MacOS

[MadSkillzMan]

ok guys, youve been at this WAY longer than me...sure as hell will have better advice.

Im not looking for pro level recording here. I used to use my behringer mixer and a reel to reel deck..heck i still do! i love the old sound. anyways

i got a beige g3, 300mhz, 384MB ram, 10gig hard drive. personality card, a behringer 8channel mixer...what could i slap on this thing to make some decent recordings?

Pro Tools FREE is definently an option

and another thing, since i dont always have a drummer on hand, id like to be able to assign .wav samples of a real drumset, then have a midi track trigger the samples. Anything like that for os9?

thanks in advance guys.

[Lancaster]

The best free option for OS9 is Studio Vision Pro. Way better that PT Free which is limited to 8 tracks, only uses certain plugins and is a resource hog.

Studio Vision will go up to 64 tracks if your hard drive can take it.

if you can hang on for a while, I'll get you the links for the program, manuals,etc.

[MadSkillzMan]

oh that sounds sweet man, i appreciate it

[Lancaster]

The program and support files are here. Make sure you also download OMS 2.3.8

http://opcodeusers.com/opcode/vision.html

The manuals are here:

http://www.fm-music.com/v/

The Opcode forum is here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/opcodeusers/messages

[offramp]

Another option for OS9 would be bias-inc's DECK program, formerly a Macromedia product. I used DECK successfully before switching to Digital Performer.
I owned Studio Vision before DECK, but never got one note out of it. Major headaches, then they went belly up after Gibson bought and shelved them.

[where02190]

Your old G-3 isn't going to give you much in the way of performance in todays world. I'd guess 10-12 tracks with a few plugins max if you record to a second drive for your audio files. Otherwise you'll fill that 10gb system drive mighty fast.

In addition, the Behringer gear and decent don't belong in the same post, 4th rate knockoff junk. Dump the mixer entirely, and get a decent ADDA with a couple preamps, add some more ram, and you might get be able to record 4-8 tracks at a whack.

My advise, if you want to make decent recordings, get a decent G-4 running OSX, and use the dinosaur G-3 for web surfing.

[Lancaster]

Originally posted by where02190
Your old G-3 isn't going to give you much in the way of performance in todays world. I'd guess 10-12 tracks with a few plugins max if you record to a second drive for your audio files. Otherwise you'll fill that 10gb system drive mighty fast.

Absolutely and completely wrong. Of course, as you say, you're just GUESSING. :rolleyes:

Using the aformentioned Studio Vision Pro, I've had a Beige G3 up to 64 audio tracks using a 2nd internal drive for audio.

Yes, 64 tracks. Running over 10 plugs at mixdown, including Waves Rennaisance Verbs. With an app whose RAM "sweet spot" is a measly 50 Megs.

Hard drive speed is the major determining factor in track count.

[where02190]

Originally posted by multitrack mind


Absolutely and completely wrong. Of course, as you say, you're just GUESSING. :rolleyes:

Using the aformentioned Studio Vision Pro, I've had a Beige G3 up to 64 audio tracks using a 2nd internal drive for audio.

Yes, 64 tracks. Running over 10 plugs at mixdown, including Waves Rennaisance Verbs. With an app whose RAM "sweet spot" is a measly 50 Megs.

Hard drive speed is the major determining factor in track count.

And I have some lovely ocean front property in Arizona for sale cheap, too...

[Lancaster]

Originally posted by where02190


And I have some lovely ocean front property in Arizona for sale cheap, too...

I guess it'd be a little beyond the capability of the kiddie version of Pro Tools you use with your 001,huh?

[where02190]

You mean the 001 with the Rosetta converters we have on the front end that we use for playback of additiona tracks past the 24 from the Mackie HDR 24/96 Pro? Yea it's real kiddie.

10 plugins on 64 tracks, wow can you spare the power?

Hell I can run a couple hundred just on the 32 tracks PT limits me to.

Waves is sucking up a whole lot more than 50mb of ram I guarantee. Plugins are all about RAM dude.


Here's a dollar go buy a clue.....

[gtrdave]

Originally posted by offramp
Another option for OS9 would be bias-inc's DECK program, formerly a Macromedia product. I used DECK successfully before switching to Digital Performer.
I owned Studio Vision before DECK, but never got one note out of it. Major headaches, then they went belly up after Gibson bought and shelved them.

Sounds exactly like my experience. Spent $400 on Studio Vision brand new and found it a hassle at best.
And of course ya can't take that stuff back...

Used Deck (been using it since it was OSC-owned, then MacroM and now BIAS) and imported MIDI via MOTU Performer and got more accomplished that way than with Opcode's flopware.

[Lancaster]

Originally posted by where02190
You mean the 001 with the Rosetta converters we have on the front end that we use for playback of additiona tracks past the 24 from the Mackie HDR 24/96 Pro? Yea it's real kiddie.

10 plugins on 64 tracks, wow can you spare the power?

Hell I can run a couple hundred just on the 32 tracks PT limits me to.

Waves is sucking up a whole lot more than 50mb of ram I guarantee. Plugins are all about RAM dude.


Here's a dollar go buy a clue.....

A dollar doesnt go as far as it used to, does it grandpa?

When I was trying to make sense of your post, I looked at your avatar and then it hit me...

The Lights Are On, But Nobody's Home.

The point of this thread was to offer suggestions for someone who has a 7 or 8 yr. old OS9 Mac and wanted to run some software on it. One of the Macs I own is a Beige G3, so I offered a suggestion.

Follow me so far?

The only thing you had to contribute was that the G3 coudnt run more than 10-12 tracks of audio.That is completely wrong. You've obviously never used a Mac of that type or the software in question, so why pretend you know what you're talking about here?

Oh, so your G4 can run more plugs than a G3... I should bloody well hope so,my G4 can run circles around it,too. Again, totally missing the point.

You run "hundreds" of plugs,huh? Let's see...PTLE has 5 plug inserts per track
X 32 tracks=160.160 aint hunnerds,OK?

Or do you manage to stuff several dozen in the bus sends? Woudnt a competent engineer record the stuff properly the first time so burying it in FX woudnt be necessary?

Or is it a result of trying to "mix" in a control room approximately the size of a phone booth ?

As for running the RenVerbs on a host with only 50 Megs of RAM, I used a shell app to load them. It kept the CPU meter in the host app from spiking. Digital Performer, my current DAW, doesnt have that issue...or a track limit and hardware dongle either.

Yes, plugs are all about RAM and CPU speed.

Glad we could agree on something. Anyway, I guess it's time for your nap now, so I'll leave you to it.

Have a really nice day.

[where02190]

32 audio tracks
16 aux tracks
1 master fader
49 total tracks x 5 plugins each=245.

News flash, you can't assign plugins to buss sends.
But then if you never actually used Protools you wouldn't know that, or about the aux tracks would you?

Bottom line is a g3, 300mhz, 384MB ram, 10gig hard drive isn't going to run more than a dozen or so tracks, it doesn't have the power. I'st barely got enough ram to boot and launch Protools for starters. The processor speed won't be able to keep up with playback, and the HDD will be full in no time. (10gb will hold approx 45 minutes 24 tracks 24 bit 44.1lk wav files.) Not to mention that it appears this 10g drive is the system drive, which is most likely then would have a GB or more of data already on it for the OS and apps.

More RAM, and conservative plugin use, along with a dedicated external FW drive for audio, and you might squeak out a few more tracks, but anything more than one or two taxing plugins (such as reverb or any time based plugin) and you'd be sunk. even then, you'd probably have to record the two mix to an outside recorder, as the machine would most likely not be able to BTD. (That's bounce to disc for you nonprotools users, PT action to create a stereo mix from the multitrack.)

Tell ya what, why don't you go tell them over at the Digidesign User Conference, Digi's online forum how many tracks you think this G-3 will do, and lets see how loud and long they laugh at you.

[halcyo]

Nobody seems to believe me, but I used to get upwards of 25-30 tracks easy on Motu's Audiodesk in OS9. Granted, it was a G4, but it was only 733Mhz with 384MB of Ram. I am strangely finding it harder to get these track counts smoothly in OSX. I have sinced maxed out my ram, and upgraded my Hard drives, but still, you can do plenty on your G3.

halcyo

[where02190]

No reason why you couldn't get that kind of track count with that machine. DP is much less processor and RAM taxing than PTle, and you're running a decent processor as well. I'm suprised you can't get more than that actually, but if you're running a lot of time based plugins, that'll suck down your track count.

[Lancaster]

Originally posted by where02190


Bottom line is a g3, 300mhz, 384MB ram, 10gig hard drive isn't going to run more than a dozen or so tracks, it doesn't have the power. I'st barely got enough ram to boot and launch Protools for starters. The processor speed won't be able to keep up with playback, and the HDD will be full in no time. (10gb will hold approx 45 minutes 24 tracks 24 bit 44.1lk wav files.) Not to mention that it appears this 10g drive is the system drive, which is most likely then would have a GB or more of data already on it for the OS and apps.

Did you notice in the the 1st post in this thread, the one where you just quoted the machine specs, and also the title of this thread that the guy is interested in OS9 software???

Now, if you're talking OSX, then I agree with you. 384 MB of RAM will get you nowhere fast, and whatever audio DAW app you tried running would basically be spinning it's wheels in no time. The Beige's on board VRAM isnt really up to the task either. Just installing OSX on a Beige can be a major PITA.

OS9, what the poster was asking about, is a different matter. You can run Studio Vision, Logic ,Digital Performer and other apps on this machine with quite decent results.

The performance numbers I stated earlier were for using Studio Vision in OS9.The links I posted were for OS9 software because that's what the guy asked for.

Because, believe it or not, people were using Macs to record with before OSX was invented.

As for how many busses PTLE has, so what? The 6 yr. old software I posted the links to has 16 busses,too. At least it's not limited to 32 MONO tracks.

Yeah, the DUC is a real hoot...page after page of guys whining about why PTLE doesnt allow higher track counts.You should check out the Digital Performer forum at
http://www.unicornation.com and see what kind of results people are getting these days on host-based systems.

[MadSkillzMan]

my god you guys are still going at it huh?

Anyways, i havent had time to install OS9 back on it yet. I should be getting to that within the next 2 weeks or so

appreciate the suggestions!

[where02190]

my god you guys are still going at it huh?

No just him.