@Another User said:

Nick: you misread my post: I said, I would like to be able to run VI and MIR on the same machine, not on the same machine at the same time (at least not yet).

Ah, sorry about that (even though the conversation progressed since my post). Got it.

***
My only real complaint about Windows is that when something goes wrong and it's time to reinstall, you can't just start up from a CD and fix the start-up disk, nor can you replace only Wincows itself - you have to start from scratch with the whole disk, including programs. Everything else I don't like about it is simply a matter of my not being used to it - even though I have three (two working) Windows machines that I use as slaves.

What I like about PCs is that you can put together machines with exactly what you need for streaming samples, and only exactly what you need. And my machines do perform well, so I can't complain about that.

Well at that point, we can't really argue as that comes down to personal preference. The fact is that with the Mac Pro machines, they're already best set up for samples and mixing by the large bus architecture, large shared cpu caches, fast double bus ram, and the abilit to put four large fast sata drives right inside the machine - it doesn't really have anything that you don't need for samples and mixing. Once OSX goes 64bit (and VI) it will be an awesome machine I hope that happens sooner than later (for Rams sake!!). [:P]

Miklos.

@mpower88 said:

Mephisto: I agree man, 100%. I worked on windows for 3 years only because I had no money when I started up my first project studio, went to mac never look back. Despite the problems with logic from apple as the only hiccup - now it runs very well and I would never go back to a PC/Windows setup. Besides that, Macs are cool, I mean it's for me anyway so much nicer to work on a G5 with the alluminium case and a nice big cinema display than a smelly PC, they're very quiet too - and in 2 years I only lost a hard drive (right at the start) covered by apple care. The main thing for me is not having to use windows, that's the main thing, and then the reliability of Macs vs PC's is a big thing too.

Well we all make our choice. I did the opposite and went all PC a couple of years ago as Macs were too slow, too expensive and had that stupid, bloated, unreliable OS. You see, we all have different experiences..! If your PC was smelly you must have been doing something wrong. I suggest that you seek therapy for that. FWIW in a properly constructed studio you probably can't see the case, so it doesn't really matter what it's made of. Did you try putting your PC in an aluminium case so that it would look nice 'n pretty 'n all? You can also get big monitors from other manufactures than Apple, so this is another case of Apple pretending that they invented something. You want another example? Try a mouse with more than one button. Wow, what an original invention [8-)] Regarding quiet, I sent my G5 back because it sounded like an aircraft taking off, and my PC is quieter than any Mac I've ever had the misfortune to experience, in any studio. Of course now that you are all using PCs and Apple has had to admit that they've been lying about the supposed speed of their machines for years and that PCs really were faster maybe these sort of Mac vs PC nonsense posts can become a thing of the past.

The only real point of comparison is the OS; everything else is customisable on a PC, and OS is down to personal choice. All talk of cool, aluminium, quiet is just marketing bullsh*t, and you know it in your heart of hearts [:D]

Now to the serious part of the conversation. If it was possible to print meta data to an audio file, then it might make sense to be able to run MIR on the same machine (but not at the same time as your DAW). However, wouldn't that mean inventing a new sort of audio file? I don't know, but there must be only a certain amount of information that can be included in an audio file before it becomes unreadable by your application. Do you have any information on this sort of thing that you can share?

DG

Apple did invent the big displays, they weren't around when they started with the 22 inch displays and up to the 30 inch displays. Also those displays for some time were of significantly superior quality and ease to hook up - and also significantly easier to hook up 2 screens within the OS and hardware wise for some time. I think they still are? But that is not the point only. The case - it is not what is on the outside but on the inside that matters, take a look at apples web site check out that sexy mumma you know you want it but you hate to admit it... [:P] [:D] [:D] I frequently run my dual 2.0ghz G5 into consistently red markers in logic for prolonged periods of time and the fans don't usually go past 10% by the sound of it, and I am in a warm room.

I don't think Apple were lying about the speed of their machines for years, that is a misnomer, initially the PPC flattened the intel chips with the G3 at the time, and were hugely faster for many applications, then the PC's quickly caught up and yes, for a long time macs on a price point were dollar for dollar slower, However, in the last two years of G5's they have been pretty much on par (although still more expensive) - now however that argument is redundant. Although even in the past, the amount of restarts, and crashes I avoided since moving to mac saved me more time than I ever would have with a slightly faster machine.

Just smelled my Mac - still smells good!

Macs also let you choose between windows and Mac osx, what else is there? Ok linux is cool but what would I EVER use it for personally I dont know.

Therapy? Booting Mac OSX is all the therapy I ever need after my PC experience. Bliss [8-)] Joy [H]

What would be the point of putting a lump of junk inside a mac alluminium case? all the jumbled up jazz inside would still be just, some, jumbled up jazz!

Mac osx was well ahead of it's time as it needed to be and for what it is and does it is extremely efficient and streamlined with a lot of very clever technology under the hood that we never hear about (but that I have read about and heard about) and it's stability AND efficiency have been nothing but very very impressive to me throughout the time I've used it and I bought version 1 because I hated OS9 with a vengeance I thought it was almost as bad as Windows 95, ok that's too harsh, it was half as bad as Windows95..... [6] But OSX - Magnificent triumph of technology (say I)... Hardware has easily caught up with it what was innovative about it was the packaging of the technology which of course much of it existed prior which is one of the best things about it. Open source (much of it) and so on there are many great reasons but the best reason is using it. Well, these are my opinions on this anyway. OSX is simply in my opinion THE best and ONLY operating system worth using today it doesn't just give you efficiency and stability and all the rest it's also cool and decent looking to use - it's really a good package. Anyhoo... [[;)]]

Yes, as I thought, the brainwashing has stuck. Never mind, as long as we're both happy with our choices [:D]

DG

[8-)]

If you take a look on the discussion boards besides VSL, you will see I dislike Apple quite a lot at the moment for a number of other reasons. Your insinuation that my statements are either not impartial or not based on direct experience is not accurate. I'm just calling it how I see it.

For example, what Apple has done with the Quad G5 machines + Logic Pro is nothing short of utterly disgusting in my opinion - a very very shady business going on there from what I know, and far from the PPC's being slow they have been dumbing down their PPC software so that the Intel's would run much faster on spec, in fact, with Logic Pro, it has been only capable of running at 50% of processor capacity in the quad machines (this is easily verifiable), but 75% in the new mac pros, In fact, a 2.7 dual G5 will run logic Pro marginally faster than a quad G5 - if bought when the quads were released, of cousre, the quad was much more expensive. A big rip off and very unfortunate for a lot of people (who used Logic no such problem on other software or OSX itself) - from apple, total silence. [8o|] In fact when I posted on the disucssion board on this topic, without breaking their rules of posting, it was deleted twice! And many others experienced the same thing. That's one example.

OS9 was a joke... (not as much as windows95 at least it worked with one app runing - like logic or cubase), other people strongly disagree with me there many top studios are still using it (god knows why) as I said if you turn it on start logic and touch nothing else it will repeatedly work for many years but don't try to do anything else.

PPC machines were over priced, I already said that, yes, and overhyped too but still very cool machines almost deserving of much of the hype, sometimes entirely deserving on some points.

Configuration - you have a point there but I can't find anything that I actually want to put into those PCI slots except a firewire card! - And also, somebody on the net has already swapped the dual core cpu's with quad core cpu's and booted up an 8core mac pro and ran applications on it - OSX used the 8 cores straight off.

My opinions are based on experience and my own considerations of things. You could consider that to suggest otherwise, could be interpretted as an insult, as it is directly disrespectful of the other persons opinion and position without having grounds to be openly so, (in other words just an assumption not facts), and doing so, in fact, could potentially give the wrong idea to others of some arrogance on your part, (which I wouldn't want) or perhaps insecurity of your own position on the matter (surely not the case) [6] [[[;)]]] , however, if so, such as it may be, that would be understandable, I mean, if I still owned a PC instead of my G5, I'd probably feel the same way [6] [6] [:D] [[[;)]]]

As it is, you enjoy your PC ( [:D] [:D] [:D] ) ahem, and er, I'll enjoy my Mac [H] and if you're right, you'll be happy with that conclusion I know I am [[[:P]]] [[[:P]]] [[[:P]]]
ha ha ha.

[:D]

All the best,
Miklos.

Miklos, no insults intended. I just get fed up with reading Mac vs PC arguments, when they should really be OSX vs XP. I had a Mac in my studio far longer than I've had a PC and by and large I hated it. I also can't stand the look of OSX, but if I felt that it was better for my needs then I'd use it.

I have never said that I wouldn't use a PC from Apple, and if there is ever a good reason for me to do so, I will consider it. Currently there is no reason. However, I'm an marketing man's nightmare, as I have no brand loyalty and couldn't care less how pretty, cool or anything else a computer is. It just has to do the job efficiently so that I can get on with my life when I finish work for the day.

DG

@Another User said:

The fact is that with the Mac Pro machines, they're already best set up for samples and mixing by the large bus architecture, large shared cpu caches, fast double bus ram, and the abilit to put four large fast sata drives right inside the machine - it doesn't really have anything that you don't need for samples and mixing.

I agree, but they may be overkill for slave machines. That or the next machine is the one I'll use as my main one when all the software is ready.

I got on really well with my atari, and the fairlight was special.

sigh...........

However, i'm in Daryl's fortress here as far as brand loyalty. I don't have any.
It's the goods that count. (I wonder in the new Nuendo 4 will have a decent score component. Or if the new cubase 4 score editor is finally half decent. Sigh..........)

Seriously now, i'm wondering if we could run a DAW on an entry level CRAY, with their custom built integrated multi processor setup, the Gazillion gigs of ram, and raid array raptors.

You know, like a fairlight, with a supercharger.

http://www.cray.com/products/xd1/index.html">http://www.cray.com/products/xd1/index.html


Sort of puts the 'friendly hardware joust' about performance in perspective.

Regards,

Alex.

just to weigh in here... I love my Mac, much of time, I hate my PC, much of the time. They both work, much of the time, and they both do what I need them to do, much of the time.

Having the MIR running in a dedicated box makes a great deal of sense, to me. Yes, it can be a pain to get multi-machine setps working smoothly, but it's unavoidable, generally speaking. What I personally think would be ideal, though, would be for MIR to be offered as a standalone hardware box. Yes, it would be expensive, but it would be soooo simple! Or, perhaps it could be sold pre-configured in a dedicated Linux-based machine, with some OS setup that's not user-configurable... so we can't f**k it up!

J.

@jbm said:

Having the MIR running in a dedicated box makes a great deal of sense, to me. Yes, it can be a pain to get multi-machine setps working smoothly, but it's unavoidable, generally speaking. What I personally think would be ideal, though, would be for MIR to be offered as a standalone hardware box. Yes, it would be expensive, but it would be soooo simple! Or, perhaps it could be sold pre-configured in a dedicated Linux-based machine, with some OS setup that's not user-configurable... so we can't f**k it up!

J.

I agree, but apparently that is not what VSL wants... [:(]

DG

DG: I disagree it is about the hardware as well as the software, not just the packaging too although that is important.

But you're right the whole argument is annoying so lets agree to disagree and acknowledge that we're none the worse for it ! [*-)] [:D]

Nick: Saying that Mac Pro's are too much as a slave machine is, sorry, but kind of stating the obvious.

All the best,
Miklos.

JBM: That's a good idea however my point earlier in the discussion was this: why buy 16 cpu's when you only need 8. Or why buy 32 when you only need 16 - whatever is needed for MIR. Somebody like me who can't afford to buy more gear than I need - it would be great to be able to run MIR on my existing computer and not have to buy the hardware again. Of course it would always be better in a luxury world (for me anyway) to have a stand alone box then I could mix live! awesome, but until that day comes at least it's good for those on a budget to have the *option* of using their existing machine to run the program and when they make more money, yes, buy a stand alone box.

Miklos.

Miklos, let's trace the thread.

I said the advantage to Windows machines is that you can put together hardware that does just what you need. Your answer was that the Mac Pro is perfect for streaming samples.

So I responded with the bleeding obvious.

I have a feeling that we're having two different conversations that only overlap occasionally. [:)]

The mac pro IS good for streaming samples - it is not good as a farm machine. That is what is obvious.

Miklos.

Okay, I missed something. Why is that obvious?

Sorry Nick, both of those points seem to me to be obvious - the mac pro is very good (if not perfect) for samples use, but as a farm, the large case, extra drives and ram capabilities not to mention cpu are obviously to me anyway, overkill for a farm machine - better would be 3 or 4 minis perhaps with a mac pro as your sequencer/mixer? one possibility anyway. So both statements are fairly obvious to my mind. If you are not a Mac user or up to scratch on thier hardware, I can understand in that case how it would not be obvious at all - if you quoted me dell model names I would be lost - but I was assuming the specs were obvious, perhaps my mistake.

Miklos.

OMG - what have i done ... [:P]
anyway ... just to keep some things in the right order - one can discuss who invented LCD monitors, but for sure it has not been apple, AFAIK all (at least earlier) LCD monitors from apple starting with the 15" studio display 1998 have been produced by LG - the same company which produced my alltime favourite SGI cinema display, the SW1600 (note the specs! - the only LCD-display i have ever seen with an integrated colour calibration and 110 dpi)

what i don't like with the newer apple cinema displays is more caused by the operating system resp. aqua - the smoothed contours, i always have the feeling the picture is unsharp and unfortunately it cannot be switched off.

as an early bird and enthusiastic BSD user (where the roots of mach, openstep, nextstep and at last OS X have to be found) i think i may comment on obvious inconveniances. i have never seen corrupted file permissions in BSD, i have seen them sometimes in windows, but i have never seen them happen so regulary with a simple install of an application like i had to notice it when installing eg. logic on osx - there _has_ in fact some improvement to be done.

the new macPros are - sorry to say that - just another, though powerful, PC with an intel-board and i wrote in an earlier post that IMO this was the really clever strategy. on one hand windows users can run XP on the macPro and on the other hand apple has to develop their further operating systems just for one platform. i'm pretty sure it will not take too long until we see OSX for *ordinary* PCs so opening the market from two sides for apple.

one of the major advantages of BSD is that it runs on almost every platform you can think of - i ran it on ALPHA(†), MIPS(†), PPC(†?), X86, X64 and i think it was the most important piece of open source software ever released. a lot of webservers, the majority of mailservers and AFAIK all DNS-servers run BSD because of its performance, reliability and stability - not all of this attributes have found its way into OSX so far.
what i'm missing most (especially regarding sample streaming) is a configurable pagefile - why let an operating system (released for generic use of a wide range of applications) decide if and how much virtual memory to use if samples cannot even use any? eg. one of the basic rules for good performance is to have the pagefile on another disk than operating system and applications.

hopefully you can notice i do see the advantages, but also just don't conceal the inconveniances. all this is only my personal view only, of course.
christian

christian: of course apple didn't invent lcd's I didnt' say that... [*-)] point taken on the sgi - good screen, but for the time the apple displays have been consistently of the best quality and offered much larger screens that most of the competition: but I digress....

me likey da aqua

[[:|]]

permissions corruption: we are agree don that point - it should not happen and should be fixed, but is this not nit picking?? [:O]

fourth point: AHA [I] so they're not that different from PCs [I] [I] [I] so you *could* adapt MIR to run on it! as paralell software? or mac osx native. Even if you have political issues with Apple [8-)] which I, ahem, respect... [[;)]]

Your fifth paragraph only strengthens the above argument, if you really think Apple with release osx for ordinary machines (he he) then all the more reason to develop for it.

I agree that mac osx should be more tried and true to the original philosophies of bsd and practicalities that flow from that. and I agree about the pagefile, that is a pain, and should be fixed... however, the near future shows that the usage or ram in the next 12 months will grow to a theoretically enourmous number, and practically will only be limited by how much ram you can cram into a machine - lets assume 32 Gb by 12 months from now (optimistic perhaps) - even 16Gb is capable now but for software limitations - isn't that all that would be needed? Or am I technically missing what you said?

Miklos.

@mpower88 said:

Even if you have political issues with Apple [8-)] which I, ahem, respect... [[;)]]

With all respect, I didn't read the slightest political issues in cm's posts, but a lot in yours.