Soundcards in Apple computers

iroiro
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
i never can find out a thing about the soundcards used in the apple range - particularly the powermac G5's and the mac pro's

how much strain can these take? i record music direct through the pc right now and wanted to use a mac pro or a powermac g5, but i have no idea how they would cope with 15-20 tracks running at once



i use the latest creative card on my pc - how does the apple card compare and who makes it?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    loulou Posts: 43member
    No paticular info about the soundcar, but if you're looking to do multitrack stuff you'll need a multi channel interface, i use the alesis multimix 8 firewire, no need for a soundcard, just hook it up ot the fw port and you have a compact 8 channel mixer & a/d convertor.
  • Reply 2 of 5
    iroiro Posts: 10member
    i find it extremely frustrating that you can pay all that money for a macpro and get a crap onboard soundcard



    whats the hell??!!
  • Reply 3 of 5
    wmfwmf Posts: 1,164member
    If you're playing a lot of tracks, they will be mixed by the pro-quality Core Audio software mixer, so the Mac's sound "card" only needs to handle the load of stereo. If you want better SNR or more than stereo, get a pro audio card.
  • Reply 4 of 5
    rminklerrminkler Posts: 50member
    15-20 audio tracks puts a load on the cpu, not on the soundcard.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by iro View Post


    i find it extremely frustrating that you can pay all that money for a macpro and get a crap onboard soundcard



    Mac Pro is a competitive value for the money. I'm not aware of any major brand workstation or desktop computer which offers an editing quality multi-channel audio card in the stock system. If the multiple tracks get mixed into just stereo, then the optical digital out might be good enough, then it's just processor and internal I/O bound. I have the system and I can't find any info on the frequencies and such.
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