I upgraded...I'm a traitor...Need some advice

[cheptronics]

 

Originally posted by Kamurah I understand what you are saying and that makes sense. I don't know what the latency will be under Cubase....however....running the card in a standalone PC with the ADAT cable connected to an MOTU 896 on my Mac and recording into Logic gave me no perceptible delay. (I was "Playing" the CW synths into Logic) I can only assume it will be as good streaming into a program via ASIO on the same PC rather than into the Mac. Maybe I am wrong.....but suffice to say....I have never heard latency from the Pulsar....either when recording it's synths or passing signal through for processing. Cheers

 

 

that's it

 

if you don't hear any latency, or if there are no delay problems, etc, that's good, you don't have to take care of this

[qtuner]

you built a good system.

 

if you built a system for audio, why do you give a f*ck about how good the graphics card is? Any decent nvidia or ati card will do. Save that money and buy a good mic or preamp or software that will make you a more productive musician.

 

a computer is just a tool. If you find in 6-12 months that you're able to be more creative and produce the music you intend, then you bought the right platform. If in same time, you spend more time tweaking the tool and not producing music, then you wasted your time and money.

 

There is no reason why you can't produce a successful project with the system you have. If you fail, its most likely not because you have a pc and not a mac.

 

 

go home fanboys (pc and mac)

[Is.]

Originally posted by Kamurah IS, I ran PARTICLE FURY. I'm not sure how to compare my numbers but here are the results: I can maintain a 60fps rate up to 4500 particles. at that rate the kp/sec is 2700 (avg). At the max setting (12000 particles) I get 23 fps and the same data rate as above (2700 kp/sec). So what does it all mean?

 

It doesn't mean anything until you run that again with 1GB of ram. The key is to see if having all slots populated is inhibiting your performance.

 

Your computer will be very fast either way, I'm not trying to tell you that having all of your RAM slots populated will make your computer slow, it just may not be as fast as it would be with only 2 slots full.

 

*edit* I just ran PF myself, and at the maximum 120000 particles (I hope that's what you meant, 12000 is very few particles), I get 28.3 FPS and 3400 kp/sec. But my CPU, FSB, and RAM are all overclocked, so that may be why I'm getting better performance, I don't know. I think the maximum setting is the best way to test, if the FPS is capping out at your refresh rate, the benchmark is rather useless - of course turning off vsync would fix that. Anyway, I hope my system will at least provide a reference point for you.

 

*edit #2* I just ran PF again, and I noticed that the numbers I gave above are in the fullscreen mode. In the windowed 640x480 mode, I was getting 34FPS and 4040 kp/sec., just to give you more numbers to compare.

[tjwett]

i'm thinking about making a similar move soon. i'm actually a Mac tech for a living and have been using Macs my whole life. don't even really know how to operate the Windows OS. anyway the performance/price issue is really starting to make itself clear.

 

i've been working on music with a friend and he brings over his Toshiba laptop and i work on my 12" PowerBook. we both run the same programs; Live & Reason. his machine spanks mine so bad it hurts my soul. he bought his machine 3 months before i bought mine. he paid $350 less than me. his machine is 3 times as fast. literally.

 

being the Mac head that i am my answer has always been " well, i'm saving up for a G5". {censored}, by the time i have the cash who knows what will be around. i can't spend the rest of my life "saving up". for the cost of the G5 i want/need i could build myself a very powerful PC and still have $2000 left over for software, hardware, paying off my PowerBook "Slowey".

 

i'm this close to going Windows. only thing i'd be losing in the move would be Logic. any other Mac to PC switchers here?

[deafman]

Yeah. I just switched, too.

 

I'm the technical director for the media program at a college, and we soley use Macs, so by default I did too. I went through the same thing "waiting to save for a G5" (and that's with the academic discount!), but just caved and bought a PC. Right now it's a starter system, but I'm excited.....I just have to find the application/hardware setup. I already have dual Audiophile 2496's with the Delta breakout boxes, and am thinking about Cubase SX.

[The Audacity Works]

Originally posted by AfroRouge: All I have to say is: fu*k Logic.

Funk Logic? They make some cool rackspace fillers.

[Phil]

i just switched the other way after the lfood funked up my puter somewhat.

 

now on a 12" powerbook with no music software.

 

As for speed, i'm finding with applications it's plenty faster than my pc was, and my friends new dell 14 incher.

 

for music, garageband pretyt much kills it dead. so no new compositions for quite a while i think.

 

My computing experience is soo much more relaxing than it was before. I'm finding the mac has tonnes of things which just make my life easier.

 

anyway, i love it. May buy a cheap pc just for audio later on, but right now, i'm staying mac for as long as i can afford to!

 

EDIT: sorry for the typos, still getting used to the keyboard!

[Kamurah]

Just wanted to say thanks for all who replied....

 

My crossgrade to Cubase SX is in the mail.....

 

 

Will let you know how it all goes.

 

 

Cheers

[suitandtieguy]

 

Originally posted by Kamurah Plus...and this is a biggie.....I have read lots of info on Apple's discussions that the new G5's have some power supply issues that are causing serious headaches using any kind of audio interface (except it seems PCI).

 

 

how is that? do you have a link? what about Firewire interfaces? it does not seem possible that a power supply issue can have an effect on an external audio interface. if it's true i'm interested to read about it.

 

so why was your current Mac not fast enough? did you run a sequencer that couldn't take advantage of a dualie 1.42ghz G4?

 

it's possible that i'm just a suck-ass musician or something (i have many mp3s open to blistering critique on my site) but i just don't feel cramped in the slightest on a 1ghz machine. i don't use much in the way of softsynths, but i'm assuming you don't either since you have the Creamware stuff.

 

 

Originally posted by tjwett i can't spend the rest of my life "saving up". for the cost of the G5 ...

 

 

I have a 1ghz 17" alBook. it's plenty fast. it'll be nice to have 3 times as much power, but i'm definitely not hurting. Numerology, DP4, the Pulse editor, and DelayCalc all seem to co-exist nicely while tracking and composing MIDI synced to 12 or so audio tracks.

 

what were the speed and memory specs on the iBook?

 

 

Originally posted by Analog Kid ... you'll probably have problems running Panther on it ...

 

 

I don't think Numerology runs too hot on it either. possibly a Linux virtual machine running an as-yet-nonexistant OSX emulation layer. haha ...

 

hey i'm just asking questions ... i'm not going to come down on you. just keep in mind that there are bad MIDI jitter issues with Windows still to this day. they did at least fix the 8-port limit though ... how thoughtful.

[Kamurah]

suitandtieguy,

 

If you check the Apple discussion board on their site (www.apple.com) under the OSX tab and then SUPPORT.

 

Look under the "G5" forum, and then the "Usage" sub forum. There is a thread titled "G5 noise with pro audio equipment" (I think that's the title...if not it is something similar).

 

There are like....280+ posts on this subject there. The noise is occurring on the onboard audio ports, the USB ports, the Firewire ports, and the built-in SPDIF port of the G5. It is not on every machine.....which in my mind makes it worse because Apple sometimes is slow to admit they are at fault in a design flaw.

 

Some users have found work-arounds, and Apple themselves have issued 4 different power supply swap-outs to try and correct this problem. Macfixit has an article devoted to the subject as well.

 

 

 

Now, your question as to "how much power do you really need?" is valid. I suppose one could argue that if I cannot make decent music on a dual 1ghz G4, then I don't need a speed increase anyway.

 

And to that I would probably agree....I've done a lot of work on this machine. And I am by no means dumping it. But I can honestly say there are types of plugins I would like to use in a real-time fashion that just are not feasible on my G4. Like Altiverb, or the Moog Modular (it works fine with one or two notes.....anything above that is stutter city).

 

Even with the Creamware stuff, I still run a lot of native software plugs. I'm kind of a plugin junkie I suppose. I don't have but one hardware synth (a Virus C)....and that is probably all I will ever have.

 

Finally (and I am almost ashamed to admit this one)...I kind of LIKE all the tweaking you have to do to get a PC running properly. I'm a geek....I admit it freely I'm sorry folks, but you long term PC'ers may not even realize this is an issue. With a Mac, you plug in an interface, load the driver, and bam, you are rock solid.

 

With a PC, you plug in the interface, wait for it to be recognized, load (hopefully the most current compatible) driver, and then start the tweak. You have to figure out what drivers conflict. You have to figure out which system items need to be disabled. You need to figure out which BIOS items need to be configured. If you are using PCI cards (like the Creamware ones), you need to choose which slots are most likely to have less IRQ sharing to insure better performance.

 

It goes on. I have spent the last few days going around eliminating conflicts between the onboard audio drivers and my MOTU and Creamware drivers (finally I just disabled the onboard from the BIOS and the machine is happy). Hyperthreading is another mystery too. And this was with a hardware configuration that was recommended highly as being a solid performance / stable setup.

 

 

If I was a WORKING musician who derived his income from recording or producing with a computer....that computer would be a Mac G5 (once the noise problem was fixed). No hesitation.

 

However,.....I am NOT that person (anymore). Nowadays, I'm the guy who likes to make music in his spare time, and has a son's college fund to save up for.

 

So I'll be sticking with this PC for a bit to see what I can make of it.

 

Cheers

[girevik]

Well, you said you're going to keep your G4 (I presume as your recording machine), so you don't count as a traitor yet...

 

I was looking up the specs of the latest Powerbooks and they still lag behind the Windows laptops. An eMachines laptop with a 1600Mhz bus and 2 GHz AMD Athlon processor can be had for $1600. The most expensive Powerbook has a 167Mhz bus, about 1/10 the bus speed!

 

I'll probably end up like you, using my G4 for recording and a Windows machine for soft synthesis (especially if I sell my Nord Modular G2 ).

[KrazyKarl]

hey, kamurah,

glad to see you have got the windows.

this is a nice site that no one has posted here, its pretty well-known though so maybe u know it?

www.blackviper.com

i would also recommend to you to check out the 'manage myc omputer' feature, which i think is new in xp, just right click on 'my computer' and select manage - this gives you control over all the services that blackviper talks about, as well as your device manager, logs of system errors and security checks, among other things. its a really fun tool if you like to poke around your pc.

enjoy!

[KrazyKarl]

oh btw, u mention some cubase benchmarks? where di u find those? i always have a helluva time finding audio related benchmarks on the web...

thanks

[Kamurah]

Karl...

 

The benchmarks for Cubase (submitted by different users) can be found (via link) from the Steinberg.net website.

 

BTW, thanks for the link....however, it does not appear to work right now

 

Cheers

[girevik]

On the other hand, I lurk on the daw-mac Yahoo Group. There are no shortage of complaints about various issues, but G5 noise is not one of them. These people bitch about even the slightest problems they encounter (OS9 to OSX is a favorite dead horse for them to beat on and omg you should have seen the wailing over Apple's decision to put 3 PCI slots instead of 4 on the G5 - before anybody even had the chance to buy one!!!), turn up their noses at anything that's inexpensive (any monitor that costs less than $1000 a pair is not worth considering to them).

 

Trust me, if they noticed a G5 noise problem, they would have been up in arms and ready to storm Cupertino, CA.

[Mike51]

\

Welcome to the world of more powerful computers that cost less money\

 

 

hehe

 

 

Nice PC.

[Is.]

 

Originally posted by girevik On the other hand, I lurk on the daw-mac Yahoo Group. There are no shortage of complaints about various issues, but G5 noise is not one of them. These people bitch about even the slightest problems they encounter (OS9 to OSX is a favorite dead horse for them to beat on and omg you should have seen the wailing over Apple's decision to put 3 PCI slots instead of 4 on the G5 - before anybody even had the chance to buy one!!!), turn up their noses at anything that's inexpensive (any monitor that costs less than $1000 a pair is not worth considering to them). Trust me, if they noticed a G5 noise problem, they would have been up in arms and ready to storm Cupertino, CA.

 

 

This doesn't mean that there isn't a G5 noise problem, it only means that one group of people hasn't noticed a noise problem. Your description of this group doesn't make them sound like the most perceptive group of people, and they seem to be hung up on numbers and specs, so it's entirely possible they would ignore a noise problem if they can't quantify it or put a price on it. I don't know if the G5 has a noise problem or not, I've never used one, and I don't know when/if I ever will. But I think the evidence presented thus far suggests that there is a noise problem, although perhaps a subtle one.

[girevik]

 

Originally posted by Is. This doesn't mean that there isn't a G5 noise problem, it only means that one group of people hasn't noticed a noise problem. Your description of this group doesn't make them sound like the most perceptive group of people, and they seem to be hung up on numbers and specs, so it's entirely possible they would ignore a noise problem if they can't quantify it or put a price on it. I don't know if the G5 has a noise problem or not, I've never used one, and I don't know when/if I ever will. But I think the evidence presented thus far suggests that there is a noise problem, although perhaps a subtle one.

 

 

The majority of these people are Pro Tools snobs. They had a nasty flame war over the alleged distortion on Norah Jones' Come Away With Me CD - I forget the specific track(s). They strike me as people who would not hesitate to torch Apple if they were unhappy with G5 noise. Though to be fair, I do not know how many of them use G5s.

 

I just find it curious that the professional Mac DAW people haven't said much of anything about an issue that is flooding the Apple support forum.

 

I don't have a G5 either nor am I planning to get one anytime soon.