Logic w/001

[MartinC]

I'm wondering about Logic with the 001. The software seems to promise all thats missing from PTle-but....my G4 350 192mb often craps out with less than 24 tracks and several plugs-so what good is it to have 64 tracks,all the vst plugs, etc, if the computer can't handle it.

I do love my 001 ptle but am looking for the upgrade path. TDM (yikes) or Logic G4 500 dual processer with 001. Or wait for even faster computers to run logic with 001. Can you bring a logic session to a TDM studio or is it a nightmare? Happy 2001 to all members of the DUC!

Martin

[ThomCat]

Martin:

I've been running Logic Platinum 4.5.1 on a DP 500 G4 for about a month and have had no problems...your 350 shouldn't be all that much slower I wouldn't think.

The largest session I've done do far was to bounce 22 24-bit SDII interleaved tracks down to 2 (equivalent to accessing 46 mono tracks at once). This was to a legacy 7200 RPM SCSI-3 drive with a legacy ATTO PCI card (and the drive was de-fragmented); but matching this performance using 2 IDE drives (both 7200) with fast access times should be nearly as doable according to my research.

There were numerous plugins involved as well in this session, but the Logic CPU performance meter read under 50% and the disk activity meter ran at about 25%. It's been my experience in the past (on an old clone) that Logic would stall when either meter began to hit at about 80% regularly, so I would guess I still had plenty of breathing room left.

One difference I have is that I am running 320 MB of ram, so my plug-in capability is pretty healthy. My research is that 192 would be the minimum for a large, plugin heavy session on a G4/001/Logic and 256 would probably be enough, but some guys run 768 or more. Just recently on this forum I saw a thread about 256 MB DIMMS available for $99, but I don't know if it was 100 ns compatible.

My suggestions to you based on all of this would be to:

1. Wait for and install OS X, which I hear may give as much as a 30% speed boost even for single proc G4s (Logic will likely support it quickly). I'd like to think that your track count will rise by 5 or 6 under OS X, but none of us really know yet.

I also hear differing opinions about how much ram OS X will take...I've read as much as 192 just to run the OS (pretty scary) but my propeller-head brother-in-law, who should know, claims it will likely run in 32 to 64. I haven't pared down my Mac extensions yet (haven't had to) but the size bars under "About this Computer" ran about 45 for the OS and 75 for Logic during this session.

2. Once the OS X issues are settled get some more ram to up your plugins. If you're rich or antsy (or both) jump on the ram now. If you can afford to wait I'd watch the progress of OS X first which should help you decide how much more ram you might need.

Unless you are planning on 50-60 track sessions with numerous plugins I think your 350 G4 will probably do the job. If I were in your position I would get OS X, then some ram, and see how well you are situated at that point before going up to a DP G4. Good luck.

[MartinC]

Thanks for your reply. I think I'll take your advice and hang out for a while and see what develops.

Best Regards,

Martin