----------------------------------------------------- OCTOBER 1994 ----------------------------------------------------- Source: Australian MacWorld Magazine YES to Performer By David Hague Momentous changes have occurred in the music industry, and today professional music production without using a Macintosh is all but unthinkable. Even so, an all-digital production is somewhat unusual, but a new CD from the group Yes was produced without at any stage involving tape. The British band Yes was formed in the late I960s by Jon Anderson (vocals) and Chris Squire (bass). They became synonymous with musical progression and innovation in areas as diverse as the music they play, their lavish techno-glitz stage shows and even their album covers. Nearly 30 years later, with guitarist and producer Trevor Rabin, drummer Alan White and their original keyboard player Tony Kaye now back in the fold, Yes has pushed music quality one step further by recording their latest album, Talk, using the Digital Performer system from a Boston-based company with the wonderful name of the Mark of the Unicorn. Performer is not new - it first appeared in 1984 and has remained virtually unchallenged as the premier tool for professionals, and in its latest version, named Digital Performer, it breaks through another barrier. Digital Performer is software created to specifically take advantage of the superior Mac capabilities in digital stereo sound. Rather than recording onto master tapes the studio sounds played by individual Yes performers, they were instead stored on the hard disk of the Mac itself. Whilst there is other software available that allows this capability, Digital Performer is the first solution to successfully integrate MIDI sequencing (up to 544 channels), with live recorded data such as vocals, drums, guitars and so on. In this method, there is no need to synchronise tape recordings with MIDI sequences - a time-consuming process fraught with potential error. With no tape involved in the production of the CD, the sound quality is breathtaking. "I much prefer the sound that you get back from the hard drive and the Mac to any thing I got from the Sony digital tape machines," Squire, Yes's bass player, said. With Digital Performer you can record an unlimited number of audio tracks on to the hard disk. The parcels of data (called soundbites) can be cut, copied and pasted from initial recordings to assemble the final track. Editing can be done in either a non destructive or destructive mode; that is, either the original can be used (destructive) or copies made (non-destructive). These soundbites are sampled at a I 6-bit/44. 1kHz rate in both mono and stereo. A variety of editing commands such as Trim, Strip Silence, Split and Zoom are on hand, and the data can be viewed in differing formats. The user may seek any position on the hard disk almost instantly, unlike tape which has to be wound forwards or backwards at a leisurely speed. This random access capability allows you to select any portion of the recorded information to be played back in any order, without drop-out in signal or any wait between For example, you can record a long passage and then either play back the entire recording or create as many smaller parts as needed - a single keyboard note, guitar chord, or the entire chorus of a song - and play them back in any order, all without affecting the original recording. The software retails for less than $2,000. Minimum computer specifications are any 68020-based or better Macintosh with one free NuBus slot and 8Mb memory. In addition, you'd need a dedicated processing card such as Digidesign's Audiomedia II, Sound Accelerator or ProTools. These all provide two channels for recording and playback, with Pro Tools also offering 4 track capabilities. Later model Macs have this capability built in. Digital sound being what it is, the larger the hard disk the better, with one minute of CD-quality stereo sound occupying approximately 10Mb of hard disk space. The entire CD of Talk in its unedited form used more than 34 gigabytes! The actual recording of the Talk sessions took place during the Los Angeles earthquake and subsequent aftershocks, causing more than a little heartburn as to how the Mac hard disks had stood up to the jarring. Luckily there was no damage done, although a prudent delay in production was instigated in case of further tremors. Digital Performer really shows up in the sound quality of the Talk CD, but it still does not give us the cover notes and lavish packaging that used to accompany most vinyl records. Yes is addressing this flaw in a future edition of Talk, which is being released in CD ROM format. Development is overseen by CD ROM experts, Compton's, and it is slated for release at the end of this year. I wasn't told exactly what the CD-ROM will contain (some may still be in the hands of copyright lawyers), but it is expected to include interviews, lyrics and anthologies of the band since its conception. This is obviously more reference material than any cover notes would ordinarily allow, and gives all the multimedia and hypertext searching facilities that are only available in a CD-ROM format. Digital Performer, from Mark of the Unicorn, is available from The Electric Factory, (03) 480 5988 for $1,999. 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