Old 08-28-2018, 10:05 AM   #1
rogpfreck
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Default Windows to Mac Mini

Here’s a situation some fellow reapers might be facing. I wrote this some time ago and forget to post, but here we are...

After a seven year hiatus from making music with Reaper with a Windows XP PC I have again rediscovered my enthusiasm. So I’ve repurchased the latest version of Reaper and re-signed on for the forum.

This is my PC setup:
Mac Mini (late 2014), 8g ram, 256 SSD, 1TB hard drive. OS Sierra. No DVD drive. Original purpose for developing an app in Swift for the iPad which I have done. After about one year in development, the app is moderately successful - I was not expecting anything else. Doing it was more of a challenge than to make a load of money as I’m basically retired from the rat-race of a conventional 9-5 work.


After reading the many helpful posts on this forum I’ve decided on a RME Babyface Pro interface as my previous hardware an Edirol UA 101 was not recognized by the Mac and there are no drivers for Mac Sierra OS. I spent a couple of hours attempting to get it working.

So, no cigar for Edirol. One fail already, and an expensive one. 0/10 for them.

Actual musical instruments I own. Jim Reed telecaster, Aria Pro II Bass

This is the problem:

All my Reaper stuff is on a just-about-working, old Windows XP laptop. All my samples are on DVD: Native Instruments (FM8, Kontakt 4, etc), EastWest (requires an iLok - did I still have it?), Spectrasonics Stylus RMX, Ilio SAGE Rmx expander, Slate Drums, Kick Ass Brass stuff is on DVD. I have loads of sample cd/dvd’s, but they are much less of a problem. See Solution 1.

A Mac Mini doesn’t have a dvd drive. So what do I do to get all this stuff onto my Mac? Fortunately I’m ok with most things IT so I’ve figured some ways of getting the stuff from dvd to Mac. I have a working Windows 7 laptop with a dvd drive.

So now I need to get in touch with the purveyors of the above. Will they help me? Will they be interested in getting my stuff on to a Mac? Will their websites offer automatic help? Will they still be in business? I’ll report on the good the bad and the ugly.

Solution 1.
Sample DVD’s that have unencrypted wave, Rex files etc. Copy the files from DVD onto a 64g USB thumb drive and then plug into Mac, copy to Mac. Easy. Initially used MS Onedrive, but this a much slower method.

Email address

It’s essential to have access to the same email address that was used when first registering/buying the product. Forgotten passwords will be emailed to that address. Exception was Spectrasonics.

Spectrasonics: (forgotten password)

Their website is reasonably well thought out. Fortunately, I could retrieve my old password from them from there. They have an option to use the product serial number to retrieve password. The email I used to register was not in use anymore so the use of the serial number was very useful.

They have an option to download stylus for $10. I opted for this. That way I’d get the very latest version. This a large download and took many hours.

Once downloaded everything installed perfectly, and after a challenge and response email, I could see stylus in Reaper. 9/10 for Spectrasonics. No emails to support required.

EastWest (forgotten password, iLok also required)

Initially I didn’t realise an iLok was required. Fortunately I found it, plugged it in, and re-registered. Painless.

Soundsonline is the website for EastWest products. Downloaded their download app, then the new Play 5 and installed Symphonic Orchestra and Symphonic Choirs on my Mac. Symphonic Choirs was not registered with the iLok, but this was easily done. All-in-all painless. 10/10 for EastWest and soundsonline. Well done.

Native Instruments (forgotten password)

Retrieved password and download their app Native Access which recognized some of my serials and previous purchases. Excellent app. Installation of FM8, Reaktor 5 etc a painless process. But, I have a number of products that simply said Add library. Clicking this prompted me to browse for the directory where I’d installed the product. Obviously I couldn’t do this as the product is not installed. I emailed NI support. I noticed they’d made me a special offer for Komplete. That would undoubtedly solve all my problems!!

NI’s website promises much but delivers a mish-mash of pages. Searches for older products such as Akoustik piano returned very little. A poor experience compared to the others listed above.

After two slow responses from NI I am no further in getting Akoustik piano, or Kontakt 5 on my Mac. It’s depressing how I expected a large company to fail so easily and how they succeeded. 1/10 for NI. Battery 3 installed but the VST was not recognised. and NI said to wasn’t supported any more. Uninstalled. Akoustik piano successfully installed eventually. Bought Kontakt 5 (gave up with their support), just before their sale! Battery 3 - can't use.

Slate drums - Requires Kontakt. Immediate email response from Slate and pointed to download area. Install failed. Solved by loading the installed files from my old XP PC and pointing Native Access to it. NI gained a little cheer from this. So 9/10 for Slate. I was also given a very reasonable upgrade offer.

AMG, Kick Ass Brass. (require new license file)

Filled in their website request form. received almost immediate reply from Matt telling me I’d cocked it up. I figured out what I’d done wrong. The fix involved copying the DVD to the Mac from my Windows laptop and running the Mac installer. Resent request form for license.


Bough Babyface Pro. Set up some EventElectronics TR6 powered reference speakers. Plugged the Babyface in, downloaded the drivers for Sierra, basically ignored TotalMix FX (I use it now) and loaded up some Reaper files from 2010. Messed around for a bit trying to remember what to do. After a while it’s all working! Not perfectly but not far off. Reaper didn’t falter once. 10/10 for Cockos.

Heard back from AMG, Kick Ass Brass. Support doesn’t get better than this. All working. 10/10, although their website is a bit disorganised.

Things are looking pretty good for the music industry support channels apart from the couldn’t-be-arsed NI.

So that about warps it up. Draw your own conclusions.

I hope this will give cheer and be useful to anyone going from an old Windows setup to a Mac. BTW RME Babyface Pro - faultless.
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Old 08-29-2018, 03:27 AM   #2
BenK-msx
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Nice you got things going, I switched from pc to a 2012 Mac mini and an original baby-face with adat for ins and outs and is pretty damn good, usual issues are a bad plug somewhere causing a crash occasionally.
Not yet moved to high sierra, but waiting to do last tweaks to an EP before doing that stuff. Enjoy
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Old 09-07-2018, 07:16 AM   #3
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FWIW, I’m on macOS High Sierra 10.13.6, mostly all good for Reaper. Couple of niggles, hopefully nothing that I can’t figure out with the help of this forum.
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