Best Audio I/o For Mac G5 Options

[cyanbaby101]

I am building a new studio funded by my company so money is no obeject.

1) What is the best, top of the line, AD/DA converter and Audio I/O that is compatible with MAC G5 Panther.

2) If I am suping up my MAC with 8GB of RAM is it still necessary to buy additional DSP Cards for my VST processing? Ifo so, what is the difference between the two?

Thanks in advance.

[CanadaRAM]

Don't confuse RAM with processing power.

Having too little RAM will slow you down because the machine has to swap out information to the hard drive. Once you have "enough" RAM, your machine will run at full potential, and adding more RAM will not speed it up further. Of course, "enough" is a variable number that depends on what you are running for programs and how large your sessions are.

Improving the DSP/VST performance depends on adding processing power. One way is starting with a powerful computer, dual G5 2 GHz or 2,5 GHz.

Another way is to move some tasks (samplers, etc.) to another computer and run them in parallel. Logic 7 has added some features for this, also check out Cubase's VST Stack and research what if any ability it has to integrate with your main setup. Some people run one or more Intel PC's as dedicated Gigastudio playback stations.

There are also effect/VST co-processors available from TC (the Powercore series, both internal PCI and external Firewire) and Universal Audio (UAD- series internal PCI). These provide additional CPU(s) to run effects and instruments, reducing the load on the computer's CPU. They only run the VST devices programmed for them, however, you can't arbitrarily assign your favorite soft synth to a Powercore for example.

Here's one thing to keep in mind: once you start running multiple hard drives, Firewire A/D-D/A devices, Firewire Powercore(s) you are going to have a major traffic jam on your Firewire bus.

Install two internal hard drives. Put your system and applications on one, reserve the other for audio data, then ONLY use the internal audio drive for your current work. Archive and backup to the Firewire drives of course, but don't use them for live capture/playback/mixing. This is to keep the data traffic away from your Firewire interface and/or Powercore.

Alternatively, install one or more Firewire 800 PCI cards, and or a SATA PCI card with external connections, so that each hard drive/ Powercore/ A/D-D/A can be given its own channel to run at full bandwidth.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com