new mac commin!! what should I expect?

[Badooker]

Ok, i was running 001 ptle on win xp for the last year or two and for whatever reason I couldnt get much performance... literally had trouble with 10 track or more at a time. I have a dell, theres not much in the bios you can change... bla bla bal the other thing I couldnt stand was the offset time in milliseconds... coo coo... coo coo...


just ordered a g4 dual processor 1ghz. (it has a mirrord door) anyways.. was hoping to hear from some of you on track count and what kind of performance I should expect because I just got ptle 6.4. I also have pather ready to install on my new box...!!

brad....

[cybership]

Macs are good. That said I am becoming a bit disenchanted with them. I'm a Mac guy from back in the nubus day. Anyway Panther is the way to go. You should have no problem running the full 32 tracks. Just add a second drive for audio. Not sure but you may have some issues with fan noise on that model.

[mpark9000]

Not sure but you may have some issues with fan noise on that model.

Apple had a $29 fix at one point. It was known as the "leaf blower" problem.

If your serious about performance, look in to upgrading to a new PC. My AMD 64 3200+ PC beats my dual 2ghz G5 for performance with ProTools LE.

OTOH, Emagic Logic Audio on the G5 beats any other native solution I've seen.

Good luck!

[NuBus]

OTOH, Emagic Logic Audio on the G5 beats any other native solution I've seen.

Good Point and the MIDI is usable

[Badooker]

Thanks guys.. .I have had nothing but problems with my intel pc for the last two years hence the move to mac platform. Anyone know if you can add dsp cards into an le system to enhance your plugin performance??

brad

[ladewd]

Well, for what its worth: I have a single 1.25Ghz G4. I have been a PC guy all my life, but jumped onto the Mac bandwagon last year because a friend suggested PTLE would run much better. The past year has been spent trying to beef up the performance of my Mac. I have installed 3 UAD cards and the wrapper. While the plugins sound great, I still am not getting the performance I need to complete my projects. These are not huge projects, usually about 30 tracks. What I typically need is at least 1 EQ on each channel, a couple of reverbs, one delay and dynamics processing when needed (usually about 4 compressors). I am barely able to accomplish this with my Mac and UAD cards. Even though I have the DSP cards, the combination of UAD and PTLE use up much of the native processing power and I am unable to use any RTAS plugins when using the UAD plugins (at least not in the quantities I need). I was however able to use the Wave-Arts plugins (without using the UADs) to some success, but while they're good, they don't come close to the UAD. I am still hoping that UAD and Fxpansion will iron this performance issue out soon.

I did a little experiment this week and bought an extra removable drive for my Athalon PC. I installed XP and PTLE and was able to easily use all the native plugins I needed to mix one of the projects. That being said, I do prefer to work with my Mac and PTLE.

So my recommendation (without turning this into a PC vs Mac thread), is to either build a new PC (there are no performance problems with a modern Athalon System) or spring for the DP 2.5Ghz G5. There is a big price difference and not much performance differences between the two. I love my Mac and OSX, but my G4 just doesn't have the horsepower for my needs. Others may have success with them, but I am disappointed. In addition, I don't think the addition of a second G4 processor will double your performance with PTLE due to the way PT handles dual processors. At most you'll see a 15% perfromance boost.

CA

[fantasongsmusic]

I love my Mac and OSX, but my G4 just doesn't have the horsepower for my needs.

Hmm that's interesting. I use an upgraded 733 G4. The upgrade ia an OWC 1.33 Ghz with 1.25 Gig of Ram. I get 32 tracks. Some with plugs but most with Atmoshere and ST2 and all runs smoothly on 10.2.8. Probably be better with Panther. I find it's my PC that gets bogged down. IMHO Logic performs better than PTLE and makes better use of CPU. Plus you can freeze tracks. Makes life easy if you use alot of Virtual stuff

Michael
Fantasongs Music
New York

[where02190]

We run a Dual 1Ghz Quicksilver G-4, and get superb performance from it, basically able ot take PTle 5.2.1 (under OS9.2.2) or Ptle 6.4(under OSX Panther) to it's full limits.

Along with the afore mentioned PSU fan issue (which there is a simple inexpensive fix) some MMD Macs have MOBO incompatibilities that Apple is aware of and wil replace at no charge to you. Fill it full of ram, it's relatively cheap, and more RAMis better, you can't have too much. I think that machine tops out at 1.5Gb. You don't need to buy from Apple, get it aftermarket from a reputable source. (Search this forum for recommmendations.)

Install a couple additional drives internally for audio and the machine should kick butt. A second drive installs right on top fo the system drive, and the thrid in the second optical bay (under the CD/DVD drive). The 2nd is a no brainer, jsut screw the drive into the existing holder and connect the ribbon and power cables that are (obviously) right there. (pin the drive to slave). The 3rd drive you need to remove one screw holding the bracket in place that holds the drive, put the drive in it, (no need to screw it in) and replace the dover. Pop the front (plastic) cover off so you can hold the drive in place while connecting the (again supplied with computer) data and power cables. Pin this drive slave also. A couple IBM/Hitachi 8mb cache 120gb drives (from a number of reputable venders listed on www.pricewatch.com will run you less than $100 each, and yield superior performance and low noise. (FWIW we run these drives exclusively and have had no issues with over a TB of drive space after 4 years.)

Once you've installed the drives, run apple drive setup utility from the applications folder and initialize the drives HFS+.

You can then use these drives for your PT sessions, the 3rd drive, which is on a slower optical buss, use for backup. I'd also recommend a fw drive for redundant backup to keep offsite.

Good luck, and welcome to the other side.

[Badooker]

Thanks for the advice. I wasnt aware of the mother board incompatibility... I hope I dont run into that problem. My mac is a dual 1ghz mirrord door. Sound like it will be a problem?

b

[mpark9000]

Along with the afore mentioned PSU fan issue (which there is a simple inexpensive fix)

I did this "simple" fix and it involved tearing the machine down to the chassis. To give them credit, they included a well explained step-by-step procedure. Apple likes to route everything efficiently, which is great until you need to undo it to fix their problem.