Logic Pro 8 advice

technoman28

Hi folks, my son is at college on a music course, I got hold of a copy of Logic Pro Studio 8, but I am looking at options for running it. My oldest son is also at college doing a degree in interactive media and we bought him a MacBook pro with a subscription to Adobe Creative Suite as that is what he uses at college. I was looking at external drives with the idea of installing LP8 on that and running it from the MBP, but have also been looking at older G5 desktops which you can pick up fairly cheaply. The intention would be to use the G5 for purely music purposes.

What I am asking is this, is this a viable option? Are there any other things I haven't considered?

For info, the kit we have consists of:
6 string electro acoustic
12 string acoustic
Few 6 string electrics
4 and 5 string electric bass guitars
Roland D70
Kawai K4
Korg XDR5
Behringer mixer amp
Condenser Mike
Marshall 100w combo
Harley Benton bass amp
Couple of MIDI to USB cables
Guitar multi effects pedal (GNX something)

Scott23

I don't know what your budget is, but you can buy a mac mini for around £400 I think at the minute due to the release of updated models. Second hand mac minis will be cheaper than this. They will run the latest version of Logic Pro X well, and I cannot stress enough how much better Logic Pro X would be when compared to Logic Pro 8.

technoman28

Logic Pro £30, G5 around £100ish, so budget is not a lot. I understand that LPX is probably a big improvement on LP8, but presume that 8 is still a useable program. Same with the G5, old but useable technology, especially for purely running LP8.

Scott23

One thing I can see that might be missing from your list is a guitar cable to USB box. I have found them to be really useful for recording guitar output directly into your music software. You can obviously just plug the guitar cable straight into the mic socket if you don't have one, but I have found the USB connection to be better quality (don't ask me why - haven't got a clue!! lol).

I would also recommend getting a cheap hi-fi amp with speakers on your computer desk to monitor your output. When you end up mastering some songs it is really useful to be able to put the music straight through some speakers in front of you to hear what it will sound like in a normal sound system. If you do it using headphones it never quite matches what speakers will sound like due to the two headphone speakers being a separate left and right output with no mixing between them before it hits your ears.

Hope this makes sense and helps

technoman28

Ended up with 3 G5's, (1.8, 2.0, and 2.2 (the 2.2 does not work but was chucked in as an extra)), cost including 23" Apple display, Apple keyboard and mouse, £70.

The Behringer mixer amp has an RCA out which I was going to hook up to the Mac, also has an RCA in. I have a couple of Tannoy speakers that sound quite decent already hooked up to it, (mixer amp cost me £35 and just needed some dry joints resoldering on the power board). It has 6 mono and 2 stereo/mono channels.

Didn't have much time to play around at the weekend, but seems that I have to update the OS on the Mac's as they are running Panther and need to be running at least Tiger to install LP8.

technoman28

Update:
Tiger installed last night, but need to update which should have been easy, but dang thing would not connect to Internet, (using Ethernet cable). Need to do this before installing LP.
One thing struck me when I got the units, they are really things of beauty when you open them up. If you think about a normal PC and how much time people spend on cable management, open a G5 and there is hardly a cable to be seen, fans slide in and out and connect to motherboard, I think that on the last version of G5's there is a line of 5 spaces for HD's which again just slide in and connect. Even just taking the side off is easy, pop a catch and the aluminium panel comes off, no messing around with screws and sliding it back, very impressed.

I will let you know if it works as intended when I actually have it up and running and incorporated into everything, may even put some photo's up as well if anyone is interested.

Scott23

Good luck with it and I hope the ethernet issue gets sorted out quickly for you

technoman28

LP installed, (2 hours!), the Ethernet problem was just a case of putting DNS server numbers in. Hopefully will try and get started with setting everything up over the weekend.

DanoS4

Whilst G5s are a little ancient now (ie no point in sticking latest OS & interweb on it), they DO benefit greatly from extra ram and SSD. FWIW, whilst Logic 9 isn't supported in the G5, it does run
I was using it for a while.

technoman28

                                                                                                                                                                           Still a work in progress, but getting there. Thought I would put a few pics up for you to look at, you will have to excuse the mess and the lovely tablecloth! I really do need to sort out exactly where everything is going to go as it just does not work space wise, as you may be able to tell. The G5 base unit is clamped onto another of the base units, but will probably be hidden away at some point, (love the fact that you can turn on the system from the monitor). Roland is MIDI'd to the Mac, with output from the Mac going to the Behringer. I need to also get an out from the Behringer into the Mac but this will probably have to wait a while to set up properly.
I will try and keep updated as it progresses.