Coming back to Mac after a sizeable break....

[Raindogred]

I think the last Mac I bought was a “power computing” power mac in the 90s...soon after Steve Jobs returned to Apple as CEO, killed the licencing deal they had in place with a couple of companies to produce mac clones..just past the one year warranty expiry, the power supply melted, things went south quickly..l was left with a very expensive boat anchor, as the local company here in Australia went bust...i swore vengeance ...”curse you Jobs” ..that i would never buy a mac again. Anyway life’s too short to hold grudges...Thats all water off a duck’s back, as they say, and I would like to mess around with aggregate devices. I bought an extremely cheap 2012 mini mac i7 thingamabob...its coming with catalina...will i have to install an earlier os...whats the story with drivers for my old FW 828mkii, Traveller, 8pre..any tips fir complete recording newbs appreciated..

[bayswater]

Here’s a minority opinion.

When you last used a Mac, you could generally take it for granted that an OS update would be faster, better, or cheaper than the last OS version. Now you will find very little in the way of practical improvements, and likely see a lot of new bugs and incompatibility with your apps and plugins. The implication is to get a stable working set up and leave it alone. Update only when there is a clear and significant advantage.

[HCMarkus]

whats the story with drivers for my old FW 828mkii, Traveller, 8pre..any tips fir complete recording newbs appreciated..

Search the posts here at MOTUNation. Mike Halloran has written extensively in driver compatibility which, IIRC, is solid all the way up to present-day macOS.

[mikehalloran]

Hi,

What do you need to know?

A 2012 Mini should run Catalina without a hack. One of my 2012 MacBook Pros is doing fine on it; the other is running Mojave so that I can use an old app that never made the transition to 64 bit.

MOTU drivers are not an issue—and haven't been in quite awhile. I don't know about the latest and greatest but the old gear connects to anything if it has a USB or FireWire port. The ancient Serial port or PCI card gear cannot be connected to a 2012 Mini.

If that Mini has a mechanical hard drive (HDD), the chances that it is still good after all these years is nearly nonexistent. Installing a 2.5" SSD is doable for the DIY if somewhat time consuming but should be done.

I go back to the days when a couple of guys named Steve tried to sell me a box that would let me make free calls anywhere in the world — too bad I had no one to call. I still run into Woz now and then. My kids later went to the same highschool they did and one of my sons-in-law is an Apple Engineer in Austin.

You mentioned the clones. I maintained a few for some local businesses. Fortunately, I had picked Motorola and was able to keep them up to date until the G3 was obsolete (something not possible with most of the Apple products at the time). Except for cutting my hands on the sheet metal inside, I thought they were ok.

[Raindogred]

haha thanks Mike. I thought I would add a bit of drama to my post RE the old Power computing clones lol. Foolishly I never completely swore off Macs...I embellished that part. I've been burnt so many times, there was the 2009 MacBook Pro 19" that cost me a gazillion bucks, and had the issue with the graphics chips dying one month after warranty expired...true story...and the Mac experts said go jump in a lake....I really swore off them that time. And the soon to follow replacement in early 2013 that followed eventually suffered a cracked track pad due to an exploding battery...I have gone the last few years on windows, something that I have been prone to do as well. had some good luck and no dramas with generic $30 fw PCIe card...pretty rock solid, running a traveller and 828mkii daisy chained. I really want to try out aggregate...see if I can add my Behringer fca1616 that has 8 physical inserts and running on usb...that would be my dream setup right there...all running into my vintage soundtracs desk.

The good news is these darned future-proofed, and near indestructible motu devices from early 2000s (touching my wood desk top as a I type this) are still around and running beautifully.

I gotta say the 2012 mini I picked up for cheap, is pretty well spec'd..its the quad core i7, 16 GB Ram and 256 SSD...got it really cheap because it has a faulty ethernet port..not something I require so took the plunge...glad I did...pretty impressed with this older model.

My FW 800-400 cable just arrived in the post. If someone could post the link to the latest greatest FW driver for Catalina..much appreciated..? cheers in advance guys.

[Raindogred]

never mind guys...I was able to track down a driver...some fw hybrid driver that was mentioned for Catalina and another more modern device...seems to have done trick. I built an unholy beast aggregate with the following configuration.
Behringer FCA 1616 connected via usb on mac
8pre fw connected to FCA1616 via adat
Traveller fw connected via fw port on mac
828mkii connected to the fw port on the traveller

My god....when I went in Reaper I see 44 inputs and 44 outputs...I don't even know how that is possible as the 8pre only has the headphone and main outs? how can it be???? Completely untested...will have to wait till tomorrow...where i plan to put everything thru its paces...I'm just praying that I don't overdo it and cause a singularity in the matrix or create a fireball of pure plasma energy and open a stargate or something....jeez..what have i done?

[mikehalloran]

To monitor everything, you may have to create an Aggregate Device in Apple's Audio MIDI Setup.app. MOTU and Apple Support have bulletins on this.

Good luck and please, don't melt the Universe with your newfound power.

[Raindogred]

Mike, after almost 2 weeks of hair pulling, drooling, nose picking, constant re-starting of the mac mini, messing around in cuemix and motu audio settings app, and mac audio MIDI utility..i believe i have created a monster....I have willed it into existence...don’t even know how it’s fully possible, literally defying the laws of thermodynamics and everything that’s holy...mother of god...it’s Aliveeeee.
It’s named the “Mega Aggregate”
828 mkii clocking itself
Traveller clocking the 828
8 pre fw clocking the traveller
All connected in that order...daisy chained
Here’s the crazy part
I’ve added a Behringer fca1616 usb to Aggregate put it to the front made everything clock to the behringer in the aggregate.
In Reaper, on the master track i have added each main out1-2 fir each...the Behringer has just glued it all together gloriously. I battled hum on the 828mkii, was confusing me...was going to throw it in landfill...turns out its on the 2 front pres that have gone bad, disabled in cuemix, the rear I/O all good abd everything whisper quit.
Done no real testing, apart from a 4 mics hooked to 4 interface, 3 minute monologue that would have me put in the nut house if it ever got out..
Stayed tuned... i’m going to give it a proper test on the weekend...12 mics on the drum kit...see how it holds up. Will report back with my findings.

[Raindogred]

I could complain to the manufacturer about the preamps going bad on 828mkii, sheesh they are only 19 years old....gee they sure don’t make em like they used ta.... i don’t want to press my luck, but one day i may open it up and have a poke around with my soldering iron...fir now to disable them in cuemix.

[mikehalloran]

Hmmm... the mic pres are still good on my 828mkII but that unit is only 14 years old—bought mine on a GC close-out after the mk3 was announced. Apparently. I still have time.