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OSX86 with XP simultaneously for special PCI soundcard ( soniccore scope & Gigastudio )


carlos228
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Hallo,

 

has anybody an Idea if this can work:

I have a OSX86 Leo 5.1 (Kalway) on a P5B Deluxe with multiple screens, working nearly perfect.

Also first tests with logic pro 8 are positive

But I would like to include my faithful XP based soniccore scope / Gigastudio setup (formaly creamware).

(scope is a PCI based DSP audio system with lots of realtime mixers, plugins and synths).

 

Is there a possibility to start a windows XP session within OSX86 (simultaneously) where Windows can also use special sounddrivers for a PCI card like scope?

It´s clear logic can´t access the scope card, but I could connect over a simple OSX compatible multichannel I/O card via ADAT / SPDIF.

Of course I could do this with a second computer, but this means more place needed for additional monitor, more noise and heat ..

 

any Ideas how to do this ?

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nope, there's no way of accessing the scope with the mac unfortunately (unless there's MAC Intel drivers released at some point), there's currently no OSX windows virtualisation tools (vmware, parrallels etc) which can access the PCI bus (none for windows either for that matter), unfortunately it will have to be a seperate PC... the good news there though is that you could use 'CORD 0.43' or VNC to access the PC's display/mouse/keyboard over Local area network from your mac to save desk space (one set of kb/mouse/monitor).. of course you gain a lot of extra resources with multi computer setups too, especially with gigastudio.. always recommended to run giga on a seperate machine anyway

 

The heat and noise front is a bit of a hassle and takes consideration, but there's plenty of ways of quitening a PC down, a bit of dynamat/accoustic foam inside the case, fanless PSU's etc.. personally I did what I could with the PC's (cheap.. kept regular PSU's and damped the mids/highs by lining the cases using foam, suprisingly effective) then use a regular cupboard I have modified with fibreglass sheets, cheaper accoustic foam etc.. there's 3 PC's in there and to be honest heat has to be considered but is not as big of a problem as might be expected, I was going to fit fans in there etc.. but found I've never had to bother, I just leave a door slightly a-jar and that works well, I can't hear my Pc's from my workstation.. job done.... I shut the doors when recording up to a few hours at a time... it may reduce the life of the components possibly, but I've been doing this for around 3 years and touch wood.. I've been lucky so far.

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thanks for this CORD 0.43 tipp - sounds great, maybe even better so I don´t need to do a complicated dual configuration.

Another Question: Do you think its possible to run a XP audio program like cool edit or samplitude under vmware, parrallels? Can they access the audio drivers of the board over OSX ?

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thanks for this CORD 0.43 tipp - sounds great, maybe even better so I don´t need to do a complicated dual configuration.

Another Question: Do you think its possible to run a XP audio program like cool edit or samplitude under vmware, parrallels? Can they access the audio drivers of the board over OSX ?

 

 

If I'm honest I'm yet to use parallel's, but it should run audio editor's quite well and AFAIK parallels will route to OSX's default audio device.. so as editors don't really require low latency from the sound card (I hear some people have tried ASIO4ALL with parallels as it emulates an AC97 s/card, can't remember if they were successful or not).. Codeweavers crossover (another OSX tool) runs quite a few XP packages natively in OSX so that could be worth a try, no audio editors are listed in compatibility on their web page though... think I'll give Wavelab a go with codeweavers myself actually... and the advantage with that is again you don't have to muck around with OS installation under virtualisation software..

 

When I do eventually get around to checking out parallels, which I don't really expect to use seriously at all.. more just to satisfy curiosity is to try the Plasq Wormhole VST to route audio to and from the Parallels session to OSX over virtual LAN.. this should in theory give low latency of around or below 5ms.. could be interesting just to find out and maybe if it's decent run some of the plugins via a vst host that I just can't get on the mac sticking wormhole as the last in the audio chain.. mind you the other PC's do a good job as it is.

 

Another consideration I forgot to mention is routing midi between machines, I use multi out/in interfaces, you might need another one maybe?.. again though IPMidi and Midioverlan will do that in software again via LAN

 

just wondering what sequencer you're running on the Mac?.. I used to use Cubase SX system link, that can be a good solution as you're going to be using ADAT interfaces, because you can forget all the 3rd party midi/audio routing apps completely as it routes audio/midi and syncs transport of cubase on both machines (regardless of the OS)... but logic has swayed me away.

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many thanks, that´s lots of information .. :-)

I will run logic pro / 8, this is the only reason for me to leave the PC / XP platform. XP looks awful compared to OSX, but it is not that bad, e.g. I like the explorer very much, for me its better to use than finder .. anyway, Currently I tried to maintain my old emagic logic 5.5 on XP, but the problems grow with newer plugins as there is no more logic updates for PC. The reason for me to build a OSX86 machine is to get a multi screen setup which is not possible with original macs except for the expensive Mac Pros.

For sounddesign and Mastering I use samplitude which is much better to operate and better sounding than pro tools.

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aha.. logic 8 was my motivator too.. only been on leopard(hackintosh) for a few weeks and extremely glad already, learning curve to get the system up and running was steep at first (editing kext's and other such frustrations) but after building a hacky for out of the box compatibility I've found the the XP partition hasn't actually been necessary.. won't be looking back :(

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