Configuring A Workhorse, Separate user account for Logic? Options

[KingBarbarossa]

Hello everyone,

My question to all you tech wizards:
My computer G5 dual is being used really heavily for graphic design, communication of all sorts and... well, of course music.

I am encountering often many problems when I start Logic. Often configurations seem to be not remembered correctly, audio or midi has to be re-configured - almost every single time when I want to start any work in Logic. This is frustrating and time consuming. These things occur randomly and can never be tracked down or repeated for proper troubleshooting. (I am running numerous hardware synths, as well as plugins and a Kontakt2 in addition to Logic., I also use an Emagic mt4 midi-interface and a Presonus Firebox)

My plan is to get a new Mac Pro in a few months to move all the music production over to a seperate machine.
But in the interim, to reduce some of the problems or at least stabilize the work environment I thought it might be advantagous to make a seperate user for the music production. This way the machine could be booted without all the fonts and extra drivers etc. which are needed for graphics applications.


So my questions are:

Does it makes sense (and to what extent and why) to maybe use an extra harddrive to put the music apps on? maybe even a complete additional system installation on an extra drive?
Does separating out the music apps to a different user account on the computer help at all - will it be beneficial in attempt to gain stability for Logic etc., free system memory or even speed up certain things?
If this is advisable, how do I get a third internal harddrive into my G5 dual (i already use an external for sample libraries)?

What is your advice, how would you solve this?

[Mac Daddy]

KingBarbarossa,
Sounds like you have been through a 'Nightmare' May 'Sweet Dreams' dominate for the next several years... Bravo on solving your problems. Whew! How long did this problem last?

[KingBarbarossa]

KingBarbarossa,
Sounds like you have been through a 'Nightmare' May 'Sweet Dreams' dominate for the next several years... Bravo on solving your problems. Whew! How long did this problem last?

Since about 4 years I have been slowly trying to get together all the gear and software that would fit the demands of music I had been dreaming of creating.
Well, 15 years ago I made music for little computer games and such, but since then I mostly was involved in graphic design until I saw myself able to get going again with music. My return started off with Logic 5.5, various hardware devices were added. However, I never got beyond testing out this and that because of either time restraints or technical problems until recently. Now finally I was able to create my first complete track again and it was a lot of fun. More will follow soon and I now feel like finally having all the setup together to be creative in the way I envisioned it (Well, I must confess my demands are everything but minimalistic).

I have read in several different places about the file journaling. The reason that convinced me to turn it off was that it was said that file journaling is slowing down hard drive activity to a little extent. And I need all the speed that is possible from the hard drive on which my sample libraries are stored on.
I guess if it crashes, it is not too much of a hassle to re-install sample libraries. My projects I am backing up on another drive and on CD.

Unfortunately I have not kept the links to the information source on journaling nor the ones that also convinced me - (with positive results) to use the defragmenting tool called "iDefrag".

All I can say now, I feel much more in control than ever, I am finally being able to put my attention to making music...

Of course many questions are still open, about usage of system resources with Kontakt2 instances versus Kompakt instances (even NI was not able to tell me) or why the Korg 01W/R can not be addressed from within Logic to switch between "program" patches and "combi" patches, or why the Roland A-90 makes the Channel LED on the MIDI interface flicker constantly even though when it does not transmit MIDI data...

I had to learn a lot on the technical level in order to get Logic to cooperate with my 7 hardware synths, a number of software instruments and all the sample libraries I use. Kontakt2 was extremely buggy when version 2 was released at first, but it finally has been fixed. The Kompakt player still starts a mayhem when in multi-mode (it really can damage your speakers), so e.g. the EastWest Orchestra Gold HAS to be used via Kontakt2 instead of the Kompakt player. This and many little things that can and often did kill all creativity successfully...

Anyway, mostly minor issues are left now which I am grateful for. Even though I am looking forward to moving the whole music production to its own computer next year. A new Intel-Mac (I hope for a new revision early next year probably) might give me a little more headroom for my excessively big orchestrations...