Needing help from audio engineer on re-setting up my templat

[andrewsolomon]

Hi,
I recently had to upgrade my old G5 to a new mac Mini. It has caused me to update my software. I am not too experienced anymore with setting up DP so properly routing my MIDI instruments so they don't overload CPU as well as a guitar and vocal track. It's relatively simple. I was hoping I may be able to work with someone on the forum board where they can remote in to help properly set up my tracks. Please message me if you might be able to help to or know someone I can contact. Thanks alot.

Regards,
Andrew

[andrewsolomon]

Hi, Still looking for help here. Happy to compensate someone for their time. Just need someone experienced who can remote into my machine and make sure things are set right. Still have overloads and not properly routing guitar with effects. Also want to have vocal level set properly. Please do let me know. Think it's probably an hour of time. Thanks.

[FMiguelez]

Perhaps you'll have better luck if you ask specific questions right here on the forum?

Describe what you have, exactly what you want to achieve, etc. We need to know what computer and OS you have before we can comment on CPU issues, for instance.

Also, there are like a million recent template-related threads in the main fora (mostly in the Mac-DP one). A simple search should find them for you. Have you read any of those threads?

[FMiguelez]

For instance, we have:

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... 07#p486187

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... 26&t=57693

[andrewsolomon]

Thank you for thoughts. My basic question to start is do folks think I have the wrong computer. At a high level, I use about 4 MIDI tracks from my sounds from my Roland Phantom X7. I use EZ drummer for drums and then I'll record up to 2 vocal tracks and maybe 1-2 guitar tracks. Overall, I think extremely basic and not too involved.

Below is the new computer I purchased. I thought this mac mini would be plenty powerful but maybe I am wrong. Any thoughts would be great to at least know right off if I am using a computer that can't handle my simple recording set up and I need a Mac Pro Quad. Or is it plenty powerful and there should not be latency issues on my MIDI piano for example.


Product Highlights of Mac Mini I bought:

2.5GHz Intel Core i5 Dual-Core
4GB of DDR3 RAM
500GB 5400rpm Hard Drive
Integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000
SDXC Media Card Reader

Thunderbolt, FireWire 800, USB 3.0, HDMI
10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet
802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
Built-in Speaker, IR Receiver
Includes Mac OS X 10.9 or OS X 10.8

[FMiguelez]

I think your computer will handle what you want (and much more) just fine.

The only problem I see is that you're very low in the RAM department. Add as much RAM as it can handle (16 GBs?)
Also, if you store your sample libraries (i.e., EZ Drummer) in a fast dedicated HD (7200 RPM with a FW800 case as a minimum, ideally USB3 or TB external case), or even better, in a dedicated SSD, you'll get better performance for a relatively cheap price. But you should definitely add more RAM!

Check out OWC for great Mac hardware prices.
http://www.macsales.com/

A future improvement could be to replace your current internal HD with an SSD. If you got the server model you could also even add a second internal dedicated drive for your DP projects.

Regarding the latency, you can control it with DP's buffer size (i.e., for VIs). But if it's an external hardware synth, there wouldn't be any latency.

Also, remember that with DP you can freeze VI tracks to save CPU power and RAM if needed. So if you finished your MIDI drum tracks, you print them, disable the VI tracks, and you'll get back your CPU and RAM for other tasks such as mixing, for instance.