Digidesign Brings CD-Quality Digital Audio System to Mac II
 
Microbytes Daily News Service
Copyright (c) 1989, McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Digidesign has a new 16-bit digital audio recording and editing
system for the Mac II. The $995 Audiomedia system, which consists
of a NuBus board featuring the Motorola 56001 digital signal
processor (used in the NeXT Computer) and sound editing software,
allows the user to arrange and edit stereo sounds from an
unlimited number of sources. Digidesign claims that aside from
its professional-level Sound Tools product, which costs more than
$3000 and has been on the market since March, Audiomedia is the
first CD-quality audio system available on the Macintosh.
 
The NuBus board has two RCA line-in and line-out jacks, allowing
direct recording from microphones, CD players, and other stereo
sound sources. Audiomedia supports sampling rates of up to 44.1
KHz, the sampling rate frequency used for CD-quality digital
audio. The user can specify lower sampling frequencies to take up
less storage space and to record lower-fidelity sounds such as
voice and effects. Sounds recorded at the 44.1-KHz sampling rate
require 10 megabytes of disk space per minute of sound (e.g., a
4-minute recording would take up 40 megabytes of disk space).
 
Audiomedia supports Hypercard stacks and Apple's Sound Manager
utility, allowing sounds recorded using Audiomedia to be
incorporated into other Mac software applications that support
sound, such as the Macromind Director video animation program or
the Wingz spreadsheet program. In fact, Macromind's founder and
president, Marc Cantor, was on hand at the DigiDesign press
conference to dislay his operatic talents, singing a few bars of
Pirates of Penzance, which was then edited and replayed with a
dubbed-in chorus using Audiomedia.
 
Audiomedia allows high-quality digital sound to be incorporated
into Mac applications and will be particularly useful for desktop
presentations. Aside from the higher-quality sound, the main
strength of Audiomedia is its editing capabilities. It allows
musicians to edit their recordings, a function that used to be
limited to professional recording engineers, using razor blades
and 2-track master tape decks.
 
However, Audiomedia and Sound Tools will not replace the
professional mixing console, which can mix multiple tracks of
sound into 2-track stereo sound. Audiomedia supports only two
tracks. The major limitation is storage space. Erasable optical
and CD ROM drives are still not fast enough to support direct
digital recording.
 
Contact: Digidesign Inc, 1360 Willow Rd, Suite 101, Menlo Park,
CA 94025; (415) 327-8811.
 
                              --- Nick Baran
 
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