Sometime, probably mid-November of this year, I'm going to buy all new gear. I'm looking at the Mac Pro (quad core probably) with 4GB RAM, 3 hard drives (software, samples, recording), Logic Pro, Kontakt, and the M-Audio Project Mix I/O. I'm largely behind on computer technology (I bought my last PC over 3 years ago, and my last Mac was a 6100/60...yeah). Anyway, I have a few questions to ensure I make wise choices. 1) Hard drive space preinstalled from Apple seems to run similar prices if I buy smaller drives or if I buy one large drive. Is it worth the performance gain to have 3 smaller drives and having less room to grow, vs. having a large drive with more room to grow later? Is it better to get 250GB for os/apps, 250GB for samples, 250GB for recording vs. 500GB for os/apps/samples and 250 for recording? 2) I notice all the talk about the upcoming Mac OS. What have people's experiences been with Logic Pro running on the bleeding edge versions of Mac OS? Would I be safe trying to buy the machine with the old OS? Do the people in the Apple store know anything other than iPods (that's all I've bought so far from the Apple store)? 3) Price-wise, the 8-core is going to be a tough sell to my wife. Does anyone have opinions on the benefits of the 8-core for someone using Logic Pro to record folk or pop/rock music? I'd like to dabble down the road with some the crazy massive sample libraries like the EWQL Symphonic Orchestra as well. 4) I'd always been using a regular home stereo with halfway decent home theater type "reference monitor" speakers. I'm planning on getting regular monitors you'd find in a home recording setup. I'm going to be recording mostly folk and basic pop/rock type things, maybe tickering with orchestral type stuff down the road. Room wise, I'd probably be on the small end. My gut instinct has me looking between the lines of the M-Audio Studiophile BX5a or Mackie HR824. What price range should I be looking at for monitors? 5) I'm hoping to get a Furman-type "power thing" to protect this stuff and a few other pieces of gear. I see power conditioners, voltage regulators, and even a Furman UPS. How much better are these compared to a traditional APC computer UPS? Any comments on anything would be greatly appreciated. I'm excited to be returning to Logic and Mac after a long break! Hopefully I can be an asset to this community someday. :) -Ken "Hat" Crouch

1: I would buy a larger 500-750 A/V Drive so you have room to grow. I don't think performance is gonna be that much of an issue for you. Get more RAM. 2: It's simply a matter of making sure that the 3rd party VIs/Apps/ Plugs and Hardware are compatible with whatever OS you have. Logic should be cool of course. 3: Don't know but my guess would be that it's smokin'. Again...check that the new MacIntels run all your plugs and apps. Oh..and buy your wife some flowers... 4: We are in a golden age for gear including speakers so it really is down to taste. Pick a price that suits you. Go to a store with some reference CDs and see which ones you like. Try them at different levels..you'll mostly be playing them at low volumes. I would spent some time and energy on your room...maybe some baffles/corner traps and try and get some distance between your speakers and the wall if at all possible. Buy decent stands and put a small concrete slab and some solid rubber mats about 12-25mm thick under the speakers to assist in isolation/de-coupling. 5: Don't know. 6: Good luck and welcome back! Cheers Clive Young

"logicalmeltedbutter" <logicalmeltedbutter-reg@...> wrote: > 1) Hard drive space preinstalled from Apple seems to run similar > prices if I buy smaller drives or if I buy one large drive. Is it > worth the performance gain to have 3 smaller drives and having less > room to grow, vs. having a large drive with more room to grow later? > Is it better to get 250GB for os/apps, 250GB for samples, 250GB for > recording vs. 500GB for os/apps/samples and 250 for recording? Personally, I wouldn't buy the hard drives from Apple - they are just too expensive, as is buying extra RAM. The price difference between a Mac Pro with a 250 GB or 500 GB Drive is greater than the street price for a second 500 GB HD. I wouldn't put in anything less than 500 GB right now - that seems to be the best price in terms of cost per Gigabyte at the moment. > 2) I notice all the talk about the upcoming Mac OS. What have people's > experiences been with Logic Pro running on the bleeding edge versions > of Mac OS? Would I be safe trying to buy the machine with the old OS? I use OSX 10.4.9 on both of my Macs - a G5 2 x 2.5 and a Mac Book Pro Core Duo 2.0. Both run very well, and while there have been some issues with some Audio Units failing Validation due to an improved AU Validation test in 10.4.9, the developers of the AUs are in the process of dealing with that. If you are just returning to logic, that may not be relevant to you anyway. With regard to Leopard, it looks like it will be some months before it is released, so if you are looking to get your Mac now, Tiger it will be. > 3) Price-wise, the 8-core is going to be a tough sell to my wife. Does > anyone have opinions on the benefits of the 8-core for someone using > Logic Pro to record folk or pop/rock music? I'd like to dabble down > the road with some the crazy massive sample libraries like the EWQL > Symphonic Orchestra as well. The price difference between a quad core and 8 core is quite large - and bear in mind that there aren't many (any?) DAWs fully supporting all 8 cores at present - this presumably will change with time. Honestly, a quad core 2.66 is going to give you very considerable CPU power. Sample Libraries make more of a demand on RAM and HD space than on CPU power, at present the big restriction to using a lot of sample instruments is the amount of RAM any single application can adress in Tiger - this is supposed to change with leopard... > > 4) I'd always been using a regular home stereo with halfway decent > home theater type "reference monitor" speakers. I'm planning on > getting regular monitors you'd find in a home recording setup. I'm > going to be recording mostly folk and basic pop/rock type things, > maybe tickering with orchestral type stuff down the road. Room wise, > I'd probably be on the small end. My gut instinct has me looking > between the lines of the M-Audio Studiophile BX5a or Mackie HR824. > What price range should I be looking at for monitors? I would suggest that you add the Yamaha HS 80M to that list - they are amongst the best value at the moment IMO. One thing you should definitely try to arrange is to listen to the speakers in your studio before buying them. They very often sound quite different than in the store HTH, kind regards Mark Cahill

Hi Ken, On May 28, 2007, at 12:21 AM, logicalmeltedbutter wrote: > 1) Hard drive space preinstalled from Apple seems to run similar > prices if I buy smaller drives or if I buy one large drive. Is it > worth the performance gain to have 3 smaller drives and having less > room to grow, vs. having a large drive with more room to grow later? > Is it better to get 250GB for os/apps, 250GB for samples, 250GB for > recording vs. 500GB for os/apps/samples and 250 for recording? You must have an extra drive for recording (large or small depending on the size of your projects), also if you're going to use a lot of sample based instruments in your songs I guess you'd rather put your libraries on a separate drive as well, if you plan to work with live audio rather than sampled stuff this is not as important. > > 2) I notice all the talk about the upcoming Mac OS. What have people's > experiences been with Logic Pro running on the bleeding edge versions > of Mac OS? Would I be safe trying to buy the machine with the old OS? > Do the people in the Apple store know anything other than iPods > (that's all I've bought so far from the Apple store)? No point in buying older machines IMO, also don't count on sales people too much as you can always ask here a day or 2 before actually buying your rig and get advises from great guys working with Logic day after day. 10.4.9 works fine here. > > 3) Price-wise, the 8-core is going to be a tough sell to my wife. Does > anyone have opinions on the benefits of the 8-core for someone using > Logic Pro to record folk or pop/rock music? I'd like to dabble down > the road with some the crazy massive sample libraries like the EWQL > Symphonic Orchestra as well. Hmmmmm... Mac Pro quad gives you a whole lot of power now, but who knows what sample libraries or plugs or whatsoever will be released in a year or two and how much computer resources those will require... I've been really satisfied with my Dual G4 4 years ago when I bought it, and now (though my average track/plug count remains the same) I bring it to its knees way more often than I'd like... Go for an 8-core machine if you know for sure you won't be able to buy a new one in 3 or 4 years, otherwise go for quad. > > 4) I'd always been using a regular home stereo with halfway decent > home theater type "reference monitor" speakers. I'm planning on > getting regular monitors you'd find in a home recording setup. I'm > going to be recording mostly folk and basic pop/rock type things, > maybe tickering with orchestral type stuff down the road. Room wise, > I'd probably be on the small end. My gut instinct has me looking > between the lines of the M-Audio Studiophile BX5a or Mackie HR824. > What price range should I be looking at for monitors? Nobody will give you the right answer as this is way too subjective... I'd stay away from anything M-Audio for quality reasons (just MHO). Mackies (though a bit hyped for a pro range) are not too bad for my taste, in fact I was able to get some decent mixes with it when working at someone else's studio. Best, Andy

> "logicalmeltedbutter" <logicalmeltedbutter-reg@...> wrote: > >> 1) Hard drive space preinstalled from Apple seems to run similar >> prices if I buy smaller drives or if I buy one large drive. Is it >> worth the performance gain to have 3 smaller drives and having less >> room to grow, vs. having a large drive with more room to grow later? >> Is it better to get 250GB for os/apps, 250GB for samples, 250GB for >> recording vs. 500GB for os/apps/samples and 250 for recording? > > > Personally, I wouldn't buy the hard drives from Apple - they are > just too expensive, as is buying extra RAM. The price difference > between a Mac Pro with > a 250 GB or 500 GB Drive is greater than the street price for a > second 500 GB HD. I wouldn't put in anything less than 500 GB right > now - that seems to be the best price in terms of cost per Gigabyte > at the moment. Pertaining to Hard Drives, I have had several sales people steer me away from any drive that achieves it's capacity by using multiple platters. (i.e. I understand most 500 gig drives are actually 2 250 gig platters in one box.) The problem seems to be that the data is spread across two platters rather than filling one then the other, which is great from a performance point of view because you have two heads reading the data and not traveling as far, but you also have twice the chance of the drive failing and with the data spread across multiple platters, one bad head will cause you to lose an entire file, and recovering the data is much more difficult... or so I'm told. That being said, a bank of several 250 gig drives may be best or keep one 250 gig drive as your "working" drive and use 2 other 500 GB or larger drives as storage and back-up drives. Thoughts? Stuart Holmes Holmestudio Music Poway, CA

On May 28, 2007, at 8:12 AM, Stuart Holmes wrote: > > Pertaining to Hard Drives, I have had several sales people steer me > away from any drive that achieves it's capacity by using multiple > platters. (i.e. I understand most 500 gig drives are actually 2 250 > gig platters in one box.) The problem seems to be that the data is > spread across two platters rather than filling one then the other, > which is great from a performance point of view because you have two > heads reading the data and not traveling as far, but you also have > twice the chance of the drive failing and with the data spread across > multiple platters, one bad head will cause you to lose an entire > file, and recovering the data is much more difficult... or so I'm > told. That being said, a bank of several 250 gig drives may be best > or keep one 250 gig drive as your "working" drive and use 2 other 500 > GB or larger drives as storage and back-up drives. Thoughts? I would not make drive choices based on the probability of failure. Rather, assume that *all* drives will fail and have a complete and automatic (or at least one-button) backup strategy in place from the start. Do *not* cheap out in this area. Then choose drives based on your needs. If you are going to end up mixing a lot of tracks, you may want to consider a very fast (and thus smaller) drive such as the WD Raptor, which tops out at 150GB, as even with a "lowly" 2.66 quad core the biggest performance bottleneck by far will be the disk drives' seek and rotational latencies. I'm in the process of equipping my MacPro with dual 74GB Raptors (it'll be interesting to see if it's faster as RAID 0 or JBOD) plus 500GB of external backup drives (removable trays so I can rotate off- site backup.) Finished projects will migrate off of the Raptors and onto archival media (or the acres of space on the back of the 250GB system drive.) 500GB drives are down to $125 a crack now, which is utterly insane for someone old enough to remember when a gigabyte filled a room <cough>. --Dave

On 5/28/07 12:21 AM, "logicalmeltedbutter" <logicalmeltedbutter-reg@rthr.net> wrote: > 2) I notice all the talk about the upcoming Mac OS. What have people's > experiences been with Logic Pro running on the bleeding edge versions > of Mac OS? Would I be safe trying to buy the machine with the old OS? > Do the people in the Apple store know anything other than iPods > (that's all I've bought so far from the Apple store)? > > 3) Price-wise, the 8-core is going to be a tough sell to my wife. Does > anyone have opinions on the benefits of the 8-core for someone using > Logic Pro to record folk or pop/rock music? I'd like to dabble down > the road with some the crazy massive sample libraries like the EWQL > Symphonic Orchestra as well. I don¹t think you can buy a new Mac with an old OS ­ nor would you want to. The most recent version seems to be working fine for most folks, unless they have a specific piece of 3rd party software that is not compatible. This shouldn¹t apply to you. Also ­ sounds like the 8-core is WAY more than you need for recording folk or pop/rock music. Audio doesn¹t take a huge amount of processing power, compared to what is available these days. Unless you are doing really big mega-folk bands and using tons and tons of effects.... ;) Maybe the massive sample libraries might be a problem down the road, but I really think you would be more than happy with the power of the quad. Blair -- blairfisher@shaw.ca

On May 28, 2007, at 3:21 AM, logicalmeltedbutter wrote: > Sometime, probably mid-November of this year, I'm going to buy all new > gear. I'm looking at the Mac Pro (quad core probably) with 4GB RAM, 3 > hard drives (software, samples, recording), Logic Pro, Kontakt, and > the M-Audio Project Mix I/O. I'm largely behind on computer technology > (I bought my last PC over 3 years ago, and my last Mac was a > 6100/60...yeah). Anyway, I have a few questions to ensure I make wise > choices. If you're thinking of doing this mid-November you might want to wait a bit to really start thinking about what to get. Leopard is due out, there may also by then be significant changes to the landscape of some other software/hardware by then... this industry moves fast... > > 1) Hard drive space preinstalled from Apple seems to run similar > prices if I buy smaller drives or if I buy one large drive. Is it > worth the performance gain to have 3 smaller drives and having less > room to grow, vs. having a large drive with more room to grow later? > Is it better to get 250GB for os/apps, 250GB for samples, 250GB for > recording vs. 500GB for os/apps/samples and 250 for recording? I think this depends on the nature of your recording... > > 2) I notice all the talk about the upcoming Mac OS. What have people's > experiences been with Logic Pro running on the bleeding edge versions > of Mac OS? Would I be safe trying to buy the machine with the old OS? > Do the people in the Apple store know anything other than iPods > (that's all I've bought so far from the Apple store)? Apple and Apple Developers *overall* have a pretty good track record when it comes to responding to new versions of the OS with application and driver updates. There are a few glaring exceptions... > > 3) Price-wise, the 8-core is going to be a tough sell to my wife. Does > anyone have opinions on the benefits of the 8-core for someone using > Logic Pro to record folk or pop/rock music? I'd like to dabble down > the road with some the crazy massive sample libraries like the EWQL > Symphonic Orchestra as well. More computer processing will get you more. Wives never understand this. If you want to dabble in those massive sound libraries you are going to want plenty of hard drive space and RAM... but more processing is always great... > > 4) I'd always been using a regular home stereo with halfway decent > home theater type "reference monitor" speakers. I'm planning on > getting regular monitors you'd find in a home recording setup. I'm > going to be recording mostly folk and basic pop/rock type things, > maybe tickering with orchestral type stuff down the road. Room wise, > I'd probably be on the small end. My gut instinct has me looking > between the lines of the M-Audio Studiophile BX5a or Mackie HR824. > What price range should I be looking at for monitors? > Your monitors are pretty important. Do you know anyone doing similar recording to you that uses monitors you are comfortable listening to? I wouldn't pick monitors on price alone, and certainly not on gut instinct- my gut is pretty large lately, I might end up with monitors that are too big for my studio ; ) > 5) I'm hoping to get a Furman-type "power thing" to protect this stuff > and a few other pieces of gear. I see power conditioners, voltage > regulators, and even a Furman UPS. How much better are these compared > to a traditional APC computer UPS? Furman makes good stuff. I use some APC and Tripplite Surges. I hear SurgeX is the best, but mostly I hear that from SurgeX... > > Any comments on anything would be greatly appreciated. I'm excited to > be returning to Logic and Mac after a long break! Hopefully I can be > an asset to this community someday. :) > > -Ken "Hat" Crouch Eddie IMS ProA/V