KVR Audio

Unkie Al · Post by **Unkie Al** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 2:13 pm

(crossposted from the hardware forum)
I was recently "gifted" with an old Mac:

a beige G3 266 tower running what might be Mac OS 7.x or 8.x. What I'd like to know is, what music programs will still run on this fossil, and what was the highest version of Pro Tools that could be hosted on a 'Beige?
I'm already using Audition and Audacity on PC hardware, and have been wrestling with Ardour on the Linux platform. I just want to noodle with Pro Tools simply to have a fundamental knowledge of it -- I'm surely not out to win a Grammy creating music on a Beige.
Any ideas welcome and appreciated.

unkie al

VicDiesel · Post by **VicDiesel** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 2:38 pm

I believe that's the Mac where Apple had promised that OS X could run on it, but it didn't. At least no immediately. So you're stuck with 9 at the latest. Programs? Old version of Metasynth? That one has only just been ported to X.

z15 · Post by **z15** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 2:41 pm

soundhack for the experimentally minded.

Jaybez · Post by **Jaybez** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 2:58 pm

thOnk

butter · Post by **butter** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 3:38 pm

someone had posted a similar thread not long ago. Some parties reached the conclusion that perhaps it might make a good doorstop. At 266mhz that might be the best use for this paticular machine.

VicDiesel · Post by **VicDiesel** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 3:49 pm

butter wrote:it might make a good doorstop

I've given one of those machines away to a school. They can use anything that will run Internet Exploder and a mail program. That's about what it's good for, these days.

Unkie Al · Post by **Unkie Al** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 5:36 pm

Yeah, I know its a fossil to be sure

. But does anyone remember which past version of ProTools could run on the old rigs? Remember that ten years ago, the original IQS "SAW" workstation software gave four-track performance on a 386-40 running Win3.1, so somewhere out there has to be a version of Pro Tools software that once looked up to a 266 Mac as a god. Old timers and ProTools vets, I'm counting on you here.

kovacs · Post by **kovacs** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 5:45 pm

Maybe Amateur Tools...?

Actually I have a G4 / 400Ghz and was also recommended the door stop alternative. I have given it to my kids instead...

braj · Post by **braj** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:16 pm

Maybe put ReBirth on it? I think it's from about the same era, and you could put it somewhere guests could freely play with it.

smp · Post by **smp** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 3:01 am

In theory, Pro Tools Free might work. Don't know if you'll have enough RAM for it though.

I remember when my wife bought her G4/400 to run a Digi 001 box. I think that only came with 64MB of RAM as standard and she had to buy an extra 128MB. Apple tend to underspec on RAM (maybe in the hope you will buy more, expensive RAM from them instead of buying cheaper, Mac compatible 3rd party RAM) so I don't like your chances with a beige G3/266.

Good luck though. There's bound to be some things you can use on it that will at least make it fun.

-s

braj · Post by **braj** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 3:03 am

Remember when a beige G3 was a powerhouse?

John Vulich · Post by **John Vulich** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 3:07 am

Think Different!

VicDiesel · Post by **VicDiesel** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 3:54 am

braj wrote:Remember when a beige G3 was a powerhouse?

Oh yes. First time I could encode an mp3 file more or less in realtime.

Scotrick · Post by **Scotrick** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 5:37 pm

Bah!
All of these people are way underestimating what that machine can do.

Don't forget, the processor speed is mainly about what effects you can run, while disk input and output is about how many tracks you can record... the beige, in addition to working well for an internet machine, can have up to 768mb of ram, and depending on what rom revision it has, may be able to have a slave and master IDE drive as well, you want to look to see if you have the revision b or c ROM...
Cubase in its various early forms runs well on that machine, as does Reason, especially early versions...

the last OS that will work with Apple's blessing is the OS 9.2.2, but that is a great OS, stable and speedy when its been optimized... for the memory check out www.macsales.com , which sells the appropriate memory for around 25.00 to 30.00 for each 256mb, and you'll need three...

that's also the last machine to have both SCSI and IDE ports for the drives, so if you have old SCSI drives lying around, they'll work too...
you should also look under the system profiler to see how much video memory is installed... you want 6mb, it often came with just two... it uses a 4mb chip that ATI sold for a while, and you can usually find them for dirt cheap on eBay...
I used to run Reason and Cubase VST/32 on my various Beige machines, with 16+ tracks and some basic effects... you can also upgrade the processor to a 1ghz G3 for not too much, check out the upgrades available at the macsales site, and checkout xlr8yourmac.com for a bunch of user reports about each upgrade... best of luck

Mahuska · Post by **Mahuska** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 2:41 am

Go to the Prosoniq site and download the freebies which are sonicWORX artist and studio. sold They will run on your Mac and where discontinued but not cheap when sold. Mastering apps but what the hell. I will run my Cubase PC daw with the Gina24 card over to my G3 233 with an Oasys card. Since I had this hardware and Cubase I thougt the download of sonicWorx was worth it. I give it a spin soon

Old Mac for music, audiio?