TidBITS#866/12-Feb-07
=====================
Issue link: <http://db.tidbits.com/issue/866>
Steve Jobs surprised the computer and entertainment industries last
week by posting his thoughts on digital rights management (DRM),
stating that Apple would abandon DRM "in a heartbeat" if it could.
Adam examines Jobs's notions and the reasoning behind them. He also
comments on Bill Gates's puzzling remarks about Mac security and
notes the 10th anniversary of Microsoft's MacBU group. Also in this
issue, Matt Neuburg reviews Martin Hairer's Amadeus II and Amadeus
Pro music-manipulation programs, Apple's Worldwide Developer
Conference (WWDC) gets a June date, and Take Control's second Month
of Apple Sales bundle begins.
Articles
WWDC Scheduled for June 2007
Microsoft's Split Personality
DealBITS Winners: SmileOnMyMac Productivity Suite
DealBITS Drawing: Rogue Amoeba's Fission
Steve Jobs Blasts DRM
Amadeus Pro: The Classic Continues
Take Control News/12-Feb-07
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/12-Feb-07
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WWDC Scheduled for June 2007
----------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8852>
Apple has announced that the annual Worldwide Developers Conference
(WWDC) will be held 11-Jun-07 through 15-Jun-07 in San Francisco,
two months earlier than in 2006. Developers can now start planning
travel around those dates, and it's even more certain now that
Leopard will ship before June, since Apple will want to focus on new
and upcoming technologies at the conference. That said, I'll be
surprised if Apple announces the next big cat at WWDC to avoid
taking any wind out of Leopard's sails. Although there were only
about 14 months between Jaguar and Panther, it took 18 months for
Tiger to ship, and Leopard appears to be on track for 24 months.
(Special thanks to the excellent Mactimeline.com site for date
confirmation.)
<http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/>
<http://www.mactimeline.com/>
Microsoft's Split Personality
-----------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8853>
Newsweek recently brought us Bill Gates's ignorant ranting about
security on the Mac, a topic on which he was apparently informed
solely by the existence of the Month of Apple Bugs project. He was
quoted as saying, "Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every
single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit,
your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that
once a month on the Windows machine." Way to get a dig in at Apple
and taunt the cracker community at the same time, Bill!
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16934083/site/newsweek/page/4/print/1/displaymode/1098/>
Those of us who actually use Macs know just how utterly silly that
statement is, especially considering the hordes of zombie PCs out
there hammering everyone on the Internet with spam and automated
attacks. No one (or at least no one who knows anything) is saying
that Macs are immune from problems - far from it - but for a variety
of reasons, Macs are currently relatively unencumbered by the kinds
of security exploits that afflict Windows XP.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_computer>
Bill must not use a Mac on a regular basis, and while I can see the
dogfood value in that (he certainly should be using Windows!), it
would have been nice if he'd first talked with some of the Mac folks
in Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit before spouting off.
Microsoft has been making Mac products for a very long time now, and
the MacBU as a separate entity is now 10 years old. More to the
point, this bit of inspired icon geekery using colored Post-it notes
shows they have the right Mac spirit. Now if only they could convert
the icons to metal sculptures along the lines of Apple's long-gone
icon garden (also be sure to check out the QuickTime VR movie).
<http://blogs.msdn.com/macmojo/archive/2007/02/07/birthday-gift-for-macbu.aspx>
<http://icongarden.jory.org/>
<http://www.kevdo.com/kevin/apple.html>
DealBITS Winners: SmileOnMyMac Productivity Suite
-------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8854>
Congratulations to Hans van Helvert of exsistere.net, Nina Contini
Melis of mac.com, and Michael Scriven of aol.com, whose entries were
chosen randomly in last week's DealBITS drawing and who received a
copy of the SmileOnMyMac Productivity Suite, worth $129. Entrants
who didn't win received a discount on any SmileOnMyMac product.
Thanks again for entering this DealBITS drawing, and we hope you'll
continue to participate in the future. Thanks to the 747 people who
entered, and keep an eye out for future DealBITS drawings!
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8843>
<http://www.smileonmymac.com/suite/>
DealBITS Drawing: Rogue Amoeba's Fission
----------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8855>
All too often we see products released with relatively basic feature
sets, after which they evolve into powerful applications used by
professionals. That leaves few choices for those who want a simple,
focused program. Think about how that's happened with page layout,
graphics, and Web authoring tools, as well as audio editing
applications. That's why it's great to see programs like Rogue
Amoeba's Fission, which is a simple audio-manipulation program that
handles numerous audio formats and provides lossless editing of MP3
and - uniquely on the Mac - unprotected AAC files. Unlike high-end
audio programs, Fission doesn't attempt to do everything; it focuses
on helping you trim, split, and manipulate audio files for cleaning
up podcasts, making ringtones, eliminating commercials from recorded
radio shows, and more (for additional details, see "Fission
Manipulates Audio Tracks of All Stripes," 2006-09-25). Also unlike
high end audio programs, Fission doesn't come with a high price tag.
<http://www.rogueamoeba.com/fission/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8685>
In this week's DealBITS drawing, you can enter to win one of three
copies of Fission, each worth $32. Entrants who aren't among our
lucky winners will receive a discount on Fission, so be sure to
enter at the DealBITS page linked below. All information gathered is
covered by our comprehensive privacy policy. Be careful with your
spam filters, since you must be able to receive email from my
address to learn if you've won. Remember, too, that if someone you
refer to this drawing wins, you'll receive the same prize as a
reward for spreading the word.
<http://www.tidbits.com/dealbits/fission/>
<http://www.tidbits.com/about/privacy.html>
Steve Jobs Blasts DRM
---------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8856>
In an unprecedented move, Apple last week posted on the company Web
site an open letter from Steve Jobs entitled "Thoughts on Music."
That Apple chose the open letter approach is interesting, but
sensible, since there isn't really a conventional format for a
company to express an opinion or take a position other than a press
release, and the letter was aimed, as we'll see, at many audiences
other than the press. I'm a bit surprised that Apple didn't choose
to film Jobs talking instead (or at least in addition to posting the
letter). Why not harness the Reality Distortion Field when your CEO
controls it? Such a video would have become an instant hit via
iTunes and YouTube, further spreading Apple's message.
<http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/>
Video or no video, you can and should read the full letter, which
makes a number of interesting and relevant points about the current
state of the music industry, digital rights management (DRM), and
Apple's role in the world.
First, Apple was forced to create and use FairPlay DRM when selling
music on the iTunes Store because that was the only way the big
music companies would agree to license their music to Apple.
However, perhaps due to the music companies not realizing the
potential size of the online market, Apple was initially able to
negotiate pretty good terms, which accounts for FairPlay-encrypted
tracks working on up to five computers and unlimited iPods, enabling
burning to audio CDs from the same playlist some number of times,
and so on. (Also, iTunes ran only on Macs at the time, so Apple was
able to convince the music companies that the platform's small
market share ensured that if the experiment were a failure, they
wouldn't have lost much.) Apple may have benefited early on from the
way FairPlay locks iTunes Store users into using iPods, but Jobs
claims that on average, only about 2 percent of music on iPods was
purchased from the iTunes Store (of course, that's a weak argument
for any individual who happens to have purchased a lot of music from
the iTunes Store, but no one was forced to buy from Apple). Plus,
remember that before the opening of the iTunes Store, Apple was
running its "Rip, Mix, and Burn" commercials, which were widely seen
as tweaking the recording industry.
Second, if FairPlay were breached, Apple would have to fix it in a
very short time or risk losing its ability to sell music on the
iTunes Store. There have been several breaches of FairPlay that
Apple has resolved quickly - thanks to the company controlling all
portions of the media-purchasing and playing process - but on the
whole, FairPlay's protections have remained intact. That may be in
part due to it having reasonable conditions, unlike many other DRM
systems. But with 70 percent of the market, Apple certainly isn't
escaping attention by being a small player, as is often stated as a
reason for the paucity of exploits aimed at Mac OS X. That said,
Jobs unfairly equates the desire to break FairPlay to the desire to
steal music, conveniently ignoring how many people are both
philosophically and practically offended by DRM and how it limits
their fair use rights.
Third, were Apple to license FairPlay to other manufacturers, the
likelihood of a license-endangering breach and the difficulty of
implementing a quick fix goes up, as the number of people in
different companies with access to code and encryption keys
increases along with the number of devices available to crack. That
worry is not unfounded; it was by hackers disassembling the object
code of the Xing DVD player that the Content Scrambling System (CSS)
protecting DVD movies was broken. And while Apple could in theory
license other forms of DRM from Microsoft and others to enable iPods
to be used with other online music stores, the general consensus
among industry insiders is that it would be a cold day in hell
before that would happen (though you can never count out global
climate change affecting the netherworld; see the linked picture).
Plus, unlike releasing iTunes and the iPod for Windows, it's unclear
how licensing Microsoft DRM would benefit Apple, given that most of
the online music stores have significant overlap in their catalogs.
The primary benefit to users would involve being able to choose an
online music store that offers a subscription plan, which Apple has
steadfastly avoided with the iTunes Store. (Of course, subscription
plans require DRM, because otherwise you could keep forever
everything you heard once, so eliminating DRM would also destroy
that entire business model.)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS>
<http://usdev01.esolutionnow.com/pub/jake/iTunes%20for%20Windows.gif>
Fourth, although Apple owns 70 percent of the online music market
today, with companies like Microsoft and Sony entering the fray with
similar proprietary music stores selling DRM-protected content that
plays on only specific music players, Apple sees no problem with its
dominant position (no surprise there). Jobs also points out that
because only 2 percent of music on the average iPod has been
purchased from the iTunes Store (the remainder being unprotected
MP3s ripped from CDs or purchased online from unprotected sources),
it's disingenuous to portray Apple as locking iPod users into using
the iTunes Store. And something he doesn't say is that it's easy -
if extra work - to remove FairPlay by burning protected tracks to an
audio CD, after which they could be transferred to any other music
player.
Fifth, and this is undoubtedly the most interesting point, Jobs
states unequivocally that Apple would prefer that all music sold
online was DRM-free, because it would be better for customers who
want to use alternative music stores or alternative music players.
What he doesn't say is that it would also be easier for Apple, which
wouldn't have to maintain and update FairPlay constantly. It would
also be better for competition, eliminating what little lock-in
currently exists between a particular music store and its associated
player. Given how Apple essentially created the portable music
player market with the iPod (not the first, but so much better than
its predecessors that it might as well have been) and the online
music market (by integrating the iTunes Store into iTunes itself), I
don't think Apple fears competition at all, and may even welcome it
as an encouragement to innovation.
Sixth and lastly, Jobs points out that while fewer than 2 billion
protected tracks were sold online in 2006, the music companies sold
over 20 billion songs in completely unprotected form via
conventional CDs. He uses this fact to point the finger of blame at
the music companies themselves for furthering illegal music copying.
This is in fact a tricky argument, because it can be used either to
push for removing DRM restrictions on music sold online or for
increasing restrictions on physical media. Efforts to use copy
prevention technologies on CDs have failed, partially through
technical ineptitude (they simply didn't work), and partially
through utter stupidity, as in the case of the Sony BMG rootkit
scandal, in which Sony intentionally installed spyware on Windows
PCs when a protected CD was played.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Sony_BMG_CD_copy_protection_scandal>
**Why This Letter, and Why Now?** Response among our sources has been
interesting. Many don't feel that Apple is saying anything new, but
I'm not sure I agree. Apple has never before come out against DRM in
music so plainly. Also, even if these attitudes aren't completely
new, Apple hasn't previously shown such aggressiveness in promoting
them and assigning the blame for DRM to the music companies. It's
possible that the letter is in part a PR effort to paint Apple as a
friend of the consumer, in contrast with the big bad music
companies, thus giving Apple the high moral ground with customers
and establishing Apple's position in advance of any large-scale
movement on the part of the music companies to offer unprotected
tracks via other online services, as EMI has done with Yahoo.
<http://news.digitaltrends.com/article11874.html>
Interestingly, video is never mentioned in the letter. Jobs has
always seemed to consider music and video differently, perhaps
because of his association with Pixar, and it's also certainly true
that Apple is by no means in the same powerful negotiating position
with the movie studios as it is with the music companies. Plus, all
commercial DVDs are nominally protected against copying by CSS, and
bandwidth limitations have slowed large-scale sharing of video
content.
But again, why now, and to whom is the letter targeted? It's almost
certainly a response to the Consumer Council of Norway's complaint
against Apple with regard to the End User License Agreement (EULA)
with which iTunes customers must agree. Among the criticisms (many
of which are legitimate) is the concern about interoperability -
songs purchased on the iTunes Store cannot be played on other
devices (the conversion step I outlined previously is never
mentioned). In essence, Apple is saying to Norway and the other
European countries, "Look, this DRM wasn't our idea, and without it,
we couldn't maintain the licenses that enable us to be in business.
But we'd happily drop the DRM if we could; go talk to the music
companies about that." If push comes to shove, Apple will simply
pull the iTunes Store out of Norway.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes_Music_Store#The_Consumer_Council_of_Norway_EULA_challenge>
Another possibility is that the letter is meant to tweak Microsoft
over that company's embrace of DRM, including the Windows Media DRM,
the Windows Media DRM-incompatible Zune (on the sales of which
Microsoft pays royalties to the music companies; see "Of the Zune,
DRM, and Universal Music," 2006-11-13), and the extensive DRM
support that's built into Windows Vista. Peter Gutmann, a University
of Auckland computer science researcher who works on the design and
analysis of cryptographic security architectures, has posted an
exhaustive discussion of the problems that are likely to result from
Vista's low-level content protection code. Jobs's letter never
mentions Vista, but it seems entirely within Jobs's character to set
Apple as an alternative to Microsoft with respect to DRM.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8751>
<http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html>
It's also possible, though less likely, that the letter comes in
part as a followup to a rather unflattering portrayal of Apple's
attitudes about DRM in the New York Times. In that article, the head
of the Nettwerk Music Group, Terry McBride, says that although
Nettwerk's music is sold on the eMusic online service without DRM
restrictions, Apple insists on adding FairPlay to the same tracks
sold on the iTunes Store.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/business/yourmoney/14digi.html?ex=1326430800&en=2c5efe51f9d74dd8&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss>
A challenge to Apple then: start selling unprotected tracks on the
iTunes Store when the rights-holders request such an action. Apple
currently makes many unprotected podcasts available for free in the
iTunes Store, though I don't know if there are any unprotected
podcasts or songs that are sold, or if Apple currently has back end
limitations that require FairPlay on non-free tracks. And if Apple
really wanted to put its money where Steve Jobs's mouth is, it could
buy eMusic, which is the second-largest online music service, and
which has about two million tracks from independent artists, none of
which contain any DRM. (Of course, buying eMusic might draw unwanted
attention from monopoly regulators.)
<http://www.emusic.com/>
**Other Views** -- Coverage of the letter has been widespread, with a
variety of responses. On Playlist, Jim Dalrymple has some
interesting reactions from Real Networks and a wonderfully typical
comment from the RIAA. Also on Playlist, Nancy Gohring of IDG News
Service reports on the response from the Consumer Council of Norway,
which admits that music companies have some responsibility but still
claims that ultimate responsibility lies with Apple. The Economist
concludes, "Mr Jobs's argument, in short, is transparently
self-serving. It also happens to be right." Dan Moren of MacUser.com
imagines a world without DRM, John Gruber of Daring Fireball reads
between the lines of Jobs's letter, and as usual, John Moltz of
Crazy Apple Rumors Site makes up the stuff you wish had been said.
<http://playlistmag.com/news/2007/02/07/drm/>
<http://playlistmag.com/news/2007/02/07/norway/>
<http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8660389>
<http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2007/02/drm/>
<http://daringfireball.net/2007/02/reading_between_the_lines>
<http://www.crazyapplerumors.com/?p=785>
Amadeus Pro: The Classic Continues
----------------------------------
by Matt Neuburg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8857>
If the Book of Ecclesiastes were written today, it might include
some jaded commentary on the plethora and ephemerality of computer
programs - something along these lines: "Software cometh and
software passeth away, and countless as the sands are the reviews
thereof." Nevertheless, those sands do conceal an occasional
treasure; and one such is Martin Hairer's Amadeus.
<http://www.hairersoft.com/Welcome.html>
Amadeus is a sound file editor. I've been using it for over six
years, for a variety of purposes, and throughout that time it has
remained firmly and indispensably central to my sound-processing
activities. It has an amazing breadth of abilities, combining
serious power with delightful simplicity, at an astonishingly low
price. To use it is to love it.
As of mid-January 2007, Amadeus comes in two versions. The program
I've been using all this time, properly called Amadeus II, is a
Carbon program. The current version of Amadeus II (3.8.7) runs
natively under Mac OS X, and also works fine under Mac OS 9.2. (If
you're still reveling in the retro experience, you can even obtain
an earlier, unsupported version that runs under Mac OS 8.6.) The
"II," by the way, was added to the name years ago, when the original
Amadeus, which could run on a 68K Macintosh, was updated to version
2.0 and became PowerPC-only.
Amadeus II, however, runs under Rosetta on an Intel-based Mac. The
developer recognized that an Intel-native incarnation was desirable,
and took the opportunity to update the program to a Cocoa interface.
This update has been released as Amadeus Pro, a universal binary
with a somewhat broader feature set than its predecessor.
<http://www.hairersoft.com/AmadeusPro/AmadeusPro.html>
**Past and Present** -- My affection for Amadeus is intimately bound
up with how I came to start using it and the sorts of thing I've
done with it over the years. Back in the days before Mac OS X, in
December 2000, I looked sadly at my massive collection of cassette
tapes, thought about all those little magnetic particles silently
hydrolyzing or falling off or whatever evil deteriorative activity
they were indulging in, and resolved to transfer all this music into
a digital format before it evaporated forever.
My working method began with a play-through of the cassette,
recording it onto the computer as an AIFF file, using a wonderful
piece of freeware called Coaster. This turned each entire side of
the cassette into a single sound file. But what I wanted were
multiple sound files containing individual songs, and that's where
Amadeus entered the story. (I use the word "song" loosely, in the
way that iTunes does; on an audio CD these would be called "tracks,"
but the word "track" has another usage in Amadeus Pro, similar to
its use in GarageBand or iMovie, so I'm deliberately avoiding
ambiguity.)
<http://www.visualclick.de/>
So, I opened the file using Amadeus, which showed me the waveforms
of the right and left stereo channels, along with an overview of the
entire file. I could use the overview to help navigate. I could zoom
in and out to see waveform details or to get the larger picture. I
could click to start playing at a certain point, or play a selected
region. I could insert a bookmark designating a point of interest in
the file, and navigate to it easily later on. And of course I could
cut and paste a selected section of the waveform. Thus, it was
simple for me to work my way through the file, finding the start and
end of each individual song on the tape, and marking those points.
Then later I would use those bookmarks to select one song at a time,
along with a little of the surrounding silence, and copy and save
that selection as an individual song file.
Doubtless that sounds extremely simple - as, indeed, it was. What I
didn't fully appreciate at the time, though, is that it was simple
in part because Amadeus made it simple. Over the years since then
I've used many other sound-editing programs, but none that lets me
interact so directly and simply with a waveform. Certain acts and
gestures are fundamental to working with sound files: play from a
point, stop, have the insertion point either remain where you
stopped or return to where you started playing from; zoom in or out;
select; copy and paste; navigate within a large file. Every other
sound-editing program manages somehow to make one or more of these
acts difficult, clumsy, or frustrating. Amadeus has always been a
model of sparkling ease and clarity in this regard; I find it nearly
impossible to perform detailed editing of a sound in any other
application.
Moreover, Amadeus has evolved since the year 2000, so that to
perform that same task of recording a large sound file and splitting
it into songs today is even easier. First of all, Amadeus now has
the capability to record, and I often recommend it for that purpose.
Second, Amadeus now has a feature allowing you to search your file
for clips. (This feature, like several others, was added at my
suggestion. A "clip" is a place where the recorded signal was too
loud for the system and exceeded its maximum bandwidth, so that the
top or bottom of the wave was cut off; it is crucial that your
recording contain no clips, since when played they sound like little
explosions and are bad for your equipment.) Third, Amadeus can split
a file at its bookmarks, so it's sufficient to go through the file,
mark the start and end of every song, and let Amadeus break it up
for you. In fact, Amadeus can even help you isolate the individual
songs by marking areas of silence automatically.
Now here comes my second major use of Amadeus. Having broken up the
file into individual songs, I examine each song for clicks and pops.
(Many of my tapes came originally from vinyl LPs, which often had
scratches or foreign matter on the record surface.) You can find
these by listening, or else you can let Amadeus search for them,
selecting each spot that it thinks might be a click. When you find
one, you use the Interpolate function; Amadeus smoothes out the
jagged interruption of the selected click into something based on
the surrounding sound, so it magically vanishes and becomes just
part of the music (or, in more difficult cases, a barely audible
glitch).
This feature alone is worth its weight in gold. I've tried many
other programs, some of them quite high-end, for removing clicks and
pops; none of them does the job as well as walking through the file
with Amadeus. (Actually, an application called ClickRepair has
recently emerged, and does a splendid job of automated de-clicking;
even so, I find that my results are improved if I use it in
combination with manual de-clicking in Amadeus.)
<http://wwwmaths.anu.edu.au/~briand/sound/>
The Interpolate feature is also great for joining pasted material
smoothly. For example, I've sometimes cut out the coughing between
songs in a live recording, or, in a recording of myself speaking,
I've removed a verbal stumble, a breathing noise, or an overly long
silence; after such a cut, the waveforms at the point of removal
don't match up, until Interpolate turns the break into a smooth,
undetectable join. Alternatively I might use, at such places, an
Amadeus feature called Transition, where the material on the two
sides of the discontinuity is shifted together so as to overlap
along with a crossfade.
**Features and Futures** -- Often, as a song is about to achieve its
final form, I use some additional features of Amadeus. If the
recording has some hiss or other low-level noise, I might use Fade
In at the start and Fade Out at the finish, so the sound doesn't
begin and end abruptly. Typically, to avoid clips, my recording is a
little softer than it needs to be; one would usually prefer to make
the fullest possible use of the available bandwidth, with the
loudest part of the signal nearly as loud as the maximum allowable.
Amadeus's Normalize function takes care of that for me.
Also, there is Amadeus's capability to open and save a wide variety
of sound file formats, converting as necessary. For example, these
days I typically record in 24-bit AIFF format. If I want to make an
MP3 file from such a recording, I have to convert to a WAV first,
because my preferred MP3 compressor is LAME, which doesn't
understand 24-bit AIFF files. Since I've typically been working in
Amadeus anyway towards the end of the preparation process, I use it
to save as a WAV. (You can save as an MP3 directly from Amadeus,
which has LAME built in; but Amadeus II doesn't let me tweak LAME
with the command-line arguments I prefer.)
<http://lame.sourceforge.net/>
Amadeus can also apply filters, including any VST or Audio Unit
filters you have, along with some specialized equalization filters
for processing files made from phonograph records. However, the
crudeness of the interface limits the usefulness of these features:
filter settings interfaces are presented in a modal dialog, which
means that you can't select different regions of your sound to
audition, and there are no facilities for adjusting the wet/dry mix,
A/B comparison of different settings, and so forth. For this reason,
I generally apply filters using a more advanced program specifically
aimed at hosting them, such as DSP-Quattro.
<http://www.i3net.it/Products/dspQuattro/Asp/Index_EN.asp>
Features that I've used less often include Amadeus's capabilities to
change a sound's pitch, with or without changing its speed; to
reverse a sound; and to provide a graphic analysis of a sound's
frequency components as a spectrum or as a sonogram.
Amadeus Pro introduces two major features. One is that a sound file
can now contain multiple tracks, each with its own adjustable
amplitude envelope. So, for instance, one track might be the two
stereo channels of an accompaniment, while the other might be the
single channel of a voice track. Thus, Amadeus Pro invites use as a
mixing program. Such use would probably be limited to combining
existing material, however, since you can't (except in the most
rudimentary fashion) record one track while listening to another.
The other new feature is batch processing, enabling you to do such
things as normalize and convert the file format of multiple files
with a single command.
**Conclusions** -- Although I'm pleased to see Amadeus II modernized
into Amadeus Pro, and although Amadeus Pro is a universal binary,
sports a Cocoa interface, and is in some respects better behaved
than Amadeus II (in particular with regard to its memory management
and its use of the computer's CPU), I can't help feeling that
something has been lost in the translation. The basic action of
selection and repeated playback has become fussier and more
confusing, in part thanks to a newly introduced differentiation
between the playback head position and the insertion point. And
Amadeus II's facility for letting you adjust the sensitivity
parameters used when seeking suspected clicks and pops is completely
missing in Amadeus Pro. For these and other reasons, I'll probably
continue to stick with Amadeus II for a while yet.
When considering Amadeus, you must take into account, I think, four
things: your own needs and experience; the breadth, variety, and
downright generosity of the program's features; the interface; and
the price. The combination is unbeatable, making Amadeus the single
basic sound editor that every beginner should have. There are, and I
have used, many other sound editors, ranging from freeware to
high-end; but for basic editing actions, such as splitting a sound
file into songs, adjusting and fading its endpoints, cutting out
material and seamlessly joining the remainder, and converting from
one format to another, Amadeus is the tool to which I always return.
Add to that its unparalleled capability to detect and nullify
individual clicks and pops, and you can see why it has been a staple
of my sound-processing repertory since the day I first used it.
Amadeus Pro is $40 ($25 for registered Amadeus II users). It
requires Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or higher, and is a universal binary.
It's a 12 MB download, and is available as a 30-day demo. Amadeus II
costs $30 (free, on request, for registered Amadeus Pro users). It
requires Mac OS 9.2 or higher, and runs natively on Mac OS X (under
Rosetta on an Intel-based Mac). A 15-day demo is available as a 3 MB
download.
<http://www.hairersoft.com/AmadeusPro/AmadeusProDownload.html>
<http://www.hairersoft.com/AmadeusDownload.html>
Take Control News/12-Feb-07
---------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8858>
**Month of Apple Sales #2: Love the One You're With** -- Valentine's
Day is this week, reminding us to think of our nearest and dearest.
In the Mac world, you needn't pine for new versions of iPhoto,
iTunes, iWeb, and GarageBand when you can focus on the iLife '06
versions you have now. If you're quick, you can learn how to send
your sweetie an iWeb-created invitation to a romantic viewing of a
photo slideshow set to music you composed in GarageBand. But don't
geek out too much - follow it up with gourmet chocolates accompanied
by soft jazz (we're partial to Green Mountain Chocolates and Abbey
Lincoln). To get started, save 60 percent on this bundle of
essential information about iPhoto, iTunes, iWeb, and GarageBand.
That's 5 ebooks for only $23.18 (regularly $57.95).
* iPhoto 6: Visual QuickStart Guide
* Take Control of iWeb
* Macworld iPod and iTunes Superguide
* Take Control of Making Music with GarageBand
* Take Control of Recording with GarageBand
To take advantage of this discount, just purchase from the Month of
Apple Sales #2: Love the One You're With page.
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/offers/moas2.html>
And yes, if you want the bundle but already own one of these books,
feel free to give your extra copy to a friend. Next week's sale will
be another good one (and don't worry - there's no overlap)!
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/12-Feb-07
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8859>
**Apple and the enterprise** -- This popular thread continues to draw
discussion of Mac usage in large organizations, though sometimes in
ways that aren't visible to the outside world. (83 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1101/>
**iMac midnight awakening** -- A reader's new 24-inch iMac chimes each
night at midnight, but the cause isn't clear. (3 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1129/>
**New GTD kid on the block - Ghost Action** -- Another Getting Things
Done entry arrives on the scene; how does it compare to others? (3
messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1130/>
**802.11n AirPort Extreme Base Station** -- The new wireless base
stations are shipping, and readers share their experiences setting
them up, hooking up external hard drives, and reporting on data
transfer speeds. (4 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1131/>
**PowerBooks on long flights** -- How do travelers deal with battery
life on long international flights? Extra batteries? Custom power
adapters? (13 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1134/>
**Apple & DRM** -- Readers react to Steve Jobs's public thoughts on
music and his statement that Apple would drop DRM "in a heartbeat"
if given the opportunity. (12 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1137/>
**Dealing with the lack of an Eject key** -- Some keyboards don't
include a key for ejecting optical media, and Apple's recent Macs
don't include a physical eject button. What options are available?
(7 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1138/>
**Wired Ethernet alternative for MacBook** -- Would a USB Ethernet
adapter work on a MacBook that has a damaged Ethernet port? (2
messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1139/>
**Build Your Own 23-inch MacBook** -- Readers respond to Jeff Porten's
article about using a second laptop screen as an extended monitor,
and offer an alternative VNC client. (2 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1140/>
$$
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