G4 1.25DP MDD various questions

[will9]

So from what started as me taking a slight interest in what DAWs were like on OS9, I now find myself having just bought a G4 1.25 (DP) MDD for an insanely good price (when you consider how much it cost new.) Now I have 2 weeks or more before it will arrive to sort out what I need...

I've done a fair bit of reading but there's a few questions that I would like to ask directly as I am concerned I am reading older info... If you can help that would be great!

Noise
I read that the MDDs are notorious for being noisy. Is there a safe mod of some sort for this that could reduce the noise? Upon its arrival I intend to attack the insides with a can of compressed air as I would do with my main PC (let me know if you think thats a bad idea!) and I'll check to make sure the fans are all working after all these years... I assume there'd be drop in replacements if any are broke?

HDDs
There's no denying its an old system (though I am seemingly disproportionately excited about it!) The one I bought seems to have the original HDDs, which could be disastrous to rely on. In the spirit of not spending an arm and a leg on this hardware, I would love to boot the OS off an SDD, which has sparked a few questions:
- It looks like more performance can be gained when using a PCI SATA card, compared to using an adapter of sorts. From what I have read from the everymac website, the first two drives are capable of Ultra ATA 100 speeds on at least two of the ports. Is the performance boost all that noticeable?
- Is it even possible to use the PCI SATA card to boot the OS? Or is it expecting a drive on the "Primary Master" (or something like that)
- If I can find a 64gb SSD for the OS and apps would that be sufficient? I assume its easier to find 128gb drives these days but it's worth asking.
- The strategy would then be to store all my sample libraries and any projects I make in a DAW on a mechanical drive of a larger size. Is this where having a PCI SATA card would benefit over the Ultra ATA speeds?
- If it turns out I should get the PCI SATA card, do I have to buy a very specific type that was designed for OS9 or is it somewhat plug and play?
- Finally, as the mechanical drive will likely be 500gb+ is it still the recommended thing (even on OS9.2.2) to split this up in to 190GB volumes? I am reading a lot of focus on defragmenting drives. Is this really that important? Back in the win95/98 days I recall defragmentation only provided marginal performance boosts...

DAW and Audio Interface
It's looking like Cubase VST 5.x is the way to go for me, as my intention would be to use a combination of the few soft synth plugins and the audio plugins available. At the moment I don't have a FW audio interface. I did see a MOTU 828 mk1 for sale closely, but if I've missed the boat on that, are there any comparable interfaces that you'd recommend particularly for Cubase?

DAW Performance
One of the attractive things that I have read about the G4s and older macs was they could handle a decent amount of audio tracks and plugins at the same time. Does anyone have any rough ideas on what I could expect for track count, assuming each of the tracks would have at least 1 VST effect on each?

Thanks very much in advance!

[DieHard]

Noise
I read that the MDDs are notorious for being noisy. Is there a safe mod of some sort for this that could reduce the noise? Upon its arrival I intend to attack the insides with a can of compressed air as I would do with my main PC

Search our forum, plenty of fan mods and info to safely reduce noise.  Canned air is not as efficient as a compressor, always put a small wire in fans when using a compressor so that fans do not rotate faster than specification

HDDs
There's no denying its an old system (though I am seemingly disproportionately excited about it!) The one I bought seems to have the original HDDs, which could be disastrous to rely on. In the spirit of not spending an arm and a leg on this hardware, I would love to boot the OS off an SDD, which has sparked a few questions:
- It looks like more performance can be gained when using a PCI SATA card, compared to using an adapter of sorts. From what I have read from the everymac website, the first two drives are capable of Ultra ATA 100 speeds on at least two of the ports. Is the performance boost all that noticeable?
- Is it even possible to use the PCI SATA card to boot the OS? Or is it expecting a drive on the "Primary Master" (or something like that)
- If I can find a 64gb SSD for the OS and apps would that be sufficient? I assume its easier to find 128gb drives these days but it's worth asking.
- The strategy would then be to store all my sample libraries and any projects I make in a DAW on a mechanical drive of a larger size. Is this where having a PCI SATA card would benefit over the Ultra ATA speeds?
- If it turns out I should get the PCI SATA card, do I have to buy a very specific type that was designed for OS9 or is it somewhat plug and play?
- Finally, as the mechanical drive will likely be 500gb+ is it still the recommended thing (even on OS9.2.2) to split this up in to 190GB volumes? I am reading a lot of focus on defragmenting drives. Is this really that important? Back in the win95/98 days I recall defragmentation only provided marginal performance boosts...

We have many SSD posts, benchmarks, and other info... already answered, just search, for audio any (non SSD) will perform much better with occasional defragmenting.  SSDs obviously, do not need to have the files linear (all data is accessed at the same speed), so no defrag needed.  If you want high track counts, defrag is very important on legacy drives

DAW and Audio Interface
It's looking like Cubase VST 5.x is the way to go for me, as my intention would be to use a combination of the few soft synth plugins and the audio plugins available. At the moment I don't have a FW audio interface. I did see a MOTU 828 mk1 for sale closely, but if I've missed the boat on that, are there any comparable interfaces that you'd recommend particularly for Cubase?

Cubase DAW with a ton of virtual instruments and FX already activated is here:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,2716.0.html

DAW Performance
One of the attractive things that I have read about the G4s and older macs was they could handle a decent amount of audio tracks and plugins at the same time. Does anyone have any rough ideas on what I could expect for track count, assuming each of the tracks would have at least 1 VST effect on each?

I have done over 64 with no issues

[Metrophage]

The amount of noise varies. I had an MDD years back which did earn itself the title "Windtunnel G4", it was crazy loud. My current one is relatively quiet. My guess is that the deciding factor is what version power supply it has. Unfortunately, those are the fans that take the most effort to replace. But it can be done if you don't mind an afternoon spent completely disassembling the tower. It's the most thorough way to clean and examine a newly acquired Mac anyway.

[GaryN]

Total MDD noise levels are determined by various sums and / or products of the following:

PSU model
Main fan model
OS being used
Firmware
CPU configuration
Number of drives
Number of PCI cards
Computational demand
Proximity to user
User hearing acuity
User tolerance level

All of the above interact in various ways. A single-CPU 1.0Ghz unit with one HDD running OSX doing light word processing will generate so little fan noise that the user will be wondering what all the fuss is about.

On the other hand, my MDD, a dual Sonnet 1.8Ghz with four drives, various PCI cards (Delta 101, USB2, etc.) recording / playing multiple digital audio tracks in OS9 generates so much noise that I finally threw in the towel and built a quiet box for the damn thing. It works really well.

However, the fans moving air through the box are now louder that the computer within!

This is where "user tolerance" comes in. Anyone who has built a recording studio or simply attempted to quiet a project studio room knows that the quieter the ambient level gets, the louder and more annoying the remaining sounds seem to become. This is no different that when you go way out into the countryside where the sky is finally devoid of scattered ambient city lights and suddenly a gazillion stars appear that were completely invisible before, but now they seem amazingly bright.

The point is, there are many variables in play both electromechanical and psychological, none of which typically get considered in brief forum posts, that will affect how you end up feeling about your individual results. At the end of the day, the MDD is hands down the fastest, most capable OS9-running machine there is and if you absolutely need those capabilities for your situation, you'll be a lot more forgiving of its shortcomings than if your needs could be served just as well on an earlier G3-based or similar quieter computer.

[torvan]

My own MDD FW 800 DP 1.25 has this rattle like sound that is loud when compared to my Intel Mac Pro, but the QS2002 is not exactly quiet either. The MDD sounds like the main PS fan is off-balance or something but I can play music to drown it out without hurting my ears. 

But you know, it has done it for a few years now, and I am not in any big hurry to fix it despite the gloom and doom I have heard from others. I mean if the PS dies suddenly, my world does not come crashing down since I have another one in the tech closet right along side the QS 2002, a regular QS, a G5 dual, and a 7300/200.

[will9]

The mac finally arrived! In very good condition too! Its definitely noisy... I am powering an original cinema display off it too so its probably getting a good workout!

Many more questions have come up now but I don't know if they can be definitely answered...
Using a 500gb 7200rpm drive with a simple SATA/PATA adapter, boot time is still 45-50 seconds... Is that normal?

Ive run quickbench and the basic tests show that it gets up to ~80mb/s which was about what I expected... But, I did expect faster boot times...

Ive noticed the SimpleText application can take up to 7 seconds to open a document <10kb - is this normal? I guess I am sensitive to this sort of thing becauss I am questioning if everything is performing as it should...

I have an M-Audio Midiman Midisport 2x4, exactly as in the picture in the MIDI interface thread. I downloaded the driver for it from the M-Audio site, which was actually just the OMS software. Every time I plug it in to a USB port I get a notification that a driver cant be found (and it wants to search online) am I missing something here?

Thanks!

[GaryN]

Using a 500gb 7200rpm drive with a simple SATA/PATA adapter, boot time is still 45-50 seconds... Is that normal?

Actually, yes. My MDD with 7200rpm old IDE drive and a shitpile of extensions takes about 50sec to the desktop and another 15-20 for everything on the desktop to finish up and appear. I would expect yours to be a little bit faster, but not necessarily all that much. You should have your boot drive connected to the ATA100 bus in the back - not the slower ATA66 under the optical drives. BUT, no matter what it won't get a lot better at boot unless and until you change to an SSD. That will fly by comparison. Just get a small, relatively inexpensive one to hold the System and Apps, and use your 500Gb for data.

Ive noticed the SimpleText application can take up to 7 seconds to open a document <10kb - is this normal? I guess I am sensitive to this sort of thing becauss I am questioning if everything is performing as it should...

Simpletext is slooow…and simple… and slooow. It's a leftover from the 68k Classic Mac days. Go to Macintosh Garden and download SimpleEdit 3. It's a huge improvement overall.

You should also remember there are some aspects of OS9 that are simply, well… older than current stuff. While it's generally snappier and more responsive than the later "cats" (mostly because it doesn't bother with all of the glitz and bling) you should avoid trying to make direct comparisons on every little thing. Example #1 being that an SATA-to-PATA adapter doesn't suddenly make the bus move at latter-day SATA speeds. It just enables the drive to work on the PATA bus.

And now…the iffy part.

I have an M-Audio Midiman Midisport 2x4, exactly as in the picture in the MIDI interface thread. I downloaded the driver for it from the M-Audio site, which was actually just the OMS software. Every time I plug it in to a USB port I get a notification that a driver cant be found (and it wants to search online) am I missing something here?

Step 1: Start by checking to see that the Apple "USB Device Extension" and "USB Authoring Support" extensions are installed and enabled.
Step 2: As far as I know…there is no OS9 driver specifically for the MIDISport. The M-Audio driver database is wrong. It shows a driver but as you discovered, it's only a copy of OMS for MIDI. You should try the "Audiophile USB" driver package:

Audiophile_OSX_1_2_2f1.zip

Yes, I know it says "OSX". Just download the package and read the read-me. It will point you toward using ASIO on your DAW and the damn thing should work without a special ASIO driver. Emphasis on should.

It it works, say a little thank-you to your God. If not, know that you have lots of company. M-Audio interfaces are all over the place in terms of whether or not they work in OS9 with different Macs. At the time, USB was new and OS9 was declared dead. Everybody was focused on OSX so some things are hit-and-miss.

[Jakl]

Hi will9,

Try this driver (not sure if it works) - i had an older version of the midisport, the 4x4 - hope this driver installs the correct driver for your midisport 2x4 on macos9. Let me know if it works and if when plugged in whether the driver error comes up or not. Once drivers are installed restart mac then oms should recognize interface and should set up correctly.

Also check to see that the midisport extension is in the extensions folder.

[GaryN]

AHA !! Jaki comes through with the winner! This is very likely the one - too bad it's not anywhere on the M-Audio site…

[will9]

Hi will9,

Try this driver (not sure if it works) - i had an older version of the midisport, the 4x4 - hope this driver installs the correct driver for your midisport 2x4 on macos9. Let me know if it works and if when plugged in whether the driver error comes up or not. Once drivers are installed restart mac then oms should recognize interface and should set up correctly.

Also check to see that the midisport extension is in the extensions folder.

Hi Jackl,
thanks for linking the file here - after writing the previous post I found your original forum post on the matter. I'm happy to report that the provided driver is working (so far as its showing in OMS)

I strongly believe this site would benefit from having a WIKI with the final say on a lot of things, that way we can prevent double up posts...

...speaking of which, I just found that after installing Cubase VST 5/32 that my machine is infected with 666... An older forum post suggests that this may have been fixed.

Can I please get some guidance on removing this? I would like to do a clean install. Are all drives affected or only the boot drive? Rather gutted about this!

[will9]

Hi all, following my previous post, I have blown away the OS9 install and started again. I found that as soon as I ran DVDExtractor that 666 was back. Perhaps this is the culprit afterall? I will advise if the virus comes back after installing Cubase...
Cheers

[Mat]

I found that as soon as I ran DVDExtractor that 666 was back. Perhaps this is the culprit afterall? I will advise if the virus comes back after installing Cubase...

Sevendust can be nasty. I had a version that was  complicated to get rid of. Using Virex and the latest virus definitions from 2007 it is detected and successfully deleted. BUT it writes itselve into the RAM and as soon as any further activity is done in the Finder, it is written back to the HD.
So my only chance was to let Virex kill it (including all compressed files and installers), and once Virex is done, to put the power off – without shutting the computer down, without changing to the finder or any other activity!

[will9]

Just to close the loop... after a complete system restore (goodbye Saturday!) I'm back up and running. I am guessing it was the DVDExtractor program but I don't want to be pointing fingers all over the place. I am making ASR backups as I go so I can restore back to an earlier point if I need.

[DieHard]

 The diehard instant Daw with cubase already has Norton installed and it will remove 666 and othe viruses if you get them from other downloads (our downloads should be clean).  Also, you get a ton of activated instruments.  Get it from our downloads

[Mat]

3 MDD Duals running this way for 15+years.....

Just for the records, it is still 13 years. Next month it will become 14 years that the first MDD exists. :-p

[Steve_W]

Hi all, just read through this thread and I am in the same boat as the OP. I have the same machine and looking for the perfect DAW.  I was under the impression there were only specific OS 9 installs that could be done on an MDD 2003.  The instant DAW, can I just boot from the disk & install?  I've got 3 drives in the machine, 1 currently on 02 9.2.2, one on 10.4.11 and one just for data.

I could slam in another one and install the instant DAW I suppose!

Any thoughts?  Thanks guys!

[mrhappy]

You should DEFINITELY give the 'Instant DAW' a try! The whole thing installs in about 30 seconds... it's CRAZY!!!!!!

[DieHard]

I could slam in another one and install the instant DAW I suppose!

The Instant DAW just needs an available partition/volume, it does not need an extra drive;  If your your hard drive is already partitioned, you can simply install it to one (it will NOT erase all the volumes, it will just erase the partition you are installing it to)