i-Book and Live

jamesparkes · Post by **jamesparkes** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 6:03 pm

I'm running Live 4 on my Apple G4 1Ghz ibook with the standard 256 RAM installed. I was wondering how much of a difference in performance ugrading the RAM to 1Gb would make. At the moment i'm getting serious latency problems especially when i'm using VSTi's and Rewiring with Reason. I'm tempted to get a dual processor G4 tower (can't afford a G5 yet) because i can get one cheap through my work. Would this be a waste of money if upgrading the RAM on my laptop would help me?

Any Apple advise would be appreciated.
Cheers!

noisetonepause · Post by **noisetonepause** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 6:16 pm

Your mac will like more memory, for sure.

-Paws

jamesparkes · Post by **jamesparkes** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 6:24 pm

I'm sure it would mate, but do you think i'll notice a significant difference in performance with more RAM? The RAM is gonna cost over £100 and i think i can get the dual G4 for about £400. I seem to be throwing money at my music 'hobby' and keep finding that what i buy isn't powerfull enough.

Cheers for your quick reply.

commuter · Post by **commuter** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 7:16 pm

You won't see any performance diffence with Vsti..
It will surely improve your work with loops and sample but it'll give you the same processor load with your hungry AU/VST...
A dual G4 won't neither give you a huge boost with Live......

hacktheplanet · Post by **hacktheplanet** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 8:58 am

You might be better off spending that money on a cheap used hardware synth and not using a virtual instrument. I used to use use all virtual synths and effects (before I could afford hardware) and of course my CPU was definitely straining. I've spent a total of $550 on two hardware synths and just use Live to sequence them. Now all my CPU is concerned with is running one softsynth, and effects on the audio channels. On my G4 1ghz CPU hovers around 50-60%, and that works better than running all soft synths and having the CPU run at 95% or just pausing to catch up.

I just think it's a better solution than upgrading a computer. Hardware tends to sound better, never crashes, is easier to tweak, and it's easy to integrate when you know how. Also, you'll learn more about sound synthesis and how MIDI works. It taught me a heck of a lot.

However, if you can get the dual G4 for cheap, I'd say go for that and get hardware synths later. If you're working mostly in the studio, you could just produce all the music on that computer and mix all the audio clips down if you play out live with your iBook. I'm running 256 right now, and the performance is bearable. Not great, but bearable. It works for me.

jamesparkes · Post by **jamesparkes** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 9:28 am

That's good advise mate. My midi controller (Novation ReMote 25) is also a synth so i think its time to break out the manual and start using that instead of the VSTi's. I just sold my Supernova 2 for £400. Wish i hadn't now. It was a great synth that i never really got much use out of. Never mind.
Thanks for your reply.

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 7:45 pm

you could definitely benefit from getitng another 512MB ram chip for 768MB total. OSX can always use more ram, and it would allow you to at least load more clips into ram which gives you more headroom and less disk overloads, probably allow for a little lower latency at higher cpu%'s too.

plus, the 512MB chip usually costs about 40% of what a 1GB chip would. its a good balance of cost/performance. and any computer doing music needs at LEAST 512MB total.

jamesparkes · Post by **jamesparkes** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 9:37 am

Thats just what i needed to hear mate. I was looking for RAM chips yesterday and they are a quite a bit more than i thought for 1Gb. I'll get 512 for now. Hopefully that will sort out the latency issues too. I started to get my head round the synth on the ReMote 25 last night and its sounds great. Hopefully the 768Mb will let me play enough clips together with a few effects without any audio drop outs. Looking forward to the Live controller too. Looks like a big lump of kit. Doubt it'll be cheap though.

sgingras · Post by **sgingras** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 2:50 am

just so you know....buying a 512 ram chip will not give you 768....it will only give you 640. iBooks only have one extra RAM slot on top of their built in so you will have to throw away 128 megs. kind of a pain in the ass but still worth it. I did that upgrade for about 100 USD and noticed an immediate difference how my computer ran, not only for audio but everything else as well, especially video editing and Dreamweaver.

dirtystudios · Post by **dirtystudios** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 3:46 am

sgingras wrote:just so you know....buying a 512 ram chip will not give you 768....it will only give you 640. iBooks only have one extra RAM slot on top of their built in so you will have to throw away 128 megs. kind of a pain in the ass but still worth it. I did that upgrade for about 100 USD and noticed an immediate difference how my computer ran, not only for audio but everything else as well, especially video editing and Dreamweaver.

That's the G3 models that only have 128 on the lower. The G4's have 256.

Get the RAM. You may not see Live shoot through the roof, but OS X will fly with that upgrade. 256 just isn't enough to run that os and do anything with more than one app at a time.

k