I run three G5's : a Quad 2.5 as master, and DP's 2.5 and 2.0 as slaves,along with a P4 PC, running GS 2.5. All the slaves are fitted with Hammerfalls, which are connected to the Quad's 3 MOTU 2408 Mk 3's and a 24 i/o. I have V-Stack running on the DP 2.0,and although it's a bit cranky under Tiger (crashes without fail whenever i quit it) it performs very well, generally. It is simplicity itself to use. The Quad has 8 GB RAM, whilst the other two G5's have 4. The PC, 1.5.

I've just bought Kore for the DP 2.5, and that's great,despite there being a few bugs, which I guess are to be expected. I've not bothered with MIDI hardware on the DP 2.5 (I do not want another bank of AMT's!),so I've been setting up MIDI over LAN, using the Mac's own AMS. It works very well and, in principal, can yield as many ports as I'll ever need, for no extra outlay. i'm very pleased with this: it seems rock solid, after my initial familiarisation with it.

V-Stack is fantastic value for money: never experienced any dropouts, and the interface is excellent; but I would seriously look at Kore. There have been a few dissatisfied users on the NI forum, but I notice that they're overwhelmingly PC users. [:D]

Thanks strawinsky for your input,

this is valuable Information for me, since I plan to upgrade my DP 2.0 to about the same setup that you run.
Good to know that the Motu Stuff runs solid!?
One more Q:
Have you ever mixed plugs in V-Stack or ist ist all VI you run there?
Have you experiened any limits or could you load all 16 Ports.

Best
Oliver

No problem Oliver. I'm very happy with the MOTU's,though I clock the whole system to an Apogee Big Ben, which really makes a difference to the sound believe me.

The only difference I've noticed between the pci-e and pci-x version of MOTU, is that frequently, upon start up, the MOTU's do not pick up the clocking and remain in flashing sync-waiting mode. i don't know why this should be. It's fixed by simply turning them off and on again, then reloading the pci configuration I saved for the system. Other than that the whole thing runs very well, and I'm very encouraged by Apple's AMS.

Sorry, what is Apple's AMS?

Which Hammerfalls do you use on the slaves?

SvK

Hi, Steve/ Oliver. Sorry I've not got back before: been away. I used the HDSP 9652's. Really great value for money: precision engineering and power. Very, very stable and impressive.

AMS is Apple's Audio MIDI Setup. That's where one can configure the Audio and MIDI(funnily enough), and do lots of cool and powerful things with your setup.

BTW: thanks for unseflfishly sharing your expertise with us, Steve.

Strawinsky,

thanx, AND, you're welcome [;)]

SvK

Strawinsky,

the same to you:

thanks for unseflfishly sharing your expertise with us, Strwinsky.[/quote]

(I bought the Motu gear yesterday an hopefully it´ll run smooth when I Install it next week) I hope my MAckie D8B clock "sounds" nearly as good as the "big ben"...)

Best

Oliver

Strawinsky

regarding AMS

it seems that Ethernet MIDI works quite well....however everymorning when I get to the recording studio it seems that I have to "reconnect" all computers via the ehternet-midi tab in audio/midi setup.......

and with 3 or more computers this becomes a royal pain.......

Have you found a way around this?

SvK

As yet, no, Steve. I'm in the early stages of this method of working. Initially, I found the AMS to be very unstable indeed. Logic kept crashing, as did other apps (K2, Kore,etc) on the slaves. But that seemd to "settle down", probably due to the order in which things were launched and/or connected, or perhaps even the my configuration of things,because I have since wiped the network configs. and built the whole thing again, with good results.

But I'll be the first to admit, I'm not a techie, and not very methodical when it comes to this. However, everything is now fine. The great thing is that when AMS is launched it remembers your network configuration.

I've not put the PC into the chain: I'm quite uncomfortable with them, and it serves a relatively minor role in the system now. When I get hold of the VI library, it'll be strictly Mac- based, although I'm very interested in Tascam's new GVI.


I see that you've posted this on Apple's Logic forum: I'll keep checking on that. Ethernet MIDI is really very good, I think: very fast, and superior to its "hardware" counterpart.

Let me know how you get on with your set up. Thanks.

Strawinsky,

Thanx.

SvK