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Forums - Computer music & technology
Subject: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
Viewing all 16 messages - View by pages of 10: 1 2
Original Message 1/16 01-Mar-08 @ 10:01 PM - How did people do anything with mac OS9?
bloody hell... got that old G4 finaly, sadly it's not a later AGP version, but that OS9.1 is... well... wierd
downloaded the bootrom file from mac website to update, the mac says it is an IE file... several hourts later after investigating how mac os9 does filetypes, yes it IS associated with STUFFIT, and still it cant be unarchived.. lol..
anyways, tried to put osx on it, no dice "this machine is not compatible)
bunged in 1/2 gig of old pc100 ram, and straight away OSX is setting up
it only had 64mb of ram!!!... lol
oh well, should have a TIGER machine in a few hours, this'll be fun
downloaded the bootrom file from mac website to update, the mac says it is an IE file... several hourts later after investigating how mac os9 does filetypes, yes it IS associated with STUFFIT, and still it cant be unarchived.. lol..
anyways, tried to put osx on it, no dice "this machine is not compatible)
bunged in 1/2 gig of old pc100 ram, and straight away OSX is setting up
it only had 64mb of ram!!!... lol
oh well, should have a TIGER machine in a few hours, this'll be fun
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 2/16 01-Mar-08 @ 11:19 PM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
heh, writing this in Safari on OSX, yay!!
god, i've used osx quoite a bit, but not os9.. my god when osx came out, mac users must
have crapped their pants!.. the difference is astounding
good news is the new site seems 100% in Safari!
god, i've used osx quoite a bit, but not os9.. my god when osx came out, mac users must
have crapped their pants!.. the difference is astounding
good news is the new site seems 100% in Safari!
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 3/16 01-Mar-08 @ 11:26 PM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
more good news... re: the new flash file uploader for the new admin... the 'wrong flash version'
notifications all work 100%
this safari is damned fast eh!
notifications all work 100%
this safari is damned fast eh!
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 4/16 02-Mar-08 @ 08:28 AM Edit: 02-Mar-08 | 08:29 AM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
SELLOUT!!!
Message 5/16 02-Mar-08 @ 11:30 AM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
dude, i got it working, kin ell!... well i learned alot about mac's in the last 12 hours
checkout this beat i did in Logic studio 8 - Ultrabeat with4 drum samples, eq'd and then with an inserted amp-sim... freeze that, then add reverb - then export as mp3!
even got the bugger on the network to copy this file over!.. figured that out too, it's odd you have to designate a shared folder/space and then you can access it with an ip address... windows sharing it's called... works ok
beleive it or not i got logic 8 running on a g4 400mhz with 512 ram.
anyways, the file
checkout this beat i did in Logic studio 8 - Ultrabeat with4 drum samples, eq'd and then with an inserted amp-sim... freeze that, then add reverb - then export as mp3!
even got the bugger on the network to copy this file over!.. figured that out too, it's odd you have to designate a shared folder/space and then you can access it with an ip address... windows sharing it's called... works ok
beleive it or not i got logic 8 running on a g4 400mhz with 512 ram.
anyways, the file
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 6/16 02-Mar-08 @ 01:01 PM Edit: 02-Mar-08 | 01:02 PM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
Nice banging drum track, eer... I mean, it would be a nice banging drum track if it weren't made on a bloody mac 
That is kinda cool. How's Logic 8 then, does it feel like the old one or...? (5.5 was the last one I had on PC if I remember correctly...). I've seen a couple of screenshots at tweakheadz website a while ago, it looked very Ableton Live-ish with that piano roll docked to the bottom of the screen... that looked very cool. Can it do routing between the various out's and in's of those AU plugins, like Reaper or Tracktion?
quote
beleive it or not i got logic 8 running on a g4 400mhz with 512 ram
beleive it or not i got logic 8 running on a g4 400mhz with 512 ram
That is kinda cool. How's Logic 8 then, does it feel like the old one or...? (5.5 was the last one I had on PC if I remember correctly...). I've seen a couple of screenshots at tweakheadz website a while ago, it looked very Ableton Live-ish with that piano roll docked to the bottom of the screen... that looked very cool. Can it do routing between the various out's and in's of those AU plugins, like Reaper or Tracktion?
Message 7/16 02-Mar-08 @ 07:25 PM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
dunno about routing - it's pretty much the same as logic 5, you wont have much problems... the delay designer is excellent - yes you can bypass that 'all in one' apple default layout and use good old fashioned screensets.. one for arrange, one for mixer etc
the side channel strip (inspector) can be hidden like before (havent found it's key command yet tho) what is good is that with later versions after 5.5 the arrange solo & mute is tied to the mixer solo and mute.. so mute in arrange and the mixer view is muted, de-mute in the mixer and de-mute happens in arrange as it should
i'm about to try out the vocal fx unit that comes with it so i'm copying over a whole studio session with drums bass guitar vocals etc to try with it
the basic compressor is a tad nicer too with a choice of 5 or 6 compressor types (FET, OPTO etc)
the guitar amp sim & bass-amp sim are quite nice for freebies, quite comprehensive choices and sound ok so far
VERY nice comprehansive full-on metering which can be added to any track or buss as a plugin if you want really proper metering
didnt try the new synths yet, but i do like ultrabeat
it's gotta huge synthesis section... PER DRUM ROW!!!.... and it's like rebirth in that it has a X0X style grid to make beats (complete with an accent per-beat and swing) and you can drag/drop patterns from Ultrabeat onto the arrange-page to make them into midi parts (like reason does it also)... OR... use that familiar protocol of 'note-number = a pattern', starting at C-1 like Nepheton or Drumazon etc does it... sounds good too, very crisp, but SERIOUS drum mangle-age if required is there with all that synthesis section.
all the plugins have a new-look black gloss display and the top row of all the plugs is semi transparent too so you can see behind it and it makes the plugin windows seem slightly less intrusive
um... crikey.. there's some nice new stereo tools inc one to set 'working with headphone' stereo.
auto cross fades on audio would be new from 5.5.1 and there's also a crossfade tool for adjusting the fades - it's ok but not a patch on VEGAS's multitrack crossfade choices and protocol, but still good.
platignumverb seems better... much better!!... and has a balance slider to slide between reverb and predelay which does do some great stuff for setting a drum ambience! really aligve sounding rooms if required and thats before you even get into Space Designer, which you start to reaqlise isnt really required as your main reverb... what i mean by that is, you think "I'd want to use Space Designer for all my reverbs cos it's the best", but actualy platignumverb is so improved really you can use Space Designer just for specialist tasks really such as foley and voiceover matching work, audio design for games or film etc.. and yes as a straight reverb, but the point is platignumverb sounds VERY good now and so you dont have to reach for the Space Designer and guzzle up cpu.
um.... very nice newlook eq, same as FAT EQ, but with a few extra tweaks - it now has an ANALYSE mode switch which can be switched on/off AND pre/post Eq (!)... It shows the audio wave flickering away like on an oscilloscope screen, so you can see the frequency energy and thus get visual as well as audio cues about what's going on eq-wise in that audio signal, both pre and post the actual eq! thats a useful and cool touch
as for the look it's not ableton 'paint by numbers' look ... it is sleeker than old versions but not that 2D drawn look at all.
well, i went off to fiddle some more and i've just spent 2 hours mixing 20 audio tracks, with about 10 channel comps, about 6 eq's, 1 x space designer, 1 x platignumverb, 1 x multicomp, and a few other plugs, amazingly although it got a bit sticky once i added the Space designer AND the multiband... it still is running! even tho the curson is staggering along, not a single crash or error message with the cpu meter flickering up in the red
well that's quite incredible for a machine that doesnt even meet required specs to even boot logic!!... to get it to boot you have to edit the minimum spec file as i mentioned earlier (didnt i? wel you can do that anyways so it'll run on just about anything)
all the audio is coming of the same 10gb disk as the os and logic
i think it's safe to say that even a cheap intel dualcore mac like an old white imac 20" will deliver decent mixes therefore if this is anything to go by, and quad and 8 core would just offer tons more of the juicier plugs.. You'd prolly want to get an Apogee Duet at least tho, cos i suspect half the reason the machine I've got can do this is cos it's using the built-in core-audio drivers for which it must optimise very efficiently, so you'd want something as compatible as possible and the Duet's control stuff (and other apogee units) is all built in to Logic and do sound amazingly good
seems stable as anything to me anyways.
the side channel strip (inspector) can be hidden like before (havent found it's key command yet tho) what is good is that with later versions after 5.5 the arrange solo & mute is tied to the mixer solo and mute.. so mute in arrange and the mixer view is muted, de-mute in the mixer and de-mute happens in arrange as it should
i'm about to try out the vocal fx unit that comes with it so i'm copying over a whole studio session with drums bass guitar vocals etc to try with it
the basic compressor is a tad nicer too with a choice of 5 or 6 compressor types (FET, OPTO etc)
the guitar amp sim & bass-amp sim are quite nice for freebies, quite comprehensive choices and sound ok so far
VERY nice comprehansive full-on metering which can be added to any track or buss as a plugin if you want really proper metering
didnt try the new synths yet, but i do like ultrabeat
it's gotta huge synthesis section... PER DRUM ROW!!!.... and it's like rebirth in that it has a X0X style grid to make beats (complete with an accent per-beat and swing) and you can drag/drop patterns from Ultrabeat onto the arrange-page to make them into midi parts (like reason does it also)... OR... use that familiar protocol of 'note-number = a pattern', starting at C-1 like Nepheton or Drumazon etc does it... sounds good too, very crisp, but SERIOUS drum mangle-age if required is there with all that synthesis section.
all the plugins have a new-look black gloss display and the top row of all the plugs is semi transparent too so you can see behind it and it makes the plugin windows seem slightly less intrusive
um... crikey.. there's some nice new stereo tools inc one to set 'working with headphone' stereo.
auto cross fades on audio would be new from 5.5.1 and there's also a crossfade tool for adjusting the fades - it's ok but not a patch on VEGAS's multitrack crossfade choices and protocol, but still good.
platignumverb seems better... much better!!... and has a balance slider to slide between reverb and predelay which does do some great stuff for setting a drum ambience! really aligve sounding rooms if required and thats before you even get into Space Designer, which you start to reaqlise isnt really required as your main reverb... what i mean by that is, you think "I'd want to use Space Designer for all my reverbs cos it's the best", but actualy platignumverb is so improved really you can use Space Designer just for specialist tasks really such as foley and voiceover matching work, audio design for games or film etc.. and yes as a straight reverb, but the point is platignumverb sounds VERY good now and so you dont have to reach for the Space Designer and guzzle up cpu.
um.... very nice newlook eq, same as FAT EQ, but with a few extra tweaks - it now has an ANALYSE mode switch which can be switched on/off AND pre/post Eq (!)... It shows the audio wave flickering away like on an oscilloscope screen, so you can see the frequency energy and thus get visual as well as audio cues about what's going on eq-wise in that audio signal, both pre and post the actual eq! thats a useful and cool touch
as for the look it's not ableton 'paint by numbers' look ... it is sleeker than old versions but not that 2D drawn look at all.
well, i went off to fiddle some more and i've just spent 2 hours mixing 20 audio tracks, with about 10 channel comps, about 6 eq's, 1 x space designer, 1 x platignumverb, 1 x multicomp, and a few other plugs, amazingly although it got a bit sticky once i added the Space designer AND the multiband... it still is running! even tho the curson is staggering along, not a single crash or error message with the cpu meter flickering up in the red
well that's quite incredible for a machine that doesnt even meet required specs to even boot logic!!... to get it to boot you have to edit the minimum spec file as i mentioned earlier (didnt i? wel you can do that anyways so it'll run on just about anything)
all the audio is coming of the same 10gb disk as the os and logic
i think it's safe to say that even a cheap intel dualcore mac like an old white imac 20" will deliver decent mixes therefore if this is anything to go by, and quad and 8 core would just offer tons more of the juicier plugs.. You'd prolly want to get an Apogee Duet at least tho, cos i suspect half the reason the machine I've got can do this is cos it's using the built-in core-audio drivers for which it must optimise very efficiently, so you'd want something as compatible as possible and the Duet's control stuff (and other apogee units) is all built in to Logic and do sound amazingly good
seems stable as anything to me anyways.
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 8/16 03-Mar-08 @ 12:48 AM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
the other thing is Rags, the apple loops business which'd be new to you but i think it was in pro 7 wasn't it?
well, cakewalk sonar users have had this for ages and it's pretty similar, but i like how it's organised
in fact oddly you were asking if it's gone 'ableton'.. if anything it seems quite cakewalk-y almost.. lol... anyways Sonar does surge along in leeps and bounds, they've some amazing stuff now like piano rool edit inplace on the arrange page etc
but i digress... the apple loops is quite simple
trim any bit of audio on the arrange page or sample editor.. . for a loop, then set the right number of loop bars for the loop and adjust the temp globaly to match the loop.. the use REGION and create an Apple Loop
choose one-shot or loop, dategory, name it etc, and it's done
then if you import it to the track and change tempo, it adjusts to match
the alorithm is very smooth - say speeding a live drummer loop done in the studio (an overhead mic track I used) speeded down to 110 from 125, quite smooth and instant slow groove!
it's nothing new but fast and best of all there is this show/hide media browser on the right which has a great library applet for the potentialy hundreds of thousands of loops
it's decent media tracking and management at the flick of a switch
thats as far as i've got with it, but now i've had the chance to use it at my leisure instead of in an apple store visit, it's pretty damned good
also of course the dvd contents which cant fit on this piddling 9.something h/d
contaisn fucking thousands of these loops, and actualy while nothing super new it's good content for media people, jingles, and all that sort of work to get instant 'real playing' loops of a huge variety of instruments including absolutely shitloads of 'ethnic' ones
add that to the massive EXS library and drum library..... no dongle, 300 quid
it's SONAR!!!!!!!!... i knew it!
oh yeah, there's 2 big new synths - wel they are new to me anyways having used V 6Pro a little and not having explored the thing much cos iw as working using it and couldnt play
one is a modeller thing i think and the other is like a much bigger ES2, there's also an fm synth, bass and guitar modelling plugs (inc cab sims)
anyways, now i've got a proper pc mouse bunged on it I realise it's actualy the bloody mac mouse i've always hated i think... even on this old G4 crate it feels easier and zippier using Logic than on the 8 core mac pro in the store! it is very different, feels like a PC now just cos of the mouse which sounds weird, but it does, odd.
Logic 8 is bugged apparently in a couple of major places, but everything i've done so far with it seems solid.. it's really no different to 5 with a PC mouse and it's WAY better than Pro 6!.... It's just got better organised menus and media browsing, better plugins, and more of them, plus the included media, great drumbox!!!! seriously, not as nice a grid as battery not as nicea gui or to load etc as battery or bfd or LM Linplugs etc, looks a tad cluttered and i think the text and bits are too small, but the synthesis section is excellent and it's got multiouts galore!! and that TRX0X style drumgrid pattern creator-player
ultrabeat either shows it's synth controls and you use a front horizontal X0X style on/off light row to programme it, or you can flip to top synth bit away and reveal drum x0x horiz grid lanes for all the drums!
thats really cool.. you can also adjust stuff per-note along with the note on/off
anyways mate i think you'd dig it, .. needs a mac tho, but i tell ya after 24 hours living with osx and logic..... i think it's gotta be done sadly cos Vista REALLY looks like it's going nowhere doesnt it? (mebbe not) and i would like to go above 1.5gb of ram!
Also PRO 8 can archive whole songs inc all audio, patches, samples etc (has done this since pro6).... i dunno about you but the amount of logic songs I have strewn across my networks is crazy, but if you move something then Logic looses it and cant load song items.. a total nightmare which archiving would sort for me like a dream
i'm starting to see a very cutdown system.. an almost silent work machine with just a small onboard drive and a couple of terrabyte firewire storage disks on a network.. sorted!
really mate if you have spent years fiddling with pc's, mac's now are just an ibm pc with a different OS... it's pretty easy - it's a very clean OS man, really good gui and looks more crisply in focus than xp somehow.. i'm using like an 8 year old HP 14" flat @ 75hz | 1024 x 768 and it's crisp as anything, and the OSX even had a driver onboard for the exact make/model monitor! lol
if i can manage to get it to do a screen capture AND very basic stuff in logic i'll knock up a little video and show you round it as another 'ex V5 die hard'
yipee kiyay!
well, cakewalk sonar users have had this for ages and it's pretty similar, but i like how it's organised
in fact oddly you were asking if it's gone 'ableton'.. if anything it seems quite cakewalk-y almost.. lol... anyways Sonar does surge along in leeps and bounds, they've some amazing stuff now like piano rool edit inplace on the arrange page etc
but i digress... the apple loops is quite simple
trim any bit of audio on the arrange page or sample editor.. . for a loop, then set the right number of loop bars for the loop and adjust the temp globaly to match the loop.. the use REGION and create an Apple Loop
choose one-shot or loop, dategory, name it etc, and it's done
then if you import it to the track and change tempo, it adjusts to match
the alorithm is very smooth - say speeding a live drummer loop done in the studio (an overhead mic track I used) speeded down to 110 from 125, quite smooth and instant slow groove!
it's nothing new but fast and best of all there is this show/hide media browser on the right which has a great library applet for the potentialy hundreds of thousands of loops
it's decent media tracking and management at the flick of a switch
thats as far as i've got with it, but now i've had the chance to use it at my leisure instead of in an apple store visit, it's pretty damned good
also of course the dvd contents which cant fit on this piddling 9.something h/d
contaisn fucking thousands of these loops, and actualy while nothing super new it's good content for media people, jingles, and all that sort of work to get instant 'real playing' loops of a huge variety of instruments including absolutely shitloads of 'ethnic' ones
add that to the massive EXS library and drum library..... no dongle, 300 quid
it's SONAR!!!!!!!!... i knew it!
oh yeah, there's 2 big new synths - wel they are new to me anyways having used V 6Pro a little and not having explored the thing much cos iw as working using it and couldnt play
one is a modeller thing i think and the other is like a much bigger ES2, there's also an fm synth, bass and guitar modelling plugs (inc cab sims)
anyways, now i've got a proper pc mouse bunged on it I realise it's actualy the bloody mac mouse i've always hated i think... even on this old G4 crate it feels easier and zippier using Logic than on the 8 core mac pro in the store! it is very different, feels like a PC now just cos of the mouse which sounds weird, but it does, odd.
Logic 8 is bugged apparently in a couple of major places, but everything i've done so far with it seems solid.. it's really no different to 5 with a PC mouse and it's WAY better than Pro 6!.... It's just got better organised menus and media browsing, better plugins, and more of them, plus the included media, great drumbox!!!! seriously, not as nice a grid as battery not as nicea gui or to load etc as battery or bfd or LM Linplugs etc, looks a tad cluttered and i think the text and bits are too small, but the synthesis section is excellent and it's got multiouts galore!! and that TRX0X style drumgrid pattern creator-player
ultrabeat either shows it's synth controls and you use a front horizontal X0X style on/off light row to programme it, or you can flip to top synth bit away and reveal drum x0x horiz grid lanes for all the drums!
thats really cool.. you can also adjust stuff per-note along with the note on/off
anyways mate i think you'd dig it, .. needs a mac tho, but i tell ya after 24 hours living with osx and logic..... i think it's gotta be done sadly cos Vista REALLY looks like it's going nowhere doesnt it? (mebbe not) and i would like to go above 1.5gb of ram!
Also PRO 8 can archive whole songs inc all audio, patches, samples etc (has done this since pro6).... i dunno about you but the amount of logic songs I have strewn across my networks is crazy, but if you move something then Logic looses it and cant load song items.. a total nightmare which archiving would sort for me like a dream
i'm starting to see a very cutdown system.. an almost silent work machine with just a small onboard drive and a couple of terrabyte firewire storage disks on a network.. sorted!
really mate if you have spent years fiddling with pc's, mac's now are just an ibm pc with a different OS... it's pretty easy - it's a very clean OS man, really good gui and looks more crisply in focus than xp somehow.. i'm using like an 8 year old HP 14" flat @ 75hz | 1024 x 768 and it's crisp as anything, and the OSX even had a driver onboard for the exact make/model monitor! lol
if i can manage to get it to do a screen capture AND very basic stuff in logic i'll knock up a little video and show you round it as another 'ex V5 die hard'yipee kiyay!
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 9/16 03-Mar-08 @ 01:00 AM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
hey Milan you too mate, i mean we've all decided we like Logic.. i like sonar, i like cubase, I used cubase for years and cakewalk/sonar, but i like logic and that means a mac i'm afraid eventualy
but am seriously, guys, we love our logic right? people are reporting plainly ludicrous amounts of tracks and plugins with these 8 cores (even the 2.8's)... to the point that you really will never have to think about it unless we all step up to 24/192 and above, but that's quite a way away i think and for some people they'll never go there.
mebbe the timing now is right? it wasnt with g5's they were junk compared to a decent cheap pc back then, but these machines now could be used for the next 10 years and never need to be upgraded if, y'know, 120 tracks all with eq and compression plus 100 synths and 50 reverbs is enuff for you
roars with laughter, anyways you know me, i get excited about this stuff still sadly
but am seriously, guys, we love our logic right? people are reporting plainly ludicrous amounts of tracks and plugins with these 8 cores (even the 2.8's)... to the point that you really will never have to think about it unless we all step up to 24/192 and above, but that's quite a way away i think and for some people they'll never go there.
mebbe the timing now is right? it wasnt with g5's they were junk compared to a decent cheap pc back then, but these machines now could be used for the next 10 years and never need to be upgraded if, y'know, 120 tracks all with eq and compression plus 100 synths and 50 reverbs is enuff for you
roars with laughter, anyways you know me, i get excited about this stuff still sadly
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 10/16 03-Mar-08 @ 03:50 AM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
vocalanddrum_file_messin_logic8.mp3
did this with a drum loop turned into an apple loop and a snippet of vocal, both files from my boys college 'mix' task, messing with vocoder and compression and sidechaining
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 11/16 03-Mar-08 @ 03:39 PM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
lol sounds a bit flat today on speakers, did it on some cheap sony hifi cans which had a minijack plugto go in the mac audio out
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 12/16 05-Mar-08 @ 02:56 PM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
ok guys, Milan.. sell out you say? (jokingly I know, but..)
yes i'd have said that back a few years ago, but like I said, Mac's now are just Intel machines like our own PC's... the reason I am thinking it's time to switch is cos of 2 things
1. mac's now piss on ibm machines, we'd have to build a machine on a specialist server board to compete.
2. what we used to mock apple owners for... that they couldnt get under the hood and do anything, whereas we could change parts, upgrade processors etc
well you could always upgrade the processor and ram in G4's and G3's, but I still think pc's at that time offered more bang for buck even with a fiddle cheap mac upgrade, but with the Intel Mac's it's worth upgrading and you CAN upgrade mac processors yourself!
Although not documented by mac for the public, they released a service manual for 'approved mac personel', which included instructions for removing and replacing... the cpu's!
Anandtech tried a processor upgrade way back, and it worked!.. they chucked in 2 pre-release Clovertown processors and got 8 cores!!!.. tested 100% fine
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=6
So, while accessing the processors on a mac pro isnt easy like a pc, you can in theory buy a s/h low end mac quad and bump it up to a top of the range 8 core by just adding a couple of quad XEON chips!!.. Do you realise the saving this'll mean? and of course you can boot xp or vista on a mac pro... there's plenty of people out there running mac pro's with 4 boot OS's!... Leopard, Linux, XP and Vista!!!
also the XEON chips have a faster fsb speed than core2duo, so even a basic dual-core XEON is faster than the exact same clocked core2duo chip.. eg, in theory and old mac pro twin at 2.66 should beat a new imac at the same speed, and the IMAC'S cost like 1400 quid for the 24"... mac pro twins are out there quite cheap, and I'm assuming it's possible you can replace the dual core XEON to a quad perhaps to get a piss cheap quad core, although so far I didnt find anything on this
anyways, the point is we now have pretty much almost the same tweaking ability on mac pro's that we have on IBM pc's except it's a much more exclusive club in that few regular mac owners have the balls to do this cos it invalidates warranty of course... the other slight downside is Fully Buffered ram costs a bit more, but there's a solution to that also - Anandtech again showed this long before 3rd party ram appeared, and cheap ram can be found now on any pc-parts site
As we noted in our initial Mac Pro article, Apple's memory upgrades are pretty expensive and other than a fancy heatsink, they are standard DDR2 FB-DIMMs. We wondered if we could buy third party memory from companies like Crucial or Kinston, with much better prices, and use it in the Mac Pro. We got 512MB, 1GB and 2GB FB-DIMM modules from Crucial with standard heatspreaders and tried them in the Mac Pro. Thankfully the memory worked just fine, however we did have concerns about cooling. Apple clearly outfitted its FB-DIMM modules with a very large heatsink for a reason and it wasn't for bragging rights.
We had no problems running all of our benchmarks with the standard Crucial FB-DIMMs; however, if we ran a memory stress test for even just a short period of time the modules quickly reported correctable ECC errors. Apple's original modules did not generate any ECC errors, so it looks like the additional cooling is necessary under the most extreme situations.
In response to the issues, companies like Crucial have released revised FB-DIMMs that meet Apple's thermal specifications. We have yet to receive any for review but we're assuming that they will work fine given that Crucial guarantees proper operation in a Mac Pro. So although regular FB-DIMMs that work in other Intel 5000X based motherboards will work in the Mac Pro, we would suggest selecting modules that meet Apple's thermal specifications in order to be on the safe side.
anyways as i'm sure you know you can go to any pc retailer now and buy 3rd party 'official' mac pro ram WAY cheaper than from MAC... which is important cos from what i've been reading, with the 4 and 8 core macs you need a stick of ram idealy for each cpu so each has it's own stick otherwise with just 2 dimms in an 8core you reduce the memory buss width by half
apparently it is even possible to upgrade an old mac pro twin (perhaps a dual 2.66 standard) to a quad core, and there's one guy out there who published a document with pictures showing you how to upgrade the super-cheap mac mini to a core2duo! so you get an imac for like 50 quid on top of the mac mini price.. i already have a mate running garageband on a mac mini and its enuff for him to write songs for his publisher and he works with signed artists regularly
here's more stuff:
Upgrade a quad core to an 8 core cheaply
Upgrade a mac MINI to a core2duo!
anyways, this is all new to me, so no doubt there's tons more out there on this subject..
yes i'd have said that back a few years ago, but like I said, Mac's now are just Intel machines like our own PC's... the reason I am thinking it's time to switch is cos of 2 things
1. mac's now piss on ibm machines, we'd have to build a machine on a specialist server board to compete.
2. what we used to mock apple owners for... that they couldnt get under the hood and do anything, whereas we could change parts, upgrade processors etc
well you could always upgrade the processor and ram in G4's and G3's, but I still think pc's at that time offered more bang for buck even with a fiddle cheap mac upgrade, but with the Intel Mac's it's worth upgrading and you CAN upgrade mac processors yourself!
Although not documented by mac for the public, they released a service manual for 'approved mac personel', which included instructions for removing and replacing... the cpu's!
Anandtech tried a processor upgrade way back, and it worked!.. they chucked in 2 pre-release Clovertown processors and got 8 cores!!!.. tested 100% fine
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=6
So, while accessing the processors on a mac pro isnt easy like a pc, you can in theory buy a s/h low end mac quad and bump it up to a top of the range 8 core by just adding a couple of quad XEON chips!!.. Do you realise the saving this'll mean? and of course you can boot xp or vista on a mac pro... there's plenty of people out there running mac pro's with 4 boot OS's!... Leopard, Linux, XP and Vista!!!
also the XEON chips have a faster fsb speed than core2duo, so even a basic dual-core XEON is faster than the exact same clocked core2duo chip.. eg, in theory and old mac pro twin at 2.66 should beat a new imac at the same speed, and the IMAC'S cost like 1400 quid for the 24"... mac pro twins are out there quite cheap, and I'm assuming it's possible you can replace the dual core XEON to a quad perhaps to get a piss cheap quad core, although so far I didnt find anything on this
anyways, the point is we now have pretty much almost the same tweaking ability on mac pro's that we have on IBM pc's except it's a much more exclusive club in that few regular mac owners have the balls to do this cos it invalidates warranty of course... the other slight downside is Fully Buffered ram costs a bit more, but there's a solution to that also - Anandtech again showed this long before 3rd party ram appeared, and cheap ram can be found now on any pc-parts site
As we noted in our initial Mac Pro article, Apple's memory upgrades are pretty expensive and other than a fancy heatsink, they are standard DDR2 FB-DIMMs. We wondered if we could buy third party memory from companies like Crucial or Kinston, with much better prices, and use it in the Mac Pro. We got 512MB, 1GB and 2GB FB-DIMM modules from Crucial with standard heatspreaders and tried them in the Mac Pro. Thankfully the memory worked just fine, however we did have concerns about cooling. Apple clearly outfitted its FB-DIMM modules with a very large heatsink for a reason and it wasn't for bragging rights.
We had no problems running all of our benchmarks with the standard Crucial FB-DIMMs; however, if we ran a memory stress test for even just a short period of time the modules quickly reported correctable ECC errors. Apple's original modules did not generate any ECC errors, so it looks like the additional cooling is necessary under the most extreme situations.
In response to the issues, companies like Crucial have released revised FB-DIMMs that meet Apple's thermal specifications. We have yet to receive any for review but we're assuming that they will work fine given that Crucial guarantees proper operation in a Mac Pro. So although regular FB-DIMMs that work in other Intel 5000X based motherboards will work in the Mac Pro, we would suggest selecting modules that meet Apple's thermal specifications in order to be on the safe side.
anyways as i'm sure you know you can go to any pc retailer now and buy 3rd party 'official' mac pro ram WAY cheaper than from MAC... which is important cos from what i've been reading, with the 4 and 8 core macs you need a stick of ram idealy for each cpu so each has it's own stick otherwise with just 2 dimms in an 8core you reduce the memory buss width by half
apparently it is even possible to upgrade an old mac pro twin (perhaps a dual 2.66 standard) to a quad core, and there's one guy out there who published a document with pictures showing you how to upgrade the super-cheap mac mini to a core2duo! so you get an imac for like 50 quid on top of the mac mini price.. i already have a mate running garageband on a mac mini and its enuff for him to write songs for his publisher and he works with signed artists regularly
here's more stuff:
Upgrade a quad core to an 8 core cheaply
Upgrade a mac MINI to a core2duo!
anyways, this is all new to me, so no doubt there's tons more out there on this subject..
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 13/16 05-Mar-08 @ 03:59 PM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
Just to add, my thoughts are that perhaps it's time to move up to something that can deliver any amount of power required, is upgradable (and that'll get cheaper as XEON cpu's go down in price)
pc's cant compete on price with the mac's basicaly whereas before they always were way cheaper for the same power, and now it's 100% proved that a mac pro lesser config is bumpable to a top of the range 8 core such as would be used by academic institutions.
isnt it time therefore to move on up? especialy as you can run XP/VISTA anytime you like.
The other thing is, I am convinced that PC components have dropped in quality in the last few years due to a switch to more and more china manufacturing (which usualy means setup/tooling issues)
I just feel that pc parts are becoming less reliable, I've had more parts failures in the last year than the previous 10 years put together
Vista is getting so many complaints about it's performance which drags your pc down in speed and it's terrible security which invades every aspect of the OS and can't be switched off.
XP is super streamlined and reliable but cant support much ram, Also afaik you cant run more than 2 cores on XP PRO anyways can you? so it's either VISTA with hardly any hardware support and it's clunky or you gotta use a copy of Windows Server, so therefore our only option to compete with Mac pro is to build a windows server costing tons or run Vista and something like 2 . (and it'll make as much noise as a small Lear Jet unless you then spend tons more to quieten the bastard down)
otherwise, intel just introduced the Dual Socket Extreme which allows 2 quad core in a desktop with 'Skulltrail' - but the QX9775 XEON processors are like £887.38 GBP each!!! just for the fucking chips alone which must run on LGA-771 socket & Intel's 5000 chipset to support (same socket AND chipset as mac pro!) - then apparently you need a 1000-1600 watt PS too! - here's some USA prices also:
The Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX9775 is available now at an MSRP of $1,499 each. Estimated street pricing for the Intel Desktop Board D5400XS is $649. Each Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX9775 offers 12MB of L2 cache, a 1600 MHz system bus and four cores running at 3.2 GHz.
so basicaly you're looking at 1600 GBP for just 2 cpu's to try and build a competitor to a mac pro 8 core 3.2!!.. well an 8-core 2.8 is 1700 quid to buy off the peg - there's just NO competition. Mac pro's now are WAY cheaper than the same PC home build.
anyways, the only downside i can see in terms of future proofing is that sooner or later they'll get to 8 cores with unbuffered Dimms which is the only downside of 8 cores right now. But regardless of that still an 8 core mac pro'll do anything you want and for years to come. In fact you could never have to upgrade it unless there is some major shift in digital recording protocol, but let's face it, despite the fact you can buy pretty much any soundcard today and it'll do 14/192, still in 15 years most people still work at 44.1 16 bit... nothing's changed on that side for 15 years, simply the s/w has got clunkier and requires more power with more powerful plugins.
the only other downside i can think of for some users is the reliability of mac pro to sequence external midi gear... I need to check that out for recorded/noted bugs cos i do still own alot of outboard - the other issue is you need to buy a new audio i/o in most cases.
anyways, any comments Milan? you can still run Logic 5 on it by booting to XP, but Logic 8 is a huge jump in power, You'd love it I'm sure. - mebbe i'm talking rot, but i quite like the idea of getting into mac's on the same level as pc's under the hood... it's something us PC people have ignored for a while now.
whadya think?
pc's cant compete on price with the mac's basicaly whereas before they always were way cheaper for the same power, and now it's 100% proved that a mac pro lesser config is bumpable to a top of the range 8 core such as would be used by academic institutions.
isnt it time therefore to move on up? especialy as you can run XP/VISTA anytime you like.
The other thing is, I am convinced that PC components have dropped in quality in the last few years due to a switch to more and more china manufacturing (which usualy means setup/tooling issues)
I just feel that pc parts are becoming less reliable, I've had more parts failures in the last year than the previous 10 years put together
Vista is getting so many complaints about it's performance which drags your pc down in speed and it's terrible security which invades every aspect of the OS and can't be switched off.
XP is super streamlined and reliable but cant support much ram, Also afaik you cant run more than 2 cores on XP PRO anyways can you? so it's either VISTA with hardly any hardware support and it's clunky or you gotta use a copy of Windows Server, so therefore our only option to compete with Mac pro is to build a windows server costing tons or run Vista and something like 2 . (and it'll make as much noise as a small Lear Jet unless you then spend tons more to quieten the bastard down)
otherwise, intel just introduced the Dual Socket Extreme which allows 2 quad core in a desktop with 'Skulltrail' - but the QX9775 XEON processors are like £887.38 GBP each!!! just for the fucking chips alone which must run on LGA-771 socket & Intel's 5000 chipset to support (same socket AND chipset as mac pro!) - then apparently you need a 1000-1600 watt PS too! - here's some USA prices also:
The Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX9775 is available now at an MSRP of $1,499 each. Estimated street pricing for the Intel Desktop Board D5400XS is $649. Each Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX9775 offers 12MB of L2 cache, a 1600 MHz system bus and four cores running at 3.2 GHz.
so basicaly you're looking at 1600 GBP for just 2 cpu's to try and build a competitor to a mac pro 8 core 3.2!!.. well an 8-core 2.8 is 1700 quid to buy off the peg - there's just NO competition. Mac pro's now are WAY cheaper than the same PC home build.
anyways, the only downside i can see in terms of future proofing is that sooner or later they'll get to 8 cores with unbuffered Dimms which is the only downside of 8 cores right now. But regardless of that still an 8 core mac pro'll do anything you want and for years to come. In fact you could never have to upgrade it unless there is some major shift in digital recording protocol, but let's face it, despite the fact you can buy pretty much any soundcard today and it'll do 14/192, still in 15 years most people still work at 44.1 16 bit... nothing's changed on that side for 15 years, simply the s/w has got clunkier and requires more power with more powerful plugins.
the only other downside i can think of for some users is the reliability of mac pro to sequence external midi gear... I need to check that out for recorded/noted bugs cos i do still own alot of outboard - the other issue is you need to buy a new audio i/o in most cases.
anyways, any comments Milan? you can still run Logic 5 on it by booting to XP, but Logic 8 is a huge jump in power, You'd love it I'm sure. - mebbe i'm talking rot, but i quite like the idea of getting into mac's on the same level as pc's under the hood... it's something us PC people have ignored for a while now.
whadya think?
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 14/16 06-Mar-08 @ 11:33 AM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
But have you checked where does apple gets its hardware parts from? Is their quality really that superior compared to a "normal" ASUS motherboard, or good Twinmos RAM ? I mean I can imagine that the parts used in Mac-s are just made in the same factory, with the same quality control, etc... just the labelling is different.
Of course, with a "brand" computer you still have the advantage of a hardware system that is meant to work well together (even more importantly: all those parts were verified together) but... aren't you about to change the processors with a dirty hack to make them run on a different clock speed? Not to mention if ppl will start to go for this "unofficial upgrade path" then how long will it be until Apple figures out what to change in the OS to make these machines unusable....
Dunno, obviously I am really biased when it comes to apple an their products,
not that I would be a real fan of Microsoft either, but... at least they didn't bought out Emagic and terminated the PC branch of their product line. 
Sure, if this is about getting cost efficient hardware, then it's a valid choice, but I frankly don't see how a home-hacked mac without warranty would be a better option than a proper home-made PC with quiet fans (or with even big heatsinks on low-power 4-core processors), etc...
If you really WANT logic then go for it, I'd do that myself if there wansn't any other multiplatform alternatives (at least for the stuff I do). But fortunately there is.
Of course, with a "brand" computer you still have the advantage of a hardware system that is meant to work well together (even more importantly: all those parts were verified together) but... aren't you about to change the processors with a dirty hack to make them run on a different clock speed? Not to mention if ppl will start to go for this "unofficial upgrade path" then how long will it be until Apple figures out what to change in the OS to make these machines unusable....
Dunno, obviously I am really biased when it comes to apple an their products,
not that I would be a real fan of Microsoft either, but... at least they didn't bought out Emagic and terminated the PC branch of their product line. Sure, if this is about getting cost efficient hardware, then it's a valid choice, but I frankly don't see how a home-hacked mac without warranty would be a better option than a proper home-made PC with quiet fans (or with even big heatsinks on low-power 4-core processors), etc...
If you really WANT logic then go for it, I'd do that myself if there wansn't any other multiplatform alternatives (at least for the stuff I do). But fortunately there is.
Message 15/16 06-Mar-08 @ 04:37 PM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
quote
Sure, if this is about getting cost efficient hardware, then it's a valid choice, but I frankly don't see how a home-hacked mac without warranty would be a better option than a proper home-made PC with quiet fans (or with even big heatsinks on low-power 4-core processors), etc...
Sure, if this is about getting cost efficient hardware, then it's a valid choice, but I frankly don't see how a home-hacked mac without warranty would be a better option than a proper home-made PC with quiet fans (or with even big heatsinks on low-power 4-core processors), etc...
well for one, a pc 8 core just cant be built to even come close in price to a mac 8 core
2. why should mac cripple socket 771's? - "they didnt" is the bottom line - i kinda guess this is like people saying "Well no you can't build an 8 core affordably, but if you get a quite affordable quad dell server you can bung in another cpu and get 8 for cheap"
something like that - I mean you dont have to tweak these things if you dont want to, but the point is, as a pc person I kind assumed mac's had to be binned once they got old, but it's not true and with these mac pro's it's even less true cos these are common or garden xeon chips of which there are tons out there, so anyways at least if you buy an older/lesser quad core, you at least have the option in a few years when it's out of warranty to rip it open and bung in 2 3.2ghz xeons for blistering power (mac still offer a single cpu/quad mac pro purchase option but I don't think they'll keep that for too long)
and you can boot windows so you can run anything on it - it's basicaly kinda like an intel server with an affordable board but it just doesnt have a BIOS that's all - It also runs almost near as dammit quiet (which also has to be factored into a PC build price and thats another 130-150 quid to get a PC 'as-quiet' with enuff power to run at least 4 FullyBuffered dimms, drives and cpu's)
I spose what I liked about PC's was the ability to nearly always extend their life by easy cheap upgrades to cpu and ram (or just change the board/cpu ram and get an instant upgrade - with Mac pro's we can do that at least.
also tbh I'd like to get more into Adobe After-fx and an 8core would certainly make rendering of short 'learning & tutorial' sessions lightning fast, and you'd most lilkely always get preview anyways with the ability to add so much ram (up to 32gb!) although the heat being dissipated with that much FB Dimms might obviate the requirement for central heating where you live, lol - but with say a realistic 8gb (1gb per core) you're laughing anyways at 60 quid for a 2gb stick!!!
it's alot of power man and quiet and it'll run all your OS's, you can boot Sonar in XP or Vista, or Logic 5 on XP even, or an older cubase version for PC etc.
native fx are now really encroaching on card systems like UAD or even PT TDM for power, and i mean seriously encroaching to the point with these mac pro's that I wouldnt like to have shares in Digidesign or UA now, native processing is getting just ludicrously powerful.
what I'm really interested to know is, can you add a quad core to an old mac pro twin cos that would be a phenomenal upgrade if you found a cheap s/h twin pro.. xeon chips are cheap.. i cant find a motherboard map for mac pro twin tho so far to see what it's got on the board
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!
Message 16/16 06-Mar-08 @ 06:57 PM Edit: 06-Mar-08 | 06:58 PM - RE: How did people do anything with mac OS9?
Jesus K... it'll take me a day to read this whole thread!
I know what you mean tho. i used Logic 8 on a friends Macbook Pro the other day and rather liked it. The thing is, i've done so little music in the last two years that i cant really justify spending a cent on gear. And for what little i did, Logic 5 did me fine... anyway, i should also post a loop or two. and read the rest of this thread sometimes
I know what you mean tho. i used Logic 8 on a friends Macbook Pro the other day and rather liked it. The thing is, i've done so little music in the last two years that i cant really justify spending a cent on gear. And for what little i did, Logic 5 did me fine... anyway, i should also post a loop or two. and read the rest of this thread sometimes
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