magma pci to pcmcia extension

borg · Post by **borg** » Tue Nov 12, 2002 5:02 pm

http://www.magma.com/index2.html

anyone tried on of these?
any feedback appreciated!

thanx

sevo · Post by **sevo** » Tue Nov 12, 2002 5:29 pm

Uh, wat do you want to do with it? As far as I am familiar with them, Magma have PCMCIA (cardbus) to PCI expansion units. The one I've seen so far worked fine - in a mobile film sound recording which required a Digi 001 to work with a Powerbook, back when there was no Protools compatible interface for Powerbooks about.

These days and in a music setting, it is rather pointless. At $1000 for the basic expansion unit, it would bump up a Digi 001 to Digi 002 prices, or a Midiman Delta to RME Cardbus+Multiface prices - i.e. you'd get much less value for money than by buying a already PCMCIA or Firewire enabled audio interface..

Sevo

borg · Post by **borg** » Tue Nov 12, 2002 5:44 pm

thanx for the reply!

at the moment i have 3 creamware DSP cards in my G3, and i'm very happy with their performance and sound! i'd like to take out two of them to work with my toshiba laptop, so i can use their fab synths and fx, guitar amp modellers,... on my live setup.

so far, i haven't got a soundcard for my laptop and as i like the synths in pulsar creamware environment so much, i don't intend to buy VSTi.

at the moment, i transfer sounds from the G3 to my laptop via a website, which seems rather, well, stupid and slow. with the magma, i can connect my two computers through midi and adat in 'realtime'. a flexible solution imho.

joel macclellan · Post by **joel macclellan** » Wed Nov 13, 2002 12:21 am

hi andy -

why are you emailing yourself stuff? Don't you have a CD-burner? Why don't you get a network card for your Mac and a crossover ethernet cable to connect them? That only cost me $20 american, and it works great!

and don't pay $1000 for a magma box! get one used off ebay for $500 or so from a guy selling video or protools stuff . . .

peace

~ j

Alex Reynolds · Post by **Alex Reynolds** » Wed Nov 13, 2002 1:16 am

Doesn't yet work with OS X -- looked into it...

-Alex

bcslaam · Post by **bcslaam** » Wed Nov 13, 2002 3:32 am

Just a suggestion;
What I do is rackmount a normal fast pc and control it with the notebook. Then my notebook can be any cheap old 486 (saves worry about beer spilage etc) and you have the advantages of a super optimised 2 or 3 unit desktop system and not trying to fit it into a low bandwidth laptop. Especially if you're going the magma chasi way.
Currently using VNC as the remote software. Ethernet is better than direct connect.
But I'm looking into getting a tech to show me how to wire the screen and keyboard/mouse directly to the rack so I dont need to run any lan on the it. The laptop doen't have a brain then.
So if anyone has heard of a good laptop mod URL please enlighten me.

Peace and Prosperity

bcslaam · Post by **bcslaam** » Wed Nov 13, 2002 3:54 am

What I do is rackmount a fast desktop pc and control it with the notebook. Then my laptop can be any cheap old 486 (saves worry about beer spilage etc) and you have the advantages of a super optimised 2 or 3 unit desktop system rather than trying to fit it into a low bandwidth laptop. Especially if you're going the magma chasi way.
Currently using VNC as the remote software. Ethernet is better than direct connect.
But I'm looking into getting a tech to show me how to wire the screen and keyboard/mouse directly to the rack so I dont need to run any lan on the it. The laptop doesn't need a brain then. And no polling on the rack.

So if anyone has heard of a good laptop mod URL please enlighten me.

Peace and Prosperity

PS You can also buy a specialised "brainless" laptop for about $1000 or less with VGA/PS2 input and have a better combination than laptop/PCI exp. Mac included.

Vercengetorex · Post by **Vercengetorex** » Thu Nov 14, 2002 9:59 am

Alex Reynolds wrote:Doesn't yet work with OS X -- looked into it...

-Alex

Actually the Mac OS X 10.2.2 update now offers support for MAGMA's CardBus to PCI expansion Systems, making this not an unfeasable tool for thoes of us using G3 and G4 laptops running OS X; That is, if you MUST use a PCI sound/DSP card.

borg · Post by **borg** » Thu Nov 14, 2002 1:22 pm

thanks.

to alex: the magma would be for the toshiba pc laptop, not the G3 (why would i need magma for on this machine?). i'm still on os9.1 and am trying os9.2.2 in a few weeks, but osX... i find no need for it.

joel: well, you should know how great it would be to take CW's modular, wavelength, neutron,... live on stage

and for me being a guitar player as well, the celmo guitar amp modeller would be super to have in a live situation. listen to the creamware sound all, and you'll think reason is a kiddies toy (i have a 'demo'

for mac and pc, but i have used them only once...)
anyway, i think the ethernet solution is not that easy for mac/pc communication. i need to look into this deeper as i don't know anything about this matter. one friend told me to get a 'crossed lan cable', another one, who has a mac and pc, said to get a cheap comp to run linux on. he's great with computers but unfortunately for me moved to germany. i wanna make music and not stuff my head again with another system and a fourth computer (still got the old atari).
ben, thanks for your input, but i don't really see the point as i don't need that much bandwidth. it's not that i want to run seven reverbs or anything like that. your solution may seem cool and high tech, but for me it would complicate things more than they are now. i do have an old P1 120Mhz laptop collecting dust somewhere... (so that already makes it four comp's)

the easiest solution would of course be: find a decent soundcard for the laptop, preferably with adat (sp/dif and multiple outs would do too, midi of course for both) and a new guitar amp.

ah well...