tweaking a PowerPC G5 & virtual drums
 

I am looking for advice on virtual drums that will work best with my limited system. I have studied the forum trouble shooting posts, which have helped me fine tune my G5's stability quite a bit. Aside from frequently loosing the ability to adjust settings on plug ins while tracks are playing, PTLE 8.0.1 seems to be working OK.

My current Mac:
PowerPC 5G 2.5GHz
8 GB RAM (System Profiler doesn't indicate if the RAM is ECC or not)
OS X 10.5.8
ATI Radeon 9600 XT video card w/126MB VRAM (does a faster graphic card help?)
2 internal drives; 1 for OS & APPS, 1 for session files. (I will purchase an external Firewire drive for virtual instrument samples.)

My PTLE hardware:
Digi 002 control surface (firewire)
Digi ElevenRack (USB)

In my searches through this forum, I've read many posts suggesting that PTLE 7.4 is better suited for PowerPC machines than PTLE 8. I do value stability, and could (begrudgingly) go back to PTLE 7.4, but my Eleven Rack requires 8.0.1 for editing Eleven Rack "rigs" and use as a PTLE interface. Does it makes sense to have PTLE 7.4 (and maybe a different OS) for the 002 on one hard drive partition, and PTLE 8.0.1 and OS X 10.5.8 for the Eleven Rack on another hard drive partition? If so, any suggestions for how to best set this up, or things to look out for?

Until I can afford an Intel Mac, I'd like to find a virtual drum instrument for PTLE that will run on my PowerPC G5. My initial needs are to play back drum pattern loops, and hopefully editable loops for song writing. Many virtual drum instruments allow you to adjust individual drums (levels, pan, EQ, pitch, effects, etc.), but I presume those features put a lot more strain on the CPU. As my G5 isn't ideal for virtual instruments, I'm hoping to find a virtual drum instrument that will have minimal CPU strain, and/or the ability to reduce the strain by disabling features (smaller kits, less sample levels, selectively disable effects/features on specific drums). In most cases, I want the ability to compose drum patterns, or edit existing patterns. In some cases, I may only be playing back pre-recorded stereo drum pattern loops. Once I have my drum part arranged, I will bounce it to a stereo region, and disable the virtual drum instrument to regain system resources.

BTW, I have NI Battery v2, which I haven't tried Battery v2 with PTLE8.0.1. Any thoughts on upgrading Battery v2 to v3 ($99), or considering other virtual drum machines? I downloaded the NI Battery v3 demo, and it seems to work well with my ElevenRack and PTLE 8.0.1. I tried the BFD Lite that came with my Eleven Rack and PTLE 8.0.1, but it was very unstable on my G5.

Any suggestions on other virtual drum instruments and maximizing my G5 would be greatly appreciated!

Re: tweaking a PowerPC G5 & virtual drums
 

Dang, 32 views, but no comments. I realize my PowerPC G5 is old gear, so I'm hoping some people who tweaked theirs before moving on to Intel machines will have some suggestions.

Re: tweaking a PowerPC G5 & virtual drums
 

hey dude i got a G5 powermac and running 8.1 with 2 gig ram and it does exactly what i need but i wouldnt mind knowing some tweaks etc also i didnt think the g5s supported more than 4 gig ram? and would it be worth me getting more ram for it? but like i said i have run Drum core on a full VI session that runs fine on mine, also BFD and the best one i have ever used is Addictive Drums!! they are just the best!!! hope that helps a bit lol :-)

Re: tweaking a PowerPC G5 & virtual drums
 

Thanks for your comments.

My PowerPC G5 has a dual 2.5GHz processor, and can hold 8GB of RAM. The PowerPC G5 quad processor machines can hold 16GB of RAM. In many cases, you can never have too much RAM, but how effective it is will depend on the applications you use, and your work flow. I don't have a link that explains what features of PTLE will utilize more RAM, but I believe it can help with some plug-ins. The 2GB chips for my G5 run around $80-100, which is fairly inexpensive.

When using DrumCore, what is a typical number of tracks and plug-ins for you? Which of the 3 VI drum instruments you mentioned put the biggest strain on your system?

cheers, Dave

Re: tweaking a PowerPC G5 & virtual drums
 

Bump....

Still looking for advice on this.

Re: tweaking a PowerPC G5 & virtual drums
 

I would NOT try to use BFD2 on a G5. IME, it's just not worth trying to use on a PPC. Works ok standalone, or with a track or two in PT, but as soon as you start loading other plugs, it will cut out and die.

Perhaps there are other drum VIs more suited?

Re: tweaking a PowerPC G5 & virtual drums
 

Thanks for the post!

The ol' G5 is not a good machine for VIs, but until I can afford a better machine, I have to make do. My needs aren't complex, so I'm hoping there are some simplified VI drum products that don't put a lot of demands on the CPU. As the G5 was around for a long time, I am hoping there are former G5 users who have found a VI drum product that worked with it and PTLE.