can a cpu wiz help me? is macbook pro good enough?

i got a macbook pro 13"
mac osx 10.6.4
2.26GHz intel Core 2 Duo
2 GB Ram
160 GB Hard Drive 5400rpm

Presonus Firestudio mobile
firewire 400,

latency is
44100
128 samples
5.2ms input
2.9 processing
2.3 output
10.4 overall

out of the box shouldnt i be able to handle maschine?
i mean demo songs and all...because im peaking bad

i kinda refuse to go any lower on latency.
i play a lot of parts unquantized.

and no, nothing in background, not bluetooth, airport, etc.

also dont want to buy more ram, unless it makes a BIG BIG difference..
if not, i'll just put that money towards another computer all together...

i got this laptop for a website development project, not music....
fell on maschine in may 2010.. and just thought my mac could handle it.

i want to know what type of computer i need to have
to have the same latency as my mpc,
no performance issues playing a "fully loaded" scenes
(all 8 groups, 16 sounds each all playing....with fx)

i love maschine, but f***ing hate computers...
i wish maschine was hardware/standalone but also
can be software/standalone/plug/controller.
like that cakewalk audio interface i was eyeing the other day.

 

Faster HD to read your samples off of (7200rpm) while letting your main drive crunch through the processing will help. Making sure you have a nice amount of free space on your internal hard drive, and definitely 2GB of ram is too little, I would go to 4GB if you can, it really does make a difference. Also, what do you have your soundcard set at? 16bit or 24bit? I'd set it at 24bit, see if it brings your latency down a bit. Also, wouldn't hurt to run Disk Utility, check all the permissions on your drive, etc, just to make sure its all nice and cleanly accessible by your CPU. Run Activity Monitor while you are playing with Maschine, and see what else is eating up processor time or RAM or writing/reading to disc.

You say "peaking" — what do you mean? CPU is pegged? Stutters in the audio? Or do you mean that your audio levels are peaking, and you're getting distortion?

 

peaking as in, overloading the cpu, like im playing a fully loadead song,
with latency at 32 samples bit rate 96000 or whatever and i got a pentiumIII.

basically when it tries to play drums,keys,samples,fx,etc at say bar 2:3
it distorts, overload, to much going on, as if i need my latency higher, which will fix it, but then lose out on my performance recording...
also at current settings randomly if im playing more than like 4 keys
the midi notes get stuck or i get like a latency burst where like,
my recorded keys are way way off randomly.

it just FEELS like my mac isnt strong enough.

ididnt get a hd because i got a 320gb external...for space
will the rpms help in playback and recording performance
or only, loading, saving, exxporting, etc.
do you think the 4gig ram would fix these issues...
or what issue would it fix

or is it the combination of things that i need....

i wish ni would go more into detail about reccomended hardware

 

its the ram...im pretty sure of it now, thanks

how i think i know...
my quick warm up projects are fine....
its the real beefy fully loaded beats that drag...

4gig is 200 or 8 is like 600 from apple....rip off

 

Never buy RAM from Apple!

 

ram will have no effect on your cpu peaking as it cannot withstand the strain at that latency figure,

2 options either get a more powerful computer or work at a higher buffer rate (128 samples is your current buffer) on projects as they get bigger.

 

Buying ram from Apple is like getting your oil changed at the car dealership, sure you can do it, but why?

If your mac is the kind I think it is, you will have two 1GB chips in it (about this Mac will tell you what's installed in your computer, and in which slots, when you click on the "More Info" button. You may have to install in pairs, many times you do, however, the iMac I own doesn't require pairs, so I have just 3GB in mine, and haven't had any problems with Maschine (I'm far more likely to peg the CPU with Logic in 32-bit mode, or Garageband, or Photoshop).

Run Activity monitor like I suggested while you're playing around in Maschine. Try a different USB port for the controller, one of the Macbook USB ports has a bad position (most laptops have at least one that's not in an optimal spot for super-fast data transmission). Distortion and data from the controller bunching up in spots sounds much more like a data transmission issue than anything else.

The RPMs help with how fast the drive can find and seek the next bit of data, as well as how fast it can write temporary data to the drive as programs run, etc. 5200 is not super slow, but 7200 is always recommended for audio and video. If your internal drive is almost full, btw, there is no room for the OS to be loaded into virtual memory, and it will take up more space in actual ram, which robs you of the space to run applications like Maschine.

If your audio interface has a firewire 800 port on it, use that instead of the 400, its faster, and may help. Might as well squeeze every bit of performance out of it.

The only way to track down your problems will be to run something diagnostic, like the Activity monitor, and do the housekeeping stuff like fixing disk permissions, etc. Otherwise you're not giving yourself a place to start from.

 

yea, i tried, theres practically nothing running, i do notice however that....
right when i load up maschine with a "average" track its already using 6xxmb ram
with studioone with maschine as a plug around 9xxmb.
also interface only has 2 400 ports so i had to get a 400/800 cable.hate adapters
damn

^thats the info i was looking for... i might as well give this laptop to my girl....

take her cheap gateway...then get one of those desktop i7's from frys,
the one with the clear side and blue lights...http://www.frys.com/product/6058398?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
then if i ever need to go portable, grab the gateway,
like i said i got the mac for a completely different reason. so, at least im not as dissapointed as if i bought it for maschine, but still dissapointed.
....

im sure in about another 10 years from now, even the cheapest of cheap notebooks in stores will probably be able to handle all audio software perfectly, while playing game, and youtubing tutorials on making top ramen
thanks for the help guys

 

you should max out your ram! and if you could afford a faster internal hard drive go get you an ssd drive and replace that with the one in your computer. put all the sounds on your external drive and you should see a difference in maschines performance. any problems you have from that point will be because of maschine, remember its still developing. it takes maschine around 35 seconds to load on my computer im running 4 gigs of ram with external drive "g-force" on an imac duo core.

ssd drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220485

 

im sorry but your wrong on all accounts,

if he purchases a ssd, why would he use a slower drive to hold the maschine library or his own sounds big libraries yes i understand but 10/20 gig worth of sounds that you need quick acess to , it makes sense to use the quickest drive.

i have tried and tested my western digital black drive against the ssd that holds my os and by far the ssd is so much faster, i dont clogger nothing else on my ssd just keep my maschine sounds and 1 hits on this drive (also my projects and when working on projects in cubase all off the ssd).

secondly ram will do nothing for the cpu peaks his having as i mentioned earlier.

 

he needs to put the sounds on an external drive. at this moment ssd drives are too costly, 200 gig for 500+ so to buy an external drive, 500 gig to 1T- 7200 rpm firewire should be fine. i was considering the sounds that he will be wanting to add to the drive in the future, if money is no object then go ahead and spend the 1300 on a 500 gig internal ssd drive for the extra speed. im not sure if the ssd's are capable of handling the daw's operations + the sounds on the same drive. if you have done so smithwessen please let us know the response of the ssd drives running the daw plugins and sounds all together on the ssd, im very curious to know?

 

my set up is as follows, maschine library , win7, and all my 1 hits on my ssd drive, 1tb bigger drive for my big vsti trillian etc.

people have stated on the forum drums sounds take some time to cylcle or loading kits take time etc, i do things in maschine with no delay at all, i press next on maschine the next sample comes up no delay.

i use my hardware in real time no noticable latency at all.

yes ssd's are expensive, but if you use them wisely you can make the most of the fast speed.

and what realtion does having sounds on an external drive have to his cpu overloading at his buffer rate?

 

here is your solution s.bolo
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST95005620AS/

 

so if i understand correctly, getting a super fast hard drive and maxing out ram
will improve performace...

but what im trying to achieve is...
0 latency as far as human ears go.

i need to know, with every high end option added to my mac
is it still going to do the trick?

or will the bottleneck end up being the core2duo?

i know maschine/cpu's arent mpcs.
but i would like the performance quality of one.

also, would having the "best" computer out, fix
midi notes getting stuck when playing keys,
or is this a maschine issue?

havent done cpu audio, since the cool edit pro and fruityloops3 days

 

a faster hardrive will load sounds quicker thats it nothing else.

regarding your other questions i revert you back to a older thread of yours,
http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?t=113076&highlight=latency

 

none of use will have that tightly integrated system running software and hardware dealing with midi until usb3.0 comes out, that millisecond faster should make the difference in any latency issues plus running the solid state drives 'ssd's' im not going to buy a new mac until this happens

 

Hmm, I have a MacBookPro 2.5GHz Duo with 4Gb of ram. I have NO PROBLEMS running any demo project. I also run 64 samples of latency with onboard soundcard with Kore2 running as a midi controller, a Korg Nano controller and a USB Midi keyboard with no problems. I do not use firewire and I use an unpowered USB hub to increase its 2 USB ports to run 4 USB ports.

I have only had 3 total hiccups ever. Your computer should be fine. I have no idea why it bogs down. Buy your ram from newegg or somewhere (I did).

I also sometimes use a USB HDD sometimes and NI's AK1 soundcard on the same USB ports. The only time I have run out of processing power is inside of Logic 9 and I had a lot of soft synth and insert/fx chains going.

In short, I guess it's your RAM. Basically, I have no problems using Maschine with my MBP and USB controllers as is. Only cost me $15 for a USB hub to add more ports. Good luck. Feel free to ask more questions if you want!