Radio College | Reading Room: Articles

Me and My PC

by Elizabeth Yates McNamee

I always enjoy the friendly debates which break out occasionally between Mac/ProTools people and the PC/Other Software folks. There are some aspects of this that haven't been covered, though, so I wanted to throw in my two bits. And two bits is all I've got, because I'm no techie. I'm a musicologist, for heaven's sake, just trying to make some radio.

Last year I realized I'd better get my own home editing station. I've always used a PC. My address book, scheduler, database, and word processing programs are and always have been PC/Wintel. I have a great little printer, an HP4L. My husband is a writer and also uses a PC. We share files and software. We are contemplating networking, so that I can also use the DSL connection.

There's the setup. Seems obvious that I should stick with PC, but I seriously considered getting a Mac, for these reasons: 1) industry standard in radio production; 2) Mac-prejudiced people proseletyzing so vehemently in favor of their beloved system it's almost impossible to resist their religious fervor; and 3) I, too, disapprove of Bill Gates, DOS, Windows, and everything they all stand for.

Yet, here's the reality. For about $1800, I got the following:

-Dell computer with Pentium II chip, 128 Mb RAM, 13 Gb hard drive

-17-inch monitor

-56K US Robotics modem

-CD-ROM

-CD-RW

-CD-burning software

-tons of Microsoft crap I didn't need or want

The same speed, capacity,and features in Mac-world (G3, monitor extra, CD burner and software extra, plus I would have had to buy a new printer) would have cost me $3500-4500, depending on if I found some part or other reconditioned.(Think of the learning curve, though, in patching together Mac stuff, which I'd never seen before in my life.)

Next I needed a sound card: which one?

First I tried the Darla, by Event Electronics: $250 or so, easy to install (and it came with a version of CoolEdit). Only it turned out to be incompatible with US Robotics modems! Maybe they've fixed the problem, but sheesh! only the most common modem made for PC!

So I went to my favourite audio supply store, Audio Images in San Francisco, and Ron Timmons got me a Digital Audio Labs Card D Plus at a good price. More expensive, but a real work horse. It's even compatible with my modem.

Now, the big question: which software?

I took a workshop at Western Public Radio, where I learned about Samplitude, Sound Forge, and SAW. And I had that better-than-the-demo-but-not-as-complete-as-the-professional-version of CoolEdit.

Then I checked out the ProTools Toolbox package. How tempting! Just like the big kids, but on a PC, and only $550. There's a hitch, though. The sound card that comes with this package requires a SCSI drive. Unless I'm mistaken about this, the new, Windows-98-equipped PC's don't use SCSI technology anymore. I don't even really know what a SCSI drive is. But I think my computer uses a FAT-32 thingummy to make plug-and-play possible, and, as a result, doesn't work with Pro Tools unless I go out and get a SCSI drive. Which, I'm afeared, might mess up everything else. So using Pro Tools seemed to be getting more iffy. Then I talked to a nice person at Digidesign, who confided that the ToolBox technology is outdated, since PC's don't have SCSI drives anymore. He said they're working on a new package, but that the company wasn't throwing much in the way of resources at the re-design, and wasn't likely to very soon because they'd rather focus on the Mac-based programs.

Add to this my hearing from several ProTools users that Digidesign doesn't provide much support, and has a pretty steep learning curve at first. At this point, between software, hardware, and SCSI things, my learning curve was looking more like a vertical line than a curve. Like a a brick wall. Ok, so what else was available?

Samplitude seemed very cool, but much, much more program than I needed, and support was also a problem there. Sound Forge also looks great for the engineer types, with its destructive editing format, but not what I needed.

CoolEdit was tempting -- and cheap -- but also confusing, with its two parallel universe workspaces. The downloaded manual was absolutely incomprehensible. Producer Steve Tokar and I got hysterical reading aloud its version of English, trying to figure it out. And there's not a lot of other support. I found that, here in SF, CoolEdit is popular among tech-minded-CD-mixer-types, but not many people in radio here are using it yet. (Though producer Ingrid Lobet says that radio producers in Seattle and elsewhere are using it.) I finally determined that Cool Edit would be good for more experienced producers. Coming from analog world to my first digital efforts, working on my own without support, I needed something more. So I bought the cheap version of SAW, called SAW+ (since then discontinued, but still supported) which was only $300. (My colleague, producer Milt Lee has the fancier version, SAW Pro or something, which, as he said, is about $900.)

SAW has an actual manual, which is not great but at least written in English. And they have phone support, "Computer anywhere" support, and classes at their facility in Las Vegas.

All in all, not counting the cost of the DATman, mic and mixing board, plus all the damn connectors, I spent under $2500 for everything.

The upshot of all this is that, if you already work on a Mac, you can probably justify the cost of the software because it's already familiar and you save a huge amount of time and effort that way.

But if you're a writer-type who's always used a PC, then it's harder to put together a package, but much, much cheaper and better in the long run to stick with PC and use SAW or whatever software blows your skirt up, so to speak.

But I sure wish all this information had been in one or two places and easy to access for a words-and-music-based, non-engineer-type like me. So how about it, PC users? How can we help others get more information with less effort? I'll gladly help those even less experienced than myself, but I think having someone who can talk about SCSI drives and FAT-32 as other than "thingummies" would be also be helpful.

Thanks to everyone who has helped me get this far.

March, 2000.