Digital Performer, UltraLite & MacBook

[paulold]

Hello - I am looking to make a big purchase (big for me) and I want to make sure I am taking a good path. I am thinking of getting a MacBook 2.0Ghz with 2 Gigs of RAM and 60G 4500x Harddrive. (I already own an external harddrive that is 7500x and 120G.) I am also thinking about getting Digital Performer 5 and an MOTU UltraLite.

How does this whole package sound to you? Will I be happy with the performance? Frustrated at all? I am not a professional. I just want to record guitar/vocals/keyboards at home.

One thing I just read (only on this forum, thank you) is that DP5 is not yet ready for the Intel Core Duo processor of the MacBook. Is this still true? Any official word from MOTU as to when it will be compatible?

Thanks for your feedback. Any suggestions/recommendations are most welcome.

PaulOld@aol.com

[kelldammit]

you'll be happier if you can wait till mid-august or so...in theory, that's when the universal binary version of dp will arrive.
at the moment, i'm using either a motu traveler or a novation x-station25 with my macbook (and dp5.01)...and having pretty good success for it being unsupported. mind you, it's not ideal (i just posted a lovely crash i ran across this evening)...but you could probably get by, if you can tolerate the periodic blow-up.
also, fyi, the macbooks come with 5400rpm sata drives by default, not 4200's
if you're going to go the macbook route, i'd strongly STRONGLY recommend ponying up and maxing out the memory. you don't have to get it from the apple store (ouch!)...there are lots of places online you can find it. i'd recommend crucial.com. they have a nice little step-by-step system to go through to make sure you get the right memory for your machine. their stuff's guaranteed, and not too pricey (1/2 what apple charges, roughly), though you could probably find it cheaper still with a little looking around...

kell

[paulold]

Thanks for catching my error about the harddrive speed. And yes, I plan to max out on the RAM and without purchasing it from Apple.

May I ask, where did you hear about the "universal binary version of DP" coming in August? I can't find any mention of it on MOTU's website.

I see they already have an updated driver for using the UltraLite on a Core Duo processor.

Thanks!

[kelldammit]

the august timeframe is word on the street, from a reliable source (someone who slept with someone who knows someone whose second cousin's nephew's roommate's friend knows someone that knows something about these things).
it was actually due @ the end of june

the ub drivers have been available for a while now, and fwiw, they work very well for me.
also, MSI and Ethno are already UB.
i believe mx4 is supposed to come out in ub form at roughly the same time as dp.

kell

[paulold]

Here's a reply I got from Motu:

MOTU has announced that we expect a Universal Binary version of Digital Performer to be available by mid-August and will be available to all registered Digital Performer 5.0 users.
Please continue to check our website often for the latest news, announcements, and updates.
A Dual Core 2.0GHz MacBook with 2GB of RAM is more than adequate to run DP5 and an UltraLite.
We have already posted drivers for our FireWire interfaces to run on Mac Intels on our website.

[qwerty]

Thats great news that the abovementioned macbook will more than adequately run the software when it exists. Thats a big step forward for laptop/motu users .

[excatcher]

When you folks mention MacBook, am I to infer that you mean MacBook Pro? Or are you actually finding that you can run DP5 on the MacBook (UnPro)?

[quote="paulold"]Here's a reply I got from Motu:
A Dual Core 2.0GHz MacBook with 2GB of RAM is more than adequate to run DP5 and an UltraLite...

[paulold]

When you folks mention MacBook, am I to infer that you mean MacBook Pro? Or are you actually finding that you can run DP5 on the MacBook (UnPro)?...

I have been referring to the MacBook, not the MacBook Pro, and that's what I asked MOTU about.