Jane! Stop This Crazy Thing!As I write this I'm in the middle of working on my first major Hollywood movie and trying to meet the Deadline from Hell. But my thoughts have wandered to Southworth, the hilariously inept '80s manufacturer that couldn't produce a product that actually worked.

Today, in a matter of a few minutes, Studio Vision crashed because I dared to use its audio "capabilities"; my E-mu E4 Ultra decided it would no longer save to the same disk it had been saving to for the past week; and my Akai S6000-which never reliably saves its entire 256 MB memory to any medium-froze, requiring a 20-minute reload. Then, after I painstakingly rebuilt my session, my Mackie board decided it would not put out sound on one side unless I rebooted!

My point is not that I need an uninterruptible power supply (got one, no dif) or that this is "bad" gear. In fact, it runs the gamut from the usually dependable Mackie to the scandalously flaky Akai. The problem is that, with our increasing reliance on microprocessor-based instruments, the old standards of 99 percent reliable are no longer acceptable. I don't know anyone doing a major project and using his or her gear to its fullest extent who doesn't have a session-stopping experience on a maddeningly regular basis.

I believe that the pro magazines, including EM, should make reliability as important a criterion as features or price when evaluating new gear. I'm awfully tired of involuntary beta testing. We consumers need to demand greater accountability from manufacturers on this issue. Otherwise, we face a future of design by Southworth.

Michael Levine via e-mail

Michael-If you think Southworth was hilarious, you have an admirable sense of gallows humor. That was a grim situation.

I don't remember high-tech products ever being significantly more reliable than they are now. Stability has always been a problem, and we try our best to report bugs and reliability issues. However, you learn a lot more about a product after living with it for a long time than you could possibly pick up in the month or so we get to do our tests. Sometimes a product behaves fine for the entire review period (during which time it is being used on real-world productions), but months later, long after the review has been published, we discover problems. By then, it's too late. But if we take longer for testing, our reviews will be published later, and we get a lot of complaints that they run too late already. What's an editor to do?-Steve O.

LAPTOP LAMENTI may have sent similar laments your way in the past, but here's another one: why on earth is everyone putting out identical PCI-based audio cards and systems, and no one putting out a laptop-ready system with a similar feature set? I realize this is not your fault (all you can do is continue to put out a superb magazine about what people are doing), but perhaps you can give me a reason for this strange phenomenon.

I cannot believe that I am the only person in the world who thinks a PowerBook or Wintel laptop with a real hip breakout box (say something along the lines of the new Digidesign Digi 001) would be the ultimate portable studio. Is there really so much money in PCI cards that companies must fall all over themselves putting out products that are all pretty much the same? Am I crazy for thinking that someone might make more money by being the first to land a quality product in an empty niche? The box could hook up to a PCMCIA/Cardbus card via something like a FireWire connection, as in the MOTU 2408 series, and manufacturers could even put out a PCI card with multiple connections, like the MOTU series, to complement it. Better yet, just make the thing FireWire compliant. The connection cards already exist for both formats on both platforms! All you have to do is write the drivers!

It seems to me that a box with features similar to those of the Digi 001 (say, ADAT switchable to optical S/PDIF, coaxial S/PDIF and MIDI I/O, some analog I/O with nice A/D/A converters, a couple of phantom-equipped preamps, and a headphone amp thrown in for good measure-if it could run at 24/96, groovy, but if not, 24/48 would do just fine) that is also ASIO compliant would compete very well on the PCI platform as is. But if it could be the portable solution as well, why not? Please, somebody, what are you waiting for?

Thanks, end of rant. Love the magazine as usual, keep up the good work.

Tobias Tinker via e-mail

Tobias-Don't stop ranting! You've got some great ideas, and some manufacturers are starting to see your point. Notebooks have traditionally suffered four disadvantages in the quest to become the ultimate portable studio: a higher price-to-performance ratio; small, slow hard drives; complicated and proprietary designs; and a PC Card (PCMCIA) specification that hates audio. Additionally, there is a lingering perception that there's no market for notebook audio. But recently, notebook prices have plummeted, and notebook performance has caught up to that of desktops, and while the sort of device you've described is still a ways off, we are starting to see some exciting new notebook audio devices.

The PC Card interface has performance potential comparable to the PCI bus, but its audio-unfriendly design and often haphazard implementation by notebook makers have been the ruin of several promising sound cards. (My Web site, members.aol .com/notebooks1, features a tribute to a number of PC Card sound cards that flopped or died on the vine, along with a guide to all current hardware for making music with a notebook.) E-mu's EMU8710ps (Win) is the only surviving self-contained PCMCIA audio/MIDI card. The Vxpocket (Mac/Win) from Digigram is a high-end PC Card audio interface with stereo analog and digital I/O. Ego-Sys's WaMi Box (Win) uses a PC Card in conjunction with a breakout box to provide an impressive array of MIDI and audio features, including four independent analog outputs, a first for notebooks.

The rapid adoption of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) on both Macs and PCs inspired Opcode to create the DATport and SONICports, the first and only audio devices that work not only on both Macs and PCs, but on desktops as well as notebooks. Unfortunately, Opcode's future seems in doubt right now. Roland's UA-100 and UA-30 utilize the USB port as well, but they are currently PC only. One can only hope that more manufacturers will see the economic sense of making such, well, "universal" devices, especially if FireWire catches on with PC makers.

Another exciting option, albeit somewhat pricey and less portable, is a PCI expansion chassis. It connects to your PowerBook's device bay and contains four or more PCI slots into which you can plug your favorite desktop audio device. Magma makes one that's certified by Digidesign for Pro Tools compatibility, and the company is about to release a new model that connects to a Windows notebook's PC Card slot.

I could go on and on-in fact, I already have in this year's Desktop Music Production Guide. Pick up a copy for a complete roundup of hardware, software, and techniques for notebook music making. And to answer your question directly, you may be crazy but you're not alone. Good luck, and thanks for the kind words.

By the way, here's an important safety tip: Don't ever say, "All you have to do is write the drivers!" within reach of a programmer. It's like telling a composer, "All you have to do is write a symphony.that you can play on any instrument.in any key.at any tempo.preferably without reading the manual-I mean score."-Brian Smithers

DIY QUESTIONI read Peter Mosher's article on the EM level converter in the October 1999 issue of EM. Very interesting, but I'm not an engineer. So here's the question: What's the advantage of using a level converter like the one he wrote about versus buying inline transformers? You know, like the ones you buy at Radio Shack that convert 1/4" Hi-Z to XLR Low-Z. They're about the size of a cigar and cost around $10.

Is there any advantage to using one or the other? Please educate me. I'm ignorant on the issue.

Cody Griffin via e-mail

Cody-Thanks for writing. Small, inexpensive matching transformers are fine for low-level, limited-bandwidth signals, but you're going to run into problems if you try to push wide-range, high-level signals through them. When it comes to achieving studio-grade signal matching, you have three options: buy commercially available active units (not cheap), buy top-quality transformers (ditto), or build your own active units, such as those described in my article. Thankfully, it's sometimes possible to find a satisfactory ten-dollar solution to an audio problem at your local electronics shop, but unfortunately, this isn't one of those times.-Peter Mosher

ERROR LOGDecember 1999, "What's New," p. 22: We reported that Bomb Factory had, while creating its plug-ins, worked individually with the manufacturers of each hardware device modeled. However, Universal Audio was not included in this process.

November 1999, "What's New," p. 25: The Korg D16 can simultaneously play eight 24-bit tracks, not four.

CHRIS RYAN'S RHODES CHROMA SITEEnthusiasts of the vintage Rhodes Chroma programmable analog synthesizer should check out www.redrooffs.com/ chroma/. The site includes Chroma patch downloads and conversion utilities; a list of manuals and how to get them; and information on parts and service, Chroma patch storage and editing software, and MIDI retrofit kits. You can also learn about the Chroma's history, link to related sites, browse through For Sale and Wanted postings, and connect with the online Chroma community through the site's mailing list. Ryan's site can be easily navigated by means of the cool "Chroma membrane switch" section selectors. EM editor and long-time Chroma Cultist Steve O. highly recommends this site.