G5 and Pro-tools Question

[Drea2010]

Hey Everyone. Im new to the forums. I have a question for you guys and if anybody could help me that would be great.

I work at a State of art recording studio and work with Pro-Tools HD.

I want to get a studio at home up an running soon. I was looking on criglists and someone is selling a Power Mac G5 1.8 single CPU w/ 1 gig ram, 250 gig hd.

Would that be good enuff to Run Pro-tools LE?


Also Is there anything I would need for the Computer to Put pro-tools on there. I know i need pro-tools and the mbox but anything else

[nst7]

The answer is no. Unlike PT HD, LE uses the computer processor to do everything and todays computers are light years ahead.

You could get the cheapest Mac Mini and it will blow away what that old computer can do.

Not only that, but you would need to find a much older version of Protools to work with it.

[Drea2010]

So Theres no point of getting that computer. Wat power Mac should i be looking at to get?

[nst7]

Any of them, from the Mac Mini all the way up to the 12 core Mac Pro, will work fine and let you do quite a bit. (With the exception of the standard Macbook-non pro, it doesn't have a firewire port).

It depends on how many tracks you think you'll be doing, how many virtual instruments (and what kind), whether you'll be using a lot of effects, etc.

Of course the biggest factor is what you can afford.

Keep in mind you'll need a separate firewire hard drive to record to.

If you could tell us what kind of stuff you want to do, we could offer more suggestions.

[albee1952]

For sure, any pre-intel Mac is sadly a dinosaur at this point in time. As asked, tell us what kind of work you want to be able to handle. You might even consider(perish the thought) building an i7 PC. Since Pro Tools 7, sessions are all cross-platform(previously you had to enable compatiblity, which many forgot or skipped thinking "why bother"). In any case, I transfer sessions between a Mac Pro/HD rig and my PC/LE rig with no fuss(other than a few plugins that are not shared between the 2 rigs).

[aka21stCentury]

Noisy beasts. Not just audio but EMI. That model particularly. Pay for Apple's engineering (better) case wise and internal cabling/connector design, or build yourself for a lot less.

However be forewarned, all of these PC mobo's have open antenna sockets for USB. And USB is one big hub like ethernet.

The monster cable fix for Avid's USB mBox is a workaround for a design flaw. This is a USB cabling/connector problem. We all need dual ferrite beads on all data cables, firewire and USB. Period! And probably the internal connector inside the mBox is leaking or picking up EMI.

But I would stay clear of a mini unless it is the new mini server with dual drives. You can google this and you'll understand that the second drive is an sata connection... OWC sells an esata to sata cable.

Also PPCs are just not going to be supported much longer. DP 7.2 still does, but not AVID I'm afraid.

Also, those 1394a & USB-2 ports on the front of that G-5 were an engineering mistake on Apples part. That has been fixed on newer MacPros. At least Apple takes EMI seriously... they have a whole floor devoted to RF re-engineering, wifi, etc. unlike all of the PC case makers in China. They are an antenna waiting for an EMI spike to ruin your take. And I mean ruin it.