Who needs OSX? ReWire Reason w/OS9 even on a 9600!

[PTUser NYC]

For people who don't know or don't care about clocking, rewire is the way to go

Sure, and ReWire IS better. You can have more than just a stereo output coming into Pro Tools at once. But when you see what it costs to upgrade everything just to MAINTAIN functionality, then I figure for several thousand dollars, I guess I can deal with a stereo track at a time.

Like I said, there are other good reasons to upgrade and go to OSX.

But I'm happy on my machine, with all my software running just how I like it, and I would have had to get a second computer or upgrade if I hadn't come across this solution. I figure it may save a few other people the same hassle.

[woodywho]

What happened to the NuBus, NuBus?

"Nubus in the hoooooouse" In one of my rooms I'm still using a 32 track fully blown nubus system w/ 5.0 beta software since '96 or so on a 8100 w/ a Sonnet G3 upgrade card. I use it for clients that are cutting vocals over stereo mixes....works fine for them, works fine for me!!

Oh yeah PTUser.......great migration into an old system. I have an almost new IIci that I'm gonna pull out and put it too use...LOL

[Dimension Zero]

I'm using a Mac G4 with OS 9 and Pro Tools 5

I couldn't justify the upgrade to OS X or HD yet either.

Here's my worry.

All my plug authorizations are mostly on my HDs. A few are on iLok. I'm worried that when/if my HDs crash I will loose these and getting them back will be a pain. A lot of them use floppy authorization and floppys fail a lot and I bet I couldn't get them replaced.

So, does imaging a hard drive work to restore your auths? Has anyone tried this? What iamging program do you use?

I know Norton has Ghost for the PC but not sure what's best for the Mac. I really don't want to loose my auths and need to find a good backup for my Mac because I won't be upgrading for another year or so.

Thanks,

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Why not simply use reFuse if you want to use Reason with Pro Tools 5.x on Mac OS

Rail

[PTUser NYC]

Why not simply use reFuse if you want to use Reason with Pro Tools 5.x on Mac OS

Because I didn't know about it! I will investigate this further, and of course keep everyone up to date, or rather, in the loop about what I'm doing at this LATE date.

Also, I put in the XLR8 G4 card, and its working great, I think I got a real world boost of about 200%. Even more in terms of number of devices I can load in Reason.

*********************
Months later: ReFuse is a neat piece of software - hats off to the guy that wrote it. I'm sure it works as well as anything could. However, it caused a lot of crashes, and ate up CPU resources.

The audio card trick is working really well. I can set my controller in Reason to be the IAC bus, and then go to Pro Tools and set the MIDI output to be IAC. Then I just play into the PT sequencer, and it triggers Reason in the background. Its SO tight, that I can be recording MIDI, playing the keybaord and switching between the two programs all at once with no problem. Cool!

[rockridge]

...I have found the perfect lo fi answer to all these OSX upgrading headaches I keep reading about...I bought another cheap little PCI card...and VOILA! I could bring back Reason on a stereo aux send or track into Pro Tools!

Excellent! I love hearing about innovative ways of using older gear... the reFUSE software is made by Leigh Marble and is worth checking out, he's an excellent programmer, but i wouldn't be surprised if your solution turn's out to be more stable.

[Leigh Marble]

Thanks for all the kind words! I'm flattered that you're all still digging reFuse.

Leigh

[BGMusic]

I'm running a mix plus on a beige g3 and it's fine. having some problems with my scsi drive (a 36gb cheetah) have a 4.5 gb baracuda that i never use. I do a similar thing with reason only I use refuse to send reason audio thru the pro tools mixer but don''t use the internal rewire sync which does bog down my system. what i do instead is use reason as a bunch of sound modules and trigger them through the iac bus in OMS. Works great. I have tons of live left in this workhorse. That said, i'm still kicking myself over a 9600/300 that i saw on the street one day while i was rushing to an apointment. Had to leave it. DAMN.

[PTUser NYC]

OK. After a lot of experimenting, I pulled the MAudio card. It worked well, except that every 20 minutes or so, the onboard clock got screwed up. This was true using analog or digital outputs, and whether clocked internally or externally. Usually, after changing an NNXT program in Reason it got distorted. The fix was easy, just re-select the MAudio card in the Reason audio prefs, but it was driving me nuts.

I pulled it, and decided to try an RME DIGI 96/8 PAD card. I was optimistic, since the thing claims compatability all the way back to OS8. Its working well so far. I haven't used the digital outputs, or tried clocking it externally yet, but I have every reason to believe that it will work, since its integrating fine in every other way with the rest of the gear.

I figure if the sound is good coming out of the analog outputs, the onboard converters must be getting a good digital stream, and external clocking is an issue with the card itself, and not with software intergration to the system. Therefore, I'm betting that any problems would have surfaced already. I'll know more for sure soon, and post my results.

The Daystar 450 MHz G4 upgrade card ($200!) is working great too. Everything is humming along fine. Amazing functionality in a rig that you can duplicate from eBay and online for less than $2000 (including drives, the monitor, the computer and cards, but not including Pro Tools, samples and plug ins)

I did encounter one issue that those of you who are running older systems need to watch out for. I upgraded the memory to 1.25 GB, and suddenly my waves stuff (ADB dongle era) switched to demo mode!

I called Waves thinking my dongle might be broken. They were incredibly unhelpful. The guy kept telling me "we don't support that version anymore." I told him "yeah fine if I was trying to BUY it, but I spent over $1,000 on my Gold bundle, and you oughtta give me five minutes of your time to figure out what could be wrong?" He kept trying to get rid of me, but I was persistent, asking questions. Finally, I hit on something. "I upgraded the memory to 1.25 GB and..." he cut me off "OH! Yeah, on a G4, that version won't work with over 1GB of memory installed."

THANK YOU. THATS WHAT I NEEDED TO KNOW.

I pulled the 2 extra 128 MB chips, leaving my memory at an even 1GB (1024MB) and everything returned to normal.

I'll repost after I make the AES/EBU cables and try the sync out. I'm betting high odds it'll work fine. Truth is, the analog outputs of the RME card sound pretty good too. If I HAD to, I'd be O.K. using it this way too. Obviously 24 bit digital stream is better.

Just to refresh your memory about what all this lowly 9600 has become:

9600 w/G4 @ 450MHz processor upgrade
OS 9.1, 1 GB RAM (with 9.2.2 FW and USB drivers)

11 PCI Cards!

Slot 1 Bridge to Expander Chassis
Slot 2 iogear FW/USB Card GUF320
Slot 3 RME 96/8 PAD secondary audio card
Slot 4 ATTO Dual SCSI Card
Slot 5 DC30+ Video Card
Slot 6 Built In Video Card

Expander Chassis:
Slot 0 Bridge Card
Slots 1-3 left open because the addresses are already used inside computer
Slot 4 PT Mix Core
Slot 5 PT Mix Farm
Slot 6 PT Mix Farm
Slot 7 SampleCell TDM
Slot 8 SampleCell TDM

10 Hard Drives!

INT SCSI (slow):

4GB HD: Includes System Folder, Applications, and therefore all disk authorizations.
18GB HD: For quick temp backup of projects. Usually blank.
Floppy Drive: For disk installs
Zip Drive: Never use it

EXT SCSI (slow):

DVD-RAM Drive: For backup of projects, before FW drives
Jaz Drive: For transferring small files between computers

ATTO DUAL SCSI (two buses):

2 x 9GB Cheetah: One on each UltraSCSI (3) bus, for recording

FireWire:

120 GB: Online Sample Library
200 GB: More Samples

Often running:

Pro Tools TDM 5.1.1cs5
Stylus, Atmosphere, and Trilogy
SampleCell editor
ReCycle 2.0
Reason 2.5
Adobe Premiere (video editing)

Next experiment: I'm getting a G3 beige, and I'm gonna use Hypercard and the hyperMIDI extension set to create custom programmer / librarian. I did it once with an old D550. Its a graphical interface and storage program that sends and receives system exclusive info. It will look to my PT rig like an outboard synthesizer. It has all kinds of cool custom programming macros and helpful features I put into it.

Another forthcoming experiment: running Altiverb or IR-1 on an OSX laptop with some rudimentary audio program (any suggestions?) and adressing it like an outboard reverb digitally through the 888|24. I wish these guys made standalone versions of these programs. Since they are OSX, PT for Free won't cut it - I don't wanna buy PTLE just for this - there must be a cheaper alternative - anyone?

[tha k man]

What happened to the NuBus, NuBus?

Used to run a Quadra 840AV - mighty! ( It only took about 14 hours to open up, and install cards...) Could run PT for days, without a crash. Upgrade to the 8100 - same deal!

If we could get that kind of stability these days, we mightn't even have these forums.