Mac Pro Build For a Music Producer; Hackintosh?

[SlCKB0Y]

I look at this thread and see a different issue. Could you get a hackintosh to work with your DAW? Sure, with enough futzing around it surely can be done. Now can you get it to work stably and consistently enough for professional work is another question altogether.

All things considered, as a music producer, you will have clients coming in to our studio and paying you by the hour to work on their projects. Now unless you are providing bargain basement prices for your services, you owe it to your clients to have top notch tools.

All things considered, computer hardware is always the cheapest part of such a project. If you want to use a Mac platform for you work, do so. If you think that a Windows platform is more cost effective, than that is fine. But to bill hourly for work done on a homebrew system that may be unstable is just being penny wise, pound foolish.

I have done session work on a number of projects in studios that were typically top notch. If I was the customer and I saw that they were using a home-brew system as the DAW, I would look elsewhere.

^^ This guy has it exactly.

Hackintosh might be OK for a hobbyist but it makes no sense in a professional setting:

1. If they need to cut costs and compromise on their DAW, what other "short cuts" are they taking? It just sends the wrong sort of message.

2. The upfront cost saving is a much lower proportion in reality. Once you add on thousands and thousands in software licensing, that 1k saving made in hardware starts to become minor. My bet is the same guys cutting costs on hardware are also pirates. (see 1.)

3. Regardless of the rubbish spouted in here, a hackintosh will never ever be as stable or as reliable as a real Mac, and in a professional setting, this matters.

4. Absolutely no vendor support. Downtime costs money to people who actually use their gear to work and with a Hackintosh, you're completely on your own.

5. By even doing this you are breaking Apple's licensing and this just doesn't look good in a professional situation.

 

[ToroidalZeus]

* Until you have to change or update anything to do with the OS, at which point it isn't "just as stable as a legit Macintosh".

this is true

^^ This guy has it exactly.

Hackintosh might be OK for a hobbyist but it makes no sense in a professional setting:

1. If they need to cut costs and compromise on their DAW, what other "short cuts" are they taking? It just sends the wrong sort of message.

2. The upfront cost saving is a much lower proportion in reality. Once you add on thousands and thousands in software licensing, that 1k saving made in hardware starts to become minor. My bet is the same guys cutting costs on hardware are also pirates. (see 1.)

3. Regardless of the rubbish spouted in here, a hackintosh will never ever be as stable or as reliable as a real Mac, and in a professional setting, this matters.

4. Absolutely no vendor support. Downtime costs money to people who actually use their gear to work and with a Hackintosh, you're completely on your own.

5. By even doing this you are breaking Apple's licensing and this just doesn't look good in a professional situation.

well it's not just cost savings. the hack has real performance gains too.

This is the geekbench for the top of the line 12-core mac pro
https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/2691317
3200 single core/ 33000 multi core

this is an 8 core 5960X
https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/750066
4100 single core/ 31000 multi core

with a 28% higher single core score the 5960x is a much more powerful CPU.

a 12core mac pro with dual 6gb firepro GPUs is 7600 retail.
A 5960X with 2 GTX Titan Xs 12gb is 3000 retail. The rest of the PC components would be maybe another 1000 dollars.

You'd get a three and a half thousand dollar cost savings. With 6GB 980tis it would shot up to a 4 thousand dollar cost savings!!! More importantly, either way the graphic performance would be at least double and probably more.

if a company is actually using a mac pro for business I would question their decisions. It's clear that they got more money than brains.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

well it's not just cost savings. the hack has real performance gains too.

I did consider this use case but then I just thought that in a professional setting, if CPU performance is that critical that the top of the line Mac Pro doesn't cut it, then wouldn't it make more sense to get a much more modest Mac and offload the rendering/crunching to a Linux server? A lot of high-end software can do stuff like this and its much more efficient since the CPU power can be used by multiple workstations.

You'd get a three and a half thousand dollar cost savings. With 6GB 980tis it would shot up to a 4 thousand dollar cost savings!!! More importantly, either way the graphic performance would be at least double and probably more.

Well in the context of this thread (music production), graphics are not really an issue.

 

[ToroidalZeus]

I did consider this use case but then I just thought that in a professional setting, if CPU performance is that critical that the top of the line Mac Pro doesn't cut it, then wouldn't it make more sense to get a much more modest Mac and offload the rendering/crunching to Linux? A lot of high-end software can do stuff like this.

i'd make more sense to just build the "hack" except run windows instead.

also it's ridiculous overpriced cost of the Mac Pros CPU that is the problem more so than the actual performance.

On the flip-side, the GPUs are insanely weak compared to modern offerings.

so a combo of maissivly overpriced CPU + just overpriced weak GPUs is what really kills the Mac Pros performance for anyone serious.

 

[MMcCraryNJ]

It's been about a year since I posted in this thread, and my opinion on the matter still stands...

- If music production is a hobby for you, a Hack would probably be okay, but be prepared to spend more time troubleshooting than actually being creative.
- If you make money from it, or you're reliant upon it for income, stick to buying an Apple machine.
- If you actually own or operate a studio, don't put a Hack in your facility if you want to look attractive and professional to clients. Plenty of bands, producers, engineers, etc. would see that and realize you are cutting corners, and they'll look for another facility.
- No matter what anyone says about it, realize that Hacks *aren't* always the answer, and things *don't* always come out perfectly. The guy posting on TonyMac who "totally swears all of this works 100% perfectly, bro" doesn't have all of the answers.
- Audio is a tricky thing to work with, in that the *smallest* little configuration error or setting can have massive and dire implications on a session.
- Don't expect support from anyone. The computer is only half of the bigger picture here. What happens when you cheap out and build a $1500 Hack, and your $1000-$3000 Universal Audio Apollo doesn't play well with it? You're going to call UAudio, and they are going to tell you, "Um, sorry...we can't help you with that". When Pro Tools is operating at extremely high latency or you're getting DAE errors when in a session with someone who is paying you by the hour, calling Avid Support will tell you the same. What happens when you buy those nice, big Yamaha monitors for $850 per speaker, and the cheaply made components of your computer is susceptible to EMI and other interference? These are all things you need to think about, not just your GeekBench scores or how many FPS your GFX can bench at.
- In this industry, time is money, and looking professional and competent is everything.

 

[ToroidalZeus]

It's been about a year since I posted in this thread, and my opinion on the matter still stands...

- If music production is a hobby for you, a Hack would probably be okay, but be prepared to spend more time troubleshooting than actually being creative.
- If you make money from it, or you're reliant upon it for income, stick to buying an Apple machine.
- If you actually own or operate a studio, don't put a Hack in your facility if you want to look attractive and professional to clients. Plenty of bands, producers, engineers, etc. would see that and realize you are cutting corners, and they'll look for another facility.
- No matter what anyone says about it, realize that Hacks *aren't* always the answer, and things *don't* always come out perfectly. The guy posting on TonyMac who "totally swears all of this works 100% perfectly, bro" doesn't have all of the answers.
- Audio is a tricky thing to work with, in that the *smallest* little configuration error or setting can have massive and dire implications on a session.
- Don't expect support from anyone. The computer is only half of the bigger picture here. What happens when you cheap out and build a $1500 Hack, and your $1000-$3000 Universal Audio Apollo doesn't play well with it? You're going to call UAudio, and they are going to tell you, "Um, sorry...we can't help you with that". When Pro Tools is operating at extremely high latency or you're getting DAE errors when in a session with someone who is paying you by the hour, calling Avid Support will tell you the same. What happens when you buy those nice, big Yamaha monitors for $850 per speaker, and the cheaply made components of your computer is susceptible to EMI and other interference? These are all things you need to think about, not just your GeekBench scores or how many FPS your GFX can bench at.
- In this industry, time is money, and looking professional and competent is everything.

I hate it when people talk about technology like it's magic.

A hack isn't going to work worse than an actual Macintosh simply because it's a hack. In fact both feature CPUs from the exact same manufacture, Intel. Setting up a hack can be tricky, but once it's setup and loaded, it functions no different from a real Mac; even drivers such from Nvidia work on hacks. The reason for this is because the only hack is the boatloader, the code that lets OS X run on not-apple motherboards. Once the software is loaded, it's the same OS X an iMac, a MacBook and a Mac Pro all share. Plus if something goes wrong with OS X or doesnt work in OS X, you can always still use Windows.

Profession IT environments often use Linux instead of Windows or UNIX because it's cheaper, does that mean they are cutting corners? Well ya it does. But whocares? You probably have personal data you are unaware of stored on a linux server somewhere instead of unix.

It's been a year since this thread was released and the only thing that has changed now is that the Mac Pro has become an even worse machine for the cost with Nvidia's release of GTX Titan X.

 

[Stacc]

A hack isn't going to work worse than an actual Macintosh simply because it's a hack. In fact both feature CPUs from the exact same manufacture, Intel. Setting up a hack can be tricky, but once it's setup and loaded, it functions no different from a real Mac; even drivers such from Nvidia work on hacks. The reason for this is because the only hack is the boatloader, the code that lets OS X run on not-apple motherboards. Once the software is loaded, it's the same OS X an iMac, a MacBook and a Mac Pro all share. Plus if something goes wrong with OS X or doesnt work in OS X, you can always still use Windows.

Its not as simple as that. I have been debating a hackintosh vs a mac pro, and when you read posts about people who get their hackintosh's working, its always "Everything works, except for X." X usually seems to be the ability to sleep and wake the computer, wifi, bluetooth, speedstep settings on the processor, audio, etc. If the hardware on the motherboard doesn't exactly line up with what apple puts in their machines, often there are incompatibilities.

People use linux because there are some cases where using linux is advantageous compared to windows, not to save cost. Any business that needs to use windows but isn't willing to spend $100 on a windows license is a stupid one. The long term costs in terms of additional IT required and loss of productivity is not a good tradeoff.

 

[grame]

My Hackintosh works no better and no worse than the similarly specced iMac5K I sold to pay for it. The Clover installation method means it's a very different proposition from my previous Hackintosh of a few years back, Then i took the Mac Pro 4.1 upgrade route. It was nice but at the time the USB3 was iffy and the graphics card made the fan noisy and there was no Thunderbolt option. And I also felt a bit uneasy with a six year old machine. So i got the iMac5K which was lovely but expensive. Running external hard drives on USB3 was a pain. The possibility of future problems arising from all those heat-generating components crammed into that thin space also made me anxious. I ordered the components for the Hackintosh just to see how the ground lay. I decided I would sell it if it could not improve upon the iMac. Very soon it became apparent that the Hack was going to be a keeper. i sold the iMac. I run Pro Tools and Studio One with an MBox 3. No problems whatsoever. Get the right components and you have, to all intents and purposes, a mac. I keep an ideal state drive image should any updates prove a problem. None have thus far - and I am on the latest Yosemite.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

A hack isn't going to work worse than an actual Macintosh simply because it's a hack. In fact both feature CPUs from the exact same manufacture, Intel. Setting up a hack can be tricky, but once it's setup and loaded, it functions no different from a real Mac.

You're simplifying things. There are many other things on a generic motherboard which have the potential to cause instability and incompatibility with OS X. USB chipsets might be different, or Motherboard revisions, or NIC or graphics firmware, disk controllers, on-board audio controllers, realtime clock, or slightly different Thunderbolt controllers.

Your motherboard won't have PRAM or SMC so presumably this is reverse engineered and emulated to some degree of accuracy. You've hacked the bootloader, maybe added third-party drivers and modified builtin ones (For example to enable TRIM on non-Apple SSDs). There is absolutely no way that this can be as reliable as a Mac which has standardised hardware and has been extensively lab tested for hardware interoperability AND had the OS built around it, not shoe-horned in.

Just because you haven't noticed problems, doesn't mean you don't have them or that other hack builds will be fine.

Profession IT environments often use Linux instead of Windows or UNIX because it's cheaper, does that mean they are cutting corners? Well ya it does. But whocares?

I'm glad you brought this up because my situation is slightly analogous to the Hackintosh stuff we are discussing. I manage a datacentre environment with about 1200 physical servers and probably 10 times that virtualised.

1. We don't use Linux because its cheaper. We use it because it is much, much better for many things that we need to do with servers. Once you've spent 5-10k on a server, a Windows license is nothing - it's a minor monthly cost under SPLA. So again, not the reason.

2. We could build our own white box servers instead of buying Dell/HP/IBM for much much less, but we don't (and this relates directly) for a number of reasons. The main reasons are support and reliability. If I build my own server and something goes wrong, We are on our own. We have to diagnose the issue and come up with a solution which can be extremely hard. This is an industry where we get client complaints for seconds of downtime. If something goes wrong, i'd rather just call IBM and they will have a tech out in very quickly as per SLA. The other main reason we don't is interoperability of parts. I know that Dell has extensively tested all the hardware in the server as a whole and they know there are no conflicts. The enterprise servers are also certified by Linux vendors such as Redhat or Ubuntu, which means that the OS has been extensively tested on that exact hardware configuration.

 

[ToroidalZeus]

Its not as simple as that. I have been debating a hackintosh vs a mac pro, and when you read posts about people who get their hackintosh's working, its always "Everything works, except for X." X usually seems to be the ability to sleep and wake the computer, wifi, bluetooth, speedstep settings on the processor, audio, etc. If the hardware on the motherboard doesn't exactly line up with what apple puts in their machines, often there are incompatibilities.

I built a working hack.
I ran into 3 issues:

1st was sleep didn't work. This is because I used a i7-5820k CPU which Apple hasn't added support for yet. I hear this issue can be bypassed using an Asus motherboard with EPU or just using a support CPU.

2nd was that graphic drivers would often break when I updated the OS. This is because I was running a GTX 980 which doesn't have built-in Apple drivers. A real Mac Pro would run into this exact same issue

3rd was enabling onboard motherboard audio which was kinda a pain to enable. But it's a moot point if you use let's say HDMI from the graphics card for audio.

On the flip-side there were some great benefits like not caring about boot screen compatible graphic cards. Being able to overclock the CPU. Built in USB 3.0 and SATA 3 support.

In the end I stopped using a hack cuz I mostly game on my desktop and it was a pain to keep switching OSes.

You're simplifying things. There are many other things on a generic motherboard which have the potential to cause instability and incompatibility with OS X. USB chipsets might be different, or Motherboard revisions, or NIC or graphics firmware, disk controllers, on-board audio controllers, realtime clock, or slightly different Thunderbolt controllers.

Your motherboard won't have PRAM or SMC so presumably this is reverse engineered and emulated to some degree of accuracy. You've hacked the bootloader, maybe added third-party drivers and modified builtin ones (For example to enable TRIM on non-Apple SSDs). There is absolutely no way that this can be as reliable as a Mac which has standardised hardware and has been extensively lab tested for hardware interoperability AND had the OS built around it, not shoe-horned in.

Read what I said above and what the other poster said above your comment. The issues were relatively minor and didn't break anything.

At the same time even regular cMP users are upgrading their systems, often with aftermarket parts to make them more viable. They install SATA to PCI adapters to get SATA 3 speeds or USB 3.0. They upgrade CPUs and GPUs to get more performance. And of course they enable TRIM on non Apple SSDs. The notion that Apple rigorously tests OS for it's hardware is completely ********. OS X runs on old school Core 2 Duos to modern broadwell CPUs.

In the end you are still missing the most fundamental point. For 5-6k I could build a 5960X, dual GTX Titan X, NVMe Intel 750 SSD PC that would not only cost 3,000 dollars cheaper than a top of the line Mac Pro but run circles around it in terms of performance.

 

[Stacc]

I built a working hack.
I ran into 3 issues:

1st was sleep didn't work. This is because I used a i7-5820k CPU which Apple hasn't added support for yet. I hear this issue can be bypassed using an Asus motherboard with EPU or just using a support CPU.

2nd was that graphic drivers would often break when I updated the OS. This is because I was running a GTX 980 which doesn't have built-in Apple drivers. A real Mac Pro would run into this exact same issue

3rd was enabling onboard motherboard audio which was kinda a pain to enable. But it's a moot point if you use let's say HDMI from the graphics card for audio.

On the flip-side there were some great benefits like not caring about boot screen compatible graphic cards. Being able to overclock the CPU. Built in USB 3.0 and SATA 3 support.

In the end I stopped using a hack cuz I mostly game on my desktop and it was a pain to keep switching OSes.



Read what I said above and what the other poster said above your comment. The issues were relatively minor and didn't break anything.

At the same time even regular cMP users are upgrading their systems, often with aftermarket parts to make them more viable. They install SATA to PCI adapters to get SATA 3 speeds or USB 3.0. They upgrade CPUs and GPUs to get more performance. And of course they enable TRIM on non Apple SSDs. The notion that Apple rigorously tests OS for it's hardware is completely ********. OS X runs on old school Core 2 Duos to modern broadwell CPUs.

In the end you are still missing the most fundamental point. For 5-6k I could build a 5960X, dual GTX Titan X, NVMe Intel 750 SSD PC that would not only cost 3,000 dollars cheaper than a top of the line Mac Pro but run circles around it in terms of performance.

I am certainly not arguing the benefits of building a Hackintosh. Without a doubt, you can get more performance for less money. The point is that this comes at the cost of reliability and added maintenance. This outweighs the additional performance, especially in a professional environment.

 

[ToroidalZeus]

I am certainly not arguing the benefits of building a Hackintosh. Without a doubt, you can get more performance for less money. The point is that this comes at the cost of reliability and added maintenance. This outweighs the additional performance, especially in a professional environment.

The graphics performance would be over twice as good with 2 Titan Xs over D700s. In a performance environment where time is money that's a HUGE improvement.

as for a reliability and added maintenance point, well that's just why I would just run Windows.

 

[lowendlinux]

Does one have to update though?
Many software application programs things are often not certified on newer OS X versions, and sometimes it takes a while until such certifications comes. Media Composer and ProTools, Avid of course, comes to mind.

I have quite well on 10.8.3 until Yosemite for my new Hack, which is currently on 10.10.2 and whatever Monday shows might be the next update.

Anyway, for a computer at home, a Hackintosh can be quite fine, even for working at home, but never at an office, though I have to admit my Hacks have run more stable than many Mac Pros I had to use, or anything Intel Mac. Hmm, that wine is getttttttt

THis makes me smile because I had to bring my hack to work on Friday so I could continue working because the Mac Pro had issues. I still wouldn't use a Hackintosh at work though.

Its not as simple as that. I have been debating a hackintosh vs a mac pro, and when you read posts about people who get their hackintosh's working, its always "Everything works, except for X." X usually seems to be the ability to sleep and wake the computer, wifi, bluetooth, speedstep settings on the processor, audio, etc. If the hardware on the motherboard doesn't exactly line up with what apple puts in their machines, often there are incompatibilities.

People use linux because there are some cases where using linux is advantageous compared to windows, not to save cost. Any business that needs to use windows but isn't willing to spend $100 on a windows license is a stupid one. The long term costs in terms of additional IT required and loss of productivity is not a good tradeoff.

Everything on mine works as it's supposed to no exceptions.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

In the end you are still missing the most fundamental point. For 5-6k I could build a 5960X, dual GTX Titan X, NVMe Intel 750 SSD PC that would not only cost 3,000 dollars cheaper than a top of the line Mac Pro but run circles around it in terms of performance.

No, I think you're missing the point. This thread is not talking about some adolescent messing around with OS X on a hackintosh for fun. We're talking about a music producer using this in a professional environment where downtime costs a lot of money and most of them don't want to be OS X/Hackintosh support people, they want to earn a living and put together tracks so I have no idea why you keep mentioning graphics cards?

These people are going to spend many thousands on external sound processors, keyboards, synths, mics, studio monitors, mixers, decks. Thousands more again will be spent on software licenses. Even if they only got say Ableton, Pro Tools and a handful of plugins for each you're looking at 2-3k.

Given the total cost of setting yourself up to produce music in a commercial setting, even the $3,000 you mention (which is at the high end of the price differential) is nothing considering the support, stability and peace of mind they get from not getting a hackintosh.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

The notion that Apple rigorously tests OS for it's hardware is completely ********. OS X runs on old school Core 2 Duos to modern broadwell CPUs.

OS X 10.10 was tested for months internally at Apple, presumably across a wide range of hardware, then it spent 5 months being tested by a few hundred thousand developers in the dev program and more than a million end users in the public beta program. You can almost guarantee that it was well tested on every single Mac supported by the OS many times over.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Everything on mine works as it's supposed to no exceptions.

Just curious but does Internet Recovery work?

 

[lowendlinux]

Just curious but does Internet Recovery work?

I'd have to find out. The partition is there so there should be no reason it won't install OSX, booting after install would require intervention obviously. I'll have to play with that on one of my clones.

**edit**

Quick google says it's a go with clover.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Quick google says it's a go with clover.

That's pretty impressive, I think I might have to give clover a go asap.

 

[nigelbb]

2. We could build our own white box servers instead of buying Dell/HP/IBM for much much less, but we don't (and this relates directly) for a number of reasons. The main reasons are support and reliability. If I build my own server and something goes wrong, We are on our own. We have to diagnose the issue and come up with a solution which can be extremely hard. This is an industry where we get client complaints for seconds of downtime. If something goes wrong, i'd rather just call IBM and they will have a tech out in very quickly as per SLA. The other main reason we don't is interoperability of parts. I know that Dell has extensively tested all the hardware in the server as a whole and they know there are no conflicts. The enterprise servers are also certified by Linux vendors such as Redhat or Ubuntu, which means that the OS has been extensively tested on that exact hardware configuration.

THIS neatly highlights all the reasons why you would want to buy a brand name system for a production environment environment. It's not specific to Hackintosh versus real Apple Mac but it's all about reliability & SUPPORT. If you want to save money by rolling your own then fine go ahead but if you are earning money with that system the extra price you pay for a real Apple Mac will be more than worth it for supper & peace of mind.

 

[lowendlinux]

That's pretty impressive, I think I might have to give clover a go asap.

I've never used clover on a hackintosh but I do have a couple clones to play with so I might try too. This is one of those things that could add value to some other not so much. It'll be fun to try though.

 

[Gwendolini]

How easy is clover to use when one has only experience with Unibeast and Multibeast?

 

[JaguarGod]

I have run Hackintosh's since 10.5 (I am now running my actual Mac Pro), though my Brother did help a lot in getting the right components to assure the least hassle after the build. I had pretty good luck over the years with them, but it can be a pain. That's the reason for my switch back to the Mac Pro. I wanted to be able to run Yosemite and upgrade when I want to with no hassle. There's a lot of info on building and maintaining your Hackintosh through TonyMacx86 and other sites, but I just got tired of it.

 

[ToroidalZeus]

How easy is clover to use when one has only experience with Unibeast and Multibeast?

pretty easy.

 

[Gwendolini]

pretty easy.

Any guides you can recommend?

 

[grame]

This is by far and away the easiest way to install Yosemite although you need a Mac: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/304256-new-way-to-install-os-x-yosemite-v3/
The best way is to install it is to connect your SSD drive to your Mac, do the install, put the drive into your Hack, boot it, then choose the DMG download appropriate for your CPU (mine was the Haswell DMG) and follow the instructions therein from here: http://www.rampagedev.com/?page_id=144

This was amazingly easy and quick for me.

I also added a GTX960 and 4K to mine.