Ableton Forum

I'm thinking about getting either the new Mac Pro or Macbook Pro to run Live on - I'll use Parallels though because I'm Microsoft man! The new Mac Pros' have 8 cores / 3GHz / 4TB HD & up to 16GB memory - so hopefully it'll be able to handle all my plug-ins! Has anyone done this? What sort of results to you get with Vista on the Mac? Any insight would be appreciated. Cheers.

I'm not doing this with Live, since I'm extremely new to the application.

However, one of the things I do for a living is virtualization (eg - parallels), and I can tell you this:
There is currently no Firewire support with parallels, so if you have a FW interface, you won't be able to use it.

I nearly found this out the hard way, and instead chose to go the bootcamp route, which works fine, and (since it's actually a real boot, rather than a virtual machine) has access to pretty much everything (a few caveats, but nothing major for me so far). I'm using Cakewalk Sonar and Project5 successfully in this configuration, and will be putting Live on it as well by the end of the week.

I'm curious though:
Why would you do that, when Live will run on Intel Macs?
Or, do you want to do both?

Take care,
- zevo

also, parallels ONLY runs on a single core, so if you have 8 cores windows will only see one of them. apparently vmwares fusion (similar thing to parallels) will see more than one core soon, but not yet...
if you want full power boot camp is the only way for now unfortunately...

best way is to dual boot and install some other system (sorry i couldn't say the V work better to stick to XP in my opinion)
Bootcamp supports XP and V.. Parallels runs XP really fast but I find V business an absolute dog in comparison to XP

actually i found a copy of win98 and win95 the other day
try throwing them on paralles on your Mac and Wah!!!!!!
blink and miss it

I say ban the bloat!

Zevo - thanks for your advice. Bootcamp looks like the way to go since my current interface is the FA-101. Regarding your question - it's actually a very good one!! I guess the power of the new Mac Pros' appeal to me - but I'd prefer to stick with Windows. I'm also concerned that some of my plug-ins & licenses won't work on Macs - but I'll look into this first. Cheers!

Clearscreen - thanks for your advice re Parallels. I'll definitely go with Bootcamp as it would be pointless running an 8-core machine that can only see 1 core! Cheers!

Shane - thanks for your advice re operating systems. I'm still a bit skeptical about Vista - I am take your advice and stick with XP for the time being. Cheers!

You do NOT want to use paralells/vmware etc for doing audio work.

I'd be suprised if any of your audio drivers would load properly in either of those. You've got to do bootcamp.

inmazevo wrote: I'm curious though:
Why would you do that, when Live will run on Intel Macs?
Or, do you want to do both?

Take care,
- zevo

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=70238

Hey man I am using it successfully with MBP and running it in with bootcamp on the windows siode with XP

forge wrote:

inmazevo wrote: I'm curious though:
Why would you do that, when Live will run on Intel Macs?
Or, do you want to do both?

Take care,
- zevo

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=70238

Just my 2 cents I got it running on both cause there was a couple plugins that I uase in my receptor that I couldnt use with my mac. also the other cool thing is again being able to be crooss platformed

forge wrote:

inmazevo wrote: I'm curious though:
Why would you do that, when Live will run on Intel Macs?
Or, do you want to do both?

Take care,
- zevo

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=70238

Fascinating.
I wonder if that is consistent for everybody.

Like I said, I'm brand new to the app (Live), so I haven't had any experience with it in this configuration. I was merely curious about it.

I'm installing now on a bootcamped XP install. I MIGHT put it on Tiger to check it out directly, but this is Live 5, and I preferred to wait for my Live 6 upgrade for the Tiger side.

Thanks for the info.
- zevo

j7243 wrote:Zevo - thanks for your advice. Bootcamp looks like the way to go since my current interface is the FA-101. Regarding your question - it's actually a very good one!! I guess the power of the new Mac Pros' appeal to me - but I'd prefer to stick with Windows. I'm also concerned that some of my plug-ins & licenses won't work on Macs - but I'll look into this first. Cheers!

all your __ableton__ licences will work just fine on a mac.

inmazevo wrote:

forge wrote:

inmazevo wrote: I'm curious though:
Why would you do that, when Live will run on Intel Macs?
Or, do you want to do both?

Take care,
- zevo

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=70238

Fascinating.
I wonder if that is consistent for everybody.

Like I said, I'm brand new to the app (Live), so I haven't had any experience with it in this configuration. I was merely curious about it.

I'm installing now on a bootcamped XP install. I MIGHT put it on Tiger to check it out directly, but this is Live 5, and I preferred to wait for my Live 6 upgrade for the Tiger side.

Thanks for the info.
- zevo

make sure you have live 5.2 if you are intel mac (OSX side)

Thanks for all the responses and insight everyone - they're much appreciated.

I've decided to go with the 8-core 3GHz / 8GB RAM Mac Pro & run XP through Bootcamp - it'll cost a fortune but that's what loans are for

I'll upgrade to Vista at some point & may even install Live on both operating systems just to see which one works better for me.

Cheers!

j7243 wrote:Thanks for all the responses and insight everyone - they're much appreciated.

I've decided to go with the 8-core 3GHz / 8GB RAM Mac Pro & run XP through Bootcamp - it'll cost a fortune but that's what loans are for ;)

I'll upgrade to Vista at some point & may even install Live on both operating systems just to see which one works better for me.

Cheers!

I reckon you are crazy. If you want a kick-arse windows machine, just buy a windows machine. Sure the Macs are intels now and all that ... it just sounds crazy to me, a Mac user, former Windows XP and still current Linux user, to spend that much money on the hardware and not use OSX.

When I went to Mac, I just stopped using the plugins I couldn't bring over. If I was completely dependent on those plugins, I would have not bought a Mac.

nerveagent wrote:

j7243 wrote:Thanks for all the responses and insight everyone - they're much appreciated.

I've decided to go with the 8-core 3GHz / 8GB RAM Mac Pro & run XP through Bootcamp - it'll cost a fortune but that's what loans are for

I'll upgrade to Vista at some point & may even install Live on both operating systems just to see which one works better for me.

Cheers!

I reckon you are crazy. If you want a kick-arse windows machine, just buy a windows machine. Sure the Macs are intels now and all that ... it just sounds crazy to me, a Mac user, former Windows XP and still current Linux user, to spend that much money on the hardware and not use OSX.

When I went to Mac, I just stopped using the plugins I couldn't bring over. If I was completely dependent on those plugins, I would have not bought a Mac.

point is he has a choice