Anyone effectively using an Intel Mac to run PC-based music software?

[Silver Sonya]

I have a MacBook Pro and almost everything I want to use is available for one of the software platforms I use (principally DP, Live, and Pro Tools).

There are a few things that I want to use that are PC/VST only. I am wondering if it would be worth investing in a copy of some PC/VST software (I'm thinking of Wavelab or maybe Cubase) to run these programs myself.

I've read that the new Macs have the ability to imitate Windows in something called Bootcamp or whatever. I've never tried it out; never really had a reason to.

For some reason, I would expect it to be buggy and slow or something. I don't know why I feel this way. I don't have any evidence for it.

Anyone done this and met with success? Lemmeknow.

Cheers,
Chad

[Silver Sonya]

No responses. I guess I'll take this as a "No."

- c

[steff3]

principally you have at least 2 possibilities - bootcamp which means you can run OSX OR WinXP/Vista - or something like Parallels - means you can run Windows inside OSX.

If you need something like ASIO you might need to run bootcamp and thus only Windows. bootcamp is still beta - we tried with an earlier version to run different win apps on a Mac Pro and it was not as stable as on a WinPC - but this might have chanced. I think for Audio Editors (Wavelab) it might be ok, if I wanted to use Cubase (despite the fact that it is Cubase) - do not know.

you might also want to check over at forum.cubase.net in the Mac section or the Nuendo forum as there were some that used Cubase SX3/Nuendo 3 as there was no native Intellimac versions under bootcamp.

hope that helps

best

[syra]

Yeah I'm also interested in this...thanks for the info...anyone else out there?

[richardswag]

I just did this - see this thread...

What PC apps/plugins are worth installing bootcamp for?

[kclisby]

Chad,

I have the new intel mac pro quad 2.66... and run nuendo/cubase on bootcamp with no issues at all.... I was actually blown away by how efficiently the mac ran windows software... It out performs any pc i've ever owned... no issues with plug-in counts, no issues with software latency(buffers)... drivers, nothing... It's the most stable psuedo pc configurations i've ever owned... and it's a mac...

Of course... it's not hook up to the internet at all... nice and quarantined from the rest of the world... but still antivirus software protected... just in case someone remotely brings a bug in....

Doc