Topic: all right...help needed...NEW MAC Owner...now what?

[tivva]

 >:Hi all....hope there are some MAC folks here.....need some help figuring out MAC audio and don't want to have to remortgage my house to do it? Any & ALL Suggestions welcome....Thanks.....

pax...
paul

aka tivva

[achalsey]

Audacity is a basic free editing software.  Can be used for 90% of the whole post production process on a mac.  Editing/tracking/flac encoding.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/


xACT works for fixing SBE for 16 bit, flac encoding, checksums, MP3, flac tagging, ect...
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/14246/xact


I use Transmission for my BT client
http://www.transmissionbt.com/

[page]

Audacity is a basic free editing software.  Can be used for 90% of the whole post production process on a mac.  Editing/tracking/flac encoding.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/


xACT works for fixing SBE for 16 bit, flac encoding, checksums, MP3, flac tagging, ect...
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/14246/xact


I use Transmission for my BT client
http://www.transmissionbt.com/

basically that's the cheapest (and probably most effective) way to do it.

I use Reaper because it has much better VST support (but if that's not a requirement, it's not worth the learning curve) for all of my mixing/edits. Audacity for tracking on CD boundaries, and I used the flac command line tool for a long time (now I use XACT for a couple of reasons). When I was torrenting stuff off of my mac, I used Transmission and definitely recommend it.

[stepeanut]

Long-time Mac user here.

The basics -- Audacity, xACT -- have been covered already.  I use both.

I don't like Transmission for my BT client; it's too basic.  I prefer Vuze (formally Azureus).  People say it's a resource hog, but any new Mac should be able to handle it with ease.

The nearest equivalent to EAC is XLD:

http://tmkk.pv.land.to/xld/index_e.html

Cog is a simple, yet decent, lossless playback app:

http://cogx.org/

As long as you're not looking to use it as a permanent music library, a la iTunes, it's fine.

I'm on the move just now.  I'll check my machines when I get home, see if there's anything else useful lurking in my apps folder.

[page]

The nearest equivalent to EAC is XLD:

I forgot about XLD (which is awesome sauce).

I use Songbird for flac/ogg playback, but it's not fantastic.

[bryonsos]

I forgot about XLD (which is awesome sauce).

I use Songbird for flac/ogg playback, but it's not fantastic.

I like Songbird. You can control it with your iPhone/Pod through wifi.

X2 on Audacity and xACT.

I use uTorrent, it's simple enough that I only fudge things up once in awhile.

[tivva]

thanks for all the help so far....Interesting reading.....One thing I forgot to mention is that, My MAC is running Mountain Lion X.8...(The Newest version.from what I've read it's a lil different, from previous releases.....

Please keep the replies coming....Your help is most appreciated...

pax...
tiv

[stepeanut]

I have a June 2012 MBP, and just upgraded to Mountain Lion over the weekend.  OS X is generally about incremental refinements, rather than reinventing the wheel every time.  All my apps work as they did under Lion.  (My first MBP is still running strong on Leopard.)

@ bryonsos: is the latest version of uTorrent for Mac worth a damn?  Traditionally, the Mac version has lagged way behind its Windows equivalent.  Older iterations of the Mac version are banned on some trackers, including Dime, as they do not relay accurate stats, and are generally very buggy.

[bryonsos]

I have a June 2012 MBP, and just upgraded to Mountain Lion over the weekend.  OS X is generally about incremental refinements, rather than reinventing the wheel every time.  All my apps work as they did under Lion.  (My first MBP is still running strong on Leopard.)

@ bryonsos: is the latest version of uTorrent for Mac worth a damn?  Traditionally, the Mac version has lagged way behind its Windows equivalent.  Older iterations of the Mac version are banned on some trackers, including Dime, as they do not relay accurate stats, and are generally very buggy.

Honestly, I'm a torrent newb, I figured out how to use uTorrent and just ran with it. I haven't a had any problems with it for BT or TTD. Dime is a different story. Having said that, I'm open to other options.

[stepeanut]

Honestly, I'm a torrent newb, I figured out how to use uTorrent and just ran with it. I haven't a had any problems with it for BT or TTD. Dime is a different story. Having said that, I'm open to other options.

Try Vuze:

http://www.vuze.com/

I guess I'm what you might call a power-Vuzer.  I'm a member of all the major trackers, and I'm generally running multiple torrents, downloading and uploading, 24/7.  My first MBP rarely gets switched off, which is why I bought a second machine.  There have been a couple of issues with Vuze over the years, but I prefer it to the competition, for the level of control it gives me.

I used Transmission for a while, during one of Vuze's blips, and didn't like it.

I downloaded a beta version of uTorrent a couple of years ago, and deleted it the same day.  It may have improved since then, I don't know.

[page]

My instance of Transmission (2.5x branch) started to lag with about 600 torrents, maybe 700. Above that point, you end up switching to rtorrent if your going to be seeding/downloading >1000 torrents. Thats the only thing I know that can handle that many without really breaking a sweat. What you get in power you trade in user-friendliness though.

edit: the only 2 things I miss on Transmission are a "Move On Complete" option (based on watch folder) and the ability to control chunk size when making the torrent.

[scb]

first suggestion: don't call it a MAC

[greenone]

My instance of Transmission (2.5x branch) started to lag with about 600 torrents, maybe 700.

  Six HUNDRED torrents? Jesus, man...I get twitchy when I've got more than a dozen or so.

[page]

My instance of Transmission (2.5x branch) started to lag with about 600 torrents, maybe 700.

  Six HUNDRED torrents? Jesus, man...I get twitchy when I've got more than a dozen or so.

yeah, I've pushed it to just over 600 before and thats when I noticed it. I had a couple 1TB drives so I would keep everything around and just shut down Transmission when I wasn't actively downloading something. Next day I'd say "ooo, I want that" and start it back up to get something else (and seed everything I had gotten previously). Actually, with that many announce sequences, it starts to do low-level bandwidth absorption and thats when I really noticed it.

[thunderbolt]

X3 for Audacity and xACT.  It's free, it works, and as others have said, it'll accomplish 99% of what I need to do.  I'm running a MBP, Lion 10.7.4.