Funksters. Rockers. Popsters. Mac fans fall into all these musical categories and more. Read on and see what we mean.
Prince’s new Web site club for downloading his music is using QuickTime technology extensively. The initial launch date was supposed to be on Valentine’s Day, but they had trouble because the last QuickTime 5 Beta expired on that day. But it’s up now with instructions on how to install it, as well, according to Gary Ambrano.
“There was a contest for the launching of the site, and the winner won an upgrade to QuickTime Pro,” he said. “Good to see that Prince is exclusively using QuickTime for a downloadable ‘player’ that is initially being offered to Windows users first, with a Mac version coming soon. Prince has always thought different.”
Omar Hakim, producer and percussionist (who has drummed for, among others, David Bowie, Miles Davis, and Madonna) is a big fan of Roland’s V-Drums, Digital Performer, and ProTools — all of which he uses on Macs, of course. See Apple’s Hot News for details.
According to a note on the Drivesavers site, musician Clarence Clemons saw his songs and original writing get corrupted on his PowerBook. But DriveSavers’ engineers had him back in the swing in less than two days. (Thanks to Robert Accettura for this nugget of info.)
The musician Moby is also a Mac user. He uses the Mac in his music production, according to an interview from “Spin magazine. (Thanks to Dean Neitman for the heads-up on this one.)
Todd Rundgren — pop star from the late 60s through the 80s, leader of the rock group Utopia in the 70s and 80s, and producer for numerous bands from Meat Loaf through Splendor — is a huge Mac user, according to Bob Powell. The artist recently (summer 2000) toured in his Power TR-iO and used an MP3 player for certain sound effects, etc., all done on the Mac.
“He has a fan subscriber service called Patronet that downloads proprietary software called the Interociter that he uses to provide music, videos, and chat with his fans,” Powell said. “It’s all done on the Mac. He uses a PC to test that things are working for his PC-using fans, but the work is done on the Mac.”
(If you’ve sent us an item for our Famous People column, please be patient. It will appear, but we’ve been swamped with entries. If you know of a famous person using the Mac, send it to Yours Truly at dsellers@maccentral.com. If you want credit for your “Mac spotting,” be sure to include your full name.)