SLMC

Zak Claxton · Joined: 16 Oct 2007 Posts: 2008 Location: Podul/33/243/154/

My time isn't so short: I started using Macs in 1985, not very long after they were first introduced, and I've been using them personally and professionally ever since. I really have nothing against Windows machines at all. For me, the personal preference of using a Mac is based on the things that I do for work and pleasure... music, graphics, video, and so on. They're not for everyone. Just ones like me. Smile

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Silas Scarborough · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 1184 Location: Rhode Island

I've got a Mac Quad and here's something I discovered the other day: My PC self-destructed several weeks so I've been running SL on the Mac and absolutely hating it. One of the reasons for that is audio streams were dropping out at unacceptable rates. I tried dropping SL max bandwidth to 100 and that helped but did not eliminate the problem. My next approach was to increase the CPU allowed Nicecast via the Quality setting. It had been set to about 25% and that was fine so long as SL was running somewhere else. Yesterday I tried increasing it to about 60% and didn't get a single drop even though I did nothing to reduce SL bandwidth.

Something I've meant to do for a while but have not tried as yet is to use the Archive function of Nicecast to capture the stream to disk. What benefit is there to using Audio Hijack over the Archive function? I'll guess that Audio Hijack is grabbing the audio when it's outbound from GarageBand and Archive is saving the audio after it's been compressed and is outbound from Nicecast, therefore the audio resolution in Hijack would be much better. Is this accurate?
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Ever vigilant for da gooses overhead.

- Silas

My Web site is at myducksoup.com

Zak Claxton · Joined: 16 Oct 2007 Posts: 2008 Location: Podul/33/243/154/

Zed Essex · Joined: 05 Oct 2007 Posts: 6

i use a mixer to blend my guitar with my voice before it enters into the computer. When I want to make a high quality recording I use the aux outputs in the mixer which are routed to my DAT machine. This is good cause other than this i have no use for my good ol' DAT Machine! But Silas is correct you are much better capturing audio before it goes thru an encoder. Mp3 encoders discard certain frequencies in addition to compressing the data, so if you need to record high quality audio it's better to avoid this.

If you have any questions about audio, fire away. I'm a recording engineer in RL!

Oh and for the record i bought my first MAC when I got my protools HD rig. At the time I was a died in the wool PC guy, but got the mac because there were more plugins available for it at the time and I only wanted to use that computer for serious recording.

Over time whenever my PC wouldn't do something i wanted I would try it on the MAC, and began to notice I got more work done on the Mac! I still use PCs tho, My Sl radio station runs on one, and I have another one I use for buring DVD;s and encoding video. The bulk of what I do is done on MAC computers tho. I find the MAC OS head and shoulders above Windows which seems to create a new problem for every solution! Especially Vista!

Zed

Zak Claxton · Joined: 16 Oct 2007 Posts: 2008 Location: Podul/33/243/154/

RayW · Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 563 Location: Twin Cities, MN

Morris Dawes · Joined: 30 Oct 2007 Posts: 9 Location: Salem, MA USA

I think I read above about someone using one computer to run SL and at the same time another computer to run the music and audio. That sounds like a good idea to me. What if I were to run Logic and NiceCast on my iMac G5 and then another coumputer (say a Windows machine) to run SL so I could see the audience?

The reason I mentioned a Windows machine for running SL is that I would imagine that I could pick up somthung used on Craigslist or Ebay pretty cheap right? I'm not so up on the Windows world. What would you all recommend I look for in a Windows computer to run SL (only) while I use the Mac for music? How much would I expect to pay? Would a notebook Windows computer do the job?

Best,
Morris
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Morris Dawes in SL
Morris Acevedo in RL
http://www.morrisacevedo.com
http://www.myspace.com/morrisacevedo/
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Zak Claxton · Joined: 16 Oct 2007 Posts: 2008 Location: Podul/33/243/154/

RayW · Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 563 Location: Twin Cities, MN

I have two computer, also. But, unlike Zak, I have SL on the powerhouse and use the old one to broadcast from.

Well, that is until today. Today my streaming LIVE into SL days are on hold. The old machine is dying ... it's been a slow one. But, twice in the last few days it just went into a coma.

So, soon (not soon enough) I'll be saying I run SL on the powerhouse and use the new machine to broadcast from. Very Happy

(Yah ... I know I'm not a Mac user ... my wife is ... so its in the family)
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Ray
http://www.rayweyland.com
http://www.sounds-of-ray.com