eMac?

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abe_lincoln78
Posts: 31
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2004 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: Indiana
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eMac?

Post by abe_lincoln78 »

Alright, you guys are gonna love this :D . I'm currently operating on an eMac G4 700 with a half gig of ram. My interface is an M-audio FireWire 410. Now while i'm having a boat load of trouble with clicks and digital distortion with my current interface, i'm willing to give it the benifit of the doubt that maybe i just don't have enough computer to hold down the fort.

I definitely want to move to DP 4.5 from soundtrack which i'm using now (soundtrack is just so hard to work with, i prefur the interface DP offers). I guess my question is, can my machine handle DP 4.5, and even though the 896HD seems to be problematic, would it operate with this turtle slow machine?

A little extra info, my hard drive is a 40 gig 5400 rpm unit thats probably on the verge of death.

Is it worth the thousands of dollars to move to a dual G5 over my eMac when all i want to do is run 3 guitar tracks, a bass track, sampled drums, and a couple vocal tracks? I play all the music myself and overlay till i have a finished product.

Any advice would be appreciated. :cool:
He said now son, your gonna drive me to drinkin, if you don't stop drivin that hot . rod . lincoln

My father ;)
abe_lincoln78
Posts: 31
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2004 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: Indiana
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Re: eMac?

Post by abe_lincoln78 »

Hmm, now i can tell you all think i'm stupid for wanting to record on my eMac, and I realize that. I followed the instructions on the forum for "optimizing" a computer for audio, also known as "turning off all the automatic crap," and it fixed the problem I was having with my M-Audio device.

I found that I could run 3 sterio tracks at 44.1khz, which isn't stellar, but, hey, its an eMac, what do ya want!? On those three sterio tracks, I also ran nine plugins. Three of them were the apple multiband compressor, three of them were the emagic compressor, which really tends to eat my computer up, and three of them were emagic's noise gate.

You guys are all now sitting in your seats laughing at me, but, hey, I'm a college kid, what do you expect, I can't even aford to upgrade from my 89 lincoln with ripped seats and faded paint (along with some mechanical problems i'm too lazy to fix). Really, i'm going to just buy a dual processor G5 and call it a day running DP 4.5. I can't afford both the computer and the MOTU interface as well as DP, but i don't have enough mics to fill up an 896 anyway, and since the one i have works fine when the computer isn't thinking in the backround, I'm happy for the moment.

Thanks for the advice that has helped me out guys
He said now son, your gonna drive me to drinkin, if you don't stop drivin that hot . rod . lincoln

My father ;)
WKWizard
Posts: 75
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 10:01 pm
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Re: eMac?

Post by WKWizard »

I think your hard drive is your weak link. If you stick with the eMac, get a more suitable drive. I used to run a G3 iMac 400 with 640 MB RAM and could easily record 8 tracks at a time, while playing back another 8. Of course, I was running OS9 which isn't the hog that OSX is.

Have you tried adjusting your buffer settings?

I don't know how tough it is to tear into the eMac. It may be worth the $100 and some effort to slap in a new drive first...then RAM.

If you can afford a G5 and a monitor, then go for it. You can get student pricing through your school.
abe_lincoln78
Posts: 31
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2004 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: Indiana
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Re: eMac?

Post by abe_lincoln78 »

Yeah, the hard drive is pretty weak, though my processor meter is showing 100% while recording 44.1khz sterio. Its funny how it says this, but i can still slap on two more sterio tracks without problem, and really, the problem could be that i'm running 9 plugins, three of which are real hogs.

I will be replacing the hard drive with a better one and starting with a clean slate, but a computer is in my near future. Does anyone have an old copy of DP 3 that they could sell to me so I may use os9 and all that jazz? I had already thought of that before you mentioned that, Wizzard, and it sounds like a good idea to me, if my computer can't run OS X and DP at the same time while recording, go to an older version and try that way.

I do already have OS 9 since my computer is a first generation eMac, so all I really need is access to an outdated DAW software.

Catch yall later
He said now son, your gonna drive me to drinkin, if you don't stop drivin that hot . rod . lincoln

My father ;)
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