Macbook Pro, Pro Tools and Komplete 5

[Cancer Inc.]

Hey All

I am a Dane(an strest, so go easy on me

I have bought a macbook pro, pro tools LE 7,4 and Komplete 5 + M-box 2, Superior Drummer, a joe meek pre amp, Se Z5600a 2 Mic, and a midi keyboard.

But boy do I think I have made a mistake in buying Macbook pro, and not Mac Pro. My macbbok pro closes down programs by it self and when I work in pro tools that is a big problem + it sometimes cuts the sound and to get it back I have to restart Pro tools, and when I use some of my virtual instruments, like battery 3, it tells me my cpu is runing out and that I have to remove some Plug ins.
This sucks so bad, cause I speend alot of money on this setup and asked in the store about macbook pro working with pro tools. I got 4 GB ram put in the macbook pro, so maybe I am just not using the programs the right way?
Do you guys see some hope in this project, or is it time fore me to beg the store to take the macbook pro back and buy a mac pro?

K.H Peter

 

[junior]

Hey All

I am a Dane(an strest, so go easy on me

I have bought a macbook pro, pro tools LE 7,4 and Komplete 5 + M-box 2, Superior Drummer, a joe meek pre amp, Se Z5600a 2 Mic, and a midi keyboard.

But boy do I think I have made a mistake in buying Macbook pro, and not Mac Pro. My macbbok pro closes down programs by it self and when I work in pro tools that is a big problem + it sometimes cuts the sound and to get it back I have to restart Pro tools, and when I use some of my virtual instruments, like battery 3, it tells me my cpu is runing out and that I have to remove some Plug ins.
This sucks so bad, cause I speend alot of money on this setup and asked in the store about macbook pro working with pro tools. I got 4 GB ram put in the macbook pro, so maybe I am just not using the programs the right way?
Do you guys see some hope in this project, or is it time fore me to beg the store to take the macbook pro back and buy a mac pro?

K.H Peter

I think your problem maybe that NI is still not compatible with Pro Tools under Leopard. You'll probably have to take those plugins out of the plugin folder for now and just use NI stuff as AU in Garageband, bouncing the audio files when done so you can import them into Pro Tools.
If you were misinformed at the store, maybe you could get your money back for the NI package and we could suggest alternative synths and samplers. Good luck.

 

[originalcliche]

Change your buffer settings to 512 or 1024 ... that will give you some latency but hey... it will probably improve your cpu overload. Second. You don't need a mac pro to run those programs, they are cpu hogs but both those programs ran under computers much slower then yours if you just bought the latest macbook pro. The weak part of your signal chain is the Mbox which uses USB 1.1 so you will expierience the problems there. I have the same setup as you minus the mbox... i use an M-Audio Firewire solo and Logic rather then pro tools, though I have both, but when i was running pro tools I used Komplete 5 with no probs...

 

[UgLy KoeRner]

Hey man was wondering if theres been any progress in the right direction, cause Im just about to get my Macbook pro and the Mbox pro, So im curiuos if your having any luck?

 

[sweetahthan]

I have a very similar set up to you and I think junior has pinpointed your biggest problem which is using non-compatible plug ins.
Several of the Komplete 5 plug-ins are listed as compatible by Digidesign bur Battery is not one of them. When I have used it I have real bad problems so I tend to bounce to audio as soon as I can. Hopefully NI will do the necessary work to make all their plug-ins truly pro tools compatible soon.
I use both Logic and Pro tools and I have to say that compared to Logic, Pro tools is a bloody fussy programme and unless you follow all of Digidesign's tips you won't get great performance out of it. E.g. they say you should record onto a separate hard drive from the one with your apps on it. I do this now and it makes a lot of difference.
I hope that pro tools 8 will iron out some of these issues.
Have a look at Digidesign's website where they list all compatible plug-ins.
Don't give up, with some tinkering you will get where you need to be.

regards

sweetahthan

 

[Cancer Inc.]

Hey everyone

Thank you for the replies.

Since my last post I have returned the mac book pro and I now have the new mac pro, but I still get the CPU error. I now know about the problem with NI and PT and my god that sucks! But even when I try to put together a simpel drum beat in protools using superior drummer and EZplayer I get a CPU error and I only have a 5 sec. drum beat!

This can not be right, right?

Would all this go away if I dumped PT and went out and bought Logic?

B.W. Peter

 

[Cancer Inc.]

Update

I tried using garage band for the first time and all my NT and Toontrack plug ins worked!

Now it is clear that the problem is Pro Tools

The good thing is that now I know what to do: buy Logic
The sad thing is that I spend money on Pro Tools for nothing and don`t have the money to buy logic and I gave up my Macbook Pro for no reason.

But am I right when I say that Pro Tools don`t work with any virtual instruments?


B.W Peter

 

[junior]

I tried using garage band for the first time and all my NT and Toontrack plug ins worked!

Now it is clear that the problem is Pro Tools

The good thing is that now I know what to do: buy Logic
The sad thing is that I spend money on Pro Tools for nothing and don`t have the money to buy logic and I gave up my Macbook Pro for no reason.

But am I right when I say that Pro Tools don`t work with any virtual instruments?


B.W Peter

RTAS is not a very good code. But most VI's do work, though not as efficiently as AU or VSTi.
I have a G5 and Superior works in Pro Tools. Let me know what version of OS and Pro Tools you're using.
Also, go into Library/Application Support/Digidesign/Plug-ins and drag all but Stereo Mixer out of there onto your desktop (or create a folder on your desktop and put them in there). Then drag one plugin back in, superior for example, open Pro Tools and see how the plugin works. It's a drag going one step at a time but it will give you an absolute certain answer what plugin(s) is making things go wrong.
Pro Tools is a weird program in that all sorts of things start going wrong by simply having incompatible plugins in the plugins folder. The plugins don't have to be opened either. Just their presence in the folder becomes a problem. I have a feeling that the existence of Native Instruments plugins in your folder may well be giving you problems.
Update every single plugin, and get rid of anything else (for now) that's not officially supported under the current Pro Tools/Leopard/Intel environment.

 

[junior]

Oh, and make sure your max processor usage is set at 4 cores (I think you have 8?). It's another problem (maybe it'll be fixed in PT8?) with VIs that Digidesign's aware of. You can set this in Setup - Playback Engine. Good luck.

 

[calure]

mbox 2 pro with new macbook pro

Hi, I'm new to this forum so apologies for not knowing how to start a new thread...

I am about to purchase a new(late 2008) macbook pro 2.53ghz and the mbox 2 pro to go with it. Has anyone been able to connect these two succesfully as there is a firewire 400 on the mbox 2 pro and only a 800 on the mbp. Digidesign are still running tests for converter cables and express card solutions, but their tests are weeks away from complete. For certain circumstances I need to buy the gear sooner rather than later... Can anyone please advise, I would be very grateful...

Also, how quite will the fans be when this system is working, I am mostly acoustic vocal based and do not yet have the studio I dream of... quite the contrary...

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

 

[calure]

new thread

this is calure here just to let anyone one know that i've started a new thread on this topic, sorry to have confused ya