MacBook Pro Issues

[m_atrix13]

So I just bought a new Macbook Pro, and recently tried recording a friends drums and after a few seconds an error would pop up basically stating that information wasnt being recorded to my external harddrive fast enough. I am using a western digital my book studio. 500GB FW400. I am running my digi 003R+ into the external harddrive and then the external harddrive is a 6-pin firewire cable to FW800 9-pin cable into my laptop. I use this technique on my computer which runs on a 2.16ghz core 2 duo and my macbook has a 2.8 ghz core 2 duo so I dont know what is wrong, could it be that the information sent from a fw800 to fw400 cable is nothing getting there fast enough, and getting a fw800 external drive would fix this problem.

[flommer]

I was going to ask how many tracks are you trying to record... But you should be able to max out the inputs of the 003 and record 18 tracks, no problem..

Have you gone through the Troubleshooting thread to try and optimize your system?

Pay particular attention to the FW networking part..

Do you have a different ext drive you could test it with? You could even test it by trying to record to the internal drive, even though that is not recommended.

[audiogeekzine]

Turn off spotlight indexing for the external drive.
Turn off Time Machine.

These two could be interrupting the recording

A FW800 would either A) only work at 400 speed B) not work at all

[m_atrix13]

time machine is turned off, i dont know how to turn off the indexing on external harddrive in spotlight, and I have looked at the troubleshooting forum and I do everything including disable the airport card when recording. I tried recording 12 mics on a drum set and it just kept giving me the error message after about 5 or 10 seconds of recording.

[audiogeekzine]

the option is in system preferences

IIRC, with your external drive connected, got to the spotlight options, Privacy Tab, add the Drive to the list.

Another thing to try is set the default recording length (in pro tools preferences) to something like 10 minutes.

I've done 16 tracks to a firewire 400 drive no problems until an hour of recording when Time Machine started. That's why I recommend turning it off.

[Obsidian Dragon]

What OS are you running. You said you just got the new Macbook Pro, so did it come with OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard)? If so, it has not been approved for Protools (any version) yet. Another thing I would check is the FW800 to FW400 cable you mentioned. Some have been known to not work or not work well. I'm assuming your Lacie FW drive is 7200RPM right? Are you using any third party plug ins?

[m_atrix13]

Its the Leopard OS 10.5.8, I am using a Western Digital External its 7200RPM, Not a LaCie, And the drive is in the privacy tab under spotlight. I bought the cable off ebay. Im wondering if just running a FW400 to FW800 into a FW800 firewire harddrive then running a straight FW800 cable from the drive to the macbook would eliminate the problem but dont want to spend more money if I know that I can get this to work somehow with my FW400 drive.

[m_atrix13]

Oh and I was using Eleven on an Aux Track so play along with the drum while i was recording and it happened then I tried recording a sratch track and it happened again even with only one track recording.

[Obsidian Dragon]

Originally Posted by m_atrix13

Its the Leopard OS 10.5.8, I am using a Western Digital External its 7200RPM, Not a LaCie, And the drive is in the privacy tab under spotlight. I bought the cable off ebay. Im wondering if just running a FW400 to FW800 into a FW800 firewire harddrive then running a straight FW800 cable from the drive to the macbook would eliminate the problem but dont want to spend more money if I know that I can get this to work somehow with my FW400 drive.

I would advise against using a fw800 drive as many folks have had problems trying that combination. Keeping all connected devices at fw400 seems to be the most reliable solution. YMMV

[BradLyons]

BUY......A.......GLYPH........DRIVE. The issue, I can say 99.9% here, is that it's your hard-drive.