Surround sound out of a Mac pro

I can mix surround sound on protools, soudtrack pro but how can I get surround sound out of this thing? is there a MIDI amp or digital optical system? don't need speaker info just what is the best way to output surround for audio mixing?

You need an external card. It can be USB or Firewire. Your sound device needs to have several outputs (at least 6). If you choose to do it with Protools, then an external card is not an option and it has to be a Digidesign or M-Audio card. (For example the M-Audio Fast Track Ultra or the Profire 610). If you go with M-Audio card then you need protools M-Powered. And you need a special plugin becaude Protools LE or M-Powered doesn't support Surround...
Now that you have a sound card with several outputs, you can't use a regular Home Receiver, it won't work. In studios, we use individual amplified speakers. And you assign each output to a specific speaker (output 1 for left front, etc).
A bit complicated but this is how it is done...

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Surround Sound not working on Mac Pro (Early 2008)!

I'm writing this as my last ditch attempt to solve my problem.
Recently I bought a 5.1 Onkyo AV Receiver, model HT-R558 as for the audio output of my machine.
I have connected the device components, however when connected to my Mac using a TOSLINK cable, all i recieve is stereo sound through the front left, center, and front right speakers. - The rear speakers give no output, and the subwoofer only works in iTunes.
As far as I was aware the process was as follows:
Mac Pro with output set to Digital Out connected to the digital out port --> Optical/Toslink Cable --> connected to receiver (Onkyo HT-R558 through optical in on receiver.
I have followed several Knowledge Base articles with no success.
Is the Mac Pro actually capable of 5.1 sound output, or is it an added non-working feature?
I have tried a system utility called Perian, but no luck, also i have found articles saying this can be fixed with Terminal, no luck either.
If anyone has any advice on correctly connecting surround sound to my Mac I would be extremely grateful! I only hope there is something I have overlooked.
At the moment i am running the system using Pro Logic II, though it feels like a let down.

I found the problem, the digital out on my Mac Pro is only capable of outputting stereo, this appears to be an OS X 10.6.8 issue that would need to be addressed via a supplemental update.
I know DVD Player can output 5.1 when set up correctly, so can iTunes movies; unfortunately this appears to be a problem that only has few solutions.
1. Downgrade OS X to a version prior to 10.6.8 (however doing this causes incompatibility with my iOS devices.)
2. Add a PCI Express compatible sound card, or use an external card (requires additional hardware purchases.)
3. Use only stereo capable units with the machine (as anything with higher speaker configurations requires use of Pro Logic II from the receiver/amplifier; not to mention sounds terrible.)
Until, or if this is ever fixed I will stay with option 2, as it doesn't require use of additional software just to use audio, allows me to use the respective amplifier fully, and also sounds better.
Thank you for your advice, I just have to remember to be a little more careful when choosing audio products for use with Mac it seems.
I am closing this question.
Regards,
Peter.

Optical audio and surround sound speakers for my Mac Pro

In the back of my Mac Pro there's an in and out for Optical Audio. What is this and are there any surround sound speaker systems out there that will plug into it? Most surround sound speakers seem to require a PC-style triple-input, with three jacks (Green to front, Orange to centre and Black to rear channels). Very few surround sound systems have the additional option for a single headphone socket-style jack, and I'm not sure if they will work terribly well with this single connection.
Can anyone recommend some speaker choices, particularly in the UK, that will give me good surround sound from the optical audio or single headphone jacks? Many thanks.

You might want to look at a device called the Griffin FireWave: [http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/firewave]
It connects to your MacPro via firewire, and has the green/orange/black jacks out to a standard 5.1 speaker system.
It comes with a software application that lets you customize the sound, and also synthesize surround from mono, stereo, etc., sources.
It would definitely open up your choices for speaker systems. I'm using one with a Klipsch 5.1 Promedia set of speakers. Works and sounds great.

HT6067 How can I connect 5.1 surround sound speakers to my Mac Pro?

How to connect 5.1 surround sound speakers without a receiver to my Mac Pro, so I can test and hear surround sound files I am creating?

As far as I know, the only way to do that is with the digital out, toslink I believe(1). . Currently there are very few external usb soundcards that are known to work with Mac and produce 5.1 sound, perhaps Diamond Multimedia or Zalman?. Analog surround really doesn't work (green, yellow, black cords)*. So, maybe, Garage band/VLC? or the dvd player might be the only things I know that could produce 5.1 sound, but I could be wrong.......
(1) You will need a speaker set with an optical input...
* maybe try this--i think it's called an " HD audio rush " box and it converts digital to analog audio 5.1 supposedly-, you can look on ebay for similar things
sorry I couldn't be of more help
John B

No sound out of my MAC PRO Optical Digital audio port

I own a Mac Pro early 2007, running MAC OS X Ver 10.6.7
I also have a set of Logitech Speakers Z5500 connected to the Optical digital port
No problem ever until now
Suddenly I am not getting any sound out my Mac Pro.
The speaker are testing fine, the volume is set correctly and in the system preferences, in the Sound function the device is selected for Digital Out.
I am at my rope's end.
Any help will be appreciated
Thanks
Carlos

sircolio:
I took my apple to teh Apple Store and one of the geniuses analyzed to be a hardware problem.
It will cost me $500.00 to have fixed. Thanks but not thanks

Trouble getting any sound out of new Mac Pro

I recently bought a new Mac Pro and I've been having trouble getting any sound out of the internal speaker. I believe it thinks that there are always headphones plugged in even when there aren't. I don't get a startup sound and it doesn't make the "volume change quack" when I change the volume. The choices under the Sound panel for Output are: "Headphones", "Line Out", and "Digital Out" even if no headphones are plugged in. Sometimes I can get sound out of the computer if I jiggle around a headphone plug in the jack but as soon as I reboot or the machine wakes up from sleep the sound goes away.
I'm guessing that it's probably a bad headphone jack but before I inevitably have to lug the 60 pound machine to the Genius Bar I thought I'd ask to see if anyone else has had similar issues and if there might be a quick fix to do myself.
Thanks for any tips or help.

Thank you but that unfortunately did not fix it. I'm sure I need to take it in.

Sound Card for the Mac Pro

Hello,
I've searched around but can't seem to find any definitive answer to buying a sound card for my Mac Pro. I want to plug in a guitar and microphone for garageband and voice overs on FCP. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Jake

Best look for usb/fw audio interfaces which can be inexpensive and easy to get up an running.
There are many many cards on the market all depending on how many I/O you are chasing and overall sonic results.
If your in the market for entry level cards - check out
www.m-audio.com
www.focusrite.com
www.digidesign.com
or
if your in the semi-pro market, look at www.rme-audio.com (mainly the fireface series)
My pick if you are an entry level user wanting a great 2in/2out interface, have a look at the Duet by Apogee.
http://www.apogeedigital.com/
(I use all their top end pro kit and can tell you they are a very good company in both product and support)

Moving a drive with OSX to another computer? take it out of my Mac pro laptop and into my mac mini. can with be done with no OS/Hardware issues?

moving a drive with OSX to another computer? take it out of my Mac pro laptop and into my mac mini. can with be done with no OS/Hardware issues?

babowa wrote:
Thanks; however, I was really referring to this: if it is preinstalled on a Mac, I believe the license is for that computer only (unlike an MAS purchased version which can be used on any Mac owned). Has that requirement changed?
At this moment, that's correct. The OS X license included with a Mac can only be used with that Mac. However, in the case the OP has purchased OS X Mountain Lion in the past, this may change

Moving a drive with OSX to another computer? take it out of my Mac pro laptop and into my mac mini. can it be done with no OS/Hardware issues?

moving a drive with OSX to another computer? take it out of my Mac pro laptop and into my mac mini. can it be done with no OS/Hardware issues?

When I work with a drive to boot many computers, I use the newest model computer I will be booting, and set the system up on that, run all the Apple updates. Normally I will have no issue booting any older computer with the same drive. Unless of course those older computers do not support the operating system on that drive.
If you want to test if the drive will boot the mac mini. Put your MacBook Pro into target mode. Connect the two computers together. And on the Mac Mini, go into system preferences and then under start up disk and see if the target disk mode computer's drive shows up there. Seelct that drive and restart. See if it boots ok. A bit easier then taking the drives out and moving things around.

How is the sound created that the Mac Pro makes when it starts?

It sounds as if beads are moving, but now I think it just is a sound coming from the Mac Pro's speakers. Does anyone know what it is? I cannot find anything online.

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
How many beeps do you hear?

Surround Sound through optical on MacBook Pro 2011

So I've got this brand new MacBook Pro connected to my 5.1 surround sound home theatre system through optical, and I can only seem to get stereo sound out of it. I go through the Audio MIDI Setup and it always only shows 2 speakers and when I open up Left 4 Dead 2 it also only shows 2 speakers, any ideas on how I can get the surround sound working, I've been searching for awhile and haven't found anything, thanks?

Stereo has 2 channels, 5.1 surround sound has six channels total.
The Mac passes 5.1 through the optical cable/port.
The audio has to have a 5.1 encoding of some sort, Dolby, Logic etc.,
Your receiver has to be set to decode the 5.1 format being sent to it.
You can test this with a DVD that has extra sound capabilities in the audio menu, then match the encoding on the receiver.
Some 3D games provide surround sound on a Mac, but usually it's to a PC sound card that handles the processing. Since Mac doesn't do that, it just passes the surround sound through, the surround sound must be in a encoding format your receiver can understand.
Some good receivers can take Stereo 2 channel and separate out some of the frequencies and send them to the appropriate speaker, like the sub woofer and mid range. Then take the left and right channels and duplicate them for the front and rear left and right channels to fill a room with sound. However this isn't true surround sound as you won't hear objects moving up behind you or flying past over your head like in a good movie or video game with true surround sound abilities.
Your lucky I was here, not many people mess with surround sound on a Mac, or really don't even know it's there.
But it's really worth the effort, even iTunes music sounds great. A iPod sounds like crap in comparison.

Creating 5.1 surround sound out of stereo audio

Hi,
I'm new to surround sound editing, so for the past few weeks I've been searching through internet how to create suround sound for my movie. I have a whole movie already done in Premiere Pro 5 (every scene in it's own squence). In these sequences I have stereo audio clips that create a complete stereo sound, but since this movie is going to go on film festivals I have to create surround sound.
Through my reasearch I came across many explanations of how to create it, but the more I read the more it confused me so I decidet to ask for help on this forum.
1. Is it posible to create surroundsound directly out of stereo audio (I know that the sequences that you are working in has to be set to surround sound) that I have in first, second and third chanel, that have surround sound controls above them in Audio mixer?
2. I know that in 5.1 chanels you can only inport 5.1 surround sound tracks. My question is, do I have to take each stereo clip, transform it in mono clip and then create a stereo clip out of that mono clip?
3. Did I completly miss the whole concept of creating surround sound and that I would have to do it diferently?
Thanks for helping out, Jaggarjack

To output to DD 5.1 SS, you will need an Encoder, like the Minnetonka Audio SurCode DD5.1 SS plug-in.
You can also use Audition (do not know about SB) to create 6-channel files (usually WMA w/ either 5, or 6 discrete channels, depending on how you handle the LFE). Still, to use such a set of files with Audio-Visual material, you will need an Encoder. Minnetonka Audio has others, like the SurCode DD 5.1 SS stand-alone and the DTS stand-alone.
If you have disassembled the original audio streams into mono sources, you can create faux 5.1 SS, and with a little work, it can be quite convincing. The 5.1 controls in a 5.1 Master Project, can be very useful for "creating" your sound stage. You can also use those to feed certain frequencies from other sources to the LFE, and to the Center channel. With good stereo in the Front speakers, you should already have a decent phantom Center, and can punch that up even more.
I would recommend starting with the Help File for "Surrond Sound," to get the basics down, plus the mechanics in PrPro. HERE is a little sample. You might also want to see the links in this PrPro-Wiki Search for more material.
The Recording Academy's Producers & Engineers' Recommendations for Surround Sound Production is useful paper.
I recommend three books:
Surround Sound, Second Edition: Up and Running, Tomlinson Holman (cannot find my copy for ISBN)
Instant Surround Sound, Jeffery Fisher, CMP Books ISBN 1-57820-246-9
Basics of Video Sound, Des Lyver, Focal Press ISBN 0-240-51561-7
That would be a good start.
Happy reading, and up-mixing,
Hunt

8800 GT crapped out, 1st-gen Mac Pro

When I tried to turn on Mac Pro today, the monitor didn't appear to be receiving any video, and the fan on my GPU was at full speed without stopping. The computer otherwise seemed to be working fine (startup sound played, could hear hard drives working). I ruled out the monitor as the issue, and upon replacing the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT with an old ATI X1900 XT I had lying around, the computer started working fine. The ATI was the original card that came with the Mac, which I replaced with the Nvidia about 3 years ago.
The problem now is that I need a replacement for the 8800GT. Unfortunately, I have a first-gen Mac Pro (2006) and my warranty ran out, so a free repair is not likely. I called the local Apple store, who forwarded me to Apple support, who told me that Apple doesn't have any 1st-gen Mac Pro compatible 8800s lying around. They suggested I check Newegg, but after some time trying to struggle through the site I don't believe they have any either.
So, I guess my question is, what now? My Mac functions fine with the X1900XT, but the reason the card was replaced was because it performed terribly, overheated often, and had artifact issues, so I'd rather not keep it.
This is my first experience trying to replace hardware out of warranty, and coming from PCs it's hard to imagine there are no replacements out there. Do I have to live with the ATI, or does anyone know if/where I can find a replacement 8800?
I have a MacPro1,1, dual Intel Xeon 2.66GHz, 4GB RAM, latest version of Mac OS X.

BTW, 9.5 Minutes in a 425F oven has about 50/50 odds of reviving your 8800GT. You need to remove fan first. There are multiple "how tos" on web. I have done this with MANY 8800GTs and can report odds really are about 50% that card can resume normal life.
Issue was early Lead Free solder.

5.1 Surround Sound Altec Lansing with Macbook Pro

I am sure this question has been asked many times before, but I couldn't find an answer. I have 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound Altec Lansing speakers that came with my Dell Desktop from several years ago, and I recently switched over to mac by purchasing a macbook pro. I would like to know what the best way, if any, would be to get the speakers working with my macbook.
The 5 surround sound speakers plug into the back of the subwoofer, and the subwoofer has 3 cables (I'm guessing right/left/subwoofer) that connect to the back of the desktop. Are there any adapters that would allow me to use them with my macbook pro? Is there any way to just stream whatever sound I want to those speakers? Is it even possible? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Is there a way to identify which computer outputs support 5.1 sound? It is a media center PC, but I can't find that information anywhere.

No sound from soundtrack on Mac Pro

Just got a new Mac Pro and I can't seem to get any sound out of my old version of Soundtrack 1.2.
The VU meters are showing output, my sound prefs ins and outs are set to my MOTU 424 PCI card,
I get audio from every other program i.e. MOTU DP, iTunes, etc..but no sound from Soundtrack.
I checked the soundtrack prefs and made sure they were set to the MOTU soundcard, but still no sound.
In addition, I can't load Soundtrack while Digital Performer is running. I have to quit DP, then start
Soundtrack. In the past, I would sync Soundtrack to DP and run them both simultaneously to audition loops. It worked great with my old G5. So far, not happening with the Mac Pro. Any ideas?

Sounds like a Rosetta problem - non universal binary audio applications can face major difficulties with latency and audio output when working with universal binary audio card drivers, plugins etc.

Surround sound out of a Mac pro

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