No matter how often you use a computer, you never really know everything. Sure, you may have the basics down and may be amazingly efficient in your day-to-day applications, but there’s always that one thing that could, over time, speed up your work flow.

As Mac users, one of those things we often overlook is the use of keyboard commands. While MacOS has always been very menu-driven, most of the common menu commands also have a keyboard equivalent. Rather than moving the mouse to a particular spot, clicking and going back to your work, you can hit a key or two and continue mousing/typing/etc. without stopping. Over time, that results in time savings.

Recently, I came across a coworker who, in order to take a screenshot of a window, would open up the Grab application (Applications>Utilities>Grab), Select “Window” from the “Capture” menu and use that to select the window he wanted.

A much faster (and easier) method would have been to hit Command-Shift-4, then hit the Space Bar to turn the cursor into a camera. All you need to do then is click the desired window to get the screen shot.

Considerably faster.

Poking around Apple’s Knowledge Base, I found a nice little article that shows many of the major system-wide keyboard shortcuts in OS X. I even learned of one or two that I wasn’t aware of, myself. You may want to check it out for yourself.

Hopefully, this info can help speed up your work flow by utilizing both the mouse and the keyboard to get around OS X.

Mention the word “rebate” and most people have a horror story filled with “choice” words over all the hassles they dealt with on a rebate offered by a “big box” store. Well, as you know, we do things just a bit differently here at OWC. The rebates we offer are simple to follow and track. And we make it easy to see all of our current and past rebates offered…just visit http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/rebates for all the details. There’s OWC and NewerTech storage solutions, bare Hitachi hard drives, and a wide variety of other brand name hardware and software products for you to peruse.

One of the most under-appreciated problems in home recording is the sound of your room.  Ever record a vocal track in your home studio (typically a bedroom or basement) and despite the great vocal performance, great preamps, and top of the line microphone, the track still doesn’t sit in the mix right?  We’ve all had the problem where the vocal track doesn’t sound like 99% of the professional recordings we’ve heard on the radio -leaving us scratching our head and asking ourselves “Why?”.  And where most people will blame their microphone or their mixing skills, the one thing that everyone overlooks is the sound of the room.  You can be using a $17,000.00 vintage Telefunken, but even that magical and legendary microphone won’t keep your voice from bouncing off of drywall.  

Enter the Reflexion Filter…

The Reflexion Filter from sE Electronics is basically a portable device for recording live sound sources with reduced room ambience. It is an advanced composite wall which is positioned behind any microphone by means of a variable position stand clamp assembly which ships with the product. The main function is to help obtain a ‘dry’ vocal or instrument recording. This is especially useful in studios without proper acoustic treatment, but can also be used to help record takes in control rooms, where the performer also has to operate the recording device, or in rehearsal studios to reduce ambient noise. 

Reflexion Filter (microphone not included)

How does it work?

The Reflexion Filter has 6 main layers. Firstly, a strong layer of punched Aluminium which allows sound waves to pass through it, diffused, to a layer of absorptive wool. The sound waves then hit a layer of aluminium foil which helps dissipate energy and break up the lower frequency waveforms, and from here they hit an air space kept open by rods passing through the various layers. The air gap acts as an acoustic barrier. The sound waves then pass to a further layer of wool and then through an outer, punched, aluminium wall which further serve to absorb then diffuse the remaining acoustic energy.  The various layers both absorb and diffuse the sound waves hitting them, so progressively less of the original source acoustic energy passes through each layer. This reduces the amount of energy hitting un-treated walls and other surfaces so there is less of the original source reflected back as unwanted room ambience to the mic. The Reflexion Filter also helps prevent any reflected sound reaching the back and sides of the mic. Its shape and size have been carefully tested to maximize absorption while keeping ‘coloration’ down to only around 1dB, and leaving the microphone’s polar pattern unaffected.

The main absorber has 4 formed pieces of state-of-the-art special acoustic absorptive material attached to its face via the extended separation rods, which further serve to absorb and then diffuse the sound waves as they pass to the main filter.

The stand assembly is comprised of a mic stand clamp fitting, which attaches by means of a vertical joint to the horizontal bar assembly onto which both the Reflexion Filter and any standard fitting shock mount can be fixed. The microphone (in its shock mount) can then be moved both vertically and horizontally along the bar, and the Reflexion Filter itself can be moved vertically to obtain the optimum working position.

Final Verdict

All in all, it’s a very clever and desirable piece of equipment. It allows you to record vocals, guitars, etc with a ‘drier’ sound without having to have an acoustically treated room. With the Reflexion Filter, you won’t have the added room noise that makes it impossible to fit your vocal tracks in the mix.  It allows you to get a dry, untainted sound that’s only picking up the source you’re trying to record and nothing else. Because of this, vocal tracking frustrations will be a thing of the past. It’s portable, it uses state of the art materials, and most importantly it works! It’s also a fraction of the cost of acoustically treating your studio environment!  Every serious recording musician needs one of these in their arsenal.

You can find the sE Electronics Reflexion Filter, sE microphones, and other great new music products at www.macsales.com/music today!

Now that I have your attention…

I just wanted to pass along a little tip for people who want to replace the optical drive(s) in the following model Mac towers.

• PowerMac G4 QuickSilver / QuickSilver 2002
• Power Macintosh G4 “Mirrored Drive Door”
• Power Macintosh G4 “FireWire 800”
• Power Macintosh G5 (all models)
• Mac Pro (all models)

For some reason, when designing these Macs, Apple decided to make the area the tray can fit through rather narrow. The problem with this decision, though, is that this slot is slightly smaller than the space required by the  tray of a standard optical drive as shipped by the manufacturer. In other words, a new optical drive – as shipped – won’t be able to open/close its tray.

Fortunately, the fix for this is pretty simple: remove the drive tray’s front bezel before installing the drive. There’s not a lot of documentation available from Apple regarding this, so instructions for how to do this are not only included with every internal 5.25″ optical drive we sell, but also can be found on our Web site.

Have you ever wondered how all the resources in your Mac are being used? I know I have. At any given point in the day, I’ll usually have a number of things going at once: Software downloads, graphic processing, file transfers, et cetera. Keeping track of processor, memory, network and hard drive use is important if you want to get the most performance out of your Mac.

There’s a number of ways to keep track of these sorts of things. You could simply open up Activity Monitor, and leave that running. The downside to that method is that Activity Monitor’s window is rather bulky, and that’s where the majority of the information will be. There are also various command-line tools you can run in Terminal which will provide quite a bit of information. However, unless you are comfortable mucking about in Terminal (which I generally don’t care to do), it isn’t very convenient.

However, for at-a-glance information regarding my system resources, there’s been a utility I’ve used on various machines since 2003: MenuMeters.

As the name would imply, MenuMeters puts a number of easy to read graphs or meters in your Menu Bar that give you vital specifics about memory, network, processor and disk usage. Its kind of like keeping an eye on the gauges in your car – they are only vaguely interesting when everything works fine, but when things are acting less-than-optimally, you can quickly see what’s going on.

If your Processor meter is showing 100% processor usage, then  perhaps you’re trying to do too much at once. If your Network gauge is peaking, then you know you’re dowloading/uploading to the greates capactity allowed by your network setup. If your RAM gauge is full and your Disk Activity gauge is blinking rapidly, your computer is using your hard drive for Virtual Memory, and you probably need to buy some more RAM.

MenuMeters is a wonderful utility if you want to keep up with what’s happening on your Mac. Being freeware, its price is right, and you’re not out anything if you decide you don’t like it.

You can find MenuMeters at the author’s Web site, or in the “System Enhancements” folder of the Shareware collection included with every OWC and Newer Technology Storage Solution.

We’ve decided to expand our video offerings, not only are we developing and expanding our instructional series of how-to videos, but we are starting our educational series of videos.

The first in this series is a look at exactly how a MacBook becomes a Modbook here at OWC.  Some Macworld Expo attendees saw the original footage at our booth before a few of us here got ahold of it and decided to get creative. Our video is located here: Agent 00WC Modservice Video

I hope you enjoy the spy theme and would encourage comments either on our YouTube page or here on the blog.  We’re always looking to make things better and more informative, and more enjoyable for you. Tell us how we’re doing.

Frugality is en vogue in today’s world…but it’s something that I was taught growing up, so I’m always looking for added value in my own pursuits as well as for what OWC can offer to you. With that in mind, did you know that after purchasing high quality, high performance upgrades from us to make your Mac like new, you can send us your working Apple memory modules, hard drive and optical drive and we’ll send you cash back? Just visit www.macsales.com/money-back-rebate for all the wallet-fattening details. Then, go out for a quick bite with the money you save!

In my adventures as a technician, I have come across a number of people who want to upgrade their own computers, but are not quite sure what to do. Actually, I empathize with them, because while I can take apart a computer with very little thought (I had been known to completely disassemble and reassemble my “Wallstreet” PowerBook while talking on the phone), the concept of basic auto repair remains rather elusive for me. As a result of this, when it recently became time to replace the HVAC blower in my car, I was forced to really look at what I needed to perform this repair myself.

What does this have to do with computer repair? Quite a bit, actually. Once I got that information together, I realized, that much of what I needed to affect the fan replacement is what was required for most general computer upgrades. I also realized that this was (mostly) what people were asking for when questioning me about their own computer repairs.

So, with that in mind, here is the basic list of what you need when you upgrade your computer.

more…

No drummer sits and plays eight-bar patterns robotically over and over again, and that’s why your virtual drum tracks may be sounding lifeless and unrealistic.

Enter FXpansion’s BFD2

BFD2 is an acoustic drum production environment for your computer with unprecedented power and flexibility. It provides extreme realism and sound quality, fast and easy set up, with total plug-in integration to your favorite digital audio workstation all in one software solution.

Now, it’s easier than ever to create expressive, complex drum parts using 55GB of rare, vintage, boutique and classic drum kits that were recorded at the famous AIR Studios in London. Mix your drums with flexible routing, submixing and built-in EQ, compressors and other effects. Additionally, BFD2’s Groove Engine offers advanced editing, performance and humanization functions for creating realistic drum parts. You can even lay out a full song’s drum track entirely within BFD2!

The Sounds

Customized 10, 18 or 32 piece kits are at your fingertips, with full control over tuning, damping, ambiance levels, velocity response and more. You can layer parts of the kit for powerful hybrid sounds which is perfect for modern productions or flick through preset kit-piece profiles for quick access to dry, damped and other useful settings. BFD2 lets you configure your sounds like a real drum kit instead of pushing buttons on a sampler.

The hyper-detailed 55GB library features sounds with multiple articulations recorded with up to 96 velocity layers to open up new worlds of rhythmic expression. BFD2 makes it possible to program or play convincing nuances and ghost notes, intricately varied and dynamic hihat parts, elaborate cymbal workouts and visceral kick and snare lines.

The refined tone and definition of the space at London’s legendary AIR Lyndhurst studios is captured with two pairs of room mics, including a mid/side set. Meanwhile, the kit is mic’d with stereo overheads and mono close directs. All audio is routed through the magic of a custom Neve desk with Air Montserrat preamps into Prism A/D converters, sealing the foundations of a killer drum sound.  Just check out these samples:

Same 70’s Garage

Hey Liverpool

Taurina

The Mix

BFD2’s flexible, comprehensive mixing console lets you blend, route, submix and process the mic channels just like a real-world drum recording. Tweak bleed levels, play with ambient mic width, create aux sends and patch sidechain effects to shape your drums into infinite variations that sound convincing and powerful. The built-in processors include circuit-modelled dynamics, filters and distortion to deliver fat and floor-shaking sounds, while the flanger, bitcrusher, ring mod, delay and other effects allow subtle to extreme timbral variety.

In fact, the depth and scope of BFD2’s mixer rivals that of many fully-fledged sequencing hosts, meaning that you don’t have to worry about setting up multiple outputs in your host for mixing your drums. If you want to take advantage of external reverbs and other plug-ins or outboard you can route channels freely to any of the 32 available outputs. However, if you’re more of a musician than an engineer, you may prefer to browse through the supplied presets from experienced studio veterans, suitable for a variety of musical styles.

The Grooves

BFD2’s Groove Engine provides the perfect environment for editing patterns, setting up performance modes and applying humanization effects for added realism. Although you can create and record your own grooves, over 5000 stylistically diverse patterns are ready for you to slot straight into your productions or edit and combine with elements of each other to make new, customized parts. You can even lay out a sequence of grooves to form a full drum track entirely within BFD2.

If you’re a previous user of BFD, you’ll love the new time-saving and powerful functional enhancements in the Groove Engine like the advanced editor, synced audition previews, individual start and end actions for each groove and improved sorting, searching and management of your groove library.

Whether you’re a drummer wanting to input your latest groove into MIDI, or a guitarist that simply can’t play drums and needs a human-sounding drum track, BFD2 is the software for you! Find BFD2 and other great quality music gear at www.macsales.com/music today!

For those of you who need some quick-n-easy animations for a movie, but don’t want to lay out the cash for high-end post-processing software, there is another, less expensive option.

You can use Keynote – part of iWork – to set up your text and photo animations. If you make a 1920 x 1080 slideshow in Keynote, you will have a file that’s the same size as an HD video.

Once you’re done with your animation, save it as a Quicktime movie using the “Export” option in the “Share” menu. By exporting it using Apple Intermediate Codec and using the same frame rate your video camera normally uses, you will have a high-quality animation that can drop right into iMovie.

It isn’t an After Effects killer by any stretch of the imagination, but for dropping a simple animation into your home movies, its definitely one to try.

One of the most overlooked sections of our Web site is the OWC Tech Center. Here, you can find all sorts of information regarding many products purchasable from OWC.

We have a section dedicated to videos that teach you how to perform basic (and some not-so-basic) upgrades to your Mac. If your particular Mac model or upgrade is one of the few that are not covered, you may want to check back from time to time, as new videos are constantly being added.

In our FAQ section, you can find answers to common questions about many of the products we sell. You can also find manuals and software for OWC and Newer Technology products that require them. We even have formatting instructions for Mac and PC operating systems going back to System 7 and Windows 98.

If you have a question with something you purchased from us, a quick browse through the Tech Center may pull up just what you need.

I got to thinking after Macworld Expo in January just how many people claimed to be our biggest fan for the opportunity to grab a t-shirt from us.  I heard a bunch of promises to advertise us all across the country and beyond by wearing our shirt proudly. One woman, bless her heart, went out and collected swag from other booths as a gift for me in appreciation of the shirt.

Its nice to work for a company that not only cares so much for their customers, but daily is barraged with compliments, comments, and praise from the people we work so hard to make a little bit of life easier for. I really wish we could have given one away to every one of our customers, but alas it would be near impossible to keep the doors open if we gave everything away.

That said, I wanted to announce to our readers that we have more of the shirts in stock, and we’ve made them available to you.

To pick yours up, please visit our website.  Wear it proudly. I certainly do, as mine is always on the top of my Mac-related t-shirt collection making it first to grab at every opportunity.

It’s taking the Mac and pro audio world by storm, and its name is ProTrack.  Alesis, one of the world’s leading pro audio and studio electronics manufacturers designed the ProTrack to provide a convenient, direct-to-iPod stereo digital recording solution in a portable, handheld form factor. Users can capture live audio anywhere and anytime with their iPod, iPod Nano, iPod Touch, or iPhone. ProTrack’s smart design integrates the iPod into the recorder, with included sleds to securely mount supported iPod models to the recorder.

The Ins and Outs

Alesis ProTrack with iPod Touch

You can record detailed, 16-bit, 44.1kHz or 22kHz stereo digital audio without connecting any additional equipment using ProTrack’s onboard pair of cardioid condenser microphones. The on-board mics are fixed in an XY configuration for optimal stereo imaging. ProTrack also has a pair of combo XLR-1/4″ inputs enabling you to connect any external professional sound source including condenser and dynamic microphones or mixer outputs. Whether you are running on AC or battery power, ProTrack supplies 48V phantom power to its inputs for operation with external condenser microphones. 

Powerful Features

The ProTrack has LED-level metering for instant visual indication, even in a dark club. You can monitor or play back recordings on the 1/8″ stereo-headphone output, and the controls for phantom power, limiter, and volume located on either side are convenient and easy to access. Additionally, the ProTrack automatically dates and time-stamps files when recording so it’s easy to identify which track was the recording of the acoustic-guitar folk duo last Tuesday at happy hour, and which was the flailing hard-rock drummer from Friday night. And speaking of that percussive dynamo, you’ll appreciate ProTrack’s switchable limiter which ensures that your recordings are distortion-free. The exterior contains a Universal Dock for iPod, LED signal indicators, and controls for 48V phantom power, limiter, and volume. Four AAA alkaline batteries provide four to five hours of operation. And, last but not least, a threaded mount is integrated for tabletop use on a camera tripod.

Alesis ProTrack with iPod Nano

Record anything, anywhere

The Alesis ProTrack is the most convenient way to capture sound effects, recitals, jam sessions, speeches, interviews, rehearsals, performances, meetings, lectures, notes-to-self, and anything else you can thing of… directly to your iPod.

Check out www.macsales.com/music for the Alesis ProTrack and other exciting music gear today!

ProTrack records to iPod Classic 7th and 6th generation, 5th-generation iPod, 3rd and 2nd-generation iPod nano, 2nd-generation iPod Touch, iPhone and iPod nano-chromatic. Sleds are not included for nano-chromatic and nano 2G. iPod is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

OWC is proud to announce our new partnership with Blue Microphones. The folks at Blue created quite a stir at Macworld 2009 winning Best of Show for their Mikey iPod Recorder, while their Eyeball HD Webcam/Mic was the toast of CES. OWC and Blue Microphones are very proud to be working together!  Take a look at just some of Blue Microphone’s products that are now featured at www.macsales.com/music.

Snowball

Snowball – USB Microphone

The Snowball is a direct plug n’ play mic that connects to either a Mac or PC — no additional software is needed. With its dual capsule design and unique three-pattern switch (cardioid, cardioid with -10dB pad and omni), the Snowball can handle everything from soft vocals to the loudest garage band and it’s ideal for podcasting. Whether you’re recording a guitar at your kitchen table or a complete band in the studio, the Snowball can capture it with detail unheard of before in a USB mic.

Eyeball

Eyeball – HD Webcam/Mic

Perfect for instant messaging, video conferencing, social networking and more, the Eyeball features Blue’s famous pro-quality condenser capsule, giving it better sound than any webcam in the market. On top of that, they’ve added Super HD video to complete the picture, giving you an awesome visual experience. And, the Eyeball’s integrated design and compact size make it perfect for on-the-go use when you leave your desk. Works with Skype, iChat, Windows Live Messenger, AOL, Yahoo!, Google Talke, and other IM Services.

Mikey

Mikey – iPod Recorder

Mikey is an iPod recording device that makes recording lectures, voice notes, live music, and interviews easier than ever before. Mikey features Blue’s superior quality stereo condenser capsules, 3-position user selectable gain settings, and built-in speaker for playback. You can even fine-tune Mikey to record everything from the barest audible sound to extremely loud sources without losing audio fidelity. Additionally, Mikey’s unique user-positionable head swivels 180° to provide maximum flexibility and usability.

Snowflake

Snowflake – USB Travel Mic

Designed with the traveler in mind, the Snowflake’s unique design allows you to place it on a desk or flat surface near your computer, or mount it to the screen of most laptops. It’s perfect for podcasting, voice recognition software, iChat, and VoIP software such as Skype or Vonage. Use it for dictation, field recording, lecture recording, and narration for slideshows and PowerPoint presentations. It’s even great for recording music via GarageBand and other multitrack recording software. 

Icicle

Icicle – XLR to USB Converter

The Icicle is Blue’s new stylish USB converter and mic preamp combo that allows you to connect any XLR microphone directly into your computer via USB! The Icicle features a studio quality microphone preamp, 48V phantom power, fully balanced low noise front end, analog gain control, and driverless operation. The Icicle works with both dynamic and condenser microphones, providing high quality and hassle-free connectivity with Mac or PC. Whether you’re using a microphone for digital recording, podcasting, voice messaging, or voice recognition applications, the Icicle is the quick and easy way to get connected. Setup is a snap!

Bluebird

Bluebird – Condenser Mic

The Bluebird is a large-diaphragm cardioid condenser, utilizing Blue’s renowned microphone technology and Class-A discrete circuit. However, in a departure from its normally application-specific designs, Blue engineered the Bluebird to be as versatile as possible, with applications ranging from vocals to electric and acoustic guitars, close-miking of drums, drum overheads, percussion, piano, horns, strings, and any other application where crystal-clear sound quality and detail is of the utmost concern. In addition to the microphone itself, the Bluebird bundle also includes the Bluebird Accessory Pak, with a specially designed shockmount, the BirdCage, and a metal mesh pop filter, the BirdNest. So no matter what your sound, the complete Bluebird package offers today’s musician a top-notch recording experience at an outstanding price – all in one nest!

OWC’s library of instructional videos is growing by leaps and bounds. This week we’ve put together some how-to videos for a few simple upgrades for your G5 tower.

We’ve made it easier to find the new videos, too. While you will always be able to find the videos on our Web site, you can also find (and comment on) them on YouTube as well!

http://www.youtube.com/OWCmacsales

Check them out and drop a line. We love to hear from you!

I was working with my MacBook 1.83GHz over the weekend (ok, not really “working” more like playing) and went to use the built in iSight via the PhotoBooth application when I noticed the camera wouldn’t come on!  No green light indicating it was on.  No picture of myself staring back at me.  PhotoBooth was just mocking me with a little icon of a camera in the middle of that window.  I started searching out every tech blog I could find to see who else was in my predicament and what they did to correct it.

After an hour of searching and empathizing with those that had posted before me, resigned that I would have to wait till I got into work today to hand my beloved MacBook off to one of our laptop experts, I realized I hadn’t performed the golden rule of tech support – “when in doubt, reboot first.”

And, wouldn’t ya know it – voila! The iSight camera started working.  It really is amazing how sometimes the most simple of fixes are just that – fixes!