u/Ok_Contribution5654

At the moment, my 2023 MB Air M3 with 24gb often hits the processor wall.

My sessions aren’t heavy on software instruments, though most have Steven Slate Drums (rarely Output synth, rarely Spitfire strings or brass) - it’s almost all audio. Lots of guitar but amp sims done outside the box and printed so don’t load the Mac.

I do use a lot of native UAD, FabFilter, a bit of waves, some logic plugs: every track has a strip and a Studer on it, a fair amount will have an 1176/pro-Q, de-esser, etc. The 2-bus typically has some light G-bus comp and an Ampex, VSX, plus metering like AB ADAPTRetc. I might have between 40-60 tracks total - so enough but not insane.

I suspect it’s not RAM that’s causing the hangs, but processor. So I’m speccing a new machine:

- M5 pro, 15/16 core
- 48 Gb RAM
- 1tb SSD (my instrument libraries are on external drives)

Obviously that’s a lot of machine, but is it reasonably future proof for a mainly-audio-with-native-plugins workflow? I don’t want to spend more with prices what they are, but if I have to, I have to.

Disclaimer: I adore The Wire, I think Simon did something generationally great, I have no beef with Clark Johnson, and I am overall a massive fan.

But.

The tendency of American journalists to wank frantically while thinking about themselves is pretty much proverbial, right? They all seem to have this Menckenish insistence on seeing themselves as vital and brave truth-tellers, cornerstones of The American Experiment, Woodward and Bernstein even when writing about a Hemsworth ball wax in the National Enquirer. But even by their own high standards, I’m not sure I can think of another example of a journalist so shamelessly blowing smoke up his own arse as David Simon in creating the character of Gus Haynes. Such noble! Many integrity! Deep sacrifice! It’s significantly more annoying to me than McNulty’s s5 arc, and that’s quite a bar to clear.

I love The Wire’s season-by-season focus on institutions, but it’s hard not to see s5 as Simon giving his own a huge pass. Everyone but Templeton and the corporate bosses is presented as incredibly articulate, incredibly decent, incredibly principled, incredibly admirable. The failings of the legacy media are all laid at the door of interlopers - it’s No True Scotsman: they’re not REAL newspapermen, and if the paper were left to the REAL newspapermen, democracy and the American Way would be in peachy shape. At least in the docks, the police, the schools, you’ve got a realistic mix of good people trying their best in impossible circumstances along with a number of scumbags, weaklings and idiots: Colicchio, Steintorf, Herc, the Puzzle Palace folk, Carcetti eventually. At the Sun, the scumbags are all outsiders forced on saintly Gus by nasty consumerism.

Anyway. I really dislike the character. I can’t see him as anything but a cipher - and it sticks out like a sore thumb in a show like this.

Let the downvotes begin…

Hi all - I’m doing a mod project - a Player II Jaguar, with a Super Distortion at the bridge, a Creamery WRHB at the neck, and a kill switch. I’ve found what I think is a suitable guard, but I have a question:

Does anyone know if I’ll have any issues putting an American Jag guard on an MIM Player II, purely in terms of bridge post holes and neck pocket cutout.

I don’t care about screw holes - I can easily fill and re-drill the body. I’m buying the upper and lower switch plates separately and routing the necessary cavities. I only care that the thing will actually go on the body without too much PITA.

Thanks!