Malaysia’s International College of Music (ICOM) said its use of a mobile computing solution, powered by Apple, has given its students significant creative and technical freedom.
According to ICOM course leader, Nilesh Thomas, the idea behind its m-Mobility program, which includes the use of Apple MacBook Pro notebooks and Logic Studio, was to put studio facilities into a mobile box that met the demands for serious music production.
“ICOM has been using Logic and Digidesign workstations for a long time and it was decided that we were not going to look into any other workstations,” said Thomas. “So, whatever computing solution we were to adopt must completely support these applications.”
Thomas said that ICOM students receive an m-Mobility system during the first semester of college, and various components were added as they progress through the course. To date, Apple has already delivered more than 150 units of MacBook Pro and Logic Studio software. Prior to the m-Mobility programme, the PowerMacs and iMacs were already implemented and used in ICOM’s recording studios and various technology labs.
Technology has dramatically changed music
“Modern technology has dramatically changed the way the music and entertainment industry functioned in the mid 90’s and there was no looking back,” said Thomas. “Many sceptics predicted that digital audio will never take off, but today we know that it has taken the industry to greater heights.”
Thomas explained that after detailed testing, the power of Apple’s hardware and operating system—OS X—proved a useful tool for the process of creating music.
“Since the introduction of the computer into recording studios, it is evident that audio and music technology are in tune with the trends of the digital world,” he said. “It was inevitable and irreversible, plus the ever decreasing gap between the desktops and portables in term of computing power, gave us the hint to make radical changes in the way we taught music and audio technology.”