Powerbook with 4-Slot Magma

[hepo]

Hi, I have a question regarding a setup for mobile recording and mixing. The thought is to connect a 4-slot Magma chassis to a G4 Powerbook via the cardbus slot, and put into it:

- 2 UAD's
- a PCI audio interface (RME, Lynx, or something like that)
- since you can put 5.25'' drives into it, also an additional HD with 160GB or more for sample libraries and audio recording storage.
- maybe later a PoCo

My question: Would this setup work, or is this too much data traffic over the one single cardbus slot? I usually do not work with more than three or four VSTis and 8 to 12 audio tracks at once (or 16 to 24 audio tracks after freezing/bouncing VSTis). Oh - and since I \"grew up\" on PC and am very familiar with Steinberg software, I would like to stick to Cubase SX(3) instead of learning a new sequencer and change to Logic 7 - or does this have too many disadvantages on Mac?

 

[Ninja]

From various reports it seems that a mac isn't the right platform if you want to run Nuendo or Cubase. It just isn't very optimized, and I don't know whether Steinberg/Yamaha are planning to do anything about that.

That said there are still lots of people who do it, but I would definetly recommend that you go for a pc instead if you're set on cubase.

 

[hepo]

Thanks, Ninja, I almost expected this answer. Well, I could either use a PC notebook then with a cardbus slot, or learn to use Logic - I assume it's not rocket science, and I really like working with Macs (used an iBook recently for a few months for my email, photographs, and so on, but sadly had to sell it again - needed the money ).

How about the other question? The amount of data over the single cardbus slot? Will that be too much with a PCI interface and 2 UAD's (and maybe PoCo)? That really interests me a lot...

 

[Trace]

Man don't listen to that stuff about SX3 on a Mac. You can get a lot done with that setup. I believe that there are lots of people who have a similar setup. There are a LOT of people who use SX on the Mac. I remember back when they were 1st going to add audio feature to cubase and the whole VST technology thing was about to jump off. I had a Mac then and have had Macs and PC's since. I just moved over from a P4 system a little less than a year ago and its been a VERY smooth transition. The cross platform deal works very nicely. I only had to re-load the Dither plug in and make small adjustments with the midi settings, but everything else pretty much worked as it did.

From what I have heard you can do a lot over the Carbdbus slot, the bandwidth is most likely enough for what you're trying to do. Also don't forget you also have FireWire as another Bus to add peripherals to the system.

I will add that soon MacIntel Powerbooks should be coming out. If you can swing one of those it should be a very nice machine. Of course you'd have to wait for reports on how well they work, but down the line it seems like a nice option.

TRACE

 

[hepo]

Thanks again... ok, so a cardbus slot should be able to handle it. Since it looks like such a good mobile recording solution, I also think about not putting a PCI audio interface into the Magma, but maybe getting an Apogee MiniME and MiniDAC. The Powerbook has digital audio in and out, can I plug these two units with SPDIF straight into the Powerbook? It shouldn't do anything to the audio quality, should it? (I would prefer that over using the USB option because it doesn't limit me to lower sample rates). How about latency with such a setup?

 

[Trace]

Thanks again... ok, so a cardbus slot should be able to handle it. Since it looks like such a good mobile recording solution, I also think about not putting a PCI audio interface into the Magma, but maybe getting an Apogee MiniME and MiniDAC. The Powerbook has digital audio in and out, can I plug these two units with SPDIF straight into the Powerbook? It shouldn't do anything to the audio quality, should it? (I would prefer that over using the USB option because it doesn't limit me to lower sample rates). How about latency with such a setup?

I'm not sure what the highest sample rate of the digital I/O is for the Powerbook. I don't believe that there is a necessary limit on the Sample rate of USB or FW devices. I think you'll find them to be capable of giving you the high quality you want.
Latency is an adjustable thing. The lower you set it the more CPU will be required. If possible use a device that has Zero Latency monitoring. Just know that anytime you monitor with Native FX that are in the DAW App this will add the latency of your audio Buffer, which as I said is an adjustable amount. In a lot of cases you can get quite acceptable latency if you can set it low enough.

Just be patient and I believe that the new MacIntel PowerBooks should be released. They are likely to be higher powered and perhaps a little cheaper.

TRACE

 

[hepo]

The USB connection on these two Apogee boxes is limited to 48kHz, while their SPDIF does 96. Well, no prob, I will simply ask Apple
Yes, I am also looking forward to this new Powerbook generation...!