Audio Interface And The Switch. Options

[grusel]

Really good MIDI software for the Mac is propellerheads "Reason 2.5" - total Rackmount Synth Emulation w/ Vocoder
.... you can purchase reason Online. See http://www.propellerheads.se/ for more info.

The UM-1 will work with the Al-Book but I recommend a Midiman MIDI Controller like the Oxygen 8 or Radium series because they have surface controllers that are MIDI assignable... thus turning your Controller into a old analogue style synth..... like a moog or Roland SH series. very kewl.

.... you can order a Midiman contoller online. See http://www.midiman.com for details

If you have the money to spend on a Al Book then you might have the money to spend on a Pro tools system... I'd go that route.

With this setup you could rival Danny Elfman's setup. ( http://www.apple.com/pro/music/elfman/ )
P.S. http://www.usbstuff.com and http://www.firewirestuff.com carry alot of great mac audio gear you can call them here for International Orders :
(707) 778-6299 or FAX (707)-778-0776

Hope this helps..... grusel

[stergz]

In Reply to Bilhep:
[QUOTE]Why is IEEE1394 more powerful than USB if USB handles 480MBp/s vs. FireWire's 400? Curious!

What you are refering to is USB2. USB 1.1, which is what comes on the Mac is only about 14MBp/s. As far as USB2 vs Firewire (IEEE1394) Firewire has been designed for Audio/Video Streaming and benchmarking has shown that Firewire can provide a more consistant stream of information for very high data rates. Both of these are theoretical rates anyway and nothing even comes close to this in reality. As far as USB being bad for Audio, I don't know why this one keeps popping up. Thats like saying that a cup is really bad for holding water! Small cup, small water. Big cup, big water. USB 1.1 is fine for about 4-6 24bit audio streams (both ways) while firewire is good for many more. I have successfully recording live bands with no problems on a Digidesign mBox with a stereo spaced pair of Rode NT5's. Beautiful.