Windows Vista is due to ship worldwide end of January 2007, and you can bet that every audio hardware vendor on the planet will be scrambling to support the new Microsoft OS. Let the confusion and noise that comes with the release of every major new operating system commence! Start tearing your hair out early and avoid the rush!

Thankfully, not every vendor contributes to the madness. Cambridge, MA's Mark of The Unicorn is leading the charge in supporting Vista by announcing a public beta release of Vista-compatible drivers for all MOTU Firewire, USB and PCI hardware interface products.

The wrinkle here is that according to MOTU, these beta Vista drivers represent the "latest and greatest" driver versions currently available for XP. Owners of current MOTU products running on XP are encouraged to take advantage of the latest optimizations in these drivers, Vista or no Vista. In fact, the new drivers will work in XP installs with or without Service Pack 2. Agreeable!

So take note, owners of Firewire and UltraFast USB2 audio/ MIDI interfaces such as the UltraLite and 828mkII or PCI core systems such as the 2408mk3 and HD192, and all MOTU USB MIDI interfaces. These drivers, even though billed as a Vista beta ARE your most recent version and have some benefit for you, so sayeth the mythical one-horned beast.

For current Vista users, (and we know there are some beta-addicted bleeding-edge cowboys out there) the drivers are packaged in either 32- or 64-bit versions for optimum performance in either mode. Users can download and install the appropriate version for their Vista OS configuration.

To get the new drivers, head over to MOTU's website.