PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

Hi there!

Thanks again for your replies.

I fully respect the way you see things (I guess a lot the misunderstandings might have something to do with my English. Because I am Danish. Sometimes it is difficult for me to be precise and to explain my exact motivations).

I am a desktop musician. Not a full blown studio engineer or technician. I do not offer my musical assistance or studio to anyone. I use my studio equipment for my own song material. However, I find some of the technical issues and problems very interesting and challenging in a positive way. But what I really don’t like is to be isolated from an array of software updates (graphic software, music software, internet software etc.) because of one single software company that doesn’t keep up!

I use my Mac G4 when I surf the Internet, when I maintain my website, when I make music, when I play around with some graphical stuff (my Canon G3 PowerShot) and when I do regular “clerk” jobs like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and the like. And I want my computer to work properly in all those matters. Does that make me naïve? Maybe. Back in the mid-90s My Amiga 3000 was a multi tasking machine that did all that quite well. I guess it’s okay to fully use the potential of a computer. And it’s OK to be demanding.

1) When I invested in Pulsar II I bought this Dual Mac running OS 9.0.4. Hurrah! When released, OS X would make the dual processors sing! Cool! I was "safe" with this computer. A couple of years ahead, at least, I guessed. Like the rest of the software manufacturers CW would probably release a SFP version that would fit my machine/OS X. No doubt about it. Mhh…..yeah, right!

2) Recently, I installed OS 9.2.2 in the G4. I had experienced several internet related problems with OS 9.0.4 (but I knew I would so it actually didn’t matter) but my Pulsar II setup worked fine. I have made a lot of music in this period. I just thought that I would do some “upgrade” work….you know, once in a while you get bored and want some “upgrade” action! (well, don’t you?) So I bought a La Cie 160 GB firewire HD in order to backup all my files in a proper way. I was a bit tired of the CD backup sessions. However, something went wrong, so I lost 15.000 files (one and a half years of work). It was my own fault. I didn’t prepare the La Cie HD properly. It worked for a week and then it crashed. What a shame! And what a loss! So foolish! I was devastated! But in the back of my mind I kind of blamed the “upgrade” issues for my data loss….

3) What did I find out after the OS 9.2.2 upgrade? My (2 year) “old” Freecom Portable firewire CD-R/CD-RW drive suddenly wouldn’t work under 9.2.2. What!!!? As a consequence of that I have to spend $150 in order to get a new version of Roxio’s Toast Titanium. Hell no! I know my Freecom drive works under OS-X!!!

Bottomline - what I mean is: A lot of irritating elements in my setup could be eliminated if ONLY Creamware would speed up "a little" and finish the development of the OS-X release for SFP. It really makes me frustrated!

That’s all!

Best regards
Kay Fleming

Bottomline - what I mean is: A lot of irritating elements in my setup could be eliminated if ONLY Creamware would speed up "a little" and finish the development of the OS-X release for SFP. It really makes me frustrated!

Don't want to play the naïve card but what the heck. This is not a personal attack but on the one hand you say your no technician, on the other you say you want the latest and greatest - if the music was all that mattered and SFP was working fine you'd be happy. You're not so i must assume you've succumb to technobsession which is fine, but i think it's reasonable to say that any computer trying to do music, graphics and everything else will always suffer from jack-of-all-trades syndrome. If your G4 was just doing music you'd be happy , right? Why not get the PC you were thinking of buying to do those other things and leave the G4 as a dedicated music system? Don't expect the PC to do music, graphics etc. either - dedicate one of the machines to just music.

Also, OSX has only become useable for music in, what? the last 6 months at best, and there's still a lot of other software that hasn't caught up yet. i personally think it'll be at least a further 12 months before everyone can say that 80-90% of the software they were using exists happily OSX. All you'd be upgrading to is a new set of problems (that's the computer world's 'advances' for you).

Anyway, i hope you take this as constructive criticism (for that is what it is), but don't ditch SFP for the sake of a HD that doesn't work

All the best,
Mr A


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Mr Arkadin on 2003-09-15 07:05 ]</font>

On 2003-09-15 05:27, Kay Fleming wrote:
I use my Mac G4 when I surf the Internet, when I maintain my website, when I make music, when I play around with some graphical stuff (my Canon G3 PowerShot) and when I do regular “clerk” jobs like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and the like.

And it's still possible . You have to prepare several OS installs on different partitions so you can use all of the stuff in one machine but have to reboot to do certain tasks. A3000 was good? So why did you exchange it? I know, too slow. Nowadays tasks are more power (CPU) demanding, especially audio which uses the CPU extensively. This demands your machine to be one task oriented (funny, our multitasking machines!).

3) What did I find out after the OS 9.2.2 upgrade? My (2 year) “old” Freecom Portable firewire CD-R/CD-RW drive suddenly wouldn’t work under 9.2.2. What!!!? As a consequence of that I have to spend $150 in order to get a new version of Roxio’s Toast Titanium.

Just send me your CD burner full name (you can find it in apple system profiler) and I'll make it 9.2.2 compatible for you Oh, and if a authoring support file comes with the CD burner it would be nice to have it - to tweak it by myself

_________________
Sir Sam Plaire Scopernicus

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: samplaire on 2003-09-15 09:06 ]</font>

Hi there! (especially for Mr Arkardin & Samplaire)

You guys amaze me. You are both very experienced users ("heavy dudes") and you both sort of analyzed me quite accurately! "Technobsession" might be the right word. Ha-ha ) Well, let's just say that I have learned a lot from this intense discussion. These machines are expensive toys, so I may just as well listen to you and keep my good old G4. I guess I'll then have to postpone Cubase SX 2.0/Reason 2.5 (rewired)...

By the way if you really think you can help me solve my problem:

The back of the Freecom device says:
Freecom CD-RW Recorder (121032)

Apple system profile says:
CD-W512EB
Revision ID: 2.0A
Product ID: sbp609e, 104d8
Name of supplier: TEAC

Thanks a lot! I really mean it!

What do you think of my Pollyfonnik tracks, then?

All the best
Kay Fleming

I'll answer your last question tomorrow (we have T1 connection at my work). As for the CDRW - I'll check it tomorrow evening - tonight my son sleeps in the room where my Mac is

Hi Kay,
Can you, please provide me your e-mail address? I've got a ready to exchange authoring support file for you to test You can send me aprivate message here.


[edit]

OK, I found your address on your website. I hope you received the file. If not, let me know

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: samplaire on 2003-09-16 04:38 ]</font>