Create Digital Music - Latest Comments

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

Popo Bawa — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 23:33:21 -0000

"Just watch! Developers will come up with gorgeous solutions to work with the most elegant computer ever made."

Or - maybe Apple have gotten so cheap and lazy that they expect us to do their engineering for them. It's easy to say that minimal = elegant when we don't see the sea of cables and piles of external peripherals. I hope it feels elegant if I need to swap out the logic board, this thing looks an absolute treat to work on.

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

Popo Bawa — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 23:13:35 -0000

I gravitate towards bomb-proof hardware. My initial attraction to Macs in the 90s was that they were cheap workstations with great A/V software. How I see it, things like laptops and imacs are a convenience, but they are basically disposable. Good luck field stripping your imac in a few minutes. Or quickly swapping out a faulty logic board from any of these things.

As an audio guy of some years, I can tell you that in my experience - cables and adaptors are the most likely causes of faults I have seen. They are engineered as a cheap and nasty solution to throwing up and breaking down a rig. There is no accountable quality control with buying a pile of cables. This whole approach is not intended for mission critical use.

Personally, I think this new "Pro" form factor sucks. Going modular might not be a bad idea, but this is not a robust way to go about it. Why not rack mount, or stackable? So that we can better deal with the inevitable expansion chassis and cables in an intelligent way?

Oh, yeah, I forgot - because somebody decided that this thing is perfect for 80% of the Mac Pro users, so I should downgrade the way I work to make it easier for everybody. If I am supposed to vote with my money, why can't I pay them more to make something better than this crippled lump?

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

Popo Bawa — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 23:02:11 -0000

WTF are "mainstream apps"? Are you slagging a whole OS ecosystem just because it doesn't run software for other OSes? Every OS has software to get a particular job done. But it's unreasonable to assume that every program is cross-platform, or has a functional equivalent elsewhere.

And what exactly do you know about Hackintoshes? Calling them hobby machines seems more like name-calling than a well thought out critique.

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

brian botkiller — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:29:20 -0000

And you just troll anyone who doesn't like Apple, is that correct?

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

The Cappy — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:13:05 -0000

You just troll Apple articles.

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

The Cappy — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:11:08 -0000

As for price... it's clear a lot of people thinking "Oooh! Smaller! The price's gotta be lower than before!" Before everyone gets their hopes up: this is the machine they're building in the USA. Devices made in the land of cheap labor vs something built here. When they announce the price and everyone goes nuts, keep that in mind. This is what people were asking Apple to do. It's going to cost quite a bit more than you've been indoctrinated to believe... and it's not all Apple's fault. It'll cost what it costs. They're probably aiming at the same price points they have now.

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

brian botkiller — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:31:47 -0000

If I may clear something up to all the crying mac fans here, I've been working on macs for years now, I have plenty of clients on macs, I own apple products, I like plenty of their stuff, I'm Logic certified, I've produced many records in Logic. When I was in Audio school, I was working on a Mac. I never said that anything I've said is "the gospel", nor did I even say that Windows based machines are better -- but it's what I've seen from my clients, which include a number of very well-known people and companies, all of which have told me in the past week that this new Mac pro is miles from what they want in a computer. That might change, but I (read, MY DAMN OPINION) have been disenchanted with Apple's "pro" support in the past years.

That's ME. YMMV. Hooray if it does. Funny how we all have opinions, huh?

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

brian botkiller — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 20:59:33 -0000

About the largest consumer grade SSD at this point is 600 gb, so you're right. However Apple can have whatever hardware made for them they wish, such as their 12 core single processor, which isn't commercially available, so I'd imagine that they're having a 2tb drive made for them.

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

brian botkiller — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 20:58:15 -0000

For those that want to go that way, nope, it's not a big deal. For those that don't want to do that, it is a big deal. Luckily there's alternatives.

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

brian botkiller — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 20:57:17 -0000

Actually, I am. I came up on macs. I've been using them since the IIe to do heavy work, I own a macbook, and my tutorials on ipad music making are some of the most watched around. I am fine with apple products. I'm not fine with this iteration of the "pro" computer.

I don't need to "build frankenboxes and sell them to my friends", because I already have a company making Professional computers for a quite respectable client list. I see plenty of merits in Apple's latest computer. I just don't think it's the answer for a lot of the Pro users I work with. And guess what? It's not. Speaking with well-known clients in the past week, each and every one has said that there's no way they'd buy this machine, because it won't work for what they want to do.

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

brian botkiller — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 20:54:50 -0000

Nah. I'm educated, and you're a troll, but not a good one. Have fun!

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

brian botkiller — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 20:54:27 -0000

Hence why I don't buy apple products anymore!

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

brian botkiller — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 20:53:59 -0000

hahaha, yeah, cuz macs are the only way you're "pro".

You do realize that before your precious macs, a lot of us were making music on Atari STs, right? Or that Cubase was on systems like that long before your glorious mac?

You're exactly the kind of "pro" Apple needs. Willing to buy anything and fight to the tooth to prove that their shiny version of unix is the best OS on the planet.

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

brian botkiller — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 20:51:18 -0000

You're not even a pro troll, and that's the easiest thing to be pro at.

Are you pro-moron? Because you seem to have their backs like whoa.

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

brian botkiller — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 20:49:19 -0000

And what makes you a "pro", son? I'm guessing not much. I run two companies which interface with Avid, Native Instruments, UA, Presonus, and every other company in the business, and my client list is longer than you've been alive, so do me a favor, and don't look before you leap off that ledge and tell us all how MAD PRO YOU ARE BRO

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

Jessica Darko — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 20:03:12 -0000

Slots are obsolete. Those who don't recognize this are failing to understand how much technology has advanced.

Slots were necessary when external IO was super slow. You needed slots to have a fast connection to the CPU.

Thunderbolt ports give more bandwidth than the slots in the last generation Mac Pro.

Thus the only real difference is whether you store hard drives an other equipment inside the case or outside of it, and outside of it is better, because it lets Apple make a more efficient design, rather than design for the worst case scenario current draw and heat generation of whatever arbitrary stuff you might stick in there.

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

brian botkiller — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:59:20 -0000

Sorry, I couldn't understand you with your macbook between your teeth.

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

Idon't Know — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:22:47 -0000

More proof you know nothing about Apple. At all.

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

Idon't Know — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:22:01 -0000

But then you clearly aren't a "pro" so what are you doing here making ignorant and inane comments to those of us who actually know what we are doing?

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

Idon't Know — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:20:40 -0000

brian botkiller is what you call a troll and just as ignorant and immature as you would expect.

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

Idon't Know — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:19:01 -0000

Last I checked everything Apple uses is available from many sources. Is USB 3 an Apple specification? Nope. Thunderbolt 2? Nope thats Intel as well. I guess you don't know what you are talking about do you?

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

Idon't Know — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:17:25 -0000

Like what..Microsofts latest derivative mediocrity of an OS..Linux which doesn't work with mainstream apps or many hardware components...OS X is far more modern and capable than anything else. Hackintosh is a hobby Mac not for serious production use.

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

macnstuff — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:16:14 -0000

I read a comment the other day on this subject which basically nailed it for me. External expansion chassis's may seem like an inelegant solution at first glance but it provides a level of flexibility and ease of maintenance that ultimately makes it the perfect solution. One expansion chassis can be used on different machines. Upgrades can be carried out without having to take down the workstation and as it has already been pointed out there will no doubt be some elegant solutions for external boxes before too long. We may for example see an expansion chassis in the same form as the Pro which can sit underneath it, just like the Mac Mini external drives from IOMEGA and Newer Technology.

Basically I think we need to wait and see this thing unfold before judging it.

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

Sigivald — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:31:21 -0000

Oh, like this one?

Re: Life After Slots: What the Mac Pro, External Hardware Mean for Production

don108 — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:24:22 -0000

Apple is doomed! First they got rid of the normal 5 1/4" floppies and started using 3 1/2" floppies. Nobody will ever use those. Then they added CD drives, refused to add DVD drives, and took away CD drives! There's no way they can last...

Sorry, Peter, but you just don't get it. The world is changing and you have to evolve or get out of the way. It's not just about the hardware, it's about hardware and software and their integration. When a company provides that, other developers will want to work with that.

I remember the days of spaghetti behind the box. Sorry, Peter, 1 cable is not spaghetti. It used to be that we needed onboard hard drives (that were set up for AV) for speed. USB 3 and Thunderbolt 2 gives all the speed that is needed.

Just watch! Developers will come up with gorgeous solutions to work with the most elegant computer ever made. Have a little faith in your fellow men and women. Watch their amazing creativity and what they'll accomplish. Don't be lost with the "Boo hoo! Apple did something different, again, and now they're doomed." Embrace creativity and the future.