Time to Migrate?

[ctsrar]

First of all, big props to all the active participants on this board. I've learned a ton from Allen's $600 Challenge thread.

Now: I bought my 350 Mhz G4 Mac and 001 back in '99, the minute it came out (remember having to call dozens of stores to find one in stock)? My DAW worked pretty well for a long time, despite the fact that I could use no more than two Bomb Factory plugins and it took upwards of an hour to bounce a session to disk.

Now the Mac's acting up. Weird startup bombs -- and a different one every time. All of a sudden, support to my burner is gone, and every single extension seems to cause a problem.

Several reinstalls later, I'm frustrated and about to give up. I figure that I could flip the loaded mac for a few hundred and pick up Allen's magic machine, and move into the scary world of PC user.

I know this potentially means many more tracks and plugin juice, but I want to be fully aware of any drawbacks to going to PC.

So: what do I lose in going from a loaded G4 to the Hollenda Machine? I'm interested primarily in:

1) recording 8 tracks at the same time -- this has always been effortless on the Mac
2) the greatest ammount of plugin power -- I'd love to be able to EQ every track
3) ease of burning to CD and ripping to MP3. I loathe the Mac's burning software. Nero is so simple, and it's relatively powerful (ability to change time between tracks, set index points, etc.)
4) speed of bouncing to disk. (is there any way to avoid the 1 hour wait?)
5) Ability to use other apps such as Reason on the same machine (this always seems to be the biggest impossibility)

I have no fear of building my own machine.

What's more, I have a PC in my office at home. Would it be possible to install PT Free on this machine, and transfer sessions back and forth from the studio?

Thanks so much for all your help. What makes Pro Tools the best isn't the customer support or the product -- it's the dedicated users.

Tim
ctsrar

[Roy Howell]

Tim,
I would check the spec requirements to run PT Free with what your home pc is. You can probably find that info above in the Tech Document Library section.

~Roy

[ctsrar]

Also, in considering the switch: I will be building this PC with Me, not XP. I have no desire to throw $150+ to Microsoft for another Licesnse. (I have XP on my home PC, and it's great, but I already own a ME license and want to put it to use).

[gabriel_p]

Originally posted by ctsrar:
First of all, big props to all the active participants on this board. I've learned a ton from Allen's $600 Challenge thread.

Now: I bought my 350 Mhz G4 Mac and 001 back in '99, the minute it came out (remember having to call dozens of stores to find one in stock)? My DAW worked pretty well for a long time, despite the fact that I could use no more than two Bomb Factory plugins and it took upwards of an hour to bounce a session to disk.

Now the Mac's acting up. Weird startup bombs -- and a different one every time. All of a sudden, support to my burner is gone, and every single extension seems to cause a problem.

Several reinstalls later, I'm frustrated and about to give up. I figure that I could flip the loaded mac for a few hundred and pick up Allen's magic machine, and move into the scary world of PC user.

I know this potentially means many more tracks and plugin juice, but I want to be fully aware of any drawbacks to going to PC.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">OK let me see if I can help you:
If your MAC is acting up with weird startup Bombs, then you should know our PCs are spontaneously (How do you spell that, no tengo la menor idea!) Rebooting! and not because porwer supplies but because of the digi 001.

So: what do I lose in going from a loaded G4 to the Hollenda Machine? I'm interested primarily in:

1) recording 8 tracks at the same time -- this has always been effortless on the Mac
2) the greatest ammount of plugin power -- I'd love to be able to EQ every track
3) ease of burning to CD and ripping to MP3. I loathe the Mac's burning software. Nero is so simple, and it's relatively powerful (ability to change time between tracks, set index points, etc.)
4) speed of bouncing to disk. (is there any way to avoid the 1 hour wait?)
5) Ability to use other apps such as Reason on the same machine (this always seems to be the biggest impossibility)

I have no fear of building my own machine.

What's more, I have a PC in my office at home. Would it be possible to install PT Free on this machine, and transfer sessions back and forth from the studio?

Thanks so much for all your help. What makes Pro Tools the best isn't the customer support or the product -- it's the dedicated users.

Tim
ctsrar

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Answering your Questions:
1-No problem here, how about 18 tracks [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]
2-Well it's no secret PCs blow MACS away in terms of power, and yes, you can of course EQ every track if you like.
3-Nero is more powerful but Easy CD Creator easier(even if it's a bit buggy sometimes).
4-Nope
5-Yes you can, but not at the same time as pro tools.

About the Pro Tools Free Q, I don't see why not as long as you're only working with no more than 8 tracks, and are not using plugins that do not run on FREE.

Be aware that you're losing Direct Connect, Video support inside LE, about three times less plugins and that windows ME support and before will sease to exist because there will be NO more compatible versions of LE for platforms before XP (If it's ever released).

And by the way, when Digi comes up with a 32 track version of LE it will be for MAC [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] (I don't know if you get the sarcasm in the air, it's an old internal PC joke)

Hope you can start making up your mind, and by all means keep searching the DUC, there's plenty of info on the PC side too.

[citi]

I wish people would stop blaiming the digi for there spontaneous reboots. There is no hard evidence that it is what is causing it!

I have not had one single spontaneous reboot. Please speak for yourself and not the entire PC DUC.

[img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[Bastiaan]

Nero is a very nice program to burn. It has one minor problem though, it doesnt like the .wav's made by protools. either export as AIFF, or open the wav in another audio-program and save it again. This will get rid of something in the header that nero doesnt like.

Just so you know.

[Mark_Knecht]

Tim,
Answers first:

1) Not a problem

2) Lots of plugin with Athlon XP or P4. I prefer Athlon.

3) Burning CDs isn't much of an issue. Ripping your audio to an mp3 is very easy with Music Match. Ripping audio from a CD is a bit of a problem. You'll need an additional program like Sound Forge, but the hardware works fine.

4) Bouncing for me is no more time than the song + maybe 2 minutes max. I do not understand the 1 hour problem, or gabriel_p's 'Nope' answer. Bouncing is fast. Are Macs really that slow?

5) I don't do this myself as I put these apps on a second PC. I think this will get considerably more stable whenever the XP update comes out and supposedly adds Direct Connect, but that's not proven yet. Also, there are no know Direct Connect devices yet, so step carefully. Wait a few weeks if this is critical to you.

Originally posted by ctsrar:
I'm interested primarily in:

1) recording 8 tracks at the same time -- this has always been effortless on the Mac
2) the greatest ammount of plugin power -- I'd love to be able to EQ every track
3) ease of burning to CD and ripping to MP3. I loathe the Mac's burning software. Nero is so simple, and it's relatively powerful (ability to change time between tracks, set index points, etc.)
4) speed of bouncing to disk. (is there any way to avoid the 1 hour wait?)
5) Ability to use other apps such as Reason on the same machine (this always seems to be the biggest impossibility)

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I would want to point out that there is a thread around here somewhere about all the things missing from the PC version that Mac users get. There are a number of things. We do not know how many of these are going to be given parity with the new release. Check that thread CAREFULLY before doing this.

Also, be warned that there are far fewer plugins for RTAS on the PC. Basically you get a great suite from Waves, and I guess some good quality stuff from Bomb Factory, but beyond that I don't think there's much else.

I hope this helps with your decision process.

Cheers,
Mark

[greenroom]

I don't know anything about this spontaneous reboot thing - its never ever happened to me in almost 2 years of use.

I'm on Win98SE and probably will NOT go to XP - for the things i do the 'new' features of the next upgrade don't offer anything.

What i can say is that with an Athlon 1.33 and 512 RAM i have never run out of power. The Dave_C test is simply a standardised way of benchmarking between us PC geeks thats also helpful if your system is similar to someone elses and you can implement their tweaks. IT IS NOT A REAL WORLD TEST!

In the real world i have no probs running 24 tracks with a few EQs, COmpressors and reverbs - its sweet. CPU use is about 30%, PCI use about 50% and system use about 10%.

I understand the arguements about Mac aesthetics and having an original GUI and being the choice of 'professionals' and all but the PC is now very stable, very powerful and VERY cheap.

Buy the bits, put it together as a standalone DAW i.e. no games, internet or any of that bollocks and watch in awe as it chews up all your audio needs and keeps coming back for more.

My twopennorth' (i'm English you see!)

[gabriel_p]

Look Pal (citi) I can take my 001 out of my PC any minute and it'll stop rebooting; if 001 has problems with Acid,my e-mail, or my internet connection to this DUC, it's the digis prob, not my computer, AND if you think it's only mine then you're asking for it!

Spontaneous Reboots Revisited(latest):
http://duc. digidesign.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=32;t=007257

Spontaneous Reboots:
http://duc. digidesign.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=32;t=007107

And here's some more:
The ACPI thing:
http://duc. digidesign.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=32;t=007245

And I know that you know this topic very well, so don't go: "oh my computer never reboots, gee, all this people must be stupid or PC-challenged that they are having this reboots, blah, blah, blah. You don't know how pissed of people are about this tingly delicate 001 driver which has a problem with everything, the internet, and reading your email! [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img]

And YES, I know you should have a PC only for digi's little ego, but some of us can't simply afford to have a separte pc for reading the email, and every time the OS adds something new with the Live Update from MS, it gets worse and worse.

I don't mean to offend, it just gets on my nerves.

[8mmOverdose]

Originally posted by gabriel_p:
Look Pal (citi) I can take my 001 out of my PC any minute and it'll stop rebooting; if 001 has problems with Acid,my e-mail, or my internet connection to this DUC, it's the digis prob, not my computer, AND if you think it's only mine then you're asking for it!

Spontaneous Reboots Revisited(latest):
http://duc.digidesign.com/cgi-bin/ub...;f=32;t=007257

Spontaneous Reboots:
http://duc.digidesign.com/cgi-bin/ub...;f=32;t=007107

And here's some more:
The ACPI thing:
http://duc.digidesign.com/cgi-bin/ub...;f=32;t=007245

And I know that you know this topic very well, so don't go: "oh my computer never reboots, gee, all this people must be stupid or PC-challenged that they are having this reboots, blah, blah, blah. You don't know how pissed of people are about this tingly delicate 001 driver which has a problem with everything, the internet, and reading your email! [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img]

And YES, I know you should have a PC only for digi's little ego, but some of us can't simply afford to have a separte pc for reading the email, and every time the OS adds something new with the Live Update from MS, it gets worse and worse.

I don't mean to offend, it just gets on my nerves.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">it gets on my nerves when someone says "you should know our PCs are spontaneously Rebooting!" mine isnt, and it never has. i think it sucks that you are having problems, but i really dont think its all digi's fault.

i once tried to install scsi card in one of my systems. it drove me nuts that i could not get the thing to work. when the card was in the slot, the computer would not boot. when i removed the card, the system worked fine. i popped the scsi card in another system- it worked like a charm.

obviously there is some sort of conflict somewhere with the digi card and the systems that are spontaneously rebooting, and one does not "need" to have their system exclusively for pt to prevent this. . . although it certainly seems to help.

i understand your frustration and wish i had a solution to your problem. but if i was new to the 001 and looking to buy a system, it would appear to me (from some of the DUC posts) that ALL pc's experience spontaneuos reboot with the digi , and this is just not the case.