E-MU 1820 Soundcard on Hackintosh

[korakas]

hi everyone, :)
i'm new here and a newbie in the mac stuff. So i'd like some info, until now i've been using windows xp and the e-mu 1820 soundcard flawlessly, but because i'm tired of windows instability, i'm considering on turning my pc into a hackintosh system. My question is, will my e-mu 1820 soundcard work on my hackintosh?
is there any driver i could use to make it work? :Dsince as far as i know there are no e-mu drivers for osx:'(. In the future i'm planning to buy a real mac, but because my budget is very low at this time, i cannot afford it, that's why i'm thinking this alternative choice.
this is my system configuration in case it is needed:
Intel Quad core Q9300 2.5GHz
Asus P5E mobo
Asus EAH 3870 X2 GPU
4 Hard Disks, 2 Western Digital Raptor and 2 Seagate Barracuda
E-MU 1820 Soundcard

Thanks in advance for any availiable info and sorry for my bad English:)
Cheers:)

[naquaada]

Hello! Welcome in the forum, enjoy your stay! :D

Unfortunately I have to inform you that your EMU 1820 is not supported on the Mac :-( I think that's because it neeeds an additional PCI card, and especially the Intel-Macs don't support PCI anymore (OSx86 does). For older interfaces like the RME Hammerfall 9636 were only PowerPC drivers available. I'm now using M-Audio USB/Firewire interfaces (I have three), they're perfectly supported on the Mac. M-Audio Interfaces are also interesting because you also can use ProTools M-Powered with them, no other interface is able to run ProTools. And with less than 300 USD ProTools M-Powered is an effordable sequenzer. I'm working with Logic 8 and Amadeus Pro, an easy-to-use multitrack-capable wave editor.

The rest of your hardware should be OK for OSx86, but I'm not the guy who can help you with Intel hardware. I would say, test OSx86 on your computer, especially before planning to buy a real Mac. Perhaps you don't like OS X at all. If you like it and want to change you have to change the audio interface. A device which could match the E-MU 1820 is the M-Audio ProFire 610 (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/ProFire610.html). I'm owning the ProFire Lightbridge (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/ProFireLightbridge.html) and the USB Transit (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit.html) as replacement for the onboard-sound which is often rather crappy and only in 48 kHz/16bit. Although OS X handles audio much better than Windows: In Cubase with ASIO I had a combined input and output latency of about one second. So it was impossible to play an virtual instrument with a keyboard using gameport MIDI. In OS X I used the same onboard chip, an external midi interface and the programm Mainstage, a part of the Logic package which can play EXS24 instruments, similar to VST instruments. But there was no latency! OS X doesn't need this ASIO stuff, it uses CoreAudio and CoreMIDI which is already a part of the operating system, so it's much faster. The OS also supports AU's (Audio units), something like VST plugins, directly. Often plugins are available as AU and VST at the same time.

From where are you? If you have problems with English, we have a lot of members from all over the world.

[korakas]

Hello naquaada! :)
and thanks for the warm welcoming and for all your info, it's been really helpfull:D
i've did a little snooping around for my emu 1820 and i found this http://www.gamingheaven.net/mac-os-x-driver/173385-os-x-driver-1-2b1-beta.html
but as it is stated in the comments there it is not fully funcional yet.Have you tried it by the way?:D Anyway i may give it a try, just for testing, and you are right i really need a new sound card if i buy a mac in the future, which is more likely^_^.
Also i will try osx on my system, i believe i'll be amazed, cause i've seen it runing on a mac book air, of a friend of mine , who is also into computer music and has switched to a mac from pc.In a few words the os is outstanding compared to windows.
i agree with everything you say about the stability and simplicity of the osx platform. It's you communicating with the hardware, not you,communicating with some programmes first and then the hardware, as it is in windows.Not to mention, e.g. Logic and Digital Performer which are great DAWS.That's why i really wanna get into the mac world.
So if i may ask one more question:
I've been looking around the M audio pro 610 you mentioned and also the profire 2626 and they are veeeery interesting!:D.
Honestly i'm intending to buy a new soundcard which has cross platform compatibility, once i gother up the amount of money needed. And here comes my question, up to now i have three soundcards, the E-MU 1820 which i'm using,an M Audio Delta 1010lt and an older Terratec Aureon 7.1 external firewire.
All of these soundcards support up to 7.1 surround sound monitoring and playback, which is a main feature i'm looking for, since i mostly do film scoring. but the problem is that NONE of them will ever work with a hackintosh or a future macintosh system:'(
So my question is, do the M Audio profire 610 or the profire 2626 support surround sound monitoring and playback? (up to 7.1 would be great!:D) Also one other soundcard i've looked and found it interesting is the Focusrite Saffire pro 40, here is the link
http://www.focusrite.com/products/saffire/saffire_pro_40/
What's your opinion about this soundcard? Do you happen to know if it's working on hackintosh also?
Thanks again for all your effort and sorry for my long post, but i'm a complete newbie in this stuff:(
As for my English it's been a while since i last practiced them, that's why i apologise once more if it's bad :-) Oh, by the way i'm from Greece, and you?:)
Thanks again for everything, cheers!:)

[naquaada]

I'm from Germany, you can read it at the top right in every post. You also could add your country in the settings, also add your system specs in your signature. It's useful if everyone could see what hardware you are using if there are some problems. But I searched a bit and your board seems to be fully supported, also the Radeon HD3870X2. If it works so good as my HD2600XT then you'll also have Dual-Monitor and TV-Out support.

My first audio interface was a RME Hammerfall 9636 which had no support for Intel-Macs, so I sold it for about 150 Euro on ebay. You'll still get a lot of money for professional audio hardware. So if you want to sell one or mode of your cards you'll get the money for a new one for sure. What you're buying for a audio interface depends on the feature you need and the hardware you have. The ProFire 610 and the Saffire Pro 40 are interfaces which are working directly, you need no external converter, but you have less channels. The ProFire Lightbridge allows 36 channels (http://naquaada.na.funpic.de/naq/osx86/forum/infinitemac/naquaada/pix/audio_settings_full.jpg) which should be enough for everything. But it needs external ADAT converters which produce extra costs. I'm using a Creamware A16 which provides 16 channels (up to 48 kHz) on only 1 HE, the A16plus also allows 8 channels up to 96 kHz. I must admit, I never haeard about from the company Focusrite. I've chosen M-Audio because it is the only way to use ProTools - A real Protools system using Digidesign hardware is a tiny little bit more expensive :D

Surround mustn't be supported specially by the interface when you're not using constumer stuff. But if you have an audio interface with at least 8 analog channels you can route the outputs to a 7.1 surround formation. The conversion to Surround or AC3 format is only done by software. But if you're working with movie scoring and you want to create DVDs later you maybe pay a little more for your audio interfaces because DVDs should use 96 or 192 kHz. I have no experience in surround, my ALC850 onboard audio also allows a setup of 6 channels (5.1) but I never tested it.

If you work with film stuff, take a look at Final Cut and Soundtrack Pro which is included in the Final Cut package (50 GB size). Logic needs about 80 GB, so a big harddisk is useful. A harddisk I can recommend is the Samsung HD103UJ - 1 TB size. It's amazing fast, absolutely quiet and cool, max temperature 37°C. You can touch and carry these things after hours of running. Costs: about 70-80 Euro in Germany.

[korakas]

Naquaada thank you very much for your support, it'been really useful! :-) Due to some i have to do these days i don't have much time to install osx, but i've already downloaded two OSX dvds, and they are paitently waiting to get into my pc :-) (testing one at the time ofcourse). As fo soundcard i'm considering on buying thej profire 610 or 2626, since as i've seen m audio soundcards are certain to work under most used platforms,OSX, Linux and Windows . If there is anything i could do to help you with something, let me know, thanks again,Cheers ! :-)

[naquaada]

No problem. I'd like to have a special part for guys who do professional music and video editing in here to exchange knowledge and so.

[pakos69]

Sorry if I bump this old subject but I'm a newbie on this forum and I have a question:
Is it possible to run OSX on a PC and then be able to run programs originally created for MacS like ProTools or Logic on your "PC" system?
Thanks!