New Mac Advice

I have a simple home songwriter setup for producing really nice sounding demos.
Have been happily running Logic 8.0.2, OS 10.5.5, on a 2006 17" MacBook Pro 2.16 Core Duo, 2 GB RAM.
Typically 20-30 tracks, minimal plugins (10 per song) and soft synths (3-4 per song)
Apogee Duet into FW 400 port (off of bus power)...
Glyph Portagig into FW800 port (off of bus power)
Last week my MBP would not keep anything mounted to the FW bus, and it turns out the logic board needs to be replaced (under Apple Care), but I am now thinking about a new computer, please help:
I like the idea of a simple, ultra-sleek, pared down setup
1. New MacBook Pro: PLUS: Nice, faster than what I have, more RAM, sleek, paired down, expandable with PCI Express card, no loud fans, less bulk in my "studio". MINUS: only one FW 800 port, requires PCI Express card (which I have and don't like to use, kind of don't like the idea of a laptop with stuff hanging off of it, only a 15" display, don't NEED portability.
2. iMac 24" 3.06 Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM: PLUS: Nice, faster than what I have, more RAM, sleek, paired down, larger display, both FW400 and 800 ports, no loud fans, less bulk in my "studio", good value. MINUS: not a professional music computer (???), FW 400 and 800 on SAME BUS, not expandable, though I would probably never need more than this as long as it works and is stable
3. Mac Pro (any 8-Core): PLUS: power, performance, professional, separate internal SATA hard drive & FW bus dedicated to Duet, expandable (though I probably won't ever go to PCI), large display option (probably newer ones coming out soon too). MINUS: Large, bulky, probably overkill (with a Duet?), need display, expensive.
4. Just get my computer fixed and hope for the best/that I get another year out of it...(Although I can always keep it for portability with 2-3 above!
What do you say?...thanks.

If the computer is not getting in your way performance-wise when running correcly, i'd stay with it.
Upgrade the RAM. There are many good and cheap dealers out there. I know people that have ordered memory and hd's to Europe from this company:
http://www.macsales.com/
You've got another year of applecare. And the laptop should be good for another year after that if your plug-in usage doesn't scale up. A new computer won't guarantee the hardware wont fail again.
I don't know what kind of outboard your using, but i bet i could get some nice mic and pre-amp action going for the price of option 3.

Similar Messages

Sond problems on new Mac Pros (2010)??? Buying new tower advice.

Hi all!!!
Has any one here have sound problems with the new Mac Pros (2010)??? I hear they
still have sound "pops" or something like that as with the 2009 MP. I'm looking
to buy a new MP since my G5 tower just died today (RIP) so need a new tower but need
to know if this sound issue is still there. BTW any advice on what I should buy for my next tower
would be welcomed too!!! I have a 2.5mhz LC G5 and I basically work with Photoshop, iMovie, Final
cut Express and almost every thing else and games too. I herd that the single 6 core (3.33mhz) is
a wise choice compared to a 12 core. Can I still use my 10.5 OSX (PPC) on the new Tower and then
update it to 10.6? Will be getting 12gigs of ram from OWC, NOT paying $1000+ to get 12 gigs from
Apple. Can I still use my 1.5GB/s(speed) hard drives? I know that the Mac Pros uses the 3Gb/s HD if
so I could fill the Mac Pro with my 2 G5's HD.
Thanks for any advice!!!!
Serge
Message was edited by: Serge Lebel

Hey there!!
Why would Apple continue offering that vid card in the store as an option and still talk about
it in the Mac section of it's web site???? Are you sure it's not the PC version of the 5870? I didn't
read any info on the net about it (AppleInsider, MacRumours etc...) I've just made a search on Yahoo
and Google and it says that it affects the 5770 too and what I could read it's PC related here's the
clip:
"+*AMD has confirmed that a previously reported issue of grey lines or screens with certain Radeon HD 5000 GPUs affects both the 5700 and 5800 series.*+
+Earlier this week, it emerged that many 5000 series users were experiencing problems with crashing and grey or colored lines appearing on his or her display. The grey screens and hangups were occurring while users were gaming, watching movies or in some cases, when the computer was just sitting idle.+
+When users contacted customer service they were told the issue was caused by a *Windows 7 update*. ATI recommended a clean install of the graphics card driver as a possible fix, stating this had solved some users problems. The ATI Catalyst 10.1 release notes (published Wednesday) note the problem as a known issue; however, *it's described as a problem affecting users of all versions of Windows and not just Windows 7.*+
+Today Dave Erskine, an AMD spokesperson, informed us that, "only a small number of ATI Radeon HD 5800 series and ATI Radeon HD 5700 series cards are exhibiting the behavior," and that the team is closing in on a fix for the apparently software related issue.+
+"The team is testing a driver hotfix and initial tests indicate that it resolves the issue," Mr Erskine said. "We need to test it further but we expect to make the hotfix available shortly."+
So I don't think its Mac related. Thanks for the info but still getting that Vid card anyway.
Thanks

Some advice - about to buy new Mac Mini.

Hi everyone - I'm hoping that someone can help me out with some advice.
I'm a former blackberry user and not a mac user, so I hope I'm clear in my explanation.
My mother is a PC user currently and owns a Blackberry Curve 8900. Actually, she and my dad both do, and currently use the PC to sync their (shared) calendar and contacts from one login in Windows XP to both of their blackberries. Yep, they're at that stage where they really don't need independent contacts or calendar. They sync with USB and curerntly use Outlook -- so no Exchange integration is needed for push email/etc.
Anyway, the PC is on its absolute last legs and I was thinking of migrating them over to a new Mac Mini since she's never really gotten the hang of Windows XP and I'm guessing that she'll do better on the Mac OS. Plus her friends all use Macs and I'm hoping they can help her. I'm guessing we'll just get them the latest version of Entourage with their new Mac.
I've been holding off migrating them to this until the Blackberry Desktop Manager for Mac was available because the Blackberry Desktop Manager on their PC is one of the few things that works really well for them. They're used to the interface, and it just works.
So, now that it's available I was looking through the forums here and it looks like there might be some issues with it that are persistent? I've seen references to 32 bit vs 64 bit and other sorts of stuff that I don't quite get.
Can anyone tell me if the new system for them would just work? Maybe someone out there has a similar configuration?
Or should I hold off or just consider moving them to a new Windows PC instead?
So it would be:
* 2 Blackberry Curve 8900s syncing to a single shared set of contacts and calendar using Blackberry Desktop Manager. They don't do email sync and probably won't make much use of audio sync. Images, though, yes.
* Brand new Mac Mini, which evidently comes with Mac OS X 10.6 (I don't know if it is 32 bit or 64 or what??)
* Sync to Entourage from Office 2008
thanks in advance,Aaron

Let me respond. First 10.6 (known as Snow Leopard) enables 64 bit technology...you can read this for more info:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/
Now as far as sync goes...Unfortunately there is no perfect solution. Why? BB, Entourage, Mac Address Book & iCal do not share identical "fields". So it is impossible to get them to all have the same info. The truth of the matter is, I do not think your parents will need to constantly sync the contacts...seriously how many new people do they met to add to their contact list? It is probably a one time...let me get all of their contacts on the computer and the devices. Now the calendar does need to be synced regularly. Some have had no issues with the sync between iCal and BB...others...well a different story. I migrated my parents (both sets) to Mac about 8-10 years ago. Why, because Mac software (OS included) is so much easier for them to understand and use. I also do the technical support (which I can do remotely with screen sharing) which is easier for me (and there are not many issues). I use mobile me and we have contacts and calendars synced across the family...all automated (if I make a change they get it within seconds). Hope this helps.
4.6.1.305 hybrid
Mac Pro 2X2.8 Quad SL

Advice on choosing a new mac pro model

Hi. I'm looking to buy a new Mac Pro for use mainly with AE, Premiere, Photoshop plus Element 3d and trapcode. Should I spend most $$ on the CPU or the GPU? For just under $6.5K I can get the 3.7 quad+dualD700's or the 3.5 6core +dual D500's (Plus 32 GB of Ram). Any advice would be appreciated. BTW, I'm looking to do hi rez 4K renders in Element 3d (I know this uses GPU but am unsure as to whether I can get away with the lower spec'd GPU's. Does anyone use this with lots of vram for hi rez renders and how much vram seems adequate? Thanks!

You're not saying which model of MacPro you are considering, but if you go with the Quad, you will NOT be able to run all 11GBs of ram. You have 4 slots, and slots 3 & 4 are shared. So you can put the 2x4 for the 8, but then you will only be able to run the 2x1 for another 2, giving you a total of 10GBs.

New mac pro upgrade advice needed or keep the old clunker

I have a 2008 mac pro with only 8gb ram
I am use the computer for FCP and Logic as well
as photo editing. It is not my livelihood I am just a serious hobbiest.
My option is to go with a new Mac Pro probably 8 core with 1 TB
I would have to get an enclosure for my 4 thunderbolt internal drives.
I also have 2 firewire 800 2T external drives.
My monitor is a 30 inch cinema display
so an 8 core with 64gb plus 4k monitor and upped graphics card is $11,600 add my buisness discount i am probably
looking at around $11,000
My other option is to keep the clunker add a 1TB SSD PCIe card form owc and add 8gb ram this will
cost me $1,400. I am really only throwing away the $200 for increasing the ram as
the PCIe ssd drive can be salveged and used in the new mac pro if I bought an pcie/ thunderbolt enclosure.
Tha advantage of going this route is I could use the clunker for another year allowing time
for the kinks in the new mac pro to be ironed out as well as the advantage of faster chips in next years model.
The other issue I have is a use a Universal Audio PCI card with 4 sharc processors to run specific plugins that need that
card in logic. That card will no be compatible with the new Mac pro and the replacement cards are over $1000 that are compatibe
Just looking for some advice do you think the SSD PCI card and ram will keep me happy with the performance to hold off upgrading for
a year or shoul I just put the clumker out of its misery?

radman wrote:
Just looking for some advice do you think the SSD PCI card and ram will keep me happy with the performance to hold off upgrading for
a year or shoul I just put the clumker out of its misery?
On this page Apple compares the 2012 Mac Pro (12-core) to a 2013 Mac Pro (12-core). The new Mac Pro performs about 3x faster at rendering. You didn't say how many cores your Mac Pro has but you could expect about a 4-5x faster performance increase.
I would have some questions for you:
How much time do you spend waiting on your current Mac Pro?
How much money are you willing to spend for a 4-5x increase?
I have a 2010 Mac Pro with a 960 GB OWC Mercury Accelsior E2 PCIe SSD, program launches and computer restarts are much faster. Compressing video takes the same amount of time as it did when I booted from a hard drive. I can't read or type email any faster, iTunes plays music just as fast as it always has with a hard drive.
I would use Activity Monitor to monitor your computer's memory use while you work with FCP and Logic to see if you are maxing out your memory then adding more may be the way to go.
I use my Mac Pro for recording over-the-air TV and compressing that video into an Apple TV usable format. I've found that having a dedicated drive for capture works well. Also, when I compress the video my capture drive becomes a dedicated source drive for Compressor and I write the output file to a separate dedicated drive. This ensures I maximize data flow and keep all my cores nearly fully utilized. I tend to do the processor intensive tasks (compressing video which can take hours) at the end of the day when I know I won't be using the computer (or only doing light work on it such as email or web surfing).

Seeking new Mac Mini monitor advice

I'm about to purchase a new Mac Mini i5. Any advice on an alternative monitor to the Apple 27 inch Thunderbolt monitor? I'm replacing an old 2006 24" iMac. Mahalo!

Unfortunately, GKaya, I don't have any advice beyond what you might find in some of those posts. I received my Mac mini on 12/14/12, and the Mac mini EFI firmware update had just come out 12/10/12. So I never had any flickering issues with a 26" 1080p Vizio TV or now a 27" 1080p AOC monitor, each in turn connected via HDMI. And I have not had the "crushed whites" issue that a few folks still have. I'm not sure what the issue there is. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary to avoid it. I just plugged the TV and the monitor straight into the mini's HDMI port with an Amazon Basics HDMI cable and used the default monitor settings.
And the picture is great. I eventually calibrated the picture with the AOC, but in the end, it made a very subtle difference, a matter of preference in brightness and temperature, not quality.
There are reports that the beta off OS X 10.8.3 fixes the remaining HDMI graphics issues, so here's hoping that you'll be rescued soon.
John

I purchased CS 5 in the UK in October 2010 for a Mac. I can't transfer the programs to my new mac. Any advice? Thanks!

I purchased CS 5 in the UK in October 2010 for a Mac. I can't transfer the programs to my new mac. Any advice? Thanks!

HI G.T.Morgan,
Can you please share the error message that you are getting ? Are you transfering the data using Time Machine or any third party Back up tool ? if yes , kindly not use that , as that could cause Adobe Softwares not to work . If you wish to download CS5 , kindly use the following link to download and install it directly on to your new machine .
Download CS5 products
Cheers,
Kartikay Sharma

Trying to purchase on iTunes for the first time on new Mac, asking for verifying questions-saying answers are incorrect. Reset password,still won't allow purchase without answering questions. Any advice?

Trying to purchase on itunes, using new Mac...asking for security questions but won't accept answers. reset password and iTunes still asks for security questions. Any advice?

After resetting your questions you've tried logging out (tap on your id in Settings > iTunes & App Store) and back into your account on your iPad to see if they then tie up ?
If they don't, and resetting them yourself doesn't make any difference, then you could try contacting Support and see if they can help with what's going on.
Normally when needing to contact support to get the questions reset you need to contact Support in your country : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5699
You could try the same contact method for your problem - or you could try contacting iTunes Support via this page, but as it's related to security questions they might just point you to the above : http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/contact/ , click on Contact iTunes Store Support on the right-hand side of the page
For the $9.99 purchase and your $10 credit, if you are in the US then you need to add on your state's sales tax to an item's listed price

I am a new mac owner and want to purchase Office for Mac. Thought I was told it could be purchased thru the mac store for approx $80 (word, excel, powerpoint). It is priced at $150 at the mac store. Any advice?

I am a new mac owner & want to purchase Office for Mac. Thought I was told I could get it through the mac store for approx. $80 (word, excel, powerpoint). However, it looks like the cost is actually $150. Is there a better deal?

Here it is from a trusted vendor of Mac goodies for US$100:
Microsoft Office 2011 Mac: Home/Student Edition. Single User License.
I also see the Mac version offered about every other week at Staples for about the same price.
Understand that the 2011 "Home/Student" edition does not come with a mail client.MS dropped Entourage with the 2011 version.
I am running Office 2008 on a Late 2010 i7 Quad iMac and a Core 2 Duo MBP (both are at OS 10.6.8) and I have no complaints. If you want the Entourage Mail client, you can still get Office 2008 from the vendor I linked.
I wonder if someone quoted the US$80 price thinking of Apple iWorks.

Advice for a RAID configuration in my new Mac Pro

I just got a brand new Mac Pro and I am looking to get the fastest possible render and encode times possible. Originally I bought an eSATA PCIe card but was not impressed with the transfer times. In another forum a user suggested that I setup a RAID5. What kind of drives and RAID cards do you recommend as pro videographers? I suppose I can use my 1TB G-Drive as cold storage for the captured video. Any ideas?

Tell me what you think of this potential setup then...
Hard Drive Bay 1
1TB Hard Drive from Apple that came with my Mac Pro
Hard Drive Bay 2
Cold Storage/Backup for Bay 3 & 4
Hard Drive Bay 3
RAID 0 with Bay 4
Hard Drive Bay 4
RAID 0 with Bay 3
I'm looking at getting three of these hard drives for the 3 empty hard drive bays...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284
What would you guys recommend I do with my 1TB G-Drive? It has USB, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and eSATA.

About to purchase new Mac Pro - Need Advice

I am about to purchase a new mac pro and have some questions
I am planning to use final cut pro as well as Edius on Boot Camp.
I intend to edit footage in HDV from a sony Z1 and also from the new sony - pmw -ex3 which i will be planning to edit in HD and 24p.
1) the default config for the mac pro is dual 2.8.ghz processors, what advantage gain will i get i upgrade to 3.0 or 3.2, is the extra power worth the money? will this give me more real-time editing
How many layers of HD 1920 x 1080 from the sony pmw-ex3, will i be able to edit in FCP 6.0 without any problems? would you advise more ram
2) i prefer to work from RAID 5 drives and keep system drive separate, this is how i have worked on in PC/Windows environment. Can anyone confirm if i can have one JBOD drive for the system and 3 drives configured as a RAID 5 drive?
Will i be able to use a boot to run windows and also be able to use the RAID 5 drive on windows side?
3) Is anyone using the 3ware RAID 5 side car? what is experienece is this compatible on the windows partition from boot camp
4) How will i be able to preview HD footage?
5) Do i need to invest in a better Graphics
Thanks in advance

Hi,
Here are a few answers.
1. The Mac Pro 2.8 GHz model performs so well that it is difficult to justify paying 28% more for 7% of additional processor power in the case of the Mac Pro 3.0 GHz or 56% more for 14% additional processor power with the Mac Pro 3.2 GHz model. You might see a small 5-10% increase in performance when compressing video with the 3.2GHz model but it certainly would not be worth paying 50% more to me. In addition, Amazon has the 2.8 on sale for $2599 after an easy rebate:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000VR4F2Q/arizomacinusergr
That is a $200 savings off the retail price.
2. If you want to use boot camp I would NOT recommend the Apple RAID card. Boot camp does not work with this card which leaves you wondering why you bought the card and how to get around this HUGE limitation. Instead, I would recommend the Areca ARC-1221x, HighPoint RR 3522 or the ARC-1680x if you want a SAS card. All of these cards have new firmware available that provide awesome performance and boot capability with the Mac Pro 2008. I would also get a SeriTek/2eEN4 4-bay and 1TB Samsung HDs. This gives a solid, quiet 4-bay enclosure that can support RAID 5 with any of the cards and you can add a second enclosure later if you want to use all eight external ports with RAID 6 (for added redundancy and increased volume size). This leaves the internal bays available for Boot Camp, Mac OS X, backups or mirrors and provides RAID 5/6 capability that can be configured to perform almost twice as fast as the Apple RAID card and provide double the redundancy with RAID 6. Links with more information are found here:
http://firmtek.stores.yahoo.net/sata2een4.html
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152102
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/highpoint/3522/
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/areca/1221x/
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/areca/1680x/
3. The 3Ware RAID 5 card is not a top pick in the Macintosh market. The options outlined above will provide much better performance and RAID 6 capabilities.
4. You can view the the HD footage on the monitor.
5. You may want a better graphics card but I would try the stock card first. I was surprised how well the ATI radeon HD 2600 XT card performs with Apple applications.
Have fun!

HELP! new mac user & iphone-a-holic in need of advice.

Hi All
My rubbish dell laptop blew-up last month, so treated myself to a new macbook.
Is there a way I can sync my old-iphone and all its content to my new mac?
Hope very welcome!
Best

Follow the instructions here:
http://lifehacker.com/242468/geek-to-live--how-to-move-an-itunes-library-from-a- pc-to-mac-and-back
and here:
http://www.myfirstmac.com/index.php/mac/articles/how-do-i-move-my-itunes-library -from-pc-to-mac-and-keep-my-settings-intact
Welcome to the Mac world!
When you're done with the above, do the following:
Disable auto sync under preferences(In the edit menu).
Connect your phone, do not sync.
Right-click the phone in the device pane & select backup.
Right-click the phone in the device pane again, select reset warnings.
Store>Authorize this computer.
Transfer the purchases on your phone: File>Transfer Purchases.
Put at least one contact & one event in your contact & calendar programs on your computer. They can be fake, doesn't matter. This will generate a merge or replace prompt when you do sync, select merge.(Do not sync at this point).
Then follow the instructions here for restoring from a backup, when prompted to create another backup before you restore, decline as we will use the backup created when we started:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414
After you restore from your backup, this needs to be followed by a sync to restore your itunes content.
This is what's included in the backup you'll make & restore from:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766

Advice -- new motherboard or new Mac?

After four years of solid support, the MacBook Pro is giving up the ghost. Multiple freezes? Lines across the screen? You betcha: motherboard is starting to go.
The terminal patient: MacBook Pro, 15 inch, 2007 vintage or thereabouts, 2.2 Ghz Core 2 Duo processor. Specs here.
The cost to repair? About $700.
Now, for the same price I can buy a new Mac mini. I got the monitor, after all, and external drives. I think the basic difference is in the mini's graphics card, which is somewhat better.
What say you MBP fans? Machine would be used for professional photo touchups and recreational video editing.

My 2¢
Don't spend that sort of money on a repair, update your hardware

Changing from G5 to new Mac Pro system

Hello Mac users,
I did search the forum for answers to my question, did not find any right away.
I have been using a Mac PPC G5 since 2004 or so. I am running Leopard 10.xx on this PPC. Due to requirements in software (seems more new software is for Intel version only) I have decided to break down and get a new Intel Mac Pro (dual 2.8, etc).
I have 2 G-Tech external firewire drives, and 1 internal SATA, and 1 external SATA to Firewire drive. All these drives are formatted as Extended, non-journaling (only 1 partition on each). Will the new mac read these drives without issue? I plan to place the external SATA/Firewire (It is in an ICY Dock) in to one of the spare bays in the new system. This drives carry the bulk of my data.
I have many applications, iPhoto 6, iMovie 6, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, and a few others. I plan to re-install all these apps on the new machine. I might try to copy my pref files for final cut and soundtrack to the new system.
I would also like to copy all the data under my user name on the "Macintosh HD" to the same username on the new mac. I plan to have the same user names on the new system.
I am trying to cover all the pitfalls in moving from my old system to the new one. I have seen postings recommending not using the setup assistant or the migration assistant to accomplish these tasks, and I do not mind reloading the apps, too much, particularly if it is safer!
any tips or advice on the process will be appreciated.
eholz1

Will the new mac read these drives without issue?
Yes.
I have many applications, iPhoto 6, iMovie 6, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, and a few others. I plan to re-install all these apps on the new machine. I might try to copy my pref files for final cut and soundtrack to the new system.
Check your applications for compatibility; unless you need to use the older iLife applications, don't install them. If you need to use the older iMovie only, use this download instead of the version on the PowerMac. Preference files don't need to be checked.
I would also like to copy all the data under my user name on the "Macintosh HD" to the same username on the new mac. I plan to have the same user names on the new system.
Create the accounts in the same order they were initially created.
(34702)

How can I connect a new mac mini to my old vga monitor? There doesn't seem to be a mini display port

I have an old monitor with VGA port, and was wondering if anyone knows how to connect this to the new mac mini. Older mac minis have the mini display port, and if that were the case I would use the mini display port to VGA adapter, but this new mac mini doesn't have one. It just has the thunderbolt port or HDMI port for displays... I've been looking for an adapter to connect my display to one of these but cannot seem to figure it out. Any advice? Thanks in advance.

The Thunderbolt port is the one to use; you use the same mini-DisplayPort adapter you used for the older minis.
Regards.

New Mac Advice

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