A Good Day To Buy
The external 4TB LaCie USB3 drive.I completed the purchase and the delivery date was 6th March 2020. The external LaCie drive arrived the following day.
I wanted a wired internet connection and the modem is in my son’s bedroom next door (he’s a gamer), so I needed a long 15-metre ethernet cable and a hole in the wall. My monitor screens have the old VGA connectors, the ones with the screw connections. I couldn’t justify buying new monitors and anyway they do the job. But I did have to consider how to connect them.
Apple Support pointed out that there were two HDMI ports on my new Mac Pro and HDMI to VGA adaptors would be the way to go. So I ordered the adaptors which arrived three or four days later and all I had to do was wait for the March 6th… oh, and drill that hole.
Awaiting delivery, the author/producer Paul Baggott about to start drilling the hole for his ethernet cable.About that hole… 15 minutes should do it, I reckoned. Drill a hole through 10cm of plasterboard partition wall, no problem. What I had forgotten was that my studio is in an extension and the wall between my room and my son’s used to be an outside wall made of breeze block — the hardest bricks in the world. It was 32cm thick.
My sharp drill bit was too short; my long drill bit was too blunt, and the cavity was filled with polystyrene flakes that constantly blocked the hole. Anyway, five hours later it was done. Not the best way to spend a birthday!
Delivery & Unpacking
I should have been excited about my new studio, but I wasn’t. I was apprehensive. I had built a couple of studios around computers in the last 10 or 11 years and I remembered how it can be a very time-consuming, costly and stressful process. My apprehension was well placed...
Apple sent me a new delivery date of 2nd March 2020. In fact, it arrived four days earlier than that which was good but there was no notification and it was fortunate that someone was at home to accept it. It’s not really something that can be left with a neighbour or thrown over the fence.
The Mac Pro comes in a well-padded box like this one, complete with external Velcro straps for easy access.The packaging was well up to Apple standard — solid and huge. The outer box had a worryingly damaged corner but there seemed to be plenty of protection underneath. Getting it upstairs required a great amount of effort.
There was a tab that, when pulled, separated the upper half from the lower half of the brown outer box. When removed it revealed a solid-looking white box. On either side were two strong straps. These were velcro fasteners keeping the top half of the box attached to the bottom.
Credit should go to Apple for the packaging. The empty box itself weighs 11.5kg on its own and is built like a tank. I saw a YouTube video from a security camera of an unfortunate delivery guy who, whilst struggling to carry one of these things up someone’s driveway, accidentally dropped it. Then proceeded to roll it, end over end, the rest of the way! Though it was painful to watch I have no doubt the Mac inside would have been perfectly well protected by the sturdy packaging, having now seen it up close for myself.
As I lifted it out, the new Mac Pro's handles proved to be a great improvement on the palm shredders of my old Mac. It actually weighed less too, which was a surprise. I derive a strange pleasure removing the plastic film used to protect shiny surfaces and there was plenty of it. The sides, the top and even the bottom was covered with the stuff.
The Mac Pro's Bluetooth wireless keyboard, mouse and accessories.The Bluetooth keyboard, with it’s wirelessness and portability, would be useful to me when recording vocals. The mouse was black with the Apple logo surprisingly un-noticeable. The power supply had a reassuringly long and sturdy cable and the handbook was a stylish piece of design with no apparent use.
Not really sure about the visual design. Apple seem to have embraced the ‘cheesegrater’ label and really run with it. I was reminded of a ‘spiraliser’ with the overlapping double-layered circles. In the end, how it looks doesn’t really matter, it’s how it works that’s important.
Setting Up
On moving the Mac Pro into my studio (lovely handles) it wouldn’t fit under my desk because of a shelf. But as it turned out, that was the least of my up-and-coming problems...
Eight years is a very long time when it comes to the development of music hardware and software. I had anticipated this but really, I had no idea. I plugged it in. I attached the HDMI to VGA adapters, then pressed the power switch. Nothing happened. The screens remained black.
After a moment of panic I could see the Mac was on. A light shone on top. But it was eerily quiet. My old Mac was very noisy towards the end. My son gratefully inherited it and, when the graphics card failed three days later, he showed me the vast amounts of dust rolling around inside which would have explained the overworked, dust-clogged fans creating the noise.
I realised the HDMI to VGA adaptors were the problem and that I really should move away from the old VGA screens anyway. My wife was very understanding and so I ordered two more monitors which came two days later. I used the time to tidy and streamline things in the studio.
The screens arrived, were plugged in and all ready to go. The booting-up time was quicker than my old Mac Pro but I was slightly disappointed, being under the impression it would be almost instantaneous. However, this disappointment paled into insignificance when I realised and remembered my Apollo audio interface had Firewire 800 connections and the Mac Pro didn’t. Its main ports are Thunderbolt 3.
I had really tried hard to think of everything when putting together a studio based on previous experience but I had already missed two vital issues with peripherals. You can’t get more vital than the interface! Or more expensive. But the last time I even thought about interface connections was eight years ago, so I consoled myself with that thought.
The Apple representative, for once, didn’t have a solution other than buying a new Thunderbolt audio interface. I asked about adaptors from Thunderbolt 3 to Firewire 800. She couldn’t help but passed me on to a senior rep. He suggested that an adaptor from Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2, then from Thunderbolt 2 to Firewire might be a solution. But in his words, it would be like a house cat talking to a lion.
And You'll Need One Of These, Sir...
I checked online for Thunderbolt 3 interfaces other than UAD Apollos and found there are very few. All of them costing much more than I/we could afford.
I was on the verge of returning the Mac Pro and cruely snatching back my old machine from my son to upgrade it, when my mother offered to buy a new interface for me as an early (or late) Christmas present.
My old Apollo Duo had eight inputs and I used all of them. The cheapest Thunderbolt 3 Apollo had two less inputs and cost more. Six inputs would do though — beggars can’t be choosers. So I opted for an Apollo X6.
My new screens had much taller stands than the old ones. The latter sit on a raised shelf that houses the old interface, which in turn sits on another shelf that stretches across the length of the room. It wasn’t long before I was getting a crick in my neck looking up at the screens. So I used the two days waiting for the Apollo interface to arrive to change the shelving arrangement.
Frustratingly, it had been five days since the Mac Pro arrived and I hadn’t yet been able to test it properly. The internet connection was fast though which was encouraging.
On the seventh day the interface arrived and I hooked it up. Unfortunately, the Mac refused to ‘see’ the interface in System Preferences. So I enlisted my son, whose patience with Googling far outstrips mine. He found out that ‘Catalina 10.15 is not yet fully tested with UAD software’. Things were going from bad to worse!
After hours of us trying to get the Mac Pro to accept the interface in System Preferences it came down to a small greyed out sentence on a deeply-hidden page saying ‘This UAD interface is being blocked by Apple’. 'Why?' was my initial frustrated response. Why would a professional piece of equipment block another piece of professional equipment?
It was a simple matter of unlocking Preferences, clicking the option and then locking again. Once done, the sound that emerged through my speakers was impressive. Maybe it was the relief of actually getting them to work that made the difference but I don’t think so. I remember my old Apollo Duo instantly sounding better than my even older MOTU interface. Now the new Apollo X6 definitely sounded better than the old Duo. Progress.
The new Apollo has two preamp/mic inputs, my old Apollo had four. I have three mics: one for vocals, one for acoustic guitar and one for occasional recordings of other acoustic instruments. These were easily accommodated by the old Apollo Duo. The fourth preamp input was used for a direct-injected bass guitar.
With two fewer mic inputs on the new Apollo X6, the mic used for occasional acoustic instruments could share the vocal mic’s cable leaving the acoustic guitar cable untouched.
My electric guitar goes through a Line 6 Pod, and used to have a stereo output but it would now have to be mono. The bass would have to go through a Bass Pod, which I almost sold but thankfully didn’t.
The remaining two inputs are from a mixer servicing two playback machines. The mixer does offer solutions should I need more inputs. I could have used the two Hi Z inputs on the front panel for my guitars but it would involve too much plugging and unplugging for my liking.
Though the microphones powered up successfully and worked well with the Apollo X6, try as I might I could not get the guitars to record. I contacted support.