Is a Mac pro 3.1 any use still

Skodadad

I recently got shut of a high spec Pc I used for my business leaving myself with just a laptop until I picked up a mac. I found a cheap mac pro a few days ago but it needs a few upgrades. It has 2 x quad core xeon cpu and a measley 6gb ram. I'd like to use it with a Midi USB keyboard I have to create some backing tracks (I'm much better on a keyboard than guitar ) and eventually connect the guitar as I have a line 6 pod 2 that I believe has midi capabilities. I have used Cubase before but am pretty much a total novice having only used it for voices to play. Is the Mac pro going to be underpowered as I don't want to go into it for big £££. I presume I'll need some kind of midi to USB cable for the line 6? Cheers

Danny1969

My studio (professional studio) runs on an old Mac Pro duel Xeon from 2006 and has 6Gb ram. We have recorded and mastered many many sessions on this including work for major label artist, working on as many as 90 odd tracks audio all with plugins and It's been rock solid. 

If you think you can get by with 90 odd tracks of 24 \ 48 you should be Ok with it

Skodadad

Haha that pretty much tells me everything I need to know thanks.

sweepy

Mac 3.1 runs everything currently available, so fill it up with RAM, pop an SSD in as a Boot drive and fill the rest with SATA drives and you are good  to go

As for interfaces, check out Focusrite Safire Firewire interfaces, bulletproof, full Midi and a flexible starting point for expansion via ADAT etc

Skodadad

I have an ssd to go in but it would seem I need a 6 gbps pci e card to get any benefit. I am guessing genuine mac ram is the only way to go? Not cheap from what I see

sweepy

You'll definitely see an improvement with an SSD, not only on boot up time, but general day to day operation. I have an SSD in my MacBook Pro and yes, it is 10x faster than the SSD in in my MacPro but still worth doing.

sweepy

Mac. ram is a lot cheaper on eBay from the US,

Clarky

my Mac is an early 2008 dual quad / 32G RAM / 4x 1T drives

it's been a brilliant machine.. and still is..

Skodadad

I just got a 4870 for it, ancient tech by pc standards but every little helps. Going to get a dedicated pci-e card for ssd so I get the 6gb ps as it also gives me a second internal port. Probably going to go to 16gb ram, I doubt I will need anymore nowadays. Also have a USB 3 card on the way.

ruoma

Do it! My 2008 mac pro with 10g ram runs awesome! Got two ssd's in it, one for osx and one for samples, songs. Only a mac pro can last you 7 years and counting!

digitalscream

Skodadad said:

I just got a 4870 for it, ancient tech by pc standards but every little helps. Going to get a dedicated pci-e card for ssd so I get the 6gb ps as it also gives me a second internal port. Probably going to go to 16gb ram, I doubt I will need anymore nowadays. Also have a USB 3 card on the way.

You don't need a dedicated PCI-E card - you'll still see a massive performance boost just using an SSD on your existing SATA connections. I'd buy the SSD first and then see if you've got any noticeable performance issues before going through the hassle of getting a card and trying to get your Mac to boot from it.

Skodadad

I already have a 120gb ssd from my laptop when I upgraded it, has anyone used the fusion facility? I'm thinking I might as well pair my ssd with a 7200rpm 640gb drive I have as the OS disk at sata 2 speeds would limit the ssd anyway. This leaves me a 2tb and 1tb for storage

Danny1969

I wouldn't spend too much on SSDs for audio use, we run huge sessions straight off standard SATA drives. There's four bays in the Mac Pro so plenty of storage options. I have one SSD in mine but it's kind of pointless as the normal drives work fine for audio. SSD's might be a good upgrade on a general use PC though