Good Morning Rip Van Winkle

[andybrick]

Hi all,

Back in the day, I was pretty hip with MIDI. I had the latest rig... 4 X 1Ghz P3s running Gigastudio all controlled via my Mac G4, and DP and a motu audio box. I was doing a lot of orchestral MIDI work at the time and was able to load the entire orchestra and have it online using the First Edition of VSL and some other libraries. Things sounded pretty good.

Then, sometime around 2002 I started getting live orchestra gigs and the MIDI system got... errr .... dusty.

Well I just dusted off the old gear to find that Gigastudio no longer exists, and my Aardvark boxes for my PC no longer exist. I feel ike Rip Van Winkle just waking up to a completely new era.

My question is this:

Id like to be able to have the orchestra on-line. In the morning Id like to load a fairly decent VSL set so that when I start sequencing I dont have to stop and load everytime I want to change a timbre or texture. I read some forums and it seems that many people are using Kontakt with DP fairly successfully so I decided to go that route. I have DP5.13, a new 828mk3 Kontakt 3 and VSL

.... to keep an orchestra on line,

which mac do you guys recommend?
Do I need an 8 core macpro or can I save a few bucks with a used quad or dual?
How much RAM is really necessary

Id like to do everything all in one box but there is also the option of running kontakt on a PC...ugghh

Opinions?

Thanks in advance
Andy

[HCMarkus]

Today, I'd go for the standard Mac Pro 8-core stocked with aftermarket HDs and at least 6 Gigs of aftermarket RAM. If you hit the wall, you can start thinking about a PC farm, but why not see if you can accomplish what you need with one machine first: it makes saving and recalling projects so simple. I'm currently running a Quad PPC, and thinking seriously about making the move to Intel once Apple makes the next Mac Pro upgrade. We may even get 16 cores! Now that things have settled down and Snow Leopard (which promises more efficient operation) is coming, the PPC era is ending. I plan on keeping my Quad G5 for a long time, though, as it is an amazing machine.

[andybrick]

Hi HCMarkus

Wasnt there a Dual Core Intel Mac. If I can pick one of those up and stock it with 16gigs of Ram do you think that would do the job to hold a pretty decent orchestra setup from VSL online?

Andy

[Dwetmaster]

I would strongly suggest you MacPro 2.8GHz 8core with four HDs and the most RAM you can afford. About 3500$ for a machine you won't regret...