Re: advice re moving from desktop Logic TDM to native Laptop rig

I'm quite happy with my 2006 MBP 2.3 GHz/3 GB RAM/320 GB disk. I use a  
Metric Halo ULN-8 as i/o. I record/playback to an external esata disk  
via a cheap esata express card.
I get very low latency using the ULN-8 mixer and FX for band  
rehearsals etc. The MBP works surprisingly well with a 64 sample  
hardware buffer (using the ULN-8).
The ULN sounds vastly superior to a 192. Really world class sound.

My MBP, Logic Pro & Core Audio are a very efficient combo, I can do  
complete album productions with it. But my needs are small compared to  
some of my clients with big  TDM rigs.
Typically I use maybe 12 audio tracks, 6 virtual instruments and maybe  
20 plug ins @ 44.1 kHz. I can easily record/playback 50 tracks @  
44.1/24-bit, I just don't need so many tracks.
The 3 GB RAM(max RAM for my MBP) is sometimes a bit of a limit.


With TDM, you can have low latency in record and playback without  
thinking about it. And you have a guaranteed number of tracks. A  
native rig still needs some more pre-planning.

I sold my TDM rigs years ago(in the G4 era), I had some regrets at  
first but now I am not missing it at all.

The only viable current portable machine is the17" MBP because it has  
an express card slot. You don't want to mix disks and interfaces on  
the same FW bus, at least not for big productions.

What really taxes the MBP is a combination of say the Logic B3 organ ,  
a huge grand piano sampler instrument(Ivory) and a big drum VI all  
played live at the same time with a small buffer. Logic 8 (and  
presumably 9 too) uses only one CPU for  all the real time(live)  
stuff, so this is tricky. Don't know if a 2009 MBP is much better in  
this regard, I noticed the same behaviour on an 2008 octocore MacPro.  
The octocore also will also run out of steam on the live CPU, even  
with the other 7 cores doing nothing.
For playback and mixing, the CPU load is spread evenly over all the  
cores available, so no problems at this stage of a production.

My 2c

Best,

Zip











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