Playing with the New Mac Pro

[Michael T]

I've had the machine for a week and have finished installing stuff ( well nearly).

It's a lovely piece of engineering that's for sure.

Anyway, I thought I'd put it through it's paces and get to know Logic X which I couldn't run on my old 1,1 Mac Pro. 

So far I'm lovin' it, even if my bank balance isn't!!

I made a little video of me switching it on cos it's cool when it lights up!! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdUIWfoCf7A

[Michael T]

I hear ya Ray!
As the years go by these gizmos give us better sound and production quality but do nothing to improve our composition skills.
Still, I've waited so long for an upgrade and it's such a beautiful object, I felt like I should mark the occasion. :)

[Phillip Lovgren]

I like the basic idea of the nMac Pro, it's just paying a $1000 for dual GPUs that as yet don't do anything for audio work. If you're also working with video then it makes more sense. Apple talked about OpenGL at the last WWDC but so far it's just vapor ware.

I opted for adding a TOTL Mac Mini with my old 22" HP as the Master and my 27" iMac as slave utilizing screen sharing with Vienna Ensemble Pro 5. I'll probably buy a Dell 30" later which will be easier on my eyes and not mess with screen sharing which has a few problems with some of my software.

The fact that the CPU, memory and drive are now known to be 3rd party upgradable is good news but I'll probably wait for the 2nd or 3rd generation or buy a used one.

[Michael T]

Hi Phillip,  I know what you mean about the GPUs. I got a custom build with the smallest D300s but with a 6-core CPU.

I have been using VEP 5 too but I'd like to see how much I can get running on one machine before hooking it up to my oMP.

An added bonus is that, apart from a display, my set up is actually portable without too much hassle. The oMP weighed a ton whereas the nMP can be carried with three fingers! These days external storage and audio interfaces are small and light too and I expect a load more TB2 devices to be hitting the market over the coming months.