Running Logic Studio, Macbook Or iMac ???

[musicmad]

Great Response Zoolook, however in my case I never use audio as all of my work is based around MIDI. So in my situation will this provide a slightly better speed access from the drive to the system when working with MIDI as apposed to audio?

Even more importantly is recording audio, where data is written to the hdd as you record

How is that with MIDI then? i understand the different technologies between Audio & MIDI, but when one records in MIDI where is that data the 0-1s stored. sorry to be asking technical questions but if possible I'd like to know.

 

[Zoolook]

Great Response Zoolook, however in my case I never use audio as all of my work is based around MIDI. So in my situation will this provide a slightly better speed access from the drive to the system when working with MIDI as apposed to audio?

How is that with MIDI then? i understand the different technologies between Audio & MIDI, but when one records in MIDI where is that data the 0-1s stored. sorry to be asking technical questions but if possible I'd like to know.

MIDI uses a tiny fraction of the data that audio uses, so it's never an issue. MIDI only really has to record the notes played and controller changes, as opposed to the full audio output.

 

[musicmad]

Thanks! for your help.

Mm.

 

[jstevewhite]

OK, perhaps I explained myself poorly, and please bare in mind, I was really pitching at someone (the OP) who seems to be a bedroom enthusiast, rather than someone like you. I'll explain it anyway.

No, you're right, I misinterpreted your advice. My bad. I thought you were talking about actually acquiring real-world audio, not softsynths. After re-reading, I understand. You're absolutely right that it's a completely different thing, and your statement is correct as stated. With Logic Studio 9, freeze is a button click away, and performs essentially the same thing, though, so it's six of one and... Sorry I wasn't paying attention.

Here's what usually happens... the newbie workflow:

- Select a software instrument (might be a sampler or virtual synth)
- Slap 5 effects on it and play a bunch of 8-note chords, record as a MIDI track
- Select a drum loop. Ultrabeat will do! Add some reverb, maybe a filter, perhaps seperate out the sounds to 4 or 8 tracks, slap different delays and compression on each
- Bass line... simple ES1 sine wave... but it needs some EQ, slight delay and compression to stop the chords phasing out
- OK now I need that Orbital "woahawowaaa" sample. Some ping-pong delay, compression, EQ, reverb, bit-cruncher and distortion...

OK, why do I have 400% CPU use...

Now when I say you can use lower quality audio and then go back to higher quality, I mean this. You bounce down the audio, simply when you have more or less the drums/bass or chords you want. I don't know how you work, but for me, the drum loop is the least important thing to have perfect at the start. I layer it down, and copy it across as a sampled loop with any effects that are critical right at the start. 16-bit AIFF is fine at this point. Remember I have the original Ultrabeat loop somewhere when I need it.

Right. I get it now. Seems clean enough. I still like Freeze better - or actually, I like having all my tracks *live* . But yeah, makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, I've read that SATA spindles can benchmark at upwards of 100mb/sec on a single drive. I'm not sure what magic they're doing to get those numbers, but I know that in the server world, we'd LOVE to get that kind of speed, but it just doesn't happen. XBench says my internal iMac drive will do 70MB/sec for 256k blocks. It's great that it benches that way, but it just won't actually deliver. Maybe if I deleted everything on it each time .

I think your assessment is exactly on target - record to a different drive than you boot from. When I take my MBP in the field for recording, I have a 2.5" 7200RPM FW800 drive I record to.

Sorry again for my misinterpretation.

-Steve

 

[Chud]

I think your assessment is exactly on target - record to a different drive than you boot from. When I take my MBP in the field for recording, I have a 2.5" 7200RPM FW800 drive I record to.

-Steve

I've always "known" this, but never "knew" it for some reason and can't really put my finger on the distinction I guess. Makes total sense to separate the application drive from the file drive, even if the main drive is big and fast.

If I may ask, how many live tracks are you taking in at once when you record out in the field? I guess I never really looked at the throughput numbers when listening to advice about FW downsides and e-SATA benefits. So basically what you are saying is that the FW800 connection provides more than enough bandwidth headroom than a 7200rpm drive could feasibly use anyway, right?