Tracktion Software

machinesworking · Post by **machinesworking** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 5:20 am

AD80 wrote: I really need to get one of those new iMacs. I just havent been doing enough cuz I'm being held back by my PC apparently. I didnt realize that until I saw the billboard tho.

Obviously American!

egbert · Post by **egbert** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 5:46 am

machinesworking wrote:Anyway if they let OSX run on a roll your own PC, then the arguments will be moot IMO, best computer concept with a better OS.

Funny thing is Logic Mac on a Dual G5 chokes on more than about 36 audio tracks from reports I read.

A Celeron system with 512 MB of RAM and a single 7200 RPM Seagate running Cubase SX will eat that alive on Win98SE/Win2K/WinXP.

I do not see this as conclusive evidence for the superiority of OSX for a DAW platform. Last i heard this was being associated with the fact that Core Audio is a float format system and therefore all incoming audio has to be encoded - and a CPU burden is incurred.

I am prepared to buy the notion that BSD Unix does not suffer from some of the vulnerabilities that MS foolishly built into their own offerings. I am just not sure that UNIX of any stripe is actually a good multimedia OS.

Jean Phillipe Gassee and the crew of 22 former Apple engineers who built BeOS and the BeBox certainly thought otherwise. They hoped that their built-from-scratch streaming media oriented OS would become the next MacOS and the audio community got behind them - Emagic and Steinberg announced Logic and Nuendo for BeOS a few years back. The silly twat that was running Apple at the time chose the more corporate oriented OSX - look at the huge sales into the corporate world that the Mac has achieved since then! Apple is a media oriented company not a bean counter oriented company. Jobs certainly turned the company around but if you look at how long it is taking OSX to reach maturity it was perhaps a bad call. The other problem is the code bloat with all the interface geegaws. MS is going down this same path with Vista although they claim that most of the burden will be handled by the Graphics processor. We'll have to wait and see.

AD80 · Post by **AD80** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 5:56 am

machinesworking wrote:
AD80 wrote: I really need to get one of those new iMacs. I just havent been doing enough cuz I'm being held back by my PC apparently. I didnt realize that until I saw the billboard tho.
Obviously American!

Isnt everybody?

machinesworking · Post by **machinesworking** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 6:34 am

egbert wrote:
machinesworking wrote:Anyway if they let OSX run on a roll your own PC, then the arguments will be moot IMO, best computer concept with a better OS.
Funny thing is Logic Mac on a Dual G5 chokes on more than about 36 audio tracks from reports I read.

Haven't heard that rumor, but here's a Sweetwater test running Digital Performer.

http://www.sweetwater.com/feature/motu/

If that's true, then that's Logic, not the OS. I use Logic, I just rarely write a song with more than 24 tracks.

egbert · Post by **egbert** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 7:58 am

machinesworking wrote:
egbert wrote:
machinesworking wrote:Anyway if they let OSX run on a roll your own PC, then the arguments will be moot IMO, best computer concept with a better OS.
Funny thing is Logic Mac on a Dual G5 chokes on more than about 36 audio tracks from reports I read.
Haven't heard that rumor, but here's a Sweetwater test running Digital Performer.

http://www.sweetwater.com/feature/motu/

If that's true, then that's Logic, not the OS. I use Logic, I just rarely write a song with more than 24 tracks.

Yes - it was said at the time that this did not affect Cubase Mac. I would have thought Cubase would have been using an ASIO driver though.

machinesworking · Post by **machinesworking** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 8:05 am

Here's the only thing I could find that referred to Logic OSX and 36 tracks, it also points to logic, not OSX. Also it's refereing to the OSX version of Cubase and Logic, so they would both be using Core Audio, not AISO. Steinberg adopted Core Audio, but are the only host that refuses to support Audio Units....
http://logic-users.org/forums/LUG/164288

Not to sound all mac happy, but OSX does have some really nice features for audio types, the MIDI is solid, and audio works with more than one card etc... Network MIDI, plus it looks like streaming audio over networks is going to become part of the OS sometime as well.
Sincerely, without bashing Bill gates as readily as you keep going after Jobs, ( they're both assholes to some degree, but driven, you have to admit ), XP is a PITA compared, and I don't see a dammed thing crippled about the OS for audio work, especially since they've finally moved to a chip manufacturer that won't screw them.
As a side note, Novation claim on their website that OSX gives lower latency levels in the X-Station than XP, this is probably just the driver, but I'm just pointing out that OSX eye candy isn't really holding back OSX for audio work.

machinesworking · Post by **machinesworking** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 8:43 am

Also, I'm not sure if this track count thing is still a problem in Logic 7 now..... I'll run a test sometime tomorrow.

AD80 · Post by **AD80** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 9:09 am

Hay speaking about the new macs, I'm watching Conan O'brien right now and they just showed an Apple commercial. It sayd intel chips have been "stuck inside dull little boxes performing dull little tasks, when it could have been doing so much more".

Its so true tho! Every single task I've performed with my PC has been SO DULL. And all my friends that use PC's are using them to do dull things aswell. I cant believe I never noticed before. That commercial opened my eyes.
God bless Steve Jobs for creating a computer that will allow me to do so much more than a PC. And be cool at the same time. Amazing.

stefancrs · Post by **stefancrs** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 9:18 am

The AOpen mini-pc is much prettier than the Mac Mini....

machinesworking · Post by **machinesworking** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 9:23 am

AD80 wrote:God bless Steve Jobs for creating a computer that will allow me to do so much more than a PC. And be cool at the same time. Amazing.

Who knows maybe one of the girls from your sig will get nasty with you after your cool ass mac makes them feel all funny inside!

Also, drinking beer makes hot chicks think you're cool! Seriously, I saw this add where this hot chick was all impressed with this guys taste in cheap beer!

AD80 · Post by **AD80** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 9:28 am

machinesworking wrote:
AD80 wrote:God bless Steve Jobs for creating a computer that will allow me to do so much more than a PC. And be cool at the same time. Amazing.
Who knows maybe one of the girls from your sig will get nasty with you after your cool ass mac makes them feel all funny inside!

Gettin chicks is no problem for me even with a dull PC! So I cant imagine what will happen when I get my iMac. Its 3-4 times faster so I imagine I'll get 3-4 times as many girls. I'll probably be able to make music too which is something thats almost impossible on XP. Cant wait.

kenn michael · Post by **kenn michael** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 9:47 am

egbert wrote:Funny thing is Logic Mac on a Dual G5 chokes on more than about 36 audio tracks from reports I read.

Nope, maybe 36 stereo audio tracks (read 72) at 96K... I run sessions with over 80 tracks here at 44.1 and 48K. Dual G5. I can run 40 tracks on a Mac Mini from it's own internal drive.

egbert · Post by **egbert** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 11:09 am

kenn michael wrote:
egbert wrote:Funny thing is Logic Mac on a Dual G5 chokes on more than about 36 audio tracks from reports I read.
Nope, maybe 36 stereo audio tracks (read 72) at 96K... I run sessions with over 80 tracks here at 44.1 and 48K. Dual G5. I can run 40 tracks on a Mac Mini from it's own internal drive.

This was reported and discussed at some length on the LUG in the early days of Logic 7 IIRC. Perhaps things have been straightened out in the mean time.

kenn michael · Post by **kenn michael** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 11:35 am

gotcha... i heard some grumblings about not being able to run as many disk tracks in Cubase/Nuendo on OSX as able in Logic, but I myself never had any reduced track count from 5.5 in OSX all the way thru the first release of 7. weird.

machinesworking · Post by **machinesworking** » Wed Jan 18, 2006 5:27 pm

Oh I forgot to mention, I rarely write a song with more than 24 stereo tracks in Logic, and since the beginning of OSX no problems with track count.
Mainly just want more juice from my old ass dual gig g4.

The main thing that ticks me off about the macintel adds is that only a few third party apps are ready for the Intel chips. It would almost be wiser to wait on the major campaign slogans etc. until after the universal binary version of at least half the software was up and running.

As it stands, somebody out there is going to buy a machine thinking Logic and all his/her plugs will run as soon as they get home, and that's not the case. Another reason to wait until next year to buy...................>

Tracktion Software

KVR Audio

New x86-based Macs are out!