What's new

Mac Pro trash can USERS

So for using a display for audio it may be a better idea to use a non 4k monitor then both could be put on the same thunderbolt buss without risk of running out of bandwidth.??? - just an idea
unless you put both displays on #0 it'll be fine. i share the audio interface bus (#1) with one 2k display, have my RAID on the second bus (#2) and the second 4k display on bus #0. it also works if I swap the two displays so the 2k display is on #0. i had 2 4k display running with the same configuration and that also worked.
whatever you do: don't cross the beams
 
So your UAD DSP box is the Satellite is it?-And good to gear the maximum allowable UAD devices, 4 interfaces & 2 dsp expanders won't saturate 1 of the thunderbolt busses.

So for using a display for audio it may be a better idea to use a non 4k monitor then both could be put on the same thunderbolt buss without risk of running out of bandwidth.??? - just an idea

Anyway thanks for an excellent explanation

Well, unless I've slipped a digit somewhere, it looks like you can do around 3,500 mono channels of 24bit / 96k audio for around 1Gb/sec. So that's probably why my MOTU guy chuckled when I asked if it was okay to put the UAD box and the AVB interfaces on the same TB2 bus. The MOTU rig maxes out at 128 channels in each direction, plus whatever it would take to crush a UAD2 - but let's pretend that each UAD2 had enough juice for 128 channels of processing, and you need to get the audio to and from, so that would be the same bandwidth as 128 channels of MOTU in each direction - and you had eight UAD2 boxes. That would be nine bricks of 256 channels each, or 2,304 channels of 24/96k audio - much less than a single TB2 bus can handle.

Is my math correct? Anybody want to check me on this?
 
Last edited:
I don't know enough to comment on your calculations apart from it's an awful lot of channels - period - :shocked:

Anyway time for some advice please - I've just received an open box Mac Pro 2013 very good spec that is brand new with wrappers on etc.....however, there is only the cylinder & a power plug - There is no OS X disc(s) etc....but it may be installed.

If this was bought from Apple direct would it include discs and a few extra's?

I do have an Apple ID and can buy the OS if it is needed. I do think the OS may be installed already but won't know till I try it out - but I'm waiting on a > mini-display port > HDMI cable just to connect it the the TV

It will have an OS on won't it?
 
If this was bought from Apple direct would it include discs and a few extra's?
without a CDROM there is not much use for discs (which apple stop producing and shipping some years ago ...) you can use internet recovery to install the OS instead. and yes, as simon says, macs ship with an OS installed.
 
Ah OK that should be good then - I needed a quick dash to the mac store to get a keyboard etc....including a Superdrive as I do have discs for installers but I get your point that if Mac has the OS on and there are updates they are via download so no need for discs.
 
Well, unless I've slipped a digit somewhere, it looks like you can do around 3,500 mono channels of 24bit / 96k audio for around 1Gb/sec. So that's probably why my MOTU guy chuckled when I asked if it was okay to put the UAD box and the AVB interfaces on the same TB2 bus. The MOTU rig maxes out at 128 channels in each direction, plus whatever it would take to crush a UAD2 - but let's pretend that each UAD2 had enough juice for 128 channels of processing, and you need to get the audio to and from, so that would be the same bandwidth as 128 channels of MOTU in each direction - and you had eight UAD2 boxes. That would be nine bricks of 256 channels each, or 2,304 channels of 24/96k audio - much less than a single TB2 bus can handle.

Is my math correct? Anybody want to check me on this?

What is the algorithm? I've asked before how to figure out bandwidth/channels, and you seem to be the only one who can answer!

My confusion is between gigabits and gigabytes.
 
Not only that, they don’t charge for OS updates any longer...

Hello,

Got a trashcan now set up, it works an open box 2013 MP - magic mouse/keyboard that has the lightening USB cable! - Went onto the Apple coverage website and put the serial # in but the website told me to come back later, pity as it would be good to ascertain the exact build date, is this possible?

Is it possible to use the keyboard and mouse (lightening cable) through a USB hub? - What do other mac folks here use? - Would any USB hub work? - 4 usb ports on this MP!

Anyhow really happy to have a MP, but I'm more used to Windows machines hence all the questions
 
What is the algorithm? I've asked before how to figure out bandwidth/channels, and you seem to be the only one who can answer!

My confusion is between gigabits and gigabytes.

If you Google "audio data rate calculator" or similar terms you'll find lots of online calculators, but they're usually oriented at calculating the required storage space per hour or minute of audio. (You can always just divide the per-hour number by 3600, or the per-minute number by 60 to get the per-second number.)

But I prefer to attempt to get the results manually.

Here are some conversion ratios I'm using for reference:

One byte = 8 bits

One Gigabyte = 1,073,741,824 bytes, or 8,589,934,592 bits

One 24-bit sample = 24 bits (duh) = 3 bytes

One second of one channel of 24bit/48kHz audio = 1,152,000 bits = 144,000 bytes

So here is the formula I wind up using in a simple calculator:

Gigabytes per second data throughput for one audio channel = sample rate (times) word length (divided by) 8 bits per byte (divided by) 1,073,741,824 bytes per gigabyte.

So, for one channel of 24bit / 48kHz audio, we'd have: 48,000 samples per second (times) 24 bits per sample (divided by) 8 bits in each byte (divided by) 1,073,741,824 bytes in each Gigabyte = 0.00013411 Gigabytes per second, or about 0.134 Megabytes per second. (Obviously double that number for 96k).

For 10,000 channels of 24bit / 48kHz audio, we'd have: 1.3411 Gigabytes per second.

So with all 128 channels of a MOTU AVB audio rig lit up in each direction (for 256 channels total) we'd only be using 0.03433 Gigabytes per second.

If we're talking about SSDs and sample playback voices, the numbers don't fundamentally change but, as Evil Dragon has mentioned in other threads, other SSD performance factors like "random 4k reads" come into play, so I'll leave those calculations for another day!

I think that's why the MOTU guy chuckled when I asked if the AVB rig would saturate the TB2 bus, and if the UAD2 could live on the same TB2 bus with no problems. Regardless of how many channels are configured to go back and forth on the AVB network (which is on a separate CAT5 cable setup), the AVB rig is only providing 128 channels in each direction to the host via TB, so that number is capped at 256 channels of total load on the TB bus. All of the subsequent AVB interfaces spread across your building will be spraying their data to each other via CAT5 and there's only one interface connected via TB to your host computer, so it's that "primary" interface that sorts out and condenses all those other interfaces' data streams down into a single 128+128 channel stream, and that's what gets crammed down the TB bus.

I don't know the data structure of the UAD stuff intimately; I've been assuming that a single instance of a single mono plugin just needs one channel in and one channel out - if they've done something that causes a single mono plugin to use more than two channels' worth of data, then.... well, that would be weird. Plus I don't know how it deals with side chain stuff - like, does it need to send the side chain audio down the TB bus also? Anyway, according to the UAD chart, the most instances of any plugin that can run on a single UAD2 Octo is 800 mono channels of the LittleLabs VOG bass enhancer tool. If you put 800 mono VOG instances on a mix (and why wouldn't you?) that would use up 0.214576 Gigabytes per second. So even with eight UAD2 Octo's running a total of 6,400 instances of VOG (very common in trap music!) you'd still only be putting 1.7166 Gigabytes per second of data down the wire. That, plus a fully maxed-out AVB setup would still only put around 1.75 Gigabytes per second down the bus. No problem - so it's no longer surprising how a Dante or other audio-over-IP protocol can throw thousands of channels down a $10 CAT5 cable. Awesome.

The MOTU guy explained to me that the only folks who'd really be in danger of saturating the TB2 busses on the Mac Pro cylinder would be video guys, who need to ingest raw 8k footage at 60fps from the SSD drives they pull from a Red camera or stuff like that. The data rates these guys deal with are truly astounding. It all is really, if you think about it. Amazing stuff.
 
Hello,

Got a trashcan now set up, it works an open box 2013 MP - magic mouse/keyboard that has the lightening USB cable! - Went onto the Apple coverage website and put the serial # in but the website told me to come back later, pity as it would be good to ascertain the exact build date, is this possible?

Is it possible to use the keyboard and mouse (lightening cable) through a USB hub? - What do other mac folks here use? - Would any USB hub work? - 4 usb ports on this MP!

Anyhow really happy to have a MP, but I'm more used to Windows machines hence all the questions
I use a wired Apple keyboard on my MP and MB Air. I have the Magic Mouse 1 and a wired Apple mouse but I've kinda gotten turned off of them so I use a generic wireless mouse and it works fine. I know a few people who use Kensington Trackballs with their MP.
 
Kensington trackball eh...sounds very posh, fwiw, this is the 1st I've heard of it!!! - Are wired mouse(s) (mice)-/keyboards!!!-still available?

thanks for the tip on the trackball!
 
Hello,

Got a trashcan now set up, it works an open box 2013 MP - magic mouse/keyboard that has the lightening USB cable! - Went onto the Apple coverage website and put the serial # in but the website told me to come back later, pity as it would be good to ascertain the exact build date, is this possible?

Is it possible to use the keyboard and mouse (lightening cable) through a USB hub? - What do other mac folks here use? - Would any USB hub work? - 4 usb ports on this MP!

I use a wired Apple keyboard and mouse (posh Kensington Expert Mouse trackball actually - it's my favorite for 25+ years). The Lightning cable is usually used with your keyboard and mouse only to charge their internal battery - they connect to the computer wirelessly over BlueTooth. No cables needed! But I use wired because I don't want to deal with recharging the battery and my keyboard never moves, so...

You can absolutely use just about any USB hub you want on the Mac Pro, and only the cheapest and crappiest ones won't be able to recharge your keyboard and mouse using the Lightning cable. I like to stick to name brands like Belkin and D-Link, and they have never failed me. I've been using Belkin hubs for more than 20 years with no problems. I always use and recommend "powered" USB hubs that come with their own AC adaptor (wall wart). That way there will be no issues with devices needing too much power. Passive (non-powered) hubs only pass the power from the computer's USB ports down to the connected devices, and if you're dividing the power from one Mac Pro USB port into four connected devices it is possible you'll get a "low power" alert on the computer screen. (It is practically impossible to physically damage anything, so don't worry about that).

I currently have six USB hubs on my Mac Pro:

- Two D-Link four-port powered USB3 hubs, daisy-chained (in other words, the second hub plugged into a port on the first hub so they only use one of the Mac Pro's USB ports, giving a total of seven ports available across two hubs while using only one Mac Pro port) = connects things like USB3 hard drives, Virus TI, Linnstrument, and other data-hungry and power-hungry devices. One port from the second hub goes to a USB Extender which uses a little box on either end and a CAT5 cable connecting the two - this lets me do a long (30-foot) run across the room to my guitar/synth rack. On the far end the extender connects to yet another Belkin powered 7-port USB2 hub to which I connect all the stuff in the guitar/synth rack - Line6 Pod, Roland VG-99, Eventide H9, Dave Smith Pro-2, and another Unitor MIDI interface to deal with other synths, the EuroRack setup, etc. So that stuff in the guitar/synth rack is at the far end of two USB hubs (one USB3 and one USB2) with a USB>CAT5 cable extender in between. It sounds crazy but it all works just fine.

- Three Belkin four-port USB2 hubs (two of them daisy-chained and one running solo) = the solo hub is for computer keyboard (with the trackball plugged into the keyboard itself so it doesn't use up a port on the hub), PreSonus FaderPort, a Unitor8mk2 MIDI interface, and my main MIDI keyboard (M-Audio Keystation 88 plugged in via USB). The two daisy-chained hubs are only for dongles - three iLok2 and three e-Licenser dongles, with the last port used for connecting to the Dynaudio AIR Control or Genelec GLM system to configure my speakers from the computer.

This leaves me one empty USB port on the back of the Mac Pro in case I get a new device and want to experiment before I decide where to plug it in.

You can feel free to daisy-chain USB hubs pretty much any way you want. The only thing to be aware of is that USB2 is much slower than USB3 (and USBv1 is slower still), so if you plug a USB2 hub into the computer, anything that's "downstream" of that hub will run at USB2 speed - so don't go Computer > USB2 hub > USB3 hub or the USB3 hub will be only passing data at USB2 speed. The other way around is fine - Computer > USB3 hub > USB2 hub. Just keep in mind that a USB2 hub will choke anything that passes through it down to USB2 speeds. No biggie really, and you won't damage anything by trying out various configurations. I even have a few 20-year-old Belkin powered 7-port USBv1.1 hubs lying around and I can use them just fine, mixed in with the more modern ones, but they are really only suitable for simple stuff like iLok, keyboard, trackball, etc.

When I first got the Mac Pro cylinders I wanted some bad-ass, all-metal USB3 hubs with huge power supplies, and I found some online and bought them - only to find out that they required you to manually push the power button every time you powered up the room in order to turn them on. (Not all of them do, but the ones I bought did. I'm an idiot.) So I just went down to my local and bought some simple D-Link and Belkin hubs and they work just fine. There are, however, lots of cool hubs with 7 or more ports, individual power switches per port, etc. Check on Amazon or MonoPrice to see the crazy variety available.

If you need to extend USB cables beyond the basic 15-foot limit, look for an extender solution that uses a CAT5 cable in between two little boxes - these usually don't have their own power supply, but do require that they're plugged into a powered port - either on the back of the Mac or on a well-powered USB hub. This is similar to what I use:

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p..._1JACn-FpydavWfiMed3-T-X4yUv9K3BoCqWkQAvD_BwE
 
Last edited:
Is it possible to use the keyboard and mouse (lightening cable) through a USB hub? - What do other mac folks here use? - Would any USB hub work? - 4 usb ports on this MP!

The current - or actually previous - Magic keyboard and mouse only use USB for charging (they work over Bluetooth). So a powered USB hub should work fine, but really you could just use a USB charger once every couple of months when they run out.
 
Yes that is very creative use of arranging your USB hubs - The Amazon link you showed with the ethernet > USB - this pack includes both items in the package doesn't it?

And you use the RJ-45 on your Mac Pro to go into one of those connectors?
 
Yes that is very creative use of arranging your USB hubs - The Amazon link you showed with the ethernet > USB - this pack includes both items in the package doesn't it?

And you use the RJ-45 on your Mac Pro to go into one of those connectors?

No, with that extender you only use the RJ-45 jacks on those little boxes to run a CAT5 cable between the two little boxes shown (both of which are included in a single purchase). Once connected like this: extender male > CAT5 cable > extender female, the whole thee-piece thing acts as a USB extension cable, with a male USB jack on one end and a female USB jack on the other.

The RJ-45 jacks on your Mac Pro are only for connecting to an Ethernet network. I don't even have anything plugged into the RJ-45 jacks on my Mac Pro - it connects to the internet via WiFi. If, however, I was using Vienna Ensemble Pro running on slave computers, I would connect to that network using those RJ-45 jacks. The reason they give you two is so that you could, for example, connect to a dedicated Vienna slave network on one port and to a separate network (for internet, file sharing, etc.) using the second port. But if you're not running Vienna slave machines, and you're connecting to the internet using WiFi, you don't even need to plug anything into the RJ-45 jacks on the back of your Mac Pro.
 
Yes I get the idea, I've made a note of these items for future reference. Brain-overload right now....

I got the MP for 3,100 open box (new)-for the 12 core. Still very expensive for me but for an Apple I've got a little lucky...and if these last as long as people say it'll be very reliable...
 
Yes I get the idea, I've made a note of these items for future reference. Brain-overload right now....

I got the MP for 3,100 open box (new)-for the 12 core. Still very expensive for me but for an Apple I've got a little lucky...and if these last as long as people say it'll be very reliable...
I've got my sights on a used 6 core as I only have modest needs and don't have a ton of VIs I run. I mean I haven't blown up my little MB Air i7 with everything I've thrown at it so I'm sure a 6 core MP will do nicely. And it's quiet and not hot like the iMacs get.
 
Top Bottom