OK to have other production apps on an optimized DP system?

emulatorloo · Post by **emulatorloo** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 9:59 am

I'm am going to start all over today with my system drive to do a nice lean mean dedicated DAW system for my dual 133 G4. I'm going to follow the advice in "Tracking the Big Cats."

http://emusician.com/mag/emusic_trackin ... index.html

But I am wondering if it is ok to have other production apps, specifically Photoshop and Final Cut Studio installed on the same start-up disk.

Or should it just be DP, related plug-ins and nothing else.

Any thoughts?

sdfalk · Post by **sdfalk** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 10:37 am

I've got Final Cut, DVD Studio Pro and others with no adverse effects.

billf · Post by **billf** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 10:58 am

emulatorloo wrote:I'm am going to start all over today with my system drive to do a nice lean mean dedicated DAW system for my dual 133 G4. I'm going to follow the advice in "Tracking the Big Cats."

http://emusician.com/mag/emusic_trackin ... index.html

But I am wondering if it is ok to have other production apps, specifically Photoshop and Final Cut Studio installed on the same start-up disk.

Or should it just be DP, related plug-ins and nothing else.

Any thoughts?

It should be fine. Just be aware that there are some AU's that FCP seems to get finicky about. I use Audio Unit Manager to maintain a DP profile and a Final Cut Profile and it's worked without a hitch.

stephentayler · Post by **stephentayler** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 12:13 pm

I have DP, PTLE, FCP, DVDSP, Soundtrack Pro, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, All happy on this Dual 2.3

All the best

Stephen

Klaus · Post by **Klaus** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 12:34 pm

Just my 2 cents...
As mentioned before, some are having no problems, some state AU can be problematic for different apps...
A crosscompatibility of *everything* is probably a whish

There are enough reports on what works with what and not and why...
Most troublefree rigs have stuff separated at least partitionwise, like Audio DAW and Video DAW. I for one use a different machine for web too.
I just had a driver issue to solve on a video rig, and was glad I had *not* to touch the audio rig,
involved some deep cache cleaning.
Create different partitions for different purposes, easier to maintain and backup.

Take care

Klaus

billf · Post by **billf** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 2:16 pm

Klaus wrote: Most troublefree rigs have stuff separated at least partitionwise, like Audio DAW and Video DAW.

Can that be substantiated?

Anyway, personally I'd stay away from installing any esoteric (e.g. junk from the web) AU plugins, AE plugins, and Photoshop plugins. Use good interface equipment, keep your drivers and OS updates in sync with your app versions, and you shouldn't have a problem. If you partition anything, then good candidates are web browsing, email, upgrades (to test them out), demos, and games.

As for AU's, for a while FCP had problems with Waves, but that has since been fixed by Waves. I'm currently running FCS 5.1, DP 5 and 4.61, Logic 7.2, Peak 4.14, and Photoshop CS2. Plugins include Boris stuff, Genarts, Waves, Camel, Elemental Audio, PSP, Nik, and Alien Skin on the same partition. And my system has been rock solid.

Klaus · Post by **Klaus** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 2:49 pm

Youself mention there have been problems ( AU plugs and FCP )...
I was on a rational route trying to outline that there are less problems thru updates etc when the main purpose installation is separated, time will tell and has told us
No harm intended

Best

Klaus

billf · Post by **billf** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 3:15 pm

Hi Klaus. Let me clarify how I'm working the rig.

I use Audio Unit Manager to disable certain AU plugins before going into FCP. Audio Unit Manager allows you to create application profiles in which you specify which AU's get loaded with a given app. I have a separate profiles for DP, for FCP, for Logic, for Soundtrack, and for Peak.

So for FCP I disable any VI's (like MachFive) and certain things like the VST AU wrapper which works great in DP, but is not so needed in FCP. I just keep the basics in FCP since any large audio edits are going to be transferred out to DP anyway. For a while Waves was an issue in FCP, but Waves fixed the incompatibility problem.

But this setup has kept things stable, so for now it's all good.

emulatorloo · Post by **emulatorloo** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 7:13 pm

billf wrote:I use Audio Unit Manager to maintain a DP profile and a Final Cut Profile and it's worked without a hitch.

Thanks for the tip on Audio Unit Manager -- I was not aware of that utility and I definately will get it.

http://www.grantedsw.com/

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emulatorloo · Post by **emulatorloo** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 7:36 pm

Thanks to all for your advice -- I appreciate it. Am gonna take at least another day to think about it.

croyal · Post by **croyal** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 9:30 pm

Another thing to consider...

Having optimised my setup some time ago, I found certain problems occured afterwards:

1. Sometimes OS updates don't like the fact that all the basic languages are not present. I've had some hiccups traced back to the lack of basics which had been removed during optimization. So updating to 10.4.8 later may have issues if you today optimized 10.4.5, for example.

2. I you have a dedicated machine for music production, you only need one account. The second account for "everyday" stuff can be cumbersome: you'll have the issues of dealing with two user folders to backup and keep permission straight. Keep Disk Utility in the dock and TechTool eDrive ready to go.

3. Along with #2- installations of new non-music software don't "take" unless installed under the main account (probably your music account) which exposes it all to the corruption and defeats the purpose of secondary accounts.

4. Fast User Switching causes problems such that it can't be trusted while tracking- so why use it at all if you have to log out all non-music accounts while using your DAW anyway?

Because of these things I'd advise
A. Use one account and simply restart or log out/ back in before during DAW work

B. The real speed advantage of the "tracking Big Cats" installation is doing a HDisk optimization after deleting languages and moving fonts. I recommend doing a basic install and remove the un-needed fonts only. Leave the languages inplace. Then optimize the drive.

C. If you can, use separate drives for the 1. the os 2. for the apps and 3. for audio files things will be faster. Three heads are better than one (or two).

D. Since you'll be doing your "daily stuff' on the same account, just save those files to a different location other than the main user folder. Who's to say you can't have second "Documents #2" folder on another partition? Just drag it's icon to the side of any finder window and it'll be just like an extended single user folder.

E. If you want to be super anal about the rebuild- install the OS and its updates, then all your music software only. Clone/ duplicate the drive (as a disk image) before you add stuff like MS Word or iPhoto. That way you'll have a CLEAN vanilla music setup to return and update later. And all your other non-music apps will be safely on another drive should you have to reinitialize the main drive.

I have found these steps help to "update proof" the Tracking Big Cats suggestions, which were on the whole very good. Many OS hacks out there do speed things up (such as moving the location of main user folders, removing languages, or relocating swap files) but are a real bear to repair when (not if) things go wrong or if you simply want to update the OS.

Chris

emulatorloo · Post by **emulatorloo** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 10:26 am

croyal wrote:Having optimised my setup some time ago, I found certain problems occured afterwards:

Thanks for the detailed post -- I really appreciate it - A lot to think about.

philbrown · Post by **philbrown** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 3:08 pm

Good post, Chris. Very well stated.

Phil

kraigmason · Post by **kraigmason** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 3:18 pm

For what its worth I have a "production" computer that has DP 4.6; final cut pro 4.5; After Effects 7; Photoshop CS; Illustrator CS and a few other odds and ends (TOAST Disk Warrior).
It IS NOT connected to the internet...(have to do updates via a different computer).
I have had this setup (with different versions of the mentioned software) dating back to my G3 and OS 8.6.
I have never had a problem related to the configuration.
There is only one user account.
I currently have a G4 DUAL 1GHZ.
That's my own personal experience.

Remember everyone BACK UP YOUR PROJECTS; TWICE!

kraig

MOTUnation.com

OK to have other production apps on an optimized DP system?

OK to have other production apps on an optimized DP system?

Re: OK to have other production apps on an optimized DP syst

Re: OK to have other production apps on an optimized DP syst