Forums
New posts
Articles
Product Reviews
Policies
FAQ
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Forums
Digital Lifestyle
Music, Audio, and Podcasting
Running Logic Studio, Macbook Or iMac ???
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="jstevewhite" data-source="post: 1016772" data-attributes="member: 147314"><p>I'm absolutely certain that one can make good music at nearly any bandwidth and frequency. That being said, the headroom of 24bits/96khz is incredible and useful. I would never suggest you *had* to have it, but the better the quality you start with, the better the quality you'll end with. That's the corollary of "GIGO", but I don't want to suggest that 16/48 is garbage.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>While this is true, there's a lot of meat hidden in the word "glorified". There are pianos for Kontact that are GBs of samples. There are also lots of "sampler instruments" that use the built-in FX of the various sampler platforms. Let us also note that the really great samplers are nearly as cpu heavy as the really great softsynths as they engage in high-speed, high-quality resampling, envelope modifying, LFOs, the whole nine yards. I've been in recording studios where a rack mount machine was dedicated to Kontakt. Sampletanks has an equivalent number of effects options and sample modifiers/scalers/etc.</p><p></p><p>Also, four tracks of Amplitube can make my dual-core 2.4Ghz iMac sweat, and cause occasional "Logic was unable to play back ... " (can't remember the actual text, but...) Same with Guitar Rig and Pod Farm, although Pod Farm seems to have the least impact on my setup. It's worth noting that freezing a SINGLE AMPLITUBE track makes a noticeable difference in CPU load on my setup. </p><p></p><p>Space Designer, Amp Designer, the Apple Matrix Reverb AU, etc... all of those are CPU hogs. I've got 4GB of RAM and 2.4Ghz dual cores, a FW 800 RAID0, etc... the *only* performance issues I encounter are CPU related. More about FW in a sec...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, initially, no matter how much you up-sample (to 24/96 or 24/192 or beyond) you will never get a signal better than the 16/48 you started with. For best final quality (we can argue about what's acceptable, or appropriate, but not what's technically best signal reproduction) you start with all inputs at the highest quality in the system; if you input in 16/48, your final quality can't be "better" ( in the sense of "faithful signal reproduction" ) than 16/48 regardless of the output bitrate and frequency. And since Logic does *all* it's internal processing in 32bit FP, you're not really saving any CPU by using 16 bits.</p><p></p><p>I avoid bouncing tracks until I have to; once you bounce, you lose the ability to revise (beyond EQ). Furthermore, you're adding first one bounce, then another when you output your final result. No reason to introduce generation loss unless you have no choice. I prefer to use "freeze" (as there's no generation loss and you can unfreeze things) but that's still slower than live tracks. Yes, you *can* work with less; people have made *great* music with four-track cassettes. But we're talking 'best case', right?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Workflow - absolutely. Do what makes you happy, and there's certainly no one workflow that produces "better music" than another. But obviously people here have run up against the limits of their systems in the way they work. </p><p></p><p>Regardless, some things *are* matters of fact, and there's something in the thread I wanted to address. When you have *one* drive, the DRIVE limits the bandwidth, not the BUS (nowadays). With a proper firewire to SATA interface, the same drive should give about the same performance across the firewire bus or the SATA bus. There are lots of variables, however, so that's not something I'd *bet* on; it's just true that the bandwidth of FW400 or 800 is greater than the bandwidth of a single spindle. </p><p></p><p>That's what's important with iMacs and MBPs. Internally, you're limited to a single spindle. With four spindles, I can push 80MB/sec accross FW800 (I do, regularly); the internal drive on my iMac (.5TB drive that came with it) maxes out at 22MB/sec. It's probably no advantage to use a single spindle external drive (unless you get one with higher transfer rates than the internal one) but multiple spindles will give DEFINITE improvement. </p><p></p><p>With a Mac Pro, I think you can field four drives; those four drives in a RAID0 *could* certainly match or exceed a FW800 RAID.</p><p></p><p>I'm looking to move to the quad core i7 27" iMac for the CPU and the screen real estate. I do a lot of guitar and bass DI work, and those effects are HOGGZ.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jstevewhite, post: 1016772, member: 147314"] I'm absolutely certain that one can make good music at nearly any bandwidth and frequency. That being said, the headroom of 24bits/96khz is incredible and useful. I would never suggest you *had* to have it, but the better the quality you start with, the better the quality you'll end with. That's the corollary of "GIGO", but I don't want to suggest that 16/48 is garbage. While this is true, there's a lot of meat hidden in the word "glorified". There are pianos for Kontact that are GBs of samples. There are also lots of "sampler instruments" that use the built-in FX of the various sampler platforms. Let us also note that the really great samplers are nearly as cpu heavy as the really great softsynths as they engage in high-speed, high-quality resampling, envelope modifying, LFOs, the whole nine yards. I've been in recording studios where a rack mount machine was dedicated to Kontakt. Sampletanks has an equivalent number of effects options and sample modifiers/scalers/etc. Also, four tracks of Amplitube can make my dual-core 2.4Ghz iMac sweat, and cause occasional "Logic was unable to play back ... " (can't remember the actual text, but...) Same with Guitar Rig and Pod Farm, although Pod Farm seems to have the least impact on my setup. It's worth noting that freezing a SINGLE AMPLITUBE track makes a noticeable difference in CPU load on my setup. Space Designer, Amp Designer, the Apple Matrix Reverb AU, etc... all of those are CPU hogs. I've got 4GB of RAM and 2.4Ghz dual cores, a FW 800 RAID0, etc... the *only* performance issues I encounter are CPU related. More about FW in a sec... Well, initially, no matter how much you up-sample (to 24/96 or 24/192 or beyond) you will never get a signal better than the 16/48 you started with. For best final quality (we can argue about what's acceptable, or appropriate, but not what's technically best signal reproduction) you start with all inputs at the highest quality in the system; if you input in 16/48, your final quality can't be "better" ( in the sense of "faithful signal reproduction" ) than 16/48 regardless of the output bitrate and frequency. And since Logic does *all* it's internal processing in 32bit FP, you're not really saving any CPU by using 16 bits. I avoid bouncing tracks until I have to; once you bounce, you lose the ability to revise (beyond EQ). Furthermore, you're adding first one bounce, then another when you output your final result. No reason to introduce generation loss unless you have no choice. I prefer to use "freeze" (as there's no generation loss and you can unfreeze things) but that's still slower than live tracks. Yes, you *can* work with less; people have made *great* music with four-track cassettes. But we're talking 'best case', right? Workflow - absolutely. Do what makes you happy, and there's certainly no one workflow that produces "better music" than another. But obviously people here have run up against the limits of their systems in the way they work. Regardless, some things *are* matters of fact, and there's something in the thread I wanted to address. When you have *one* drive, the DRIVE limits the bandwidth, not the BUS (nowadays). With a proper firewire to SATA interface, the same drive should give about the same performance across the firewire bus or the SATA bus. There are lots of variables, however, so that's not something I'd *bet* on; it's just true that the bandwidth of FW400 or 800 is greater than the bandwidth of a single spindle. That's what's important with iMacs and MBPs. Internally, you're limited to a single spindle. With four spindles, I can push 80MB/sec accross FW800 (I do, regularly); the internal drive on my iMac (.5TB drive that came with it) maxes out at 22MB/sec. It's probably no advantage to use a single spindle external drive (unless you get one with higher transfer rates than the internal one) but multiple spindles will give DEFINITE improvement. With a Mac Pro, I think you can field four drives; those four drives in a RAID0 *could* certainly match or exceed a FW800 RAID. I'm looking to move to the quad core i7 27" iMac for the CPU and the screen real estate. I do a lot of guitar and bass DI work, and those effects are HOGGZ. [/QUOTE]
Verification
Name this item. 🍎
Post reply
Forums
Digital Lifestyle
Music, Audio, and Podcasting
Running Logic Studio, Macbook Or iMac ???
Top
