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Setting up mac based studio


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cuz im prolly getting the 002 for my interface which is def a firewire device and i ve heard that you need to get a firewire external hd if you are using pro tools.

 

 

Yes, that's good that you are getting a firewire external HD. But just to be clear, I am recommending this because the Mac Mini only has ONE drive, and you do not want to be recording on to the same drive as your OS. And again, just to be clear, Pro Tools will allow you to use internal drives if your computer has them.

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I would def be getting an external HD! With only one firewire port will I be able to use both an interface and an external hd? or will I have to get an additional firewire port?

 

 

I don't know how many firewire ports the Mac Mini has. However, you can daisy-chain firewire devices.

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That machine isn't worth it IMO. The quad G5 2.5 I have is still buzzing away even with pro tools 8, but I can see this machine getting more and more weak as new stuff comes out.

 

You will be frustrated runing pro tools on a dual core powerpc machine.

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I'll reiterate the G5 warnings. They may or may not be supported with Apple's next version of OSX.

 

 

Are you referring to Snow Leopard? Snow Leopard is the only OSX update I've been really excited about since, well, ever.

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ok so i am buying everything tonight or tommorrow...


right now I am leaning towards a mac mini, firewire external hd, 24" monitor, Digi002 w/ pro tools, and a roland g6.


is this a solid purchase?

 

 

24" monitor? daayuuum

 

make sure to buy that from a different manufacturer, b/c apple is going to rip you off for that thing

 

ASUS 24" Monitor $239, versus Apple's $899

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Are you referring to Snow Leopard? Snow Leopard is the only OSX update I've been really excited about since, well, ever.

 

 

Yeah. From what I've read it points to it being Intel only but I've got blasted for that saying that. So maybe the G5's will still be supported. We shall see. I too think 10.6 will be a huge update. That is if it works as promised and makes it easier to optimize software development these new multi-core/processor machines. Heck it's even supposed to be able to tap into the graphics card for more "horsepower", if the graphics card isn't bogged down that is. And as pretty as PT8 may be, I doubt it's pushing too many cards to their limit. Plus 10.6 being 64-bit from the kernel up is pretty huge. However it may mean a lot of work for some companies that still use 32-bit code (i.e. Digidesign). So while it may not be as universally viable at launch it looks to be worth the wait.

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yea thanks for that input... I will prolly buy the one you suggested... So do you think the mac mini will be enough to handle only recording?

 

 

Back to the topic. Yes I do. I use a Macbook Pro which, let's be honest, is about the same thing in a laptop case. It works beautifully. IMO the Mac Mini, MacBook (Pro), and iMac are different form factors of the same tech. Just depends on what your needs are. For the truly budget minded (esp if you have a monitor and USB keyboard and mouse lying about) the Mac Mini. For someone looking for an all in one (with a great built in Monitor) the iMac. For the ultimate in portability the MacBook (Pro). The biggest secret to making it work is you want 4GB (or maybe slightly more if possible) of Ram and read this.

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Back to the topic. Yes I do. I use a Macbook Pro which, let's be honest, is about the same thing in a laptop case. It works beautifully. IMO the Mac Mini, MacBook (Pro), and iMac are different form factors of the same tech. Just depends on what your needs are. For the truly budget minded (esp if you have a monitor and USB keyboard and mouse lying about) the Mac Mini. For someone looking for an all in one (with a great built in Monitor) the iMac. For the ultimate in portability the MacBook (Pro).
The biggest secret to making it work is you want 4GB (or maybe slightly more if possible) of Ram and read
.

 

 

Wow they put some serious dampers on your fun. You can *only* use FW hard drives according to Digi?

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Wow they put some serious dampers on your fun. You can *only* use FW hard drives according to Digi?

 

 

Yeah, seems a real bummer doesn't it! However, I have been using an external hardrive (not an especially fancy one, I doubt it has the fabled Oxford chipsets) connected via USB with my MacBook pro for nearly a year now and encountered little or no problems, certainly none serious. The firewire port is taken up by my Profire 2626 interface. I run protools 7.4.2 and record eight tracks simultaneously, usually in half hour blocks of recording rehearsals, and has worked fine for me. I am interested in solutions that can avoid this, but for the moment it has been a good starting point for my recordings.

 

The daisychaining of firewire devices does sound good (as suggested by an above poster) but I haven't investigated that yet.

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Yeah FW drives (well really just FW anything) use less CPU than USB for moving data. This is why you see FW400 interfaces that handle multiple channels (16+) while USB seems to top out around 4-8. And yeah daisy chaining works fine with FW. I do it all the time. They recommend the interface as the last part of the chain simply because, if you turn off the interface it won't suddenly disconnect the HD from the system. Which I've heard can corrupt a drive. *knock on wood* I've not experienced this, but also keep my interface at the end.

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