This is why I bought a Mac!!!

After a lot of research, I finally bought a Macbook Pro last evening. The sole 'driver' behind doing this was to get my home studio up and running. I have an Alesis Firewire Mixer that never worked with Windows (XP iintermittently; Vista almost never).

This morning I plugged the mixer into my machine, installed the drivers, and I was good to go!!! The only problem that I face is that I need to reboot my laptop every time I plug the mixer in for it to be recognized, but once the mixer is recognized, everything else works just fine. Actually, does anyone know why I need to do this?

Anyway, I am happy that I finally have a platform that works with my mxer and that I can finally start making music instead of fighting with my equipment.

Congrats on your purchase, enjoy your new machine and your time here at Mac-Forums!

mapexvenus said:

...Anyway, I am happy that I finally have a platform that works with my mxer and that I can finally start making music instead of fighting with my equipment.

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The experience of every Mac owner in a single sentence!

Congratulations on the new machine! I hope you turn out some high quality music with your setup!

Man, I bought my MBP for the same reason. I just recorded drums for my bands EP a few days ago, it was rock solid.

Congrats on the pick up. Welcome to the board.

mapexvenus said:

This morning I plugged the mixer into my machine, installed the drivers, and I was good to go!!! The only problem that I face is that I need to reboot my laptop every time I plug the mixer in for it to be recognized, but once the mixer is recognized, everything else works just fine. Actually, does anyone know why I need to do this?

Anyway, I am happy that I finally have a platform that works with my mxer and that I can finally start making music instead of fighting with my equipment.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Anyway, your reboot issue probably has to do with some subprocess that needs to be restarted each time you plug it in, and a reboot will do that. The trick would be to identify the specific process that talks to the mixer, and kill/restart only that process. This should accomplish the same effect as that which a reboot does.

First I would see if just logging out/logging back in causes the mixer to be recognized for use. Then I would get Activity monitor while the mixer is connected and recognized to see if there are any obvious processes that appear to be talking to it. Disconnect it, and reconnect it. While it's not recognized, look at Activity Monitor again, and see what's not there. Once you know what's not there, you know what that is that needs to be started for it to see the mixer.

One advantage of a UNIX based OS. You kind of need to know UNIX, however, to take full advantage of it.