Standard audio capabilites of Macs

[jonny_rat]

Hi all, just got a quick question..
I'm looking to buy an eMac in the near future, although was hoping to do a little audio recording/editing on it. However, the tech specs of the eMac mention only 'high performance integrated audio' - which as far as I know might not even allow full duplex recording (ie. simultanious recording and playing of sound). Does anyone have any idea as to whether this is the case, and any other info about the general audio performance of these 'integrated' systems?

One more thing.. (finally).. what's the best software for recording music on a Mac? I used to use Cool Edit Pro, so something with similar multitracking/editing capabilities would be good..

 

[skoggis]

Hi!

Macs are designed so that you don't necesserily need to buy an audiocard. All you need is a mac that has audio in and audio out. Your processor power will determine the rest.

Only thing is that you can't get more than stereo in and stereo out at the same time. If you need more you'll have to buy a PCI audiocard for PowerMac or external Firewire/USB audiointerface for other macs.

You can play back as many tracks as your processor and ram and hard drive allows. The audio you get out from your computer (line out) is still "only" stereo because the software mixes your tracks in to left and right channel. I have an iMac 333Mhz at home and it plays easily 12 tracks back while it is recording a stereo track.

I've used Logic for many years and it's the best multitrack sequencer for mac You might want to check out ProTools and Cubase too. If you need to do only audio and not a single bit of midi, check out Spark. You can get a basic version of it for free!

And welcome to the board

 

[jonny_rat]

Wow.. that's the most useful 1st reply I've ever had on a forum..
Cheers, that's very informative and excellent news too.
Thanks!