QUESTION TO MAC USERS IM NOT A MONSTER HELP

[cornerstonestudios]

HI, IM USING A 002 ON A CARILLON AUDIO COMPUTER 552 RAM AND PENT 3 1GHZ WITH TWO DRIVES 40 GB ONE SYSTEM ONE AUDIO
WHEN I RECORD IN PRO TOOLS MY CPU MAXES OUT AT 14 TRACKS YET WHEN IM RUNNING E-MAGIC LOGIC I CAN RUN 32 TRACKS OF AUDIO BEFORE THE CPU MAXES OUT. PLEASE TELL ME HOW MANY TRACKS I COULD RUN ON A 1GHZ MAC OR IS THIS PROBLEM ONE APPLE USERS HAVE AS WELL THANKS LEON
PS I KNOW IM USING WINDOWS BUT COULD SOMEONE HELP I NEED TO KNOW IF I MOVE TO APPLE THAT ITS GOING TO SOLVE MY PROBLEM

[Dale-c]

Ok, first of all, please take caps lock off. lol
I have never done a session with more that 16 tracks but I have no problem with that on a Mac that is only 700 mhz. I am sure an eMac at 1.25 ghz would do pretty well. I have a PIII 933 but I have bever used it for audio so I can't say for sure how many trakcs I would get that way.
Just so you know, the Mac for Pro Tools isn't the most cost effective choice for raw speed but there are so many smalll advantages.
Anyway, you can an eMac for $799 that is a 1.25 ghz G4 (something like a 2-2.5 ghz P4) It doens't offer much in the way of internal expansion (only the RAM is supposed to be upgradable but the HD can be replaced with a larger one if you want)
It does however have Firewire ports so connecting external interfaces and hard drives is easy.
Anymore question, just let me know.

[cybership]

PLEASE TELL ME HOW MANY TRACKS I COULD RUN ON A 1GHZ MAC

When set up properly a 1GHz Mac will run a full 32 track count in LE ,no problem. I would think your system should be more than able to run 32 tracks. The PC guys should be able to help you figure out what the problem is.

[KingFish]

I've run many tracks off a P III 933 - 32 tracks easy (full track count), as well as a G3 iMac / mbox.

Playing audio shouldn't be maxing out your CPU.

Plugins, background tasks, other programs running, D-verb denormalization (on a PC) - these things will crap out your CPU - on a PC theres a million things that could be running on your system, tweaks, background services, task schedulers, anti virus, you may have a virus, I'd reccomend checking to see if your chipset is supported by digidesign.

if it is... backup all your important stuff -
Fresh install XP - update it EXCLUDING SP2 - fresh install pro-tools, download the most recent cs Update available for your version and install it.

Then... with a newly clean machine, load 24 tracks of audio, and hit play... see what happens..

Good luck.

[jawjam]

Have you talked to Carillon about the issues you are having? Isn't ongoing customer support one of their big selling points? They should know what their computers are capable of better than anyone else.

[cornerstonestudios]

yes thats what they like you to think, looking back mac would have been the right choice

[tele_player]

That's an old, slow 1Ghz Pentium 3, correct? You don't say what sample rate you're using, I'd guess your track numbers are correct.

I'd upgrade that system with new motherboard, CPU, RAM and drives. If it's the same rack case Carilon uses now, it's a keeper.

[kenhawkins]

I am surprised that nobody has asked more quesstions about your session before chiming in. are you running plugins? if so which ones? can you give us more specifics about those kind of things? plugins affect track count greatly and could be a cause of alot of the problem with pushing the count up there.

ken;

[tele_player]

I am surprised that nobody has asked more quesstions about your session before chiming in. are you running plugins? if so which ones? can you give us more specifics about those kind of things? plugins affect track count greatly and could be a cause of alot of the problem with pushing the count up there.

ken;

True, plugins are important - but he'll never get around the fact that he's using a slow CPU.