www.megadrum.info

Hi guys,

I'm about to buy a dedicated computer for my Edrum system and I was wondering, what kind of machines are you running your with your SD2 and BFD2. I mean CPU, RAM, disk, sound card...
But serious configurations that really work without hickups, blocking, crashes and no latency ofcourse! The kind you could take to a gig and be safe.

Everybody feel free to chip in...
Thanks

We're using a Santa Rosa Macbook Pro with BFD 1.5. We're planning on upgrading to BFD2 sometime in the near future. Logic Express 8, for now. Plans to upgrade to Logic Express 9, again sometime in the near future.

The MBP has 4GB of RAM and the Santa Rosa Core 2 Duo. I think it's a 2.2GHz but since it's my friend's computer, I can't check right now. We record to an external 7200rpm FireWire HDD from LaCie and the BFD samples are on another external 7200rpm FireWire HDD. We're using a Digi002 audio interface (again, FireWire). The internal HDD stores the Logic and BFD binaries, but not samples or anything else that requires high throughput or low access latency. Megadrum is connected to the MBP via USB.

It took some time to get OS X and the Digidesign CoreAudio driver to play nice together since Digidesign is geared more towards stability, we had to revert to OS X 10.5.3 for rock solid setup. We've had hiccups, but it was all software based. Bad OS X version/Digidesign CoreAudio driver version combination, to summarize it.

We've recorded as much as three guitars, two vocals, bass and drums simultaneously (not tracked, live recording) using this setup.

fuzzysnuggleduck wrote:We're using a Santa Rosa Macbook Pro with BFD 1.5. We're planning on upgrading to BFD2 sometime in the near future. Logic Express 8, for now. Plans to upgrade to Logic Express 9, again sometime in the near future.

The MBP has 4GB of RAM and the Santa Rosa Core 2 Duo. I think it's a 2.2GHz but since it's my friend's computer, I can't check right now. We record to an external 7200rpm FireWire HDD from LaCie and the BFD samples are on another external 7200rpm FireWire HDD. We're using a Digi002 audio interface (again, FireWire). The internal HDD stores the Logic and BFD binaries, but not samples or anything else that requires high throughput or low access latency. Megadrum is connected to the MBP via USB.

It took some time to get OS X and the Digidesign CoreAudio driver to play nice together since Digidesign is geared more towards stability, we had to revert to OS X 10.5.3 for rock solid setup. We've had hiccups, but it was all software based. Bad OS X version/Digidesign CoreAudio driver version combination, to summarize it.

We've recorded as much as three guitars, two vocals, bass and drums simultaneously (not tracked, live recording) using this setup.

Thanks fuzzy,

not sure how Mac GHz, relate to PC GHz since it's going to be one. They are not so popular here and are much more expesive. But majority of studios I've been to was running Mac's!
More stable I guess...

kwas wrote:Thanks fuzzy,

not sure how Mac GHz, relate to PC GHz since it's going to be one. They are not so popular here and are much more expesive. But majority of studios I've been to was running Mac's!
More stable I guess...

All MacBook Pros have Intel chips, the same ones used in PCs. It's the older Powerbooks that had PPC chips. This particular MBP has a Santa Rosa Intel Core 2 Duo. Not sure exactly what clock speed, but it's an Intel machine and can more or less easily be compared to PCs on a hardware performance level.

fuzzysnuggleduck wrote:

kwas wrote:Thanks fuzzy,

not sure how Mac GHz, relate to PC GHz since it's going to be one. They are not so popular here and are much more expesive. But majority of studios I've been to was running Mac's!
More stable I guess...

All MacBook Pros have Intel chips, the same ones used in PCs. It's the older Powerbooks that had PPC chips. This particular MBP has a Santa Rosa Intel Core 2 Duo. Not sure exactly what clock speed, but it's an Intel machine and can more or less easily be compared to PCs on a hardware performance level.

Just to be on the safe side, I think I'll go a bit higher with the GHz.

Thanks!

I wouldn't focus so much of GHz and instead lookup actual benchmarks and performance testing of the specific chips you're interested in. For instance, a 4GHz Pentium 4 isn't nearly the CPU a 2.0GHz Core i7 is

fuzzysnuggleduck wrote:I wouldn't focus so much of GHz and instead lookup actual benchmarks and performance testing of the specific chips you're interested in. For instance, a 4GHz Pentium 4 isn't nearly the CPU a 2.0GHz Core i7 is

Yes, thank you for the advice, I'm aware of that. But core i7 comes with a nice little price tag, and MB also.

I just wanted to know real life expirience ( which you provided ) of active users, what is an optimal configuration to run those plugins smoothly.

I think dual core will be OK

Nobody else? Does this means that nobody here uses MD for atleast semy-serious purposes?