Old 05-03-2015, 09:36 PM   #1
madmanjustice
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Default Reaper on an old Mac pro

Hello all, first post here. My wife and I are in the process shopping for a new house. One of the requirements will be room for a audio/video studio. To that effect, I have been acquiring various pieces of equipment for the studio. About two weeks ago I was doing some horse trading and ended up with a Mac Pro 2.1 with dual quad core 3.0Ghz Zeon processors and 16 GB of memory. It is running OSX Lion (and cannot be upgraded further)

Would I have any issues running Reaper on this computer? I'm also planning on getting one of the Behringer X32 mixers (probably either the Compact or Producer) that can be both the interface and control surface.

Reaper was recommended by some good fellows over at TalkBass.

So any tips and tricks provided would be much appreciated.
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Old 05-03-2015, 10:38 PM   #2
Aymara
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So any tips and tricks provided would be much appreciated.
The best tip is to download Reaper and try it out yourself ... it's free and fully funtional for 60 days.

I use it under OSX Yosemite and Windows 7 without any issues.

Mountain Lion should work fine too regarding the specs.
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Old 05-04-2015, 05:04 AM   #3
dfackler
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I'm running a quad-core MacPro and OSX 10.5.8 with great success.

That machine will be fine, IMHO.

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Old 05-04-2015, 07:38 AM   #4
serr
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"Old" Mac Pro?!

Hahaha. Yeah, you'll be just fine running Reaper on that modern super computer.

Run full live sound + full multitrack recording or mix 200 track projects in the studio and you might even get it above an idle. (At least that's what I have to start doing before mine runs above idling.)

And of course Reaper in OSX is the most stable DAW system you can possibly build. Welcome to the club!

You've been misinformed about OS options. That machine will run anything from 10.6 to 10.10 (and likely beyond for a good long time yet). I have a 'Mac setup 101' thread in this subforum if you're interested.

Last edited by serr; 05-04-2015 at 07:43 AM.
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Old 05-04-2015, 09:16 AM   #5
madmanjustice
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when i tried the upgrade, I was told that my machine was not compatable. This is a Mac from 2007

I wonder if I can run Reaper on my eMac?

Seriously, if there is a way to upgrade the Pro to the newest Mac OS, point me to it.
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Old 05-04-2015, 10:02 AM   #6
serr
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Crap. I'm the one with misinformation!

Sorry, I was thinking of the 3rd generation Mac Pro.

10.7 is in fact the newest supported OS. I believe the issue is the EFI firmware locked to 32 bit.

The Mac Pro didn't turn into the monster until the i7 came along.

However, it's still a supercomputer and will do all the things I said. Maybe its CPUs will get above idle with only a 100 track studio mix project. Still overkill for a typical DAW setup.

There is a solution to install 10.8 or 10.9 however, if you are interested in a more Windows-like level of DIY for an install. See here: http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost...1&postcount=26

Is the issue that you have some plugin that requires 10.8 or later to install? What is it?

Last edited by serr; 05-04-2015 at 10:17 AM.
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Old 05-04-2015, 12:25 PM   #7
madmanjustice
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Issue? No. I'm still in the hunting and gathering process (plus I still need to nuy a house with room for the studio )

I scored the Mac Pro pretty cheap and was mostly concerned about it's ability to run Reaper without any issues so I would know if i need to keep this system or look for a newer one.

I do need to add more hard drives since it only has one at the moment.
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Old 05-04-2015, 12:46 PM   #8
serr
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Quote:
Originally Posted by madmanjustice View Post
Issue? No. I'm still in the hunting and gathering process (plus I still need to nuy a house with room for the studio )

I scored the Mac Pro pretty cheap and was mostly concerned about it's ability to run Reaper without any issues so I would know if i need to keep this system or look for a newer one.

I do need to add more hard drives since it only has one at the moment.
Put a SSD in that machine. Use it for OS, Apps, and your high performance audio workspace. Use HDD's for data. Medium duty projects would still run just fine from a HDD. Top performance is with OS/apps/audio on a SSD (the older advice of splitting OS/apps from the audio on multiple drives applies to HDD's only).

You would need to run a very large project (100's of tracks of HD audio) and be using 100 troublesome 3rd party plugins before you even had to make any preference tweaks (to make said troublesome 3rd party plugins behave) with such a machine.

A cheap Mac Pro is a good score. Nice work!
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