Skip to main content

o... I work in a big huge studio with a Neve and an API... lots of outboard gear... yet I find myself doing more and more in the box. I have been recording into Radar and importing WAV files into Pro Tools and mixing in PT LE. I have totally hit the wall... time for a serious upgrade. I really can't justify spending 20g on a new Pro Tools rig just so I can run more tracks.

Now here is the part that all of you will hate me for... I just love my mac. The way you pc users feel about pc's I feel about macs. I don't think that there is anything wrong with them... I just like Macs... plain and simple. I am starting to think that Nuendo is my best platform choice. But how good is it on a Mac... really? Am I gonna spend 1200 bucks and have to ebay something a few months down the road (mac or nuendo)? I have heard that 2.0 made the mac version much better but is it still something I will want to work on for 14 hours a day... or is it buggy as hell?

Thanks,
Ben

Topic Tags

Comments

gdoubleyou Thu, 04/22/2004 - 12:27

8)
I own both platforms, SX2 is a processor hog on the Mac, it shares the same audio engine as nuendo.

I moved my copy of SX2 to my PC where performance is 200% better.

It choked my new 1GHz Powerbook, unusable on my ancient G4/400. That same G4/400 can easily do sessions of 32-48 tracks
with Logic6 or DP4 in OSX.

If you REALLY want to run it get a dual G5.

I was only able to get 8-10 tracks with SX on my Powerbook before it choked.

anonymous Thu, 04/22/2004 - 13:24

Wow... that was enlightening. Thanks, here is the plan... get Nuendo (or DP or Logic) try it out on my 933 G4 for awhile to see if it is a viable option for me to work with. If it is go get a Dual 2 Gig G5... 2-4 Gig of ram... no holding back (after all if I spent five grand on a computer it is still better than spending 20 grand on an HD rig). If it isn't then I need to upgrade to a TDM or HD Pro Tools rig... which would work fine on my 933.

I might have to rethink this course of action.

Anyone else have this happen to them?

Thanks,
Ben

gdoubleyou Mon, 04/26/2004 - 15:39

8)
The biggest issue is Steinberg's Mac support, it's basically get in line. As they add more new products, more mistakes are made and the update cycle becomes longer.

Check out the nuendo forums for up to the minute reports.

Minimum requirements for SX/Nuendo is an 867 G4, dual 1.2 suggested.

But then you run into Steinberg's famous quality control.
Some third party plugs cause distortion when using Steinberg's multi-processor support, and if you want distortion free rewire to Reason you will have to disable dual processor support!

So you need a more powerful machine to run it, but parts of the app don't function in dual processor mode.

I've seen reports of people having good success with a UAD-1 and the Powercore with DP and Logic.

8)

anonymous Tue, 05/04/2004 - 20:54

I run Nuendo on a G4 1GHZ DP. I have over a gb of RAM, firewire and SCSI storage, and I am able to monitor video out through firewire. Is it perfect? No, not really. But I was in the same boat as you. I wanted to run PT, but couldn't afford to go PT HD, so this was the next best thing. I'm a post production guy, not a music guy, so I can't speak for MIDI and some of the other music related features. Nuendo allows me to do far more than PT LE would. There is a lot of potential for this to be a serious comptetitor to PT, but they have to keep improving it, making it as reliable as possible. I will be meeting up with another Nuendo user soon to discuss our experiences with the software on the Mac side and then we will report to Steinberg what we feel they need to do to improve things from a Mac perspective. When 2.0 first came out, i asked a Rep giving a demo what he thought about the Mac vs. PC versions and he did tell me that the PC had the edge as far as being a smoother graphical interface and that the drivers for PC hardware seemed to be more stable. But, he also said that because OSX is UNIX based that cross platform programming was getting easier and that the Mac version should catch up to the PC version. Whether that is happening, I can't confirm yet. But will you be okay by using this on the Mac? I would say you should have similar results that you would using PT LE and maybe you will be surprised how much more you can do. Comparing Nuendo to PT HD, then it becomes a value issue. You get a lot of bang for the buck going with nuendo and a nice audio interface. feel free to drop me a line with your experiences if you do get it or better yet simply post something here on the boards so that others can see what the software is capable/or not capable of. Good luck!