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John Reid

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  1. Yeah, a SSD won't do anything to help the CPU, but it will make a "perceived" difference, mainly in faster loading times, etc. I use a 120 gig OWC Mercury SSD for my boot drive, and use an older 120 gig SSD (OCZ Vertex 2) for the VIs (Omni, Trillian, RMX, BFD2). I'm still using platter drives for my work files and song project files. 16 gigs might be enough to make a difference in your case, but with RAM being fairly reasonable thee days, the more the merrier... but again, I should stress that I maxed out my RAM more for my day job.
  2. At least in the case of Omnisphere, I found that getting more RAM for my system helped (as did a SSD that my Omnishpere, Trillian and BFD2 sample libraries reside on). I maxed it out at 32 gigs, and it actually didn't cost all that much (relatively). Now, I got that extra RAM more for my work as a designer (working with massive Photoshop files), and the music I make is not as "heavy" as yours, but being able to go into Omnisphere & Trillian and change the memory setting to "no limit" did help. I'd have to say that the SSD made a more obvious change, as it dramatically shortened sample load times. Anyway, I got the memory here: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Mac-Pro-Memory#1066-memory
  3. The last time I had that problem was due to a hard drive going bad (in my Mac Pro)... I'm not using LPX yet (still using gear in my sig) Hope a HD failure is not the case, but it's possible. Have you done a SMART check on the drive? I don't trust the "geniuses" at the Apple stores, at least at the closest store in New Haven. I've gotten too many blank looks. No matter what, it might be worth using SuperDuper or something similar to clone your drive ASAP; back up, back up, back up!
  4. Fair enough. Our ideas of internet manners are different. Carry on.
  5. "To the guy who posted before me, he'd better listen to the mix without crap softwares that "mimic" the environment you'd hear with speakers. Either use good speakers or good headphones." Wow, great attitude, there, Prodguy. Lighten up, don't come across as a jerk. The headphones are very good, thanks. Planar magnetic, similar to Audeze, but less expensive. And I'm well aware that TB Isone effects the sound; it's what it was designed to do. I've matched the settings in Isone close enough to my monitors that I can sometimes forget that I 'm listening to the cans. From your forum name, I can only assume that you understand the physics of sound, and how headphones will make a track sound completely different than when you'd listen to it in a room with speakers in front of you. Bottom line, there wasn't ANY reason to start the post with that line, especially since you give the OP good info... Let's not start a flame war, mmmkay?
  6. Hey, Took a quick listen using a Focusrite Saffire interface to HiFiman HE400 cans, using the ToneBoosters Isone plug-in to mimic the soundstage that you'd hear using speakers. Off the bat it feels like the vocals are "behind" the rest of the mix. More so when the rest of the instruments start to fill the track with sound. Perhaps a bit too much mid-bass or mid-range, which might be conflicting with the frequencies of the vocals? I'm sure others will chime in that have WAY more experience than I do. If all else fails, it might be worth shelving it for a week, saving another version of it and starting from scratch with whatever EQ & compression plug-ins you're using, muting the vocals on/off, adjusting the other instruments as necessary until everything sits right. Also, ears become less sensitive to bass and treble at lower levels, so that's most likely what you're experiencing when you say that the mix sounds better louder. Nice chord progressions on your work, BTW...
  7. Wuzisname... Bass Mechanic, eh? Used to listen to that stuff back in the '90s. Always been a bass head; dub reggae was my first love. I have 2 15"s in my wagon these days; I'll give some BMech a listen again, and will load up your patches and play around. Thanks for your efforts!
  8. Hah, I must be old; when I think "old school" hip hop I think Curtis Blow or Whodini http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLYC7ltxOrk. Well, first off, you need some funk, but you want your funk un-cut, and you definately don't want it stepped on.... For drumming style, I'd say listen to some old funk, like Parliment (Dr. Funkenstein is a classic, with Bootsy Collins doing some MEAN rubber band bass) kQB2sKkIaic . Listen to the way that the high hat works with the drum beat, the way it counter-points the bass... Old funk tracks are where most of these hip hop cats stole... er, I mean, "adapted" the feel from. Then use actual drum samples, etiher in kit form, or looped, to get rid of the "edited" sound you mention. Same with the bassline; just listen to some good funk and run with it. You can try a simple sine bass, or a saw. For inspiration, I'd suggest giving a listen to some artists from (IMO) the heyday of hip hop, the 90's.. like the Beastie Boys, De La Soul, Black Sheep, Tribe Called Quest, KRS-One, The Roots first album, 3rd Bass, etc. There was a lot of creativity back then, especially using obscure samples. Some more funk-u-cation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG4t7_xV6ks&feature=related
  9. Yeah, they also make some nifty storage cases for archiving raw hard drives. Again, they're a little pricey, but they have some very well-made gear.
  10. Hmmm.. I wonder if it could be a power draw issue from the FW drive, causing your motherboard voltage to drop? Is the FW drive connected to a wall wart power supply, or is the FW cable supplying power as well as pushing data? Reason I ask is that I have a portable FW 800 drive that I back my work up to sporadically, and the other day I had my old Saffire FW 400 audio interface (which uses the FW400 cable to send data and power) plugged into my MPro, and I'd get back-up stalled error messages when copying files to the external drive. I unplugged the Saffire from my MPro, and the problems went away. So I assumed it was because the external FW 800 drive wasn't seeing enough power to run without throwing errors at me. Man, computers can be a major PITA. And this is from someone who makes a very comfortable living pushing pixels 5 days a week. Hope you can figure it out...
  11. I'm interested too; I guess if you want to slog through reams of hyperbole & conjecture (not to mention name-calling), you could always dip your toes into the Gearslutz forums. Actual user reviews are just starting to trickle in: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/714417-apollo.html http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/712858-ua-apollo-first-look-user-review.html
  12. Off topic a bit, but yep, I used one of those Voyager drive docks (but the power button broke on me pretty quickly... might've been the 1st version of it... RMA'd it for a refund). I instead bought the more expensive (but INSANELY bullet-proof) Weibtech Ultradock http://www.wiebetech.com/products/UltraDock.php Nice unit, since you can connect FW400/800, eSATA, USB2... and IDE/PATA drives (remember those? Ah, obsolescence), so even "old" drives you've had lying around can be used for storage.
  13. IMO, Thunderbolt isn't really ready for prime time yet (as far as external drive options go). I'm going to wait until more real world bugs are worked out. Early adoption has burned me in the past. But if your feeling courageous, LaCie is making an external TB drive, reviewed here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5577/lacie-2big-thunderbolt-series-review For the OP and others, go here for your laptop memory/drives/what have you (not affiliated, just a place where I've shopped for years): http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/powerbook-ibook-macbook/ If you want to get an external drive that can work with other interfaces as well as FW, go with a "Quad" interface (FW800, FW400, USB2, eSATA): http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB I use 4 of these that I've bought over the years as my backups for my day job as well as my music. Been backing up daily via an internal 4 port eSATA card without issues.
  14. Always wondered about this. Who knows what lies down the road for the Mac Pro? Time will tell. I've hand-built PCs since the early 90's, and my current gaming rig is a "god box", so when I decide to upgrade parts again, maybe I'll use the leftovers to do some screwing around. Thanks for the site link, will help when I get around to tweaking!
  15. I had this message pop up recently on my Mac Pro; turned out that it was a HD about to fail. I'd check out that angle as well.
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