Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Tabula Rasa






















I love that new computer smell.

As you may remember, my studio computer of the past five years kicked the bucket last week. Because I rely on my studio computer to make a living, I really couldn't get by on just my laptop, so I ordered a new Mac Pro. It arrived today.


If you've ever had a computer misbehave for any extended period of time, you no doubt remember the sense of relief when you fire it up and realize... oh yeah, this one works right! But what's even better to me is the prospect of starting with a completely new computer. I liked to draw when I was young and I remember getting the same feeling when I'd lay a blank piece of paper in front of me on my desk. Nothing but possibilities.


There's a bittersweet side to this, though. My old machine was a G5 based on the PPC processors. My new one it Intel. This means that I'll be departing company with some plug-ins and softsynths I really like because they're old enough that they never made it to Universal Binary. But, to be honest... I'm kind of excited about that too. I'm a total packrat with plug-ins, even though I know for a fact that the more stuff I have, the more distracted I get, and the less productive I am. So, my situation is kind of forcing some restrictions on me, and I'm interested to see where that takes me. Even just having a less cluttered menu full of stuff I've never used is pretty nice.


By the way, this machine came with Snow Leopard, so I'll let you know my thoughts in a couple days. First impressions are that I like it a lot. Seems like there are a lot of small improvements, but they really improve the feel of things. I also have Logic 9 on order, so I'll share some thoughts on that once I've had a chance to spend some time with it.

7 comments:

teodora said...

congrats! :)

do you have rosetta installed - it's optional part of the os, emulates ppc. it makes old software run, but I don't know if it's possible to use is by plugins..

Joshua said...

Happy exploring the New Machine...!

I'm building a new PC myself - I guess the stars are aligned for new computers, lately...

Although mine isn't to be an emergency replacement *fingers-crossed*

Anonymous said...

Glad to see u dropped the hacintosh idea. mmmh macpro hell yeah

Anonymous said...

Get an older laptop for those old plugins to live on. When I went Mac I eventually got a netbook just for one soft synth that I love too much to toss.

The new amp models and stomp boxes in Logic 9 are killer. You will be running your synths through them for sure!

Tom said...

Teodora - Yeah, I have Rosetta installed, but I don't believe that it works on plug-ins. Guess we'll find out.

Robert said...

that smell is strong here as well. I just built my new pc today. I'm wrestling with win7 64-bit but so far Ableton and my FireBox works.

Anonymous said...

You're not alone, just got Logic 9 myself, and so far so good. I also took a glance at MainStage 2, and it looks really useful now with the playback plug-ins. However, I wish I could stripe some sort of time code on the concert so I could sync lights and video. You might consider taking a look at if for the Compass tour. :)