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WAILEA, Hawaii — Musicians who use digital tools to create, mix and produce music must feel like they have to turn to Macs by default, and for good reason. Macs offer extensive support for everything from digital audio workstations to MIDI support for instruments.

Qualcomm and Microsoft, which have come together to build Copilot Plus PCs powered by Snapdragon X Elite platform, they want to claim their own place on the stage. “We want Copilot Plus PCs to be the place where podcasters, musicians can record and perform,” said Alex Katouzian, Qualcomm’s general manager of mobile, computing and XR, during the company’s Snapdragon Summit this week.

To that end, Copilot Plus has received new support, which should get musicians singing a new tune. Microsoft brings MIDI 2.0 support for electronic instruments, with the rewritten stack offering high resolution and low latency. Copilot Plus PCs running on Snapdragon chipsets will be able to support this reworked MIDI stack.

Additionally, Microsoft and Qualcomm teamed up with Yamaha on a low-latency ASIO driver for USB Audio Class 2 devices in Windows. The driver allows users to connect a USB audio interface to the Copilot PC to capture sound from a microphone or instrument. Focusrite and Steinberg are set to release optimized drivers for Copilot Plus machines running Snapdragon as well.

We’re also getting preview versions of Cubase and Nuendo by Steinberg digital audio workstations running natively on Snapdragon X Series powered devices. These are state-of-the-art programs used by professional audio editors and musicians, who will certainly appreciate the flexibility of being able to run a critical application on their platform of choice.

That was certainly the sentiment expressed by two musicians on hand to demo native support for digital audio workstations, MIDI 2.0 drivers and ASIO during this week’s Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii. (I’m attending Qualcomm’s annual presentation of its new products and technologies as a guest of the company.) In the demo, I saw Cubase running on a Snapdragon-powered Copilot Plus laptop with an electronic keyboard attached to the computer as well. On the side, an electric guitar was also connected to the setup, allowing the two musicians to play in real time.

I’m not a musician, but I can recognize the importance of low latency when playing an instrument through a computer interface. When you hit that key, whether it’s simulating a piano, drums, or full orchestra, you want to hear the playback instantly. And that’s what native support for these apps and audio interfaces can provide, making Snapdragon and Windows a more viable platform for creative professionals.

Understandably, Qualcomm is keen to know how many apps run natively on its chips. Qualcomm’s Katouzian noted that 90 percent of the time people spend on CoPilot Plus cars is with apps that run natively on the X-series chipsets.

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