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my mac pro odyssey (or..."i believe in harvey dent")

#64
well, i've gone and done it :D.

i already had one of these :

WD5000AAKS western digital 500 gb 7200 drives. ordered a 2nd to pair em up.

ordered an airport extreme base station and an airport extreme card for inside (should have gotten the upgrade when i bought the comp, but i didn't see it, and the mac-droid at the apple store didn't mention it. guess i came across as knowing more than i did heh).

casing out memory - apparently adata makes some apple-approved memory, newegg is selling mac pro-approved 2x2 gig sets for 86 bucks. so i'll get two of those sets, if i can find some verification that that memory is reliable and right with the world. 10 gig ram here i come :D :hyper:
 
#74
I don't know about mac Pro's but I put Kingston PC-5300 SO-DIMM's from the shop around the corner in my Intel 24" imac without a hitch.
I have Logic Express, but haven't played around with it enough to give any decent advice other than that's it's a pretty advanced piece of kit and some of the plugins sound amazing (PlatinumVerb for instance).

Cheers Rody

ps welcome to the dark side!
 
#75
john turner said:
ok.

so if any of you guys have followed my past musings on all things computing you probably have a decent grasp on what i think about apple, at least since the Second Coming of Jesus Jobs.

still, the reality of my recent situation dictated the need for me to consider getting a macintosh (or more precisely, since i'm broke, my drummer, who i would then repay). we decided it was time to retire the adatxt20s we've been using in favor of some good hard disk recording, and part of this decision necessitated a serious look at an apple cpu as the core of our system.

MOTU has a pretty awesome unit available (the 24i/o) that has 24 inputs, 24 outputs, and 24 bit/96khz converters, to be used in conjunction with a pci card to do hard disk recording. considering we use quite a few mics to mic the drummer jim's kit, we needed something on this scale to get the job done. as with all mark of the unicorn products, this thing was developed originally to be used in conjunction with macs, although it works on any computer.

i had also, this past summer, purchased the producer's toolkit for my pre-existing protools le/digi002 system, only to discover that protools 7.4 doesn't like my pc's, and my current mac (g4 mdd) is not powerful enough to handle the OS upgrade required for this level of protools.

we decided it would be in our best interest to buy a new mac, so we got a mac pro 2x2.8 gHz quad core. yeesh mac prices are ridiculous. still, i'm excited that we're going to be able to start getting the ball rolling.

except....macs don't have pci slots anymore.

yep, you read that right - they only have pci-e slots. so basically hardware designed originally for use in a macintosh does not work in a current macintosh. delightful.

a careful perusal of the MOTU site, however, showed the option to buy a replacement pci-e card for the pci card. yay. we can spend more money to get our gear compatible with what it is advertised to be compatible with. it's like buying 10c lemonade and then finding out that doesn't include the glass. -rolleyes-.

still, i set myself down to the :hmm: task of getting the mac set up, and i have to say, my :hmm: quickly turns to :) . a guarded :) and certainly not the :hyper: that i get with screaming pc's, but still a :) all the same. the mac is fairly easy to set up. its fast, its solid, quiet and clean inside. a little tough to get at the innards to see what's going on with em, and it's very unfriendly to the modders (like me) at least that i can determine at this early stage of the game (only got it a week and a half ago) but still, it's pretty cool.

and then i discover boot camp. i install vista on it, and by golly if it doesn't install easier, and run smoother, than any of the other 5 or 6 vista installs i've had the distinct misfortune of having to perform. the whole process went fast, apple's os10.5 disk had all the drivers i needed to get it up and running, and now it's going smooth.


so yeah. i now have a mac, and i'm actually -not- dreading using it in the studio. that's about as glowing an endorsement as i can muster.

so i guess i believe in harvey dent (steve jobs). heh.


p.s. using a mac running vista is sorta creepy though. sorta like dating a tranny. i feel like hugh grant. -shiver-.
Click to expand...


welcome to the world of mac......you are now part of a very elite and special group of people who are better than everyone else...

yeah the upgraded models can get expensive....i always buy the lowest spec and upgrade myself....
 
#76
Rody said:
I don't know about mac Pro's but I put Kingston PC-5300 SO-DIMM's from the shop around the corner in my Intel 24" imac without a hitch.
I have Logic Express, but haven't played around with it enough to give any decent advice other than that's it's a pretty advanced piece of kit and some of the plugins sound amazing (PlatinumVerb for instance).

Cheers Rody

ps welcome to the dark side!
Click to expand...

from what i understand the mac pro ram runs super hot, and needs the oversized heatsinks. they are ecc fbdimms too, so not exactly like what you find for normal intel based machines.
 
#79
I've got a Dual 3.0Ghz MacPro on order with the Nvidia 8800GT card for my new work computer (video production). I ordered the RAM and extra harddrives from MacMall.com, and saved over $1k from what Apple wanted...

My band recorded our album with Digital Performer on an older PowerMac G5, and we had songs with 50 to 60 tracks, if I recall correctly (some samples at the myspace linked below). I don't know that DP has a track limit... I bet it's all based on what your computer and harddrives can handle.

My main personal/freelance computer is a year and a half old MacBook Pro, which has been great (if a little warm in my lap...).

I also have an old MDD G4 that I'm going to get an airport card for one of these days so it can be my home media server.

Welcome to the Mac Family!
 

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