Attention:

Welcome to the old forum. While it is no longer updated, there is a wealth of information here that you may search and learn from.

To partake in the current forum discussion, please visit https://forums.presonus.com

Good enouh PC?

A Forum to Discuss NOTION

Good enouh PC?

Postby mrarnesen » Wed Jun 06, 2012 5:51 pm

My Notion Demo has expired so now I'm just waiting for my next payday to buy it :)

But i'm a bit worried that I don't have a good enoug PC to run all the software I wanna buy. I noticed that when I used the Notion demo with several Miroslav Philharmonik instruments, it started to get slow and the memory use was close to the limit. So maybe I have to just buy a new PC?

The problem is that I'm no expert at all on this. So all the fancy words like "Intel Core 2 Duo", "AMD Dual Core 2.1GHz", "Sound card with ASIO drivers", "7200 RPM or faster" and so on, tells me nothing.

I don't even know what kind of PC I got, lol. Although I could find the following information about my PC:
AMD Athlon (tm) II X2 245 Processor 2.90 GHz
4,00 GB RAM (but only 3,00 GB is free)

I got no idea what kind of hard drive or soundcard I got, although I know that the hard drive has 600GB free.

Guess I have a really poor PC for running software like Notion, Miroslav, Kontakt, Tonehammer...?

Perhaps it could be a good idea to print out the system requirements for all these programs and bring it to a store?
Logic Pro 9, Kontakt 5, Notion 4, Requiem Light, Mercury Symphonic Boychoir, Emotional Piano, Miroslav Philharmonik.
mrarnesen
 
Posts: 86
Joined: Tue May 15, 2012 7:46 pm

Re: Good enouh PC?

Postby pcartwright » Wed Jun 06, 2012 6:27 pm

I definitely recommend doing some research and getting a firm understanding of hardware requirements especially when it comes to any sort of media production.

There are many hardware components you need to take into consideration when buying (or upgrading) a music production computer. However, IMHO, the most important hardware consideration for composition with sample libraries (such as Miroslav) is RAM capacity. To put it simply, instrument samples (the actual sound files in Miroslav) are loaded to RAM and then used by Notion during playback. So, a few things to note:

* First, 32 bit machines can only manage roughly 4 GB of RAM while 64 bit machines can manage a lot more. Of course, motherboards will have their own limitations.

* Second, Notion is a 32 bit program, so by itself it can only use around 4 GB of RAM. However, jBridge is a handy little application made to circumvent this problem. It basically allows Miroslav and other sound libraries to utilize additional RAM that would otherwise be unavailable. Also, I think there is another method mentioned by a few members on the forum to circumvent the RAM limitations, but I can't remember how exactly. Anyway, jBridge is only for Windows at the moment, but there is a Mac version in beta.

So, I would recommend a 64 bit Windows machine with more RAM than you think you'll need (I have 8 GB on my machine at the moment, but I will likely upgrade to 16 GB soon). You will need a 64 bit machine to support more than 4 GB RAM, and I recommend Windows simply because you can use jBridge (well, that and the fact that I dislike Macs, but that's purely subjective).

I haven't used Miroslav in a while, so I don't know what kind of memory resources are required by that library. I also recommend jBridge so that you can use all of your RAM, not just the 4 GB allocated for 32 bit apps like Notion.

Does that help at all?
pcartwright
 
Posts: 796
Joined: Sat Dec 05, 2009 2:47 pm

Re: Good enouh PC?

Postby Surfwhammy » Wed Jun 06, 2012 6:54 pm

mrarnesen wrote:My Notion Demo has expired so now I'm just waiting for my next payday to buy it :)

But i'm a bit worried that I don't have a good enoug PC to run all the software I wanna buy. I noticed that when I used the Notion demo with several Miroslav Philharmonik instruments, it started to get slow and the memory use was close to the limit. So maybe I have to just buy a new PC?

The problem is that I'm no expert at all on this. So all the fancy words like "Intel Core 2 Duo", "AMD Dual Core 2.1GHz", "Sound card with ASIO drivers", "7200 RPM or faster" and so on, tells me nothing.

I don't even know what kind of PC I got, lol. Although I could find the following information about my PC:
AMD Athlon (tm) II X2 245 Processor 2.90 GHz
4,00 GB RAM (but only 3,00 GB is free)

I got no idea what kind of hard drive or soundcard I got, although I know that the hard drive has 600GB free.

Guess I have a really poor PC for running software like Notion, Miroslav, Kontakt, Tonehammer...?

Perhaps it could be a good idea to print out the system requirements for all these programs and bring it to a store?


If you want to avoid a lot of problems, then I recommend getting a new iMac (Apple), because everything (operating system and hardware) is designed to work together correctly, and everything is included . . .

If you are in the US, the easiest way is to get the most basic new iMac that Amazon.com sells, which currently is the Apple iMac MC309LL/A 21.5-Inch Desktop (NEWEST VERSION) and costs $1,120.43 (US), although if you want a larger display, you can spend more and get the 27" iMac . . .

[NOTE: Later if you decide that you need more memory, you can get a memory upgrade from Other World Computing and install it yourself, which is easy to do on a new iMac, and this saves a lot of money compared to Apple memory. This is what I do, and it works very nicely . . . ]

For reference, I do everything here in the sound isolation studio on a 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro, which I have had for several years and in some respects now is slower than a new 21.5" iMac, except for the bus bandwidth and so forth . . .

I use NOTION 3, Digital Performer 7.24 (MOTU), all the IK Multimedia products (VST effects and VSTi virtual instruments), Kontakt 5 (Native Instruments), Reason 5 (Propellerhead Software), several of the FabFilter Software Instruments VST effects and VSTi virtual instruments, and MachFive 3 (MOTU) . . .

And I do a lot of work via ReWire, where Digital Performer 7.24 is the ReWire host controller and NOTION 3 is the ReWire slave . . .

All this stuff works very nicely on the Mac, and if you need help with any of it, I have several topics in this FORUM that explain in great detail exactly how to do stuff on an Apple computer, which in some instances includes video tutorials showing the various settings and steps . . .

The software you listed is available for the Mac, and the fact of the matter is that stuff works on the Mac without requiring you to know a lot of technical information or to mess with drivers, account permissions, antivirus programs, and all the the other typical nonsense that travels with Windows computers, and you do not need a special audio card, since Apple computers have high quality audio hardware which is designed specifically to work with Mac OS X Core Audio (the software that handles audio processing on the Mac) . . .

Regarding the strategy of making a list and taking it to a Windows computer store, the most likely outcome is that since nobody there will know much of anything about digital music production the sales person will ask enough questions to determine how much money you are willing to spend and then will load up a Windows computer with enough stuff to empty your bank account, where the probability of any of it actually working for digital music production is minimal at best, and when you discover that it does not work, all the hardware and software vendors will point fingers at each other and tell you that, "it is not a problem with our product, instead it is a problem with someone else's product, so talk to someone else, not us" . . .

SUMMARY

If you do not want to have problems and do not want to mess with a bunch of frustrating technical stuff, then get a new iMac (Apple), because everything works wonderfully on an Apple computer, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :)

P. S. NOTION 3 is a 32-bit application (Mac and Windows), hence is constrained by the limitations of a 32-bit application workspace, which maps to a practical upper limit of approximately 25 VSTi virtual instruments per NOTION 3 score . . .

After doing an extensive set of experiments, I devised a technique that makes it possible to have from 500 to 1,000 VSTi virtual instruments for a song, where the strategy involves a combination of (a) cloning NOTION 3 scores and (b) recording the NOTION 3 generated audio for each cloned and synchronized score as soundbites in Digital Performer 7.24 via ReWire, where DIgital Performer 7.24 is the ReWIre host controller and NOTION 3 is the ReWire slave . . .

A typical symphonic orchestra might have 125 individual instruments, which makes the ability to have from 500 to 1,000 VSTI virtual instruments (one per NOTION 3 staff) appear to be a lot, but yet another technique I use involves what I call "sparkling" an instrument and maps to the individual notes being played at different locations on the Rainbow Panning Arc™ that runs from far-left to top-center to far-right, and it requires 8 staves to "sparkle" an instrument completely, hence it requires 1,000 staves to fully "sparkle" each instrument in a symphonic orchestra, where everything is done in music notation with VSTi virtual instruments in NOTION 3 cloned and synchronized scores that are recorded in Digital Performer 7.24 as soundbites via ReWire . . .

This might appear to be vastly complex, but once you do it a few times, it actually is very easy to do, where the key is to reserve perhaps five (5) of the staves in each cloned NOTION 3 score for common instruments that provide cues to such things as tempo, rhythm patterns, chords, melody, and sections, with the other twenty (20) staves then being available for another 20 VSTi virtual instruments, where for example, 100 instruments maps to five (5) cloned and synchronized NOTION 3 scores, and you keep the number of tracks in the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application at a minimum by sending the eight (8) staves to a single NOTION 3 bus, which then maps to one stereo track in DIgital Performer 7.24 . . .

It is easier to understand this technique of creating an elaborately instrumented song in layers, where some of the instruments are "sparkled", by listening to "Baby You Were Only Dreaming" (The Surf Whammys), which is a DISCO or Pop song but just as easily could be done in another genre by using a different set of VSTi virtual instruments, which is fabulous . . .

[NOTE: This is best enjoyed when listening with studio quality headphones like the SONY MDR-7506 (a personal favorite), where you will hear the notes of various instruments moving around the Spherical Sonic Landscape™. This song currently has approximately 150 VSTi virtual instruments spread over seven (7) cloned and synchronized NOTION 3 scores. It might take 150 hours to do the music notation work, but it costs a lot less than hiring a real symphonic orchestra or whatever, which makes it both possible and practical. This song was inspired by "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" (Beatles), and there are a few similarities, since one of the rules here in the sound isolation studio is to avoid having any truly original ideas whenever possible, which is a bit more obvious when you add parentheses to "(Lucy In The Sky With) Diamonds", where Ringo Starr provided the definitive clue (paraphrasing) that if you are going to be inspired by a song, you might as well inspired by a good one . . . :P ]

"(Baby You Were Only) Dreaming" (The Surf Whammys) -- MP3 (9.6MB, 276-kbps [VBR], approximately 4 minutes and 26 seconds)

Fabulous! :D
Last edited by Surfwhammy on Thu Jun 07, 2012 3:11 am, edited 2 times in total.
The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
User avatar
Surfwhammy
 
Posts: 1137
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2010 4:45 am

Re: Good enouh PC?

Postby wcreed51 » Wed Jun 06, 2012 7:33 pm

The computer spec you mention should be quite sufficient for running Notion and Miroslav Philharmonik instruments, which are not very memory consuming.

What do you mean by "get slow"? How many instruments do you have loaded? What sort of music do you want to work with?

Bill
Bill Reed
Notion 4, Sibelius 7.5, Finale 2011/14, Overture 4, Cubase 7.5
Win8 x64, 32GB RAM
M-Audio ProFire 2626
Kontakt, VSL VI Pro, VE Pro, EWQL Orch, Choirs and Pianos
User avatar
wcreed51
 
Posts: 754
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 10:50 am
Location: Berkshires, MA USA

Re: Good enouh PC?

Postby Surfwhammy » Thu Jun 07, 2012 4:23 am

As a bit of follow-up, I added a post script to my first post (see above), which now has an example of a reasonably complex song that has a lot of "heavy" VSTi virtual instruments . . .

Yet another fact is that digital music production is very complex, and there is a lot of stuff that you need to learn to be productive, which leads to the rule here in the sound isolation studio that when something reduces the complexity of the work, over the long run it is a smart thing to do, which is a good way to put the misconception that Apple computers cost more than Windows computers into a practical perspective . . .

In other words, because everything works on the Mac, you do not need to waste a lot of your valuable time messing with annoying and frustrating computer stuff . . .

[NOTE: It takes a while to become accustomed to not being bombarded constantly by annoyingly frivolous Windows messages that make no sense; to discover how to know intuitively the easy way to do stuff; and to remember that the backspace and forward delete keys are reversed on a Mac keyboard, but so what! The conceptual perspective on the Mac is that the machine never should annoy or disturb the human, and this is a very important perspective, for sure! ]

All this stuff works wonderfully on the Mac, and one of the benefits of doing digital music production on the Mac is that you can focus (a) on making music rather than (b) on messing with computer stuff . . .

Granted, I had to mess with a bunch of technical computer stuff to make sense of VST effects plug-ins, VSTi virtual instruments, Reason 5 (Propellerhead Software), ReWire (Propellerhead Software), as well as devoting a lot of attention to becoming reasonably proficient in music notation, but it was a very specific type of "messing with technical computer stuff", and it was focused on what I eventually realized was a combination of (a) limitations of 32-bit application workspaces (where NOTION 3 and Digital Performer 7.24 [MOTU] are 32-bit applications) and (b) rules for doing ReWire, so it was more of a matter of discovering "workarounds" for what otherwise were problems, which is a bit of advanced event-based GUI software engineering experience becomes very handy with respect to knowing how to do experiments toward the goal of discovering the way stuff really works . . .

In some respects, I suppose it might be nice to be able to have 500 to 1,000 "heavy" VSTi virtual instruments in a single NOTION 3 score and to have 500 to 1,000 stereo tracks in a Digital Performer 7.24 project, but it is not possible to do this directly . . .

The solution on the NOTION 3 side is to use cloned and synchronized scores, and the solution on the Digital Performer 7.24 side is to combine or to merge already recorded stereo tracks into a single stereo track via "bounce to disk", which basically is the strategy that Les Paul used in the early-1950s with the two Ampex tape machines that Bing Crosby gave him, and it is the strategy that Phil Spector used to create his "Wall of Sound" in the late-1950s and early-1960s, as was the case with George Martin and the audio engineers at Abbey Road Studios in the 1960s when they were recording the Beatles, all of which is a matter of creating and producing songs in layers . . .

When one person does everything, it takes a bit more time and planning, but so what . . .

So what!

If it takes me 125 hours to do the instrumentation for a song, then this is pretty much the same in terms of total wall clock time for all the people as hiring a symphonic orchestra with 125 musicians for one hour, except that instead of costing tens of thousands of dollars, it just requires a bit of time and work here in the sound isolation studio for one person, and once you make sense of VSTi virtual instruments, VST effects plug-ins, and music notation, it sounds about the same, either way . . .

Many years ago, this was something that only folks like Beethoven, Mozart, George and Ira Gershwin, Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, et al. could do, since it cost so much that only a few folks could afford to do it, but everything is vastly different at the dawn of the early-21st century, and one person can do all this stuff in a sound isolation studio on the Mac with a virtual festival of VST effects plug-ins and VSTi virtual instruments; a DAW application like Digital Performer or Logic Pro (Apple); a MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid FireWire audio interface; a few real instruments; some microphones; a few cables; and some other stuff, including a MIDI keyboard, all without needing to be a multimillionaire, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :D
The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
User avatar
Surfwhammy
 
Posts: 1137
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2010 4:45 am

Re: Good enouh PC?

Postby mrarnesen » Fri Jun 08, 2012 5:53 pm

First of all, thanks for your kind help and for spending time answer my stupid questions :P

With the Notion demo the program started getting slow when I used 5-6 Miroslav Instruments. I had to click with my mouse several time for it to respond. Like when I was switching note values. It got quite annoying. So I thought that was the limit of my computer.

I have some questions: If I gonna choose between PC and Mac, are the specifications still the same? Is 16MB RAM on a MAC the same as on a PC, is 2.66GH on a MAC 2.66GH also on a PC? I told you my questions were stupid... lol

I've found the system requirements for several products that I wanna use. I've been mostly looking at the PC requirements because i'm more used to it.

8dio Requiem (former Tonehammer): Minimum: Windows® XP (32 Bit) or Windows Vista® (32/64 Bit), Pentium® or Athlon XP 1.4 GHz, 1 GB RAM. 2 GB of RAM or more is highly recommended!

Notion: XP/Vista/Windows 7 (64 bit compatible). Recommended: 2.0 GHz Core 2 / 2 GB RAM. Minimum: 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 / 1 GB RAM

NI Kontakt 5: Windows 7 (latest Service Pack, 32/64 Bit), Intel Core Duo or AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2 GB RAM

Miroslav: Minimal: Pentium 4 / Athlon XP processor, 1 GB of RAM, Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7.
Suggested: 2.33 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM, Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7.

FL Studio 10: 2Ghz AMD or Intel Pentium 3 compatible CPU with full SSE1 support. Windows 7, Vista, XP & 2000 (32 & 64 Bit). 1 Gb or more RAM recommended. Soundcard with DirectSound drivers. ASIO/ASIO2 compatible required for audio recording

Hollywood strings:. Intel Core 2 Quad or AMD Quad-Core 2.66GHz or higher. 8GB RAM or more. 64-bit Windows/Host Sequencer. 7200 RPM or faster (non energy saving) hard drive for sample streaming

Nexus2: Pentium class 1.5 GHz processor with SSE2 support*. 2GB of RAM (4GB or more highly recommended)
Display with 1024-by-768 or higher resolution. Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista, Windows 7 or later

So, if I'm using 4 of this programs simultaneously: Notion 2GB RAM, Miroslav 1GB RAM, 8dio Requiem 2GB RAM, Hollywood strings 8GB RAM. Does this mean that my PC should have 2+1+2+8 GB RAM = 13GB RAM?

And the processor, should that be 2.0 GHz + 2.33 GHz + 1.4 GHz, 2.66 GHz = 8.39 GHz?

And last question: Do you have a separate computer for music productions, or you also use it to go online, playing games, using word etc? I guess having a separate computer for the music without any internet connection, you avoid having an anti-virus using recourses and avoid getting viruses that could delete everything u got.
Logic Pro 9, Kontakt 5, Notion 4, Requiem Light, Mercury Symphonic Boychoir, Emotional Piano, Miroslav Philharmonik.
mrarnesen
 
Posts: 86
Joined: Tue May 15, 2012 7:46 pm

Re: Good enouh PC?

Postby Surfwhammy » Fri Jun 08, 2012 9:35 pm

mrarnesen wrote:First of all, thanks for your kind help and for spending time answer my stupid questions :P


Sometimes the best way to help someone is to be blunt, and after reading your questions I think that you have no idea how computers work, which basically makes a new iMac the perfect computer for you, and I intend this advice in a gracious and helpful way, so please read this with a happy grain of salt . . .

[NOTE: For the most part, "system requirements" are minimum requirements, hence basically are meaningless, because digital music production requires a lot of computer resources, with processor speed and a fast hard drive being the most important. An application might run on the minimum qualifying computer hardware, but it will be so slow and cumbersome that it is a waste of time to attempt to use it . . . ]

If you get a Windows computer, you will be lost with no hope of being able to do anything, because there is too much highly technical stuff that cannot be avoided on a Windows computer . . .

Forget about using FL Studio as your Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application, because it only runs in Windows . . .

The two most logical choices for the Mac are (a) Logic Pro (Apple) and (b) Digital Performer (MOTU), and both of these work wonderfully and do everything on the Mac, where at present I use Digital Performer 7.24 and probably will continue to use it, since I recently discovered solutions for the two things that I had not been able to do in Digital Performer, both of which I discovered actually are easy to do (true stereo panning control, which is done with the MOTU Trim plug-in that comes with DIgital Performer and doing a monaural preview of a main stereo output track, which is done by clicking on "Mono" rather than "Stereo", which I would have known a lot sooner if I taken the time to read the user manual) . . .

Since you are starting from the beginning, Logic Pro (Apple) is the smart choice, because you can get it for $199.99 (US) via the Mac App Store, which is less than half of what Digital Performer costs . . .

Logic Pro (Apple)

Digital Performer (MOTU)

You can use the money you save by getting Logic Pro (Apple) and not needing to buy a copy of Windows to run FL Studio via Boot Camp to buy a copy of the Vienna Ensemble Pro 5 software that lets you run a 64-bit VSL streaming audio server on your Mac which you can use to stream Hollywood Strings (EWQL) to NOTION 3, since NOTION 3 is a 32-bit application and Hollywood Strings is 64-bit . . .

[NOTE: The Diamond Edition of Hollywood Strings is provided on an internal hard drive, which makes a Mac Pro the best choice, but the Gold Edition is provided on a set of DVDs. If you are going to use the Diamond Edition of Hollywood Strings, then you need to get a Mac Pro rather than an iMac. . . . ]

Hollywood Strings (EWQL)

Vienna Ensemble Pro 5 (VSL)

For reference, the audio samples for the various EWQL instruments and collections sound very good, and I like some of them a lot, but they are a bit on the expensive side, and at present I am not doing any symphonic orchestra stuff, hence have no particular need for superb sounding strings and so forth . . .

There are a few folks who use EWQL products and participate in this FORUM, so you can get more specific advice from them, but you might want to get more information on the Vienna Symphonic Library (VSL) products, although they also are on the expensive side . . .

[NOTE: Generally, the EWQL and VSL products are "high-end", and if you are going to focus on "high-end" products, then you need to get a Mac Pro. The advice from the EWQL folks is that you need to get the fastest and most powerful Mac Pro, which provides a clue to the level of computing resources required to run "high-end" virtual instruments, and if you need to run this level of audio software, then the required computer with display, extra memory, very fast hard drives, and perhaps some SSD drives, will be somewhere in the range of $5,000 to $10,000 (US) regardless of the operating system platform (Mac OS X or Windows). You can do it, but the output of NOTION 3 is standard CD quality (44.1-kHz at 16 bits), which is the practical aspect . . . ]

The other digital music production software you mentioned is available for the Mac, and it works nicely . . .

THOUGHTS AND PLAN FOR THE FUTURE

In some respects, I apologize for being so blunt, but the thinking here in the sound isolation studio is that providing practical advice which works is better than pretending that everything is spanky in Kansas during tornado season . . .

The primary advantages of getting an Apple computer are (a) that everything works, (b) that all the hardware stuff is designed specifically to work with Mac OS X, and (c) that you do not need to know or understand a lot of highly technical stuff to use a Mac productively . . .

Making sense of NOTION 3, a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application like Logic Pro (Apple) or Digital Performer (MOTU), several VSTi virtual instrument libraries, VST effects plug-ins, music notation, ReWire (Propellerhead Software), arranging, composing, producing, mixing, and mastering is a full plate, and it takes a while, but it is something that you can do, and it is a worthy goal and activity . . .

Everything you do which makes it easier makes great sense, and doing the work on the Mac makes it easier, because it does not require you to mess with a lot of technical computer stuff . . .

The plan for the future aspect is that it might make sense to start with an iMac and then sometime later when you are proficient in all the digital music production software to get a Mac Pro, since in this scenario you can use the iMac as a dedicated VSL streaming server on a Local Area Network (LAN) . . .

And if you want everything to sound good, you also need a full-range studio monitor system, where my advice in this regard is provided in one of my ongoing topics in the IK Multimedia FORUM . . .

[NOTE: The high-level summary is that you use self-powered Kustom PA loudspeakers but run them at very low volume levels, and this solution costs approximately $1,000 (US) and results in a full-range studio monitor system which has deeper bass than the high-end JBL studio monitor system that costs approximately six (6) times as much. You need a full-range studio monitor system, because you need to hear everything to mix and to master audio accurately, and this only happens with a full-range studio monitor system, where (a) "full-range" for normal human hearing is 20-Hz to 20,000-Hz and (b) there is no commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) studio monitor system on this planet that provides full-range high-fidelity audio reproduction on an equal loudness or "flat" curve at 80 db SPL to 85 db SPL, hence the only way to do it is with a custom solution, which includes audio calibration hardware and software, as well as a handheld SPL Meter, which adds $250 to $750 (US) to the total cost, where the Nady DSM-1 Digital SPL Meter (a personal favorite) is nice and costs approximately $100 (US) . . . ]

The Fabulous Affordable Studio Monitor System (IK Multimedia FORUM)

Having a plan for the future is very important, because it saves money over the long run, and the reality is that doing digital music production professionally is expensive no matter how you do it . . .

Another bit of information is that I have a Computer Science degree and started working on Windows in early-1987, which I continue to do, and until 2001 you could not pay me to spit on an Apple computer, but everything changed when Apple released Mac OS X and the original iPod, at which time I discovered that doing digital music production on the Mac is very easy, which is not the case in the Windows universe . . .

I usually work on this stuff 18 hours a day, but in some respects I am vastly lazy, and if it were easier to do this stuff on a Windows machine, I would do it on a Windows machine, but it is not easier . . .

There is a nearly overwhelming amount of detailed information that you need to know to do digital music production, where for example I was a bit curious to know how many different articulations and types of French Horns were provided by Miroslav Philharmonik (IK Multimedia), so I started counting them via the standalone user interface, but I stopped counting at 150 about an hour later, because I got tired of clicking on stuff and decided that 150 variations of French Horns, ensembles and solo, probably were 149 more than I really needed . . .

Learning about the various instruments in sound sample libraries is the type of activity that I consider to be productive, but messing with sound cards, software drivers, hard drives, computer settings, and virtual festivals of annoying frivolous messages is not what I consider to be a productive activity here in the sound isolation studio, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :D

P. S. You can do everything on the Mac, so you do not need a separate computer just for digital music production . . .
Last edited by Surfwhammy on Mon Jun 11, 2012 6:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
User avatar
Surfwhammy
 
Posts: 1137
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2010 4:45 am

Re: Good enouh PC?

Postby mrarnesen » Sun Jun 10, 2012 5:22 pm

Thanks again for your help. I guess I don't know much about computers, and no need to apologize. Hopefully it's better to know some about composition and song writing, than to know some about computers and nothing about music :)

So, you have tempted me to buy an Apple iMac ;) I've been watching some videos about it and it looks awesome. You mentioned the MC309. It's got 4GB RAM. Should I buy some extra RAM? And it's 2.5 GHz processor is less than the requirements for Hollywood Strings. Would it be better with the MC812 or MC813?

Like you said, it's good to have a plan. So I don't wanna buy something I would have to replace too soon.

I think I will go for the Logic Pro, cause I actually did work with Logic at school some years ago, so I should know some things about it even if it's some versions ago.
Logic Pro 9, Kontakt 5, Notion 4, Requiem Light, Mercury Symphonic Boychoir, Emotional Piano, Miroslav Philharmonik.
mrarnesen
 
Posts: 86
Joined: Tue May 15, 2012 7:46 pm

Re: Good enouh PC?

Postby Surfwhammy » Mon Jun 11, 2012 3:42 am

mrarnesen wrote:So, you have tempted me to buy an Apple iMac ;) I've been watching some videos about it and it looks awesome. You mentioned the MC309. It's got 4GB RAM. Should I buy some extra RAM? And it's 2.5 GHz processor is less than the requirements for Hollywood Strings. Would it be better with the MC812 or MC813?


The Apple iMac MC813LL/A 27-Inch Desktop (NEWEST VERSION) is the one to get, because it has a 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, and you can save a bit by purchasing it from Amazon.com if you are in the US, but there is a custom order 27" iMac that is worth considering . . .

You can order a 27" iMac with a processor upgrade from Apple, which is done at the factory, and this maps to a 3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, which is very fast, but instead of being approximately $1,500 (US), it is approximately $2,200 (US) . . .

Lab Report: Core i7 SSD iMac is the fastest Mac we've tested! (MacWorld, June 2011)

The 27" iMac with the 3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor upgrade will be fast enough for the Gold and Diamond editions of Hollywood Strings, but it is important to understand that the Diamond edition of Hollywood Strings is provided on an internal hard drive, while in contrast the Gold edition is provided on a set of DVDs . . .

Other World Computing sells an adapter that makes it possible to use an internal hard drive externally for purposes of copying the data onto the internal drive of an iMac or to an external SSD drive, but overall it is easier to add an internal hard drive to a Mac Pro, except that a Mac Pro and Apple Thunderbolt Display cost approximately twice as much as the custom ordered 27" iMac, with the primary advantage being bus bandwidths and the ability to add or swap internal hard drives easily, as well as the ability to have an internal RAID array, but it is important to consider SSD drives, which is where Thunderbolt comes into play . . .

THOUGHTS ON HOLLYWOOD STRINGS (EWQL)

In terms of deciding which Mac to get, Hollywood Strings is the focal software, since it has very specific requirements, so one way to determine the strategy which works best for your needs is to focus on Hollywood Strings, since its importance provides clues to the type of Mac you need to accomplish your digital music production goals . . .

If you need to use the Diamond edition of Hollywood Strings, then my advice is to get a Mac Pro, especially if you plan to use other EWQL products, since (a) it has internal drive bays, which makes it very easy to add the Diamond edition internal hard drive to the system, and (b) EWQL recommends the fastest Mac Pro as the "optimal" system for the Diamond edition of Hollywood Strings . . .

However, there is another reality, which is (a) that NOTION 3 is a 32-bit application and (b) that NOTION 3 generates standard CD quality audio, which is 44.1-kHz at 16-bits, hence I am not convinced that spending several thousand additional dollars for a Mac Pro and Apple 27" Thunderbolt Display makes a lot of sense, although it certainly is a very fast and powerful supercomputer and over the long run is an excellent system . . .

If you can afford a new Mac Pro and Apple 27" Thunderbolt Display, then it makes sense, because over the long run you will need the speed and power, but it is useful to know that the 27" iMac with the 3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 factory upgrade is faster than a 6-core Mac Pro, and it probably is faster than the 2.8-GHz 8-core Mac Pro (circa 2009) here in the sound isolation studio . . .

QUESTION: How important is Hollywood Strings to your plan?

If you must have the Diamond edition of Hollywood Strings, then you need to get a Mac Pro and Apple 27" Thunderbolt Display, but if the Diamond edition of Hollywood Strings is more of an optional "might be nice" type of thing and the Gold edition of Hollywood Strings will be fine for a while, then it depends on your budget, really . . .

Yet another reality is that it takes a while to make sense of all the various technologies (VST effects plug-ins, VSTi virtual instruments, ReWire, producing, audio engineering, mixing, mastering, and so forth and so on), and if you are not proficient in all the various technologies and roles, then it probably makes more sense to get either the standard 27" iMac or the 27" iMac with the factory processor upgrade, which when augmented with an SSD drive is a screamer . . .

And this is the reason I recommend having a plan first, even though it requires a bit of work to create a plan . . .

Eventually, you will need a Mac Pro, but if you are going to be learning how all the various technologies work for a year or two, then a 27" iMac will be very nice and quite sufficient . . .

And while it is great that the Diamond edition of Hollywood Strings is 44.1-kHz and 24-bits, NOTION 3 generates audio at 44.1-kHz and 16-bits, which maps to the perhaps wonderfully deep and rich 24-bit strings being dithered or whatever to 16-bits, which in turn maps to losing part of the wonderfully deep and rich TONE . . .

Explained another way, if you really need the Diamond edition of Hollywood Strings for doing songs at 44.1-kHz at 24-bits, then you are not going to be using NOTION 3 to do it. Instead, you probably need to do it directly in Logic Pro (Apple) or Digital Performer (MOTU), which at minimum will be a lot more work with none of the immediately useful feedback you get with NOTION 3 . . .

If you want to have 6 tires but your car only has 4 wheels, then 2 of the 6 tires are going be sitting in the trunk, which might be handy if you have 2 flat tires but otherwise is not the best use of your money . . .

[NOTE: When you listen to the audio demos for Hollywood Strings on the web, you are listening to MP3 files that are 320-kbps, which I determined by inference since they load almost instantly. The MP3 for the first audio demo ("Allegro Agitato") in MP3 format is a 12.1MB file, while the considerably higher quality WAVE file is 76.3MB, which is not going load instantly via the high-speed broadband cable here in the sound isolation studio, and MP3 is a compressed format. When done properly, MP3 is excellent. The EWQL products are high-end, and they require high-end digital music production equipment, which is great if you have $25,000 to $50,000 (US) for everything, which is the practical reality . . . ]

THOUGHTS ON MEMORY

Apple memory is very expensive, so the strategy I use here in the sound isolation studio is to get an Apple computer from Amazon.com in a basic configuration with the minimal amount of memory. Then I remove the Apple memory and replace it with memory from Other World Computing, which is just as good as Apple memory but costs considerably less . . .

It is easy to upgrade memory on an iMac or Mac Pro, and certified memory from Other World Computing is the smart way to do it, where for example at present you can upgrade the memory on a new iMac to 16GB for $110 (US) using certified memory from Other World Computing. Upgrading to 32GB of memory costs $320 (US) . . .

iMac Memory Upgrades (Other World Computing)

[NOTE: Getting a Tripp-Lite ISOBAR6ULTRA for your computer and audio equipment is a very smart investment! They cost approximately $50 (US) at Amazon.com, but this is because (a) they are not junk and (b) they actually work and will protect your computer and audio equipment from a nearby lightning strike, which they do by failing catastrophically in a controlled way so that only the ISOBAR6ULTRA is toasted . . . ]

ISOBAR6ULTRA Surge Protector (Tripp-Lite)

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

Apple might announce new iMac and Mac Pro models this week, and if they do, then the previous models typically will be discounted at Amazon.com, which is the strategy I use, where I get the immediately previous model a week or two after Apple announces a new model. This is what I did for the Mac Pro here in the sound isolation studio, and it saved me 8 percent, which is significant, but Amazon.com only had it discounted by 8 percent for a few hours, so I had to check frequently and get it in a tiny window of opportunity . . .

SUGGESTION

With a bit more information regarding what your goals for digital music production, I can provide better advice, which again is the reason that having a plan makes excellent sense . . .

I really like the EWQL products--especially Gypsy and Fab Four--but at present I cannot afford them, so I work with what I can afford, and while it takes a bit more effort to get some types of instruments not to sound like a 1960s Farfisa Combo Organ, it can be done with a bit of work . . .

For the most part at present, popular music is done in MP3 format, which basically maps to standard CD quality (44.1-kHz at 16-bits), although Apple has an AAC format for the iTunes Store that is nice but nevertheless compressed . . . .

Advanced Audio Codec ~ AAC (wikipedia)

Red Book Standard ~ Audio CD (wikipedia)

In other words, if you listen to a song that you purchased from the iTunes Store or on CD, then this is the practical reality, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :D
Last edited by Surfwhammy on Mon Jun 11, 2012 6:40 am, edited 2 times in total.
The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
User avatar
Surfwhammy
 
Posts: 1137
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2010 4:45 am

Re: Good enouh PC?

Postby wglmb » Mon Jun 11, 2012 6:32 am

mrarnesen wrote:So, you have tempted me to buy an Apple iMac ;) I've been watching some videos about it and it looks awesome. You mentioned the MC309. It's got 4GB RAM. Should I buy some extra RAM? And it's 2.5 GHz processor is less than the requirements for Hollywood Strings. Would it be better with the MC812 or MC813?

Read this first. You might choose to ignore it, but read it first. (True, it doesn't mention Macs, only iPods & iPhones, but it's the same company...)
User avatar
wglmb
 
Posts: 67
Joined: Tue Jul 27, 2010 9:00 am

Next

Return to NOTION

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 23 guests


cron