Build a Mac for recording

[MorganStudios]

Are their any sites where I can build a mac computer for recording or are their only ones for pc

[d.dot]

I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'v never heard of anyone building a mac. You configure macs.

[MorganStudios]

ok thanks what site allows me to configure macs?

[Jimsmack]

The Apple web site. And various resellers... MacMall, MacConnection, MacZone, lots of others. Google more.

[Gear Tramp]

McDonald's is always hiring.

[LK7]

ba-dump-bumb!

[MorganStudios]

Originally Posted by Gear Tramp

McDonald's is always hiring.

not funny

[Gear Tramp]

Building a Big Mac would be easier than building a computer that will run OS X

Lighten up, tough guy.

[davebl@dircon.c]

Thry this site. heres a sugestion.

Assuming your going with a mac pro.

You dont need a fast GPU unless youve got really large displays, unlikly.

If your using native processing get as fast and as many processors as you can afford if somthing like protools that has its own hardware then a more basic mac is fine.

Get one system drive small ish but thats hard these days and one fast media drive, Id go 10000 RPM say a western digital raptor. If you can affordd it a large archive drive to back up media and your system to. All internal drives are fine for this. If your running video a fourth drive for video only data.

3Gb ram

Suitable audio interface.

I think thats the mac side of it. Any one care to add to this incomplete list ?

[davebl@dircon.c]

I should have added one reason macs are great value is they have all the interface stuff already build in, USB 2, Firewire and so on......

[s.d.finley]

Originally Posted by Gear Tramp

Building a Big Mac would be easier than building a computer that will run OS X

Lighten up, tough guy.

LOL.......mmmmm....big mac....

[Gear Tramp]

Originally Posted by LK7

ba-dump-bumb!

...ch!

Great avatar! thumbsup

[3rd world order]

Originally Posted by davebl@dircon.c

Get one system drive small ish but thats hard these days and one fast media drive, Id go 10000 RPM say a western digital raptor. If you can affordd it a large archive drive to back up media and your system to.

surely a sign of the apocalypse... someone actually recommending a western digital hard drive to store important data on.

i wouldnt.

spend a few bux more and get a hitachi.. they bought IBM which made the most reliable drives ever.... or at least get a seagate..

**** western digital and maxtor... THEY'RE JUNK. almost as bad as micropolis... click click click

OSX loves RAM.

dont record audio on your internal drive unless you make a separate partition at least.

[Soundone]

I agree, WD is NG.. dfegad

[tuRnitUpsuM]

3rd world order .... Soundone


i agree Hitachi makes incredibly sound drives .... i also agree Maxtor make incredibly unsound drives ( personal experience ).

but so far i've had very few problematic issues with WD drives.... especially at spindle speeds of 10k..... chances are if someone is running a drive at 10k its a Raptor......

just curious as to why you've both come to these conclusions.....

cheers

[Gear Tramp]

10k drives are unnecessary for anything other than video work. Don't kid yourself. Just how big are your sessions?

All brands of drives have failed before and will fail again. In 15 years, I've never had a drive die on me before it was replaced. The OEM WD and Maxtor drives that have come with PCs in the past have always gotten extremely noisy and so I replaced them before they had the chance to fail. You're doing that too, right?!



I've yet to experience any problems with aftermarket OEM drives, and I have Seagate, WD, and Maxtor drives running, and for backup. Seriously, knock on wood. I'm going to backup twice today.

[tuRnitUpsuM]

Hi Gear Tramp


Im not going to get into the debate about what spindle speeds warrant and how much is necessary..... i've done that in the past .... i believe on this board as well (briefly)... is not the point i was trying to make....

I understand higher speeds lead to slightly higher noise production from the drive itself....but thats a given.... right??

To say a certain drive is No Good.... there must be reason ... aside from the common sense over-looking of faster may equal slightly louder...

not sure what u mean by replacing them before they fail because they become slightly noisier??? seagate drives are Silent!! Hitachi drives are Silent!! throughout their entire life??

Raptor drives aren't OEM as of yet..... at least i haven't come across any pre-built PCs , nor Macs standard with these drives....

Should always back-up ur data regardless what u are using.......................... regardless


cheers

Jay

[Gear Tramp]

Originally Posted by tuRnitUpsuM

Hi Gear Tramp

Hi Jay

I understand higher speeds lead to slightly higher noise production from the drive itself....but thats a given.... right??

Right!

To say a certain drive is No Good.... there must be reason ... aside from the common sense over-looking of faster may equal slightly louder...

I never said any drives are No Good. I said 10,000 rpm drives are unnecessary for audio work. Not once have I ever seen a 7200 rpm drive fail to keep up, even in 100+ track sessions. The CPU is always first to go.

For video, I wouldn't want to work on anything but 10k drives.

not sure what u mean by replacing them before they fail because they become slightly noisier??? seagate drives are Silent!! Hitachi drives are Silent!! throughout their entire life??

No drive is silent. Furthermore, every brand emits a different pitch. Maxtors are higher, Seagates are lower, and WD somewhere in between.

What I meant, however, is that if a drive starts to grind or emit a very high pitched whine (this happens), it should be replaced. I don't want a failure while I'm working, even if I do have backups.

Raptor drives aren't OEM as of yet..... at least i haven't come across any pre-built PCs , nor Macs standard with these drives....

I don't own any Raptor drives. I don't work on video here. I was not talking about Raptors. I was talking about OEM Maxtors, Seagates, and WDs.

Should always back-up ur data regardless what u are using.......................... regardless

Yep.

cheers

Jay

Take care!

Gear Tramp

[tuRnitUpsuM]

sry to original poster.......for off topic venturing...

unfortunately ...like already stated..... you can't build 'em..... configure ....yes....

lots of info available throughout the Interknot.....again already stated.

Recording needs differ from one bloke to another.... what are your needs??



Gear Tramp


i agree whole-heartedly that a 7.2k drive does keep up.... no question.... but at the prices nowadays for 10k drives.... a person setting up a system for recording... etc. The price difference between 7200 and 10000 isnt that steep a one... it isnt necessary to record audio... 5400 had that task not to long ago... but there is... bare with me.... a slight increase in performance from faster drives... as well as the assurance that a 10k will keep up... (if possible in the computer world) also provide alil comfort in future proving your investments.

what happens should one day a client request video syncing on a small scale... or the user would like to dabble in sound for video...etc.. no need to change a thing...

gotcha now by your statement ... and agree... why wait for the failure if there is truly something a-rye brewing with the drive ... thought u meant something else entirely....

ditto (take care)

cheers

Jay

[3rd world order]

Originally Posted by tuRnitUpsuM

3rd world order .... Soundone
but so far i've had very few problematic issues with WD drives.... especially at spindle speeds of 10k..... chances are if someone is running a drive at 10k its a Raptor......

just curious as to why you've both come to these conclusions...

i was sitting next to my old g3/450 not even touching the computer when the drive took a shit.. click click click

that's the sound of death..

did a search about it and found a ton of ppl who had similar experiences with WD drives.

NEVER AGAIN.

gave all my WD drives away and replaced them with either seagate or hitachi

[tuRnitUpsuM]

3rd world order


fair enough...

but i could do a similar search and come up with the same statement for Seagate....etc....

moving parts equipment will have some reports on failure.... regardless of the name of drive....

Hitachi
Seagate
WD all have their fair share of success stories..... i just thought maybe u weren't giving WD a fair shake is all.. (im not affiliated with WD btw)

its just that someone suggested a 10k drive.... WD .... and u mentioned WD is " not so great".... the drive that "failed u" ...was it a raptor? one of their OEM drives (7200) how long had the drive been installed in the G3? nothing lasts forever....

cheers

[3rd world order]

Originally Posted by tuRnitUpsuM

3rd world order.. how long had the drive been installed in the G3? nothing lasts forever....

3 years or so... don't remind me...

i dont remember what specific model it was... it was an u2w scsi drive if that matters... and now it's in so many goddamn pieces it wishes it were never alive... i had to exact my revenge on it. retribution is a mofo

i threw seagate in there because i've had about 6 of them without incident... the WD one especially pisses me off because i heard it blow up.. the computer was just idling at the time... hitachis may blow up too but they havent for me.. yet. i've just heard too many stories about WD drives blowing up to ever want to repeat the experience.

fool me once, shame on you.. fool me twice, shame on me..

drives are so cheap per GB now it seems silly to buy anything but the most reliable. just like RAM, max it out.. RAM is so cheap it seems silly not to. OSX loves RAM.

[autodidactic]

How did this person do it then? Looks like he/she has OSX running on an HP laptop

[foldback]

In 22 years of computing and several dozen hard drives, I've had two Hard disk failures. One was a Seagate 80 gig and the other was a Hitachi 120gig. The Hitachi was relatively low hours too but just out of its one year warranty.

In the late 90's the WD drives did suck and were notorius for failure in PC's, but in the past 4 years I've had no problems with them and I do a lot of video which is very demanding.

I've read of Maxtor problems but I've personally never had any. I've had great luck with Maxtor Firewire drives. I like the case construction and they have a good external line-lump power cord.

I even have some APS Quantum SCSI drives that still work fine. A good backup strategy is your best protection against drive failure.

[tuRnitUpsuM]

3rd world order

don't remind me

sry


fair enough.... ur experience with Seagate.... is my own with WD... a live and let live scenario ?


autodidactic



Tre' cool .....



foldback



interesting... Maxtor is my Seagate + Hitachi in your scenario....

A good backup strategy is your best protection against drive failure.

absolutely!!

cheers

[Soundone]

I've had 2 out of 2 WD drives I've used die on me, manufactured in 2002-2004. Would not be my choice, I'd suggest Seagate, I'm not familiar with Hitachi except by reputation. Just my own personal experience that makes me biased, no big statistics here..

[Will]

Originally Posted by autodidactic

How did this person do it then? Looks like he/she has OSX running on an HP laptop

That is a version of OS X called the x86 project. Basically some people have modified OS X so that it can be installed on a PC if you patch it right. This all happened when Apple changed to Intel chips. I have seen people use it, and have even seen Logic working on it, but I don't think its legal and I'd be unsure how stable it is.

[statikcat]

Is it possible to buy the exact mobo/proc combo Mac Pros have and build your own? I dont think so because I would have heard of it.. but am at least curious as to why not. Probably the mobo is exclusive to Apple for the Mac Pros?

[davebl@dircon.c]

Originally Posted by Gear Tramp

10k drives are unnecessary for anything other than video work. Don't kid yourself. Just how big are your sessions?

All brands of drives have failed before and will fail again. In 15 years, I've never had a drive die on me before it was replaced. The OEM WD and Maxtor drives that have come with PCs in the past have always gotten extremely noisy and so I replaced them before they had the chance to fail. You're doing that too, right?!



I've yet to experience any problems with aftermarket OEM drives, and I have Seagate, WD, and Maxtor drives running, and for backup. Seriously, knock on wood. I'm going to backup twice today.

180 tracks or more. its not a video issue just track requirements. And absolutly dont use your internal system drive but you can and should use a second internal media drive..... No issues with the WD Raptors yet.

[Gear Tramp]

Wow! What kind of sessions are you working on that require 180 seperate tracks all being accessed at the same time?