Help me plan my Powerbook setup...

tjwett · Post by **tjwett** » Thu Apr 04, 2002 2:18 pm

Right now I'm using a Powerbook G4 550 w/384mb RAM running Reason and Live controlled with a Midiman keystation USB keyboard. I can't decide on an audio interface/card and I have a few demands that are making it more difficult. Here's what I need:

1. It absolutely MUST be OS X ready. Very soon is Reason 2.0 and I'll be in X full time.

2. I'm not real particular about USB/FireWire/PCMCIA. I just want it to work in X.

3. MUST be compatible with Reason and Live obviously. I plan to start using Logic so that too.

4. I'd like 4 ins/outs but could get by with 2.
Is there anything that meets these standards?

i'd like to hear your Powerbook setups. Also, any tips too boost performance. Right now I can only get about 8 tracks(small samples, no effects)in OS X and 9(allocated a ton of memory already)and that seems pretty lame. What will help? RAM? FireWire Hard Drive? Any info is great.

bioroid · Post by **bioroid** » Thu Apr 04, 2002 5:08 pm

From what I read the g4/550 and 667 have slower a slower memory bus than the older g4/400 and 500 so that could be an issue with not being able to run that many tracks. Do a few different tests to benchmark the different things. Like do a song with many effects and only 2 audio tracks and see how many effects you can fill up. Then do 8 audio tracks and see how many effects you can fill up there. Try to get an idea what is limiting your CPU more. It should be effects.

Getting an external firewire drive should help you raise the number of audio track that you can play.

I am using an emagic EMI 2|6 usb audio device and it is working well. I haven't tried using more than a stereo set of outs yet but it should be fine.

If you can get by with a stereo set, then the outputs on the laptop should do fine. They seem pretty clean and the latency is good.

bioroid

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Apr 04, 2002 6:47 pm

Just for the record, the memory bus isn't at fault because it was 100Mhz in the old ones and in the new 550 (the 667 has 133...). It is the smaller processor level 2 cache, which on the old PBs was 1 MB and now 256 I believe.... Anyway, here is an interesting article about this:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/Powe ... html#logic

This doesn't solve the problem, I know, but it proves that other people have the same issues....

Also beware of OSX:
There are no sound hardware drivers yet excetp M-Audio's, and Logic is not yet compatible...as far as I know Emagic, this can still take ages.

Regards,
Roland
FORMAT

FORMAT · Post by **FORMAT** » Fri Apr 05, 2002 4:17 pm

BTW, above post was by me.... forgot to login.

FORMAT