Putting together a ProTools & Mac Recording Rig

[Double Tones]

Hi, hows' it goin'?

I am looking into setting up a protools and mac rig.

First, I can't decide wether I want the 002 Rack or the 002 Control Surface.
Anyone have experience with both, and could weigh the pro's and con's?
I like the idea of being able to mix "outside the box" but is it worth it...?

Second, I am going with a new mac, solely for music.
But, I keep reading about needing an external hard-drive?
I kinda like the power books, anyone have any experience with those and protools? Please educate me, haha.

Third, monitor wise, should I just get a set of powered speakers.
Those hookup to the Digi 002 correct?

Anyway, this is for a home-studio setup, electric and acoustic guitars, vocals, drums, bass,..whatever.

I guess that's it for now, Please help, thanks!

[John Jeffers]

Using a control surface isn't mixing "outside the box". Even though you're using physical faders and knobs, all the actual mixing of the sound is still happening inside the computer (in the box). "Outside the box" usually means that you're sending the unmixed signals out of the computer to be mixed on some kind of analog equipment. Some people prefer the way this sounds; it doesn't have anything to do with convenience.

Powered speakers would certainly make life easier 'cause you could plug 'em right into the 002's outs. If you get passive speakers you're going to need an amp to drive them.

I can't help ya with the mac/pt questions.

[Cyan421]

For protools you dont need an external hard drive. You just need another one. That dosent mean a partition. Another physical spinning round chunk of magnetic media. You can get extra drives (internal or ex) from anywhere, even the mac store. If your buying new you can get it put in the box for you and set up, if your not knowledgeable about stuff like that. It could be handy to have an external drive but thats for you to decide if portability is more important. I think that only real use for that would be if you want to record some things at a Professional studio and bring them home to tweak and add onto, then you probably want a firewire hard drive.

About that laptop thing. Portability again is cool but I think you find that you can max out the processing power of your computer pretty quick. I just got a mac mini not two months ago. The first project I got running was a song I had recorded all of at a pro studio (in digital performer). 6 drum tracks, 2 bass, 3 electric guitar, 4 acoustic guitar. I had done some mixing on my girlfriends g4 ibook and found the max of the machine very quickly. I thought the mini would have a tad bit more power and could do some more work with compression and reverb. I thought wrong. The ibook is a 1ghz with 512MB ram the mini is a 1.42ghz with 1gig of ram. I didnt notice a difference in power. Even attempting to minimize my processing using sub groups for most of the work I was still hitting the wall. Just something to think about if you planning big things. It might be a different story as the powerbooks a bit faster that my mini, but i doubt noticiably.

yes plug you powered monitors into the digi's main outs. Thats the easyest way to go.

[tony moore]

I've had a few Mac and PT rigs.

My last lap rig was a Powerbook G4 12" with 1 gig of ram and I've been using the same mBox for a few years. I also use an external firewire hard drive, spinning at 7200. I did a complete project with that rig and most songs had about 12 - 20 audio tracks. I used only the Digirack plugs, which don't seem as much CPU. I would get occasional buffer errors, but nothing that stopped me from working. I also used that same laptop for work and just general entertainment. It was a great rig and I used it for 2 years with no problems.

I've also had 2 different iMac rigs. A G4 17" and a G5 20", both with 2 gigs of ram, using the same external fw drive that I use with the powerbook. Both have worked perfectly. I shouldn't have spent the money to upgrade to the G5 as I've seen no difference in performance over the G4 iMac. And the G5 iMac have plummeted in resale value. I've seen G5 20" iMacs selling for under a grand! But with the increased ram, I've never hit the cpu ceiling with songs with around 30 audio tracks.

Unless you really need portability, I think a used iMac is an incredible value. Much bigger screen and more power. I travel alot and am going to buy another powerbook, and know I'm going to take a bath on selling my G5 iMac. Now is a really good time to buy a used mac with the wintel units coming in spring...

PS - I should add all my experience is with an mBox, I've never used the 002...

[Double Tones]

If I were to get a 17inch 1.67GHz powerbook,
I have the options of:

100GB Ultra ATA drive @ 7200rpm
120GB Ultra ATA drive @ 5400rpm

The lower GB at higher rpm is preferred, correct?

Also, the memory can be upgraded from standard
512MB to 1GB or 2GB.....how important is this?

It also comes with:
USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 & 800

Which firewire port would I hook an 002 up to, and can I hook a firewire external hard drive up to the other unused port?

Thanks!!

[ctmsound]

Yes, 7200 over 5400. Ram is very important. I'd say atleast 1 gig. When your computer is processing information, it uses random access memory (ram) . The more ram, the more freely your computer can process information. What does that mean: more plugins/tracks/ etc. to a certain point. 002 hooks up to the firewire 400 slot. If you have an 800 slot and are thinking of an external drive, get a firewire 800 external drive.

[Double Tones]

Anyone else have experience with a setup like this?
Thanks

[Terry Ferguson]

A little different view.

I run an 12" IBOOK G4 1.25 with the memory maxed out and an MBOX. I choose the IBOOK because I think it's a little more durable, and I don't need a Firewire 800 port or an Input. I needed the portability since I travel doing mix work. I was really suprised when I did my first mix and the computer held up beautifully. I never use the digirack plugins except for the occasional EQ III. Mainly I'm running the various 1176, LA2A, Fairchild, ofcourse the various Pultecs--with a Waves Plugin or 2. I really like to keep my mixes in the digital domain the same I would in analog--give or take...

Unlike your other advice I always choose to use a smaller hard drive at the slower speed--the small ones for laptops! I even have an external 30 gig that I bring to large studios, and I wish I could find a 10 gig!

The song I'm currently mixing has 32 tracks, all the buses I need, and all the plugins I like.

[Al_Huero]

I run a G4 Power Mac with 1.5 GB RAM and an upgraded 1.4 GHz processor. I can run plenty of tracks and plugins just fine. My interface is an 002R. One thing you'll want to factor in in addition to the monitors is preamps. If you plan to track drums you might want more than the four provided on the 002R (not sure if the 002 has more). The 002/002R are capable of tracking up to 18 simultaneous inputs; but you need something ahead of all those other than what the box provides.