing software, I'd take my Toast with Jam. Peaking Now this's my favorite. From the good folks at Bias comes Peak ($399) . Actually, it's not just good, it's cool. For a start, you can select from about 8 different colours of waveform - or customize it, if you so desire, to match your Indigo iBook. Peak requires some serious manual reading to really appreciate all its features, although a quick play with it is enough to grasp its advanced capabilities. And it's fast - at least, on a fast 'Book it is. I found it entirely useable on my old PowerBook 5300 (still for sale, by the way) when I gave it about 26MB RAM. It flies on my PowerBook G3 (of course). While Peak doesn't pretend to be CD-burning software - it's not part of the criteria here - it can send your tracks to Toast after you've done all your audio mastering. Bias recently announced Peak 2.5 VST and Peak LE. Peak can be purchased in a special PowerBook bundle, which comes with a Digigram Vxpocket PC card for $799 (Peak LE PowerBook), Peak 2.5 PowerBook ($999) or, for those with deep pockets, Bias Studio PowerBook ($1,179) which includes both Peak, Deck 2.6 and Bias SFX machine. If you just want Peak LE, it'll cost you $99. Note that although you can use the built-in audio on your 'Book for all of these, the iBook can't use PC cards of course - unless someone comes up with a PCMCIA->USB adaptor (not that I've come across one. Anyone?). While Peak is not exactly affordable (although Peak LE is), it's nice to know that the price has come down a few hundred bucks since version 2.0 came out a while ago. Like most of the others reviewed here, Peak is a two-track (stereo or mono) mixer and editor. Most, if not all, audio editors do non-destructive editing on a file until you save it. With Peak, however, there are unlimited undos available, which helps a lot when you stuff it up (and Complete Amateurs do. A lot). Try working on a copy of your master track - believe me, you'll thank me for it. A major competitor of Peak's is Adobe's Premiere. Like Premiere, Peak supports plug-ins (such as Premiere's and RayGun's). Both have become more internet-savvy, with a host of tools for preparing web-based audio and transforming it into MP3 or Shockwave. The latest version cannot (as far as I can tell) import RealAudio - but it can export it for use on your website. Along with the price, this is where you can really do things to the audio you're assembling. Peak fires up by creating a window with a waveform of every track you select. From there, the sky's the limit. You can manipulate the file virtually any way you want. Every time I use Peak I discover new features about it. For instance, when I first used it, I didn't think it understood MP3. But then I found that it did indeed import MP3 by opening it as raw MPEG audio, utilising QuickTime. By the way, you'll need QuickTime 3.0 or later with Peak. Peak works with various external sound cards, as well as supporting plug-ins like Premiere or RayGun (see below). It's certainly the best way to mix the soundtrack for your next iMovie. Tooling You're in luck. Just as I write this (or 'as we go to press', which sounds a lot ritzier), ProTools is about to come out as a free 'Lite' version. No idea how restricted the lite version is yet. But you'll be saving $5,995 just for starters. Yes, for the price of ProTools, you too can buy two Pismo PowerBook 400s, a $799 iMac and still have some loose change for some doughnuts. If that doesn't faze you, go ahead, take out a second mortgage and buy the $7,500 or $9,500 versions of ProTools. Not an Audio Idiot's application at all (in its defence, it does come with enough hardware to run civil wars in 37 states for several decades), but it's worthwhile knowing you can test out the Lite version to get a feel for the application, if you feel that advanced audio editing is something in your future. Waving A combination music editor and audio CD burner, Waveburner ($199, street $169) from eMagic supports track markers and regions (like Peak), which is reasonably advanced stuff for CD recording/editing software in this price bracket. I must just be stupid or something, but Waveburner's interface doesn't come across as particularly intuitive to me. None of this software is complete novice gear of course, but Waveburner's layout suggests that you're reasonably proficient with audio editing already. Waveburner does honor the regions and markers you've placed files using that old Mac standard in audio software, SoundDesigner. Unlike Jam, it also records and gives you an easily-editable waveform to work with. In this respect, Waveburner looks more 'pro' than Jam; Jam tends to hide stuff from the novice user (although it's powerful if used to the extent of its capabilities), while Waveburner gives the user a visual display of what's really happening. It also supports a variety of external or internal (NuBus, PCI) audio hardware, something Jam cannot do. I just don't get why Waveburner doesn't support a core Mac technology like drag-and-drop though. I know some people swear by WaveBurner, but I still prefer Jam's interface. However, try WaveBurner's demo and see if you like it. It does enjoy a significant price advantage over Jam, so if it does everything you want from it, burn your audio CDs with Waveburner and buy yourself another audio editor with the change (like RayGun). Decking Again from the crew responsible for Peak comes Deck ($499), an audio mixing suite. Slightly older versions of Deck also work on your old AV Quadra or Centris - basically, any Mac with 16-bit audio. Actually, you can use a Mac IIx with the right NuBus audio card (like you really want to know that). The latest versions require a PowerPC. Deck is an application which is more hardware dependent: the more processing power and memory you have, the more tracks you can mix simultaneously. What Deck gives you is virtual hardware. When you think of something like a Teac/Tascam mixing desk, you think 4 or 8 channels or whatever. Deck gives you can interface which allows you to input digital audio and then mix, say, vocals and various instruments into a master track. Of course, it's no 64-track hardware system. But with a G3, you can mix up to 32 tracks and have up to 999 virtual tracks you can insert into your master. Like Peak, Deck supports 24-bit audio data, even if your 'Book doesn't support it in hardware. Deck includes Peak LE, but this's really another application you need to read about thoroughly before you can get into serious audio mixing. If you become proficient in Deck, you could even mix live sound - for instance, adjusting one instrument's level over another. You can do pans, mute sounds and alter levels. With low-end 'Books, like the 5300 and 1400, you'll only mix about 2-4 tracks with 16MB of RAM free. With a 3400 you'll get 8-16 tracks, while with a G3, you can accommodate 20-32 tracks. As I said, it's a processing power thing. The faster the better. So if you're ready to take the plunge, Deck + Peak LE doesn't make a bad combo - at a price. But of course there's a demo to try out to see if you can get the hang of it. And see how it performs on your existing 'Book. Sounding I can't let this column finish without mentioning Norman Franke's outstanding SoundApp. No, it's not an audio editor exactly - but it is an audio converter. SoundApp's been around since the days of the '030 Mac and has developed into a polished, mature product. Best of all it's free. Yes, f-r-e-e. SoundApp will convert virtually any audio file format (like Amiga Mod, windoze .wav or MPEG-III) to AIFF or a System 7 sound or whatever. No frills like all the skins they wrap around SoundJam MP. It's lean, mean, fast and doesn't use wasteful code. Steals a mere 3.2MB of your RAM with virtual memory off. The 68K version can even convert MP3s to AIFFs on your 68K PowerBook. It also turns your 'Book into a very decent portable MP3 jukebox. The latest version even imports and converts from an audio CD. It's software like this that demonstrates the extraordinary depth of talent in the Mac developer community. No serious Mac audiophile should be without it. My hat's off to Norman for continuing to refine this invaluable piece of software (if I had a hat). The Sound of Music Yes, there are others I could mention here: Logic Audio (comes in three levels of tune and various mind-boggling prices); Adobe's Premiere. But we don't have all day, do we? And these are pretty professional outfits. Remember, people like you and me feel so much more comfortable in the land of the amateurs, who like their software well done - and their brains unstrained. If you're with me on this one, come in. Take a seat, relax and open up your 'Book. And start making music instead of just playing it.