MOTUnation.com

Greetings Unicornation!

I moved to Boston this spring to attend Berklee College of Music as a film scoring and traditional composition major. I brought a junky old PC with me, but once I got here, Berklee required me to buy a PowerBook G4 and my father bought me a G5 and some software to help me compose. The G5 (dual 2GHZ, 4Gb RAM) is very nice, and so is the 20" monitor! I'm posting in this forum because I've now switched my sequencer from Cubase to Digital Performer. It feels very nice to switch entirely to Apple and Macs. Anyways, I had a couple of questions about my G5.

I'm going to be using my G5 strictly as a music computer. The only programs I will ever use on it are Digital Performer, Kontakt, and a few plug ins (which apparently aren't called VST's on a Mac??) like EWQLSO, Atmosphere, etc. That's it though. I only connect to the internet on my PowerBook, so I can download any updates I need from it, burn it to CD, then load it on the PowerMac. So, should I uninstall (which is apparently just deleting on a Mac?!) all of the programs I won't be using? Like icalender, itunes, ipictures, safari, internet explorer, etc. and all the other programs that came pre-installed on the Mac? I remember reading once (for a PC) that you should uninstall every program you're not going to use on a music computer, and only have your music programs on there, to cut down on possible conflicts, and also just to free up hard drive space. Would you all reccommend that?

Secondly, a really quick, silly question for dual G5 users - are they normally this friggin LOUD or will it get quieter as I use it more (that makes no sense whatsoever, and I don't see why it would). It just surprises me that my PC in its cheezy case was nearly half as quiet as the "whisper quiet" G5 (which I love by the way!!!) The G5 has 4GB of RAM, but when I just do something like load a 250mb piano in EWQLSO Silver, it sounds like its going to explode and I can barely hear the piano over the fans.

And now my terratec firewire audio interface has to be plugged in only once the computer starts or it will give me a "kernal panic" screen which says endlessly that I need to restart my computer. =[ more troubleshooting to do.......

MB,

Welcome to the forum, DP, and the world of Macs.
You can probably get rid of most of those apps that you think you won't use on that particular machine, and always re-install from the CD if you change your mind later. You might, however, find iTunes to be useful to you after all so I'd hold off on dumping that one too quickly.

Sorry but I've got a dual G4, so no help there.

with regards

Welcome to the Mac world!

G5 noise: I have a dual 2x2 with 4gig of RAM also, and it regularly runs around 60db. There have been some issues with some of the G5's, especially the 2x2's, being loud. Since it's fan noise mostly, I'm reluctant to do much because I like the idea that the cooling system is working as it is supposed to. You can find discussion of this problem at several forums, including Apple and the G5 owners support group (new server: http://66.116.214.65/group/index.php, the regular link http://g5support.com/group/index.php should be working soon.)

However, if you're getting a lof of reving, where the fan speed increases and decreases frequently, I'd recommend going into System Preferences/Energy Saver/Options and setting the CPU performance tab to 'Highest'. That will keep the cpu, and the mac, running at a more consistant heat and volume level.

As for the issue with the unnecessary programs, unless you need the hard drive space, I wouldn't bother taking anything off. You should be recording your audio to a second drive anyway, and if you're streaming you should use a second or third drive for that. (This is true on PC's also.)

The good news about the Mac (and one of the reasons it's so stable.) is that Apple doesn't get nearly as many conflicts between applications as Windows software does. This is because Windows lets the applications go deep into the kernel's protected space, which is fundamentally dangerous to stability. (But beneficial if you're running Gigastudio, and *only* Gigastudio.) Apple has just said no to that approach, so leaving the pre-installed software on your drive should not cause conflicts.

Glad to have you aboard!
-Helen

Hello,

Thank you for the responses. I'm glad you didn't say something like "NO, WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T DELETE THOSE PROGRAMS!!" because I already did. It just seems tidier and more efficient to me to have a hard drive that's completely barren except for 3 or 4 programs (and I left that creepy chess program with the talking robot-woman on).

And actually, as I play with the G5 more, the fans aren't nearly as loud as I originally thought, but I will look at what you recommended.

Now all I need to do is learn how to use Digital Performer, which, looking at the user guide, will be no easy task! I think I'm going to spend my spring break learning the basics of this program.

I love Macs!