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Dwetmaster wrote:Hey Skan, If I may add these test are not done with the most intensive plug ins. I find my MBP to be pretty effective with any dry audio only project. It nastier when you start to add altiverb, MWEQ on every track... Also Testing with VIs, you might find some difference. I'm not complaining as I like MBP a lot. I'm just saying that I don't feel I can trust my 5400 internal disk for heavy use. That's why I got a separate esata drive for.

Sadly I dont have the luxury of eSata with the Macbook (no port for it) so it's external 7200 or nothing I guess....

Agreed re: intensive plug-ins...though I usually run projects 16-24 tracks max, with e-verb/delay/chorus on dedicated aux's and perhaps a smattering of comps/limits/eq's on specific channels...nothing too serious.

Thank you all so much for your help so far!

No Problem

So did you get an eSata card, if so which one, and do you like it? I'm considering the Sonnet.

Dwetmaster wrote:Hey Skan, If I may add these test are not done with the most intensive plug ins. I find my MBP to be pretty effective with any dry audio only project. It nastier when you start to add altiverb, MWEQ on every track... Also Testing with VIs, you might find some difference. I'm not complaining as I like MBP a lot. I'm just saying that I don't feel I can trust my 5400 internal disk for heavy use. That's why I got a separate esata drive for.

I have this one.
http://www.sabrent.com/products/specs/SATA-EXC2.htm

It's been doing its job fine so far.

grimepoch wrote:The last project I did on my MacPro had like 155 mono tracks playing at 64 buffer size with lots of plugs and still room for the CPU. I was shocked. When I run at 1024, the meter barely hits 5% to 10% (rought estimate).

Whoa! You just sold me on the MacPro, buddy. That's like... hardware!!!

It's pretty damn good.

Now, don't get me wrong, I can peg the meter still with the right combination of VI's at 64. However, when I drop back to 256 it's like wide open!

grimepoch wrote: The last project I did on my MacPro had like 155 mono tracks playing at 64 buffer size with lots of plugs and still room for the CPU. I was shocked. When I run at 1024, the meter barely hits 5% to 10% (rought estimate).

Man... I need a MacPro!
I have a Dual 2.0 G5 and with 4 GB and @ 1024 it takes a crap on just one instance of BFD EZ Drummer sometimes (VERY involved metal up tempo drum parts)...
Can't wait to get my hands on a MP!
I've had a lot of pros tell me that they just rip!!

I'm in pretty much the same boat. I have an iMac Core 2 Duo (2.33, 2 gig ram).

I can do basically limitless track counts of stereo audio, and nearly limitless effects. I've done 35 stereo tracks, with at least 60-70 Waves insert effects, at 256 buffer, and barely got the CPU over 30 %. It's pretty amazing. Shocking, actually, coming from a G4 dual 1 gig.

However, that ALL changes with VI's. Suddenly, "limitless" becomes limited indeed.

The iMac has one big flaw that the macbook pro doesn't have - FW is the only connection to the outside world, e.g. disk drives, audio interface, etc. At least with the notebook you can use the card slot. I wish they had provided a card slot on the iMac. But since they don't....

I have EVERYTHING on firewire. Audio interface. Disk drive for sample streaming. Disk drive for audio recording. Backup drive. Yes, I stream samples, record audio and listen all off the same, single Firewire buss. It all pretty much works OK, except the whole system occasionally chokes and dies when streaming too much VI. So, within limits, piling everything into Firewire is OK, as long as you deal with the limitation that it is not going to stream a 1 gig piano sample on a complex classical piece of music with much sustain pedal, and 3 convolution reverbs, while playing back 30 stereo tracks. That is too much stuff. Within reason, this setup is effective.