Garritan Personal Orchestra, Power Requirements Options

[fastlanephil]

I'm just starting to learn GPO and have a iBook G4 933 booting from a Lacie 80 GB 7200 HD using Metro 6.2. I was quite depressed when first putting down some midi tracks and it choked after three tracks. But if you use the dry samples the cpu usage is much, much lower. It makes it quite usable and I can add reverb with my nanoverb when I move my tracks to audio. But those new iMac G5s sure look nice don't they.

[Jaysee]

Hi, 'fraid this post sees me veering slightly off topic in my usual meandering way, but all this talk of harp glissandi took me back 20-25 years to when I was a music student at the R.N.C.M. '80 to'84. My then girlfriend, whos principal study was piano, was a product of the specialist music school Cheetams in Manchester(Chets) which she attended as a boarder from the age of *seven* to eighteen! Strangely, that school seems to turn out a steady stream of prodigeously talented technically superb young instrumentalists, supremely confident of their own talent, well.. until their first inevitable lambasting as the latest generation of critic cannon fodder There are a lot of 'players' but sadly few real but very few of what I would term musicians. (she could sight read and instantly memorise proverbial 'fly shit' or 'squeaky gate' contemporary music, all 'hard quantised' into muscle memory until perfect...All the humanity and feeling of that mad piano roll mechanical sequencer pioneer Conlon Nancarrow, and his completely crazy 'player' piano/pianola compositions which sound like Oscar Peterson having a bad acid trip!! hehe. The young classical soloist obviously has yet to experience life, so they have to emulate their elders performances, but second hand emotion aint the same as subjectively experiencing a life! So they play brillianly but with nothing from the heart, only the head, ie coldly clinical precision, quite sterile. my girlfriend admitted that she felt too exposed and self conscious to play any romantic repertoire which calls for genuine emotional input from the performer; Chopin, Beethoven or Tchaikowsky etc left her unmoved.
I guess such intensive competition driven schooling breeds a "classical music is uncool" attitude in its students, I imagined that the RNCM would be an exciting melting pot of fabulously gifted young musos just burning to explore and play with each other. sorry, er.... that came out wrong.... accurate though! (smirk, 'very fine college the RNCM)

That brings me neatly back from my misty eyed digression to er...OK here we go: *HARPS AND HARPISTS*! Apparently a certain 6th form female harp student at Cheetams was popular with her male suitors because she could hide 'Casanova' in her voluminous harp case if their nuptials were interupted by a nosey member of staff on night patrol!!

There, thats it I'm afraid....., actually, back to the Garritan set, I bought the Garritan PO wa-a-ay back in march I think, but I still havent played with or even heard it as I want to put off installation until the G5 2GHz with a 20" 'new style' flat display eventually arrives. I ordered the G5 back in bloody april or may!! together with audio and midi interfaces, a pair of active Tapco S5 monitors and little 6 ch. Tapco mixer, MOTU's DP4 and a lastly a Kurzweil 2661. Even *THAT* hasnt got here yet!! (petulant sulk) That damned computer will be obsolete before I get my hands on it....never mind, patience is a virtue as they say.
regards, Jaysee