Using the Kona as a System Audio Device
by Sean ONeil
on
May 14, 2008 at 8:10:15 pm
Can anyone tell me if it's safe to do this? What if I'm mastering a tape with Final Cut, and a system sound occurs (new email, for example). Will that sound end up on the tape if I have the Kona set to be the Mac audio device?
Re: Using the Kona as a System Audio Device by Jeremy Garchow on May 14, 2008 at 8:30:37 pm
Yes it will. I never run System Sounds through the Kona for that and other reasons. Simply take the headphone out of your Mac and run that to your mixer if you need to listen to system sounds through your audio monitors.
Re: Using the Kona as a System Audio Device by Sean ONeil on May 14, 2008 at 8:37:15 pm
Thanks, good to know. My Mac is in a machine room, so running an extra audio cable is not cool. But I can get a USB audio adapter and that will suffice.
The black one you see listed a lot are the ones I'm using. They work with most equipment. Not all. Some monitors don't like it. Some graphics cards (port 2 on an X1900xt for example) don't like it.
Gefen and others make much more expensive extenders. But people have similar problems with those as well. For me it was worth testing the cheap ones first.
Re: Using the Kona as a System Audio Device by Sean ONeil on May 16, 2008 at 2:13:26 am
The email thing was simply an example of an unexpected system sound that could occur. For anyone who has to ask, I wouldn't recommend running any program whatsoever during ETT.
That said, a person with experience who understands their system well is free to do whatever works for him or her. The mantra of not running other programs is old wisdom. Emphasis on the word "old." Newer machines have multiple processors, faster busses, etc. So it's generally not a problem. More importantly, during ETT, the RS422 deck control will report any dropped frames. So if something goes wrong, you'll always know about it.
Sometimes you have to put things in perspective. Open up the Activity Monitor and look at all the background services and other things going on. If you have Xsan, or software RAID, TCP polling activity, etc. - all that stuff is far more disruptive than receiving a new email notification. There was a time in the Media 100 days where I had to turn File Sharing off. I highly doubt that most people are that paranoid now using modern tools. There's nothing wrong with being too careful. But there's also nothing wrong with working within the limits of your own personal expertise on what your system can and can't handle.
Re: Using the Kona as a System Audio Device by Arnie Schlissel on May 16, 2008 at 4:23:12 pm
[Sean ONeil]"That said, a person with experience who understands their system well is free to do whatever works for him or her."
I certainly agree with you there. I've always felt that it serves my interests to know what the limits of my system are.
To be fair, I've occasionally forgotten to turn off any number of programs that were open when I was ready to stop logging & start digitizing. I don't recall that it ever effected me on my G5. But when I was running FCP on a single G4 400, I got in the habit of shutting off the networking when digitizing & laying off because it occasionally did cause dropped frames.
Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
http://www.arniepix.com/
