WSJ: New Rivals Lurk In Music-Recording Industry
By DON CLARK
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 28, 2004; Page B1
On a recent hot, sticky afternoon in Dallas, Grammy Award-winning music producer Elliot Scheiner holed up in a specially outfitted trailer behind the Cotton Bowl. As Carlos Santana's band ran through a sound check at the Crossroads Guitar Festival, Mr. Scheiner moved sliders on a huge mixing board, pausing to bark out questions to engineers on the stage via intercom. The event, hosted by Eric Clapton, went out live over the Internet and now is being remixed by Mr. Scheiner for a pay-per-view broadcast, a Public Broadcasting System special and a DVD.
Pretty standard stuff for a veteran producer, except for how the 11-hour concert was recorded: on a special "digital audio workstation" powered by two Advanced Micro Devices Inc. microprocessor chips. "Amazing" is how Mr. Scheiner describes the machine's capabilities. "It's beyond ridiculous."
The rave review sounds an ominous note for Apple Computer Inc., whose machines have long been the tool of choice on the professional music-recording scene. The Macintosh has played a key role in the evolution of digital recording, and many musicians and engineers use the Mac with Pro Tools, a recording and editing program whose dominance in the field is comparable to Microsoft Corp.'s Word in word processing.
But the impressive power and falling prices of computers using chips from AMD and Intel Corp. is creating converts -- a concern for Apple in a market that is small in size but huge in prestige. Dave Lebolt, general manager of Pro Tools creator Digidesign, a unit of Avid Technology Inc., estimates that the Macintosh still has 90% market share among professional musicians. More budget-conscious musicians, though, use systems based on Intel or AMD chips, which account for 50% to 65% of music-software sold for hobbyist or consumer applications, he said.
"We are playing catch-up," to Apple, says Marty Seyer, the vice president in charge of AMD's microprocessor business. "In a matter of two years, the landscape will totally change."
Apple, meanwhile, insists it is aggressively defending its turf with dual-processor computers and new music software. "I see us increasing our lead over PCs, not that they are catching up," says Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of world-wide product marketing.
Computers have been a staple of the music-making business since the late 1980s, when the Mac began to be used. Some purists still prefer the sound quality afforded by tape and other "analog" tools, but newer digital technology has undeniable advantages. Cutting and pasting music phrases is now as simple as moving words on a screen. Other computer-aided tricks include borrowing "sampled" sounds from other recordings, remixing recordings to make new ones and electronically fixing out-of-tune vocals.
Music producer Elliot Scheiner (center), who says his non-Macintosh recording system is 'amazing'
The combination of the Macintosh and Pro Tools spawned a mini-industry of "plug-ins" -- add-on programs that simulate the sounds of particular instruments or effects. To handle so many chores, the software is typically used with an extra circuit board containing a special chip called a digital signal processor.
Some companies now see a simpler, cheaper route to complex orchestration: harnessing the microprocessor that handles a system's basic computing chores. That approach is being used with music software such as Nuendo, from Pinnacle Systems Inc.'s Steinberg unit, and Cakewalk's Sonar, which works only on Windows PCs. Avoiding add-on hardware saves money, but PCs haven't been powerful enough to handle many recording tracks and effects at the same time.
That is changing. AMD's Opteron microprocessor, in particular, has a high-speed technology for exchanging data with memory chips and other microprocessors. The design makes it easy to use two or more microprocessors in a single computer.
Under the urging of AMD Chief Executive Hector Ruiz, an amateur guitar player, the company has seeded famous record producers and engineers with Opteron-based systems. One user is Chuck Ainlay, a veteran Nashville producer and engineer and frequent collaborator with Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler.
Mr. Ainlay, who had used Macs with Pro Tools, says he shifted to Windows-based PCs about six years ago, lured by the promise of faster advances. He says his current Opteron-based system can manage unusually large numbers of audio tracks and plug-in effects.
"We are really starting to get high track counts and not be inhibited by the computers locking up," Mr. Ainlay says. "This thing is just rocking my world."
Verari Systems Inc., which built the workstation Mr. Scheiner uses, makes computers using both Intel and AMD chips. But the closely held San Diego company favors Opteron for music workstations. David Driggers, Verari's CEO, describes Opteron as "an extremely compelling platform."
Mr. Scheiner, the producer who has collaborated with groups such as the Eagles and Steely Dan, used a Macintosh for office tasks but found it unreliable when he briefly tried the Mac for recording in the 1990s. His Verari workstation, by contrast, "has never crashed," he says.
Such talk provokes heated arguments from Macintosh fans, such as Neil Mclellan, a British engineer who uses Pro Tools to record such acts as Prodigy, known for electronic dance music. He insists that the Mac OS X operating system is more reliable than Microsoft's Windows XP, less frequently targeted by computer viruses and easier to customize with add-on hardware and software.
Indeed, Apple believes it has a fundamental advantage when people make music by plugging real instruments or software synthesizers into its computers. With PCs, it points out, users often experience slight delays, known as latency, that can make it harder to synchronize musical tracks. Mac OS X has a technology called Core Audio that reduces the problem.
On the software front, Apple's Mr. Schiller points to Mac programs such as Logic Pro, Soundtrack and Garageband, a free part of OS X that aids composition with thousands of prerecorded musical riffs and sequences. He also says the dual-processor G5 Mac, powered by an International Business MachinesCorp. chip, is considerably faster than most PCs powered by Intel and AMD chips and is widely available in retail stores, starting at $1,999. Dual-processor PCs, such as Verari's $2,600 workstation, often must be specially ordered.
But the PC world has more competing makers of chips and computers, spurring rapid price declines and new features. Intel just introduced new accessory chips that sharply speed the rate at which its microprocessors can transfer music and other data.
Digidesign's Mr. Lebolt says technical capabilities between Windows PCs and Macs have essentially reached parity. Over time, he says, users will be mostly swayed by what music application software is available, and their familiarity with the Windows or Mac operating systems.
"There is a longtime allegiance in the creative community to Apple that has built up over time," Mr. Lebolt says. "That's changing a bit."
