Specifications

ABOUT AUDIO ON COMPUTERS
284
• Not all cards come with ASIO drivers. If in doubt check with the audio card
manufacturer.
• Using a card via an ASIO driver can give latency figures as low as 3ms.
• When you use ASIO, only one program at a time can access the card.
✪ More information about ASIO can be found on Steinberg Media
Technologies’ web pages, www.steinberg.net.
Intel vs. Other Processors
When you run Reason under Windows, the clock speed of the processor is a
major factor determining how many devices you can use at the same time. How-
ever, there are other factors that should be taken into account, and one impor-
tant such factor is “floating point arithmetic performance”.
All audio operations in Reason are done with floating point calculations (count-
ing with decimal numbers rather than with non-decimal numbers, integers) to en-
sure the highest possible audio quality. You can get high audio quality on an
integer system too, but floating point is effective and accurate when it is avail-
able.
Intel Pentium processors are fast at floating point mathematics. Some other
lower priced processor have taken shortcuts which reduce their performance in
this particular aspect. This will have noticeable effect on the performance of the
program. Our advice is:
✪ If you plan to buy a computer specifically for Reason, you can play it
safe and choose an Intel processor. Alternatively, make sure you
select a processor that is renowned for high floating point arith-
metic performance!
Macintosh Specific
Information
Mac OS X
Under Mac OS X, all communication with most audio hardware can be handled
by the internal CoreAudio framework.
D You should normally use one of the driver options that start with
the word “CoreAudio”.
Select the option that corresponds to the hardware you want to use (the
built-in audio connectors or some additional audio hardware that you have
installed).
D Other options may be available as well, mainly for compatibility
with all possible hardware/software configurations.
You should only use these when required.
Mac OS 9
Under Mac OS 9 there are two ways you can play back audio:
• Using the Sound Manager
• Using ASIO
What the Sound Manager does/is
The Sound Manager is a set of software routines in the Mac OS. These routines
take care of everything related to sound. If you are using the internal audio on
your Macintosh computer you are using the Sound Manager, it is built into the
system.
One specific character of the Sound Manager is its ability to mix audio from sev-
eral applications. This means that even when you run Reason, you can run other
Sound Manager compatible applications at the same time, and they will all
sound.
Mac Audio Cards that play back via the Sound Manager
There are a rare few Mac audio cards that play back via the Sound Manager.
! If you have an audio card for your Macintosh, we strongly recom-
mend you to try and find an ASIO driver for it instead of using a
Sound Manager driver. This will give you higher reliability and per-
formance.