Musicians, audio pros and music educators have long recognized the Mac as a superior platform for creativity. Historically, third-party developers augmented the native capabilities of Macintosh with a wide variety of hardware, software and system add-ons, making it possible to use the Macintosh as a virtual recording studio.

Mac OS X Core Audio integrates a range of audio functionality directly into the operating system in ways never before possible, enabling unprecedented performance and ease of use in your virtual studio. Core Audio lays a new foundation for the next generation of world-class audio and music applications from innovative developers.

Breathtaking Performance

Mac OS X delivers the best audio performance in desktop computing. The most fundamental measure of audio performance is throughput latency — the time it takes for audio to enter your Mac, travel through the system to your application and then pass back out to your monitoring system (speakers).

The Core Audio HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) allows multiple applications to share the same device, while maintaining ultra-low latency performance. So you could assign channels one through six of a eight-channel output device to a multi-track program, such as Logic Pro 7, while leaving a virtual studio rack like Reason with channels seven and eight.

And because this performance is built directly into Mac OS X, you experience the same ultra-low latency out of the box on any Apple system. Go from the Power Mac G5 in your studio to your PowerBook on the road — you get consistent performance every time.

Device Aggregation

Mac OS X Tiger now allows you to use multiple audio devices together to increase the number of input and output channels. You can combine devices of like sampling rate together, whether via FireWire, PCI or built-in, into a single aggregated device. Set up is easy via Audio MIDI Setup and your new “virtual” device will automatically show up in all applications on the system.

Core Audio Format

Core Audio Format is the latest addition to the dozens of audio formats supported natively in Mac OS X. Developed by Apple, Core Audio Format (CAF) combines virtually infinite capacity with rich support for metadata in an optimized-for-audio package. As a 64-bit file format, you can record a thousand channels of audio for a thousand years in a single file. And it can store any audio data, whether uncompressed PCM or compressed such as AAC. Application support for these files is available today in QuickTime 7.

Plugged In

Working digitally lets you easily manipulate audio and add special effects. It’s trivial to reverse a sample or add simple reverb to make your music sound as if it were recorded in a huge concert hall or the in the bathroom at CBGB’s. Mac OS X Core Audio provides a system-level plug-in architecture called Audio Units. This allows developers to deploy their plug-ins in a single format that any Mac OS X application can use.

Apple includes several Audio Units in Mac OS X, including one that adjusts timing without affecting pitch, a Velocity Engine-optimized reverb and a matched pair to stream audio over a network. Apple also provides a software instrument that supports both the industry-standard DownLoadable Sounds (DLS) as well as SoundFont formats; giving you high-quality, low-latency sample playback.

MIDI Thru and Thru

Mac OS X integrates MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) Services directly into the operating system for increased stability and performance. Audio MIDI Setup allows you to easily manage your MIDI needs and define a system-wide MIDI configuration that is available to all of your applications. Mac OS X also includes a MIDI Network driver, allowing you to send and receive MIDI over a network connection.

Optimized for G5

The Power Mac G5 is the ultimate machine for audio professionals, with capabilities that are not usually found on personal computers. The state-of-the-art optical digital audio in and out ports use the S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) protocol over Toslink cables for connecting to devices such as decks, receivers, digital instruments and even 5.1 surround-sound speaker systems. And Mac OS X is specially tuned for the G5 processor, providing a seamless transition to 64-bit power with optimized math libraries that let today’s applications take advantage of tomorrow’s power.