macs

[Lunkhead]

As cool as the black looks, the reality is you'll pay $150 extra -just- for that, at least on the Apple store. (Pick the white one and bump the hard drive up to match to see what I mean.) Is that really worth it? For me it isn't.

[jb]

I'm thinking something along the lines of this guy, and I'd appreciate opinions from folks who already have something similar.

I have the 17" PowerBook G4, and it handles everything I need. I have had 20 audio tracks plus soft synths, etc. and have had no problems. I use Logic Pro 7. On my old 15" (real old) I used to use the "freeze" feature in Logic to reduce CPU usage on tracks that had lots of processing, etc. when it got overloaded. Haven't needed to since then. I love being portable since I travel so much these days. And a couple years ago I mixed a SF entry sitting in Central Park, which felt pretty cool. There are times when I wish I had a huge screen but other than that I'm more than happy.

I would certainly go for the Intel Mac now a days. And I've been playing with Garageband and am really impressed. It's really convenient for capturing quick ideas, but I developed a new song on it last weekend and it's amazing for free software.

Man, I had like 8 tracks going on my "Welcome To" in garageband, on a 1.8 ghz G4 iBook (rock-bottom standard $999 12") and it SUUUUUUUUCKED. Talk about fucking TORTURE mixing a song. Ugh. These days I've sworn to only use the iBook for recording GnG demos, maybe with a bass track. But no big productions until I get my PC back up and running.

The MacBook Pros are rumored to be getting a huge power boost in August. Until then, yeah, just get a Macbook. One of the little-mentioned perks of the standard Macbook is the power supply. The Pro has a large PC-style monster, but the Macbook has one of the sweet little squares that just rock my socks off, power supply-wise. Best. Power supply. Ever.

[Dan-O from Five-O]

One of the little-mentioned perks of the standard Macbook is the power supply. The Pro has a large PC-style monster, but the Macbook has one of the sweet little squares that just rock my socks off, power supply-wise. Best. Power supply. Ever.

What is the world coming to?

JB getting his socks rocked off by wall wart power supplies that's what.

[Lunkhead]

Keep in mind, though, that the big tradeoff with the non-Pro MacBooks is the video "card", which is vastly worse than the one in the Pros. Basically you can forget about playing what few Mac games there are on your non-Pro, and more importantly it will eat into your main memory (since it doesn't have its own) which means you'll want to have even more memory than you'd normally want, driving up the costs of the system.

[Brick Pig]

Man, I had like 8 tracks going on my "Welcome To" in garageband, on a 1.8 ghz G4 iBook (rock-bottom standard $999 12") and it SUUUUUUUUCKED. Talk about fucking TORTURE mixing a song. Ugh...

Really!?
Interesting.
I'm currently running exactly the same setup, and I've had no trouble at all so far.* The most I've had going on at any one time is six tracks, but it's been smooth as glass for me.

*FWIW - I did change all my "Energy Saver" settings so that I'm sucking up as much power as possible, as suggested in "The Missing Manual" book.

[jb]

Yeah it was like four vocal tracks with fx, one drum track using a softsynth, two softsynth backing tracks, and an acoustic guitar track with fx. then I tried playing a bass track using a softsynth and the "use your keyboard as a keyboard" feature, which I thought was pretty easy to play on-- except for the fact that each not i played was a half second behind the track. UGH. It was just swamped with processing, even with everything locked. I dunno. Maybe the keyboard thing is just buggy and doesn't respond correctly. I haven't tried it with a real midi controller.

[Brick Pig]

The effects are probably where our experiences differ. I don't use much in the way of effects.

[j$]

Talking of Macs, i came across this bit of arty music making software for OSx today http://www.thewire.co.uk/web/leafcutter.html

I have no idea if it's any good, or fun, or not, given that I wouldn't touch a mac with a barge-pole, but I thought I'd post the link and maybe some of you pretty boys & girls might enjoy it.

j$

[roymond]

The effects are probably where our experiences differ. I don't use much in the way of effects.

I record all my tracks clean, and use the guitar effects, etc. in Logic. I also use tons of effects on lots of things. But then I freeze tracks and it writes out WAVs that it plays instead, saving all processing needs for only those tracks you're working on. It's so seemless it's insane.

JB - I didn't know Garageband had the freeze option. I don't think locking a track saves any processing effort, just keeps you from touching it.

As for why have a laptop? For this week's It's Just Not Right, I recorded guitar tracks last Thursday with rough drum loops and vocals, but couldn't do anything until I was in Mexico, mixing and arranging in my hotel, on the plane back on Thursday, and even in the limo ride back to my home. Then I recorded the vocals Friday morning and sent it in at the last minute. I love portables!!!!

[Caravan Ray]

Yeah it was like four vocal tracks with fx, one drum track using a softsynth, two softsynth backing tracks, and an acoustic guitar track with fx. then I tried playing a bass track using a softsynth and the "use your keyboard as a keyboard" feature, which I thought was pretty easy to play on-- except for the fact that each not i played was a half second behind the track. UGH. It was just swamped with processing, even with everything locked. I dunno. Maybe the keyboard thing is just buggy and doesn't respond correctly. I haven't tried it with a real midi controller.

Just on the Garageband freezing issue.

Just about everything I do (I have an iMac) - when opening a saved file, GB freezes the first, and maybe the second time I try to re-play it - and tells me there's too much stuff going on. If I ignore it, and just keep trying - by the 3rd or 4th attempt - the Mac gives in, forgets all about it and does what I want - then everything goes smoothly.

I don't know why this happens - but I like to think it is a case of superior human will-power crushing a rebellious machine

[Dan-O from Five-O]

Admit it Ray; you're just a rapist at heart aren't you?

[fluffy]

If you're having problems with lots of audio tracks at the same time it's probably because of your slow-ass hard drive. iBook and MacBook only have a 4200RPM drive which isn't quite enough to stream lots of audio tracks at once. (Powerbook and MacBook Pro come with 5400RPM standard which is just enough faster to make it workable, though you're still better off with a 7200RPM drive in an external enclosure.)

Softsynths will also have a bit of trouble when they're first loaded but as the samples get loaded into cache they'll work better.

Also I HIGHLY recommend the Jam Packs. They're phenomenal. In particular, Rhythm Section has some great drum kits and loops, Symphony Orchestra has a really good Steinway piano patch (it's what I used in my 120MPH remake).

Also, I use Logic Pro now (since last October), and before that I did a few things with a *ahem* trial copy of Logic Express. If I had a choice between Logic Express and GarageBand I'd actually choose GarageBand; it's not as powerful in the export and effect automation areas, but Logic Express has some silly limitations on it (like only 8 audio tracks) which I found to be really hard to work with. Also Logic Express's UI is pretty hard to get to grips with, and I don't think it's worth the tradeoff from GB (but Logic Pro is totally worth it, though of course it's pricey).

[fluffy]

JB - I didn't know Garageband had the freeze option. I don't think locking a track saves any processing effort, just keeps you from touching it.

GB's lock tracks are freeze tracks. They changed the terminology to make it easier to understand. However you have to be wary about freeze tracks since they basically offload CPU onto hard disk, so if you have a slow drive you'll still have problems.

[roymond]

JB - I didn't know Garageband had the freeze option. I don't think locking a track saves any processing effort, just keeps you from touching it.

GB's lock tracks are freeze tracks. They changed the terminology to make it easier to understand. However you have to be wary about freeze tracks since they basically offload CPU onto hard disk, so if you have a slow drive you'll still have problems.

Thanks! Awesome that GB is freezing those tracks.

But un-freezed tracks are BOTH hard disk and CPU, no? It's not really offloading to disk, it's eliminating the CPU overhead.

[edit]I get it...this is true for audio tracks, but frozen midi tracks will create an audio track and introduce a hard disk task. ... right?

[fluffy]

Right, that's what I meant, that frozen softsynth tracks will take disk overhead which wasn't there before.

[Lunkhead]

Damn! Those new Mac Pros look awesome. Drool. QUAD XEON!! I'm so buying one in a couple years. Hopefully by then there will be an Intel native version of Cubase...

[fluffy]

I'm sure there will be, seeing as how there's already a Windows version. And if not there's always Parallels, though I'd have doubts about how the ASIO latency will be running under a VM like that.