joe
03-05-2010, 12:25 PM
I'm passing this along in case anyone is wondering about running Numerology (and virtual synths) on hardware that isn't the latest and greatest.
I've always thought it would be nice to get away from the desktop and sit back in my easy chair to work on music. The problem is that my laptop is an old PowerBook G4 with a 1GHz processor and 1 GB RAM. GarageBand won't even run well on that thing. But I thought I would give Numerology a try and see what happened.
To my surprise, Numerology runs very well on that old PowerBook. It maxes the processor during startup but then settles right in and runs any multi-rack or multi-stack project I have tried, normally using less than 20% of the CPU and less than 1/2 the RAM . But that was using the Apple DLS Synth, what about running a 3rd party synth.
I finally found two that will run on a PPC and work with Numerology on a 1GHz processor;
Zebra2 ($199) from http://www.u-he.com/zebra/
Crystal (FREE) from http://www.greenoak.com/crystal/about.html
I thought the 1 GB RAM would be the problem, but that turns out not to be the case. OS 10.5, Numerology, and either of those plugins will only use about 500 MB RAM total. And although they will push the processor to 80-90% at times, I've never had a slowdown, freeze, or crash.
As for the plugins, Zebra and Crystal both run equally well and appear to use about the same amount of resources.
So if you have a tired old Mac that's been relegated to use as a doorstop, why not dust it off for use as a dedicated Numerology workstation. If it's an old laptop, you can sit back and enjoy the music.
Joe
Edit: Synplant ($99) also seems to work well: http://www.soniccharge.com/
I've always thought it would be nice to get away from the desktop and sit back in my easy chair to work on music. The problem is that my laptop is an old PowerBook G4 with a 1GHz processor and 1 GB RAM. GarageBand won't even run well on that thing. But I thought I would give Numerology a try and see what happened.
To my surprise, Numerology runs very well on that old PowerBook. It maxes the processor during startup but then settles right in and runs any multi-rack or multi-stack project I have tried, normally using less than 20% of the CPU and less than 1/2 the RAM . But that was using the Apple DLS Synth, what about running a 3rd party synth.
I finally found two that will run on a PPC and work with Numerology on a 1GHz processor;
Zebra2 ($199) from http://www.u-he.com/zebra/
Crystal (FREE) from http://www.greenoak.com/crystal/about.html
I thought the 1 GB RAM would be the problem, but that turns out not to be the case. OS 10.5, Numerology, and either of those plugins will only use about 500 MB RAM total. And although they will push the processor to 80-90% at times, I've never had a slowdown, freeze, or crash.
As for the plugins, Zebra and Crystal both run equally well and appear to use about the same amount of resources.
So if you have a tired old Mac that's been relegated to use as a doorstop, why not dust it off for use as a dedicated Numerology workstation. If it's an old laptop, you can sit back and enjoy the music.
Joe
Edit: Synplant ($99) also seems to work well: http://www.soniccharge.com/