switch from PC/Logic to MacBook/DP and terrified. pleaseHelp

[Saintmatthew]

A suggestion from someone who uses mainly hardware but some VIs. Record your the MIDI from performances on your outboard synth, using a sound that is a close approximation to what your hoping for your final sound. Then take the MIDI and route it to the VI you'd like to use for your final sound if it's higher quality and do your tweaking then so latency isn't as much of a factor.

[jefvTaon]

ya, MCU... and i just spaced out about the firewire on it. i saw the back of it once. i mean i hope the FF8oo has more than one FW out.
and i'm happy to hear your friend likes his DP/MCU combo. i think next week i'll put the$ down on one.

hey saint matthew, thanks for the tip!!

jeff

[kelldammit]

i'm using dp5.1 on a macbook (black) with 2g memory, and it works great for me. as stated previously, your real frustration will probably be waiting for everything else to get up to speed, UB-wise. things are getting there, slowly but surely. rob papen's instruments are ub, metric halo channelstrip is ub, izotope's plugs are ub, and most hardware drivers are likewise there as well.
also, i got a targus chillhub, and it serves a dual purpose...4 port usb2 hub, and it helps keep things nice and cool.
my typical port usage is as follows:
macbook fw: motu traveler.
macbook usb1: chill hub.
macbook usb2: novation x-station25.
chillhub usb1: mighty mouse.
chillhub usb2: lacie 160g usb2 harddrive (sample libraries, mostly).
chillhub usb3: empty.
chillhub usb4: ilok.

it works very well for me. generally, i record to the stock internal 5400rpm hd with no issue (see below).

insofar as your cpu power fears, look at it this way:
i was able to sequence and mix a 30+ track project on my old powerbook 1.67g/1g ram. you can make it work, you just have to commit fx to audio to save the cpu. i find it's good practice anyway. just save your presets in case you need to modify things later. this project ran on the internal 5400 ata drive, and was almost solely vi's.

don't worry about predjudices, etc...go with what you're most comfortable working with. if you have to interchange with other users, you can always just export MIDI and full-length audio tracks...

either way, best of luck!

kell

[jefvTaon]

h thank you kell for the info. i looked at the chillhub and it sounds like something i need after reading your layout. its hard getting real world macbook experience since its so new at this point. i guess not having used a dedicated laptop, even the worlds most powerful to date, for a large song ever, i find it hard to believe it will handle it. and thank you for the UB plug names, i look forward to checking them out and how they fare for others in comparison to the UA/Waves. i suppose i should start a new thread about that or just look around.

jef

[jgest]

If not use the internal. I have had great success running projects from the internal same as OS drive. It's not as dangerous as it used to be.

I even ran my titanium 800 3/4 gigs ram Dp 4.61, Reason and powercore virus,
while using the standard internal drive (partitioned) for 3 years until i retired it last spring. Never a major problem until reason3 when the speed issue became noticable and gear enevy crept in as well.

[kelldammit]

h thank you kell for the info. <snip> i guess not having used a dedicated laptop, even the worlds most powerful to date, for a large song ever, i find it hard to believe it will handle it.
jef

firstly, you're welcome. there are stickies on gearslutz and big blue forum as regards ub plugs as well...they should be reasonably up to date, and include instruments too.
when i first got dp and put it on my g4 laptop, i was very surprised at what i could do. granted, you always need more cpu...lol, but it is plenty functional for how i work in general (plus it's sooo portable)! you kind of find ways of working around the limitations. sometimes that can really force you to focus and not throw on a lot of extraneous junk that doesn't need to be there...

kell