Tweak's Mac Pro is Up! Upgrade Notes

[Tweak]

You know nanashiwanderer told me the Mac pro was overkill for audio/midi but I could not believe him. I had suffered years with g5 issues whenever my songs got big, which is all the time. I now have the beast hooked up and am back to working on the last song i was working on the G5. What a difference! Where I was maxing out the CPU and freezing tracks, I now am barely scratching 15% cpu usage. Logic is firing into all 8 cores, and i am able to use the 128 buffer, unthinkable on the g5 except for the 1st two tracks or so. I can now stack things in Kore 2 and actually use the sound in a track. I can use the giant piano samples without a blink.

I had no copy protection issues with any Pro Apple software suites--Logic 8, Final Cut Pro 4, and none also with Live, Reason, Adobe, older Macromedia and Microsoft Office. All just required a fresh install and re-registration. There were only a few causalties in the move. Trilogy and Atmosphere won't go, but I knew that would happen. Omniphere and Stylus RMX were easy transfers with the Spectrasonics challenge/response scheme. The first version of the Korg Legacy did not make except as standalones. There are protection issues with East west kompakt and intakt libraries. Major bummer! I think they want you to ante up a hundred bucks for a license for each for that new so-called "Play"interface. I am still trying to get the Symphonic choirs and RA in Kontakt 3, wheich was fine on the G5 but not the Mac Pro. Komplete 5 and Kore2 were easy, thanks to that NI service center, which was flawless. Albino, Arturia Moog V were easy. The UAD-1 to UAD2 process was confusing. Not as easy as it sounds. Fortunately UAD support fixed the issue of porting licenses on their end. iLok and other dongle stuff worked OK.

I'll say one thing, dealing with all the copy protection issues made the whole process go on for days. This is not a weekend job if you have a lot of stuff like I do. But now its done! The Mac is running 4 monitors, 16 gb, 3 TB and Windows Vista SP1 inside Parallels Desktop.

[Swami Digital]

Wow, very cool! I ended up postponing my purchase again, because I am buying a continuum. I wonder what it will be like to go from first generation Intel macbook pro to the new mac pro, and if it will feel as dramatic. That is quite an impressive machine!

-D

[Nanashiwanderer]

You know nanashiwanderer told me the Mac pro was overkill for audio/midi but I could not believe him. I had suffered years with g5 issues whenever my songs got big, which is all the time.

Whats even scarier is none of the software tweaks using really is using that Core i7 CPU to its full potential.

[gregwar]

Cool, good to know. Thanks tweak

[aww-de-oh]

Glad to hear you're up and running on your new system! Bummer about some of the license transfers. The hardest part of a complete system upgrade is all the transfers of programs and their respective license schemes... you can blame the pirates for that one.

[Swami Digital]

Any compatibility problems with the software so far? Or is everything running smoothly?

-D

[Tweak]

I've already mentioned that the East west Kompakt.Intakt-Kontakt libraries no longer work. These were hugely expensive libraries--symphonic Choirs, East West RA, Stormdrum. At first appears to be an intel mac compatibility issue but I really believe its a license issue. The ZeroG and Best product libraries I have work fine in Kontakt 3on the mac pro.

East West "Play" v 1.2 is causing a problem. That is a mac pro issue.

And the East west storm drum 2 had installer issues related to OSX 10.5. There are workarounds for these problems.

Waves requires that I join the WUP and I simply refuse to do that. That is an OSX 10.5 issue though, not a Mac pro

With logic 8 i could not be more pleased. My aging Motu 828mk2 is working flawlessly, and thanks to Logic 8.2's new low latency mode, latency must be near zero. Soft synths are surprisingly responsive--as good if not better than hardware synths.

Some native instruments stuff is incompatible with intel Macs

FM7, Vokator, Intakt, Early versions of some other plugins. Kore 1 is not compatible.

Kore 2 is great on the Mac pro. I finally get to use it fully and its a treat.

[Nanashiwanderer]

So overall was the purchase worth it? I know it was a huge investment. You really haven't said it explicitly. Or do you actually think it may indeed be overkill?

[JDR]

What was the pricetag on this build?

[Swami Digital]

The east west libraries are troubling to me too, though I only use RA. They are all quite expensive, and they seem to force you to migrate to Play, which is a new software and has issues.

-D

[Blueraven]

Althg I started with Macs in the early 90's, I'm gonna stick with the Windows format and hold of on the vista upgrade as along as I can.

Tweak your sure an innovator and hard charger and a glutton for punishment. Better you then me...Ha!.

Regards.

[Tweak]

Play 1.23 came out today and it is working pretty well.

What was the pricetag on this build?

Too much!

[aww-de-oh]

What was the pricetag on this build?

Too much!

Hehe, it usually is!
When all is said and done.. are you glad you upgraded? Was the hassle worth the extra performance?

[Blueraven]

Sos Tweak, gonna give me a deal I can't refuse on your older system? Ha!

[Tweak]

>When all is said and done.. are you glad you upgraded? Was the hassle worth the extra performance?

Yeah, I would do it again. To me the extra performance is worth it. The G5 was actually impeding my development and TweakHeadz Lab's development by stopping me from trying new software and building high octane sounds.

> deal I can't refuse on your older system?

Surprisingly people are asking about it. I am going to keep it.

[Tweak]

I have to add Absynth 4 to devices not working properly on my new Mac Pro. Its acting memory starved, brings up the spinning wheel of death just trying to scroll down the patch list. This worked great on my G5. Both were running Leopard, so this points to a Mac pro cpu issue.

[Nanashiwanderer]

what amazes me isn't absynth cross platform?

[Swami Digital]

I have to add Absynth 4 to devices not working properly on my new Mac Pro. Its acting memory starved, brings up the spinning wheel of death just trying to scroll down the patch list. This worked great on my G5. Both were running Leopard, so this points to a Mac pro cpu issue.

Ouch. I really like Absynth. Hopefully NI will have a patch coming for it soon!

-D

[Tweak]

what amazes me isn't absynth cross platform?

Yes, its is cross platform, like all the Komplete instruments. I did update the Novation automap server right before i noticed this issue. Maybe that did it.

[brandonsmith]

So your system spec is almost exactly the same as the one I'm planning on getting (am going to start with 8 gb ram, and will go the 24 inch display route without the video card upgrades), and I have a question : how is fan noise on that bad boy? I'm going to be moving from an iMac which is pretty much silent to this, and am hoping I won't have to isolate it.

[gregwar]

since you mentioned native instruments and logic did you deauthorize them from your old machine? if not does anyone know how to do this? i've been searching today but can't seem to come up with anything solid. any advice would be appreciated, thanks

[Tweak]

So your system spec is almost exactly the same as the one I'm planning on getting (am going to start with 8 gb ram, and will go the 24 inch display route without the video card upgrades), and I have a question : how is fan noise on that bad boy? I'm going to be moving from an iMac which is pretty much silent to this, and am hoping I won't have to isolate it.

The fan noise is not bad, much better than the G5. The hard drives make a kind of gurgling noise, like a coffee pot. Strange. I keep mine outside the studio door, though mainly because i'd already routed the cables for the G5.

[Tweak]

since you mentioned native instruments and logic did you deauthorize them from your old machine? if not does anyone know how to do this? i've been searching today but can't seem to come up with anything solid. any advice would be appreciated, thanks

I did not de-authorize anything. I did not need to. Logic did not pose a problem for a second install. Neither did NI and i have all of Komplete 5. I did have an issue with Peak Pro 4. I had to upgrade to Peak pro 6.

[Tweak]

I have to add Absynth 4 to devices not working properly on my new Mac Pro. Its acting memory starved, brings up the spinning wheel of death just trying to scroll down the patch list. This worked great on my G5. Both were running Leopard, so this points to a Mac pro cpu issue.

Ouch. I really like Absynth. Hopefully NI will have a patch coming for it soon!

-D

Just to update, the last NI update fixed the problem. Absynth gets a clean bill of health from me.

[a.w.mclain]

Congrats! I've been plotting and scheming towards picking up a Pro myself. I was going to settle for a 24" iMac, but if I can delay the instant gratification just a bit, i can get the 4 core Pro... I dunno if I can resist long enough to wait for an 8!