How To Build A Thunderbolt Audio Production Hackintosh

[@lhommenrouge]

it's quite rare to see such video based on audio production. Well done, nice presentation

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Thanks, I hope it helps :)

[@Cmyth]

It's awesome seeing people still Hackintoshing for music production in 2023. I just setup my first ever fully functioning Hackintosh thanks to the Dortania guide. May not have the low power-draw of the silicon macs, but at least its just as powerful and upgradable!

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Yup gotta love the upgradability and pretty much unlimited storage and Ram!

[@makegamemusic]

I am seriously thinking of doing this to replace my 2013 iMac, mainly so I can use Windows for some dev stuff on another partition. Thank you for the excellent tutorial man, very much appreciated!

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Go for it! I’m glad the tutorial helped 😀

[@Weston_Guidero]

Good to know that the thunderbolt 3 to 2 adapters work fine on a hackintosh build. I'm about to make my old pc into one soon. Running a GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 MB with a built in TB3 port, 1060 ti 6GB ram & vengeance 64GB DDR4 3200mhz. Thanks for this!

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Yes and it’s great to know that you can use the cheaper Apple adapters. I heard they wouldn’t work so annoyingly bought the Startech one first 😏 Good luck on your hackintosh journey!

[@Weston_Guidero]

@@GreenEngineRecording ah yeah thats the one i bought; startech. Has been working great on windows for me for 7years now. You're saying that one does work? And thank you!

[@GreenEngineRecording]

@westonguidero both work :)

[@natefromdetroit]

You were great in Chronicles of Narnia

[@GreenEngineRecording]

😂 that’s a blast from the past!

[@ravitube1000]

wow..very nice video fro hackintosh build.. still need more videos for hackintosh build in step by step...so that it will be very useful for newcomers.... thanks..

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Glad you enjoyed it! Yes I struggled so much to find a video with a full guide so figured I had to make my own to help others :)

[@julian.morgan]

Found this video because I'm just about to build another hackintosh, having built quite a few previously, and this motherboard (AsRock z490 phantom gaming ITX/TB3) has Thunderbolt so I'm trying to understand Thunderbolt on hackintosh better. I just wanted to say that I'd urge anyone who doesn't have precisely this hardware to put the time in to following the Dortania guide from start to finish. The people who wrote it develop Opencore and they strongly recommend people do not use configurators, because they can corrupt .config files and are rarely current with latest Opencore releases. IOW all the real work has been done by the Opencore guys (just two or three guys these days) and those working on the critical kexts. These are all open source and free, along with everything else you need- so be wary of people profiting from other people's work, especially as they very rarely credit them properly. For more recent versions of MacOS you're going to also need to map your USB ports prior to installation - this is most easily done in Windows with USB Map Tool - the advantage of this is that even if you happen to have exactly the same motherboard and CPU, you are unlikely to have the same case and therefore not the same front panel IO coming from the internal motherboard headers. It also allows you to decide for yourself which of the 15 ports you want to keep, and which you don't need. That's a very personal thing so much better to "roll your own". I'm glad using someone else's EFI worked for you - my experience has been that every time I've tried this "short cut" I've ended up wasting hours compared to just methodically building my own from scratch. Also of course when something breaks (and it will) I'm better placed to figure out why. Cheers

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Thanks for your comment. Yep totally if you have the time and wherewithal then it’s probably a good idea to build your own EFI, and as you say you’re in a better position to fix things if they go wrong :) The EFI file I refer to is constantly being updated and also being given away for free, so if want to get there quicker and have these components I recommend this to get you up and running with at least pain as possible. Good luck on your thunderbolt journey :)

[@robertchamberlin2362]

Awesome Video !!!

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Thanks Robert. Glad you enjoyed it :)

[@sergekronz]

My Mac Pro 2009 is having trouble running some virtual instruments, so I am pleased I saw your video because a Mac Pro 2019 is far too expensive. The only trouble I have is that all the parts you have in your build are quite expensive, could you propose a cheaper alternative that still supports PCIe cards and Thunderbolt. Also, would a firewire card work for my UAD2 Satellite ? Thank you for sharing this video which will allow me, as a hobby musician carry on having fun.

[@GreenEngineRecording]

You can build it cheaper but may struggle with the thunderbolt. You could look for the micro ATX but you’re gonna get less pci and ram slots. Unfortunately UAD dropped support for FireWire after Catalina so if your satellite will be useless if you go past that OS. A FireWire card will still work with other stuff, just not UAD 😩

[@goldtonestudio4471]

Great video! Don't forget, you can daisy chain Firewire through Thunderbolt like I do too!! I have a Midas VF-32 with Firewire 32 ins and outs and I have a Quantum 4848 with Thunderbolt 2 and I Aggregate them together in Mac OS to get 64 ins and outs!!

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Yes! Unfortunately you can’t combine a Apollo thunderbolt and FireWire in the same setup though, they don’t keep sync

[@K.Huynh.]

Thank for sharing

[@GreenEngineRecording]

No problem

[@hallmt]

I can tell by the music this is the vid I was looking for. I am just using a scarlet 2i2 and I want to be able to use mac logic X AND reaper on PC. I don’t think I need to do this, but this… this my dude over here.

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Glad you enjoyed it! As the scarlet is usb and you don’t have to worry about thunderbolt you’ll have a much easier time getting a hackintosh up and running. Good luck on your journey 🤠

[@hallmt]

@@GreenEngineRecording I have a what would you do question… I have a MacBook that is late 2011 that won’t upgrade OS - however the battery bloated and I got a new battery at the Mac store for the danger and trouble lol - can I stick an SSD and whatever else in that thing and keep cruising or should I let it go? I can’t run GarageBand with my old OS and it’s sooooo slow. But the ports man… it has ports! I don’t want / can’t afford a new one with the stupid two USB C setup

[@GreenEngineRecording]

I still have a laptop from 2011 where I switched out the HDD fit an SSD and upgraded the ram. Very simple upgrade and it’s still running strong on El Capitan. I’ve recorded 24tracks live to it but haven’t tried mixing. Depending on how many plugins you use it might be fine for your needs. Either way it’s good to keep the old macs going. That laptop is a lot more rugged than the 2015 one I have!

[@GreenEngineRecording]

I would upgrade with the following amzn.to/3Io3bhl amzn.to/3xmHic3 to get the most out of your Macbook Pro :)

[@hallmt]

@@GreenEngineRecording for the price - worth a shot! Thank you man! I’m not worthy!

[@adirondackcarfoundry368]

This looks like a great way to get me back into a decent Mac for production. How well do you think this setup would fare with video editing? Any suggestions to put it in 4k territory? Thanks for posting this.

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Yes it's definitely a great place to start for an editing rig. I'd consider upgrading the graphic card to this amzn.to/3MMWPej Which will also be plug and play :)

[@djerikfox]

..great tutorial..respect

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@yuriciolo6739]

Great video! Is it possibile to have a cheaper hardware configuration with less power but almost the same stability?

[@GreenEngineRecording]

You could pop a i5 processor in an ITX version of the motherboard and less ram which would reduce the cost some.

[@renoizer9906]

Hi bro , but you only show how to create a usb stick in the mac? does this also work under windows? if yes how? and what kind of files

[@GreenEngineRecording]

I don’t have a PC I’m afraid, but I know there are guides out there you can reference for the USB creation part.

[@manitsony6703]

Will you be flashing Thunderbolt custom firmware

[@GreenEngineRecording]

No it’s not needed to get the hackintosh to recognise thunderbolt hardware. I’ve heard some devices may require it, and if you want the ability to hotswap thunderbolt devices you’d need to. But as I show at the end of the video the Apollo is recognised straight away

[@TheAndmost]

Hi, I almost have the same parts but my mobo is a Gigabyte Z490 Vision G and RAM are Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 64GB ( 2 x 32GB ) 3200Mhz. Can I follow the same guide ? Thanks for your help

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Yep the Ram wont be an issue at all, the only thing that you'll have to redo is the port mapping for USB on the mobo as the two boards differ over thunderbolt and the number of USB points

[@TheAndmost]

@@GreenEngineRecording thanks for your kind reply. To have thunderbolt ports and to use my Apollo X6 or X8, can I add a gigabyte gc-titan ridge? or there is another solution?

[@GreenEngineRecording]

The vision G has a thunderbolt 3 header so yep, with the expansion card you’ll be good to go :D

[@donricocolden1]

Did you build this from an existing mac pro and just replace parts or did you assemble this in a third party case??

[@GreenEngineRecording]

This is built from off the shelf PC parts in a Fractal define R4 case

[@halfgian]

Hey! Thanks for this. Would this work with Designare Z390? I already have working EFI on Mojave hackinotsh, could I simply update Mojave to say Monterey on same EFI? Thanks

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Yes I know other people who have done this successfully on a Z390 :)

[@crystalstudio4014]

would this work on designare z390?

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Yes it works on the 390, though you will need a different EFI for that board

[@DM-sc4zy]

Now the question is, how long is apple going to provide OS updates for intel Macs.

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Yep probably not long, I’d keep with the lowest version that the software you need supports. Any future OS updates will solely be for improvements for silicon processors so no point updating past Mojave anyway

[@mrdali67]

Very nice video. Only thing, please do an instruction on doing the install from a Windows for those that don’t already have a Mac 😉 P.S I disagree in the part that you don’t need a big and powerfull computer for music production. Apple’s own M Pro very pricey rig only scratches the surface of the most processor hungry setups and is still behind the most powerfull Xeon based Mac Pro’s. This may not be needed by the majority of users, but there is still plenty of Pro users that wont upgrade their Mac Pro’s yet because the new Apple Silicon despite it’s effeciency still isn’t on par with the most powerfull Intel based Mac Pro’s

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Luckily there’s not very much of this guide that is Mac specific, so once you have osx downloaded you’d be able to follow along. I don’t have any windows machines but there are other guides describing how to do this with a windows machine.

[@AnuMustafiz]

Gigabyte Z490 Vision D is not available. Is there any other mother board for hackintosh which support thunderbolt 3?

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Yep it’s getting increasingly difficult to find. The z590 vision D supports the same processor and should be a very similar setup. It’ll just need the EFI tweaked so you’ll have to get into Dortina’s guide for making one.

[@jackgerberuae]

Thanks. Which is the latest version os that will work?

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Currently the latest version,Ventura, still supports Intel chips. Until Apple drops support for Comet lake processors their future OS’s will all work

[@jackgerberuae]

@@GreenEngineRecording ok, thanks for clarifying. So if I were to install Ventura it won’t break anything?

[@GreenEngineRecording]

It should be fine yes, but I would always recommend creating a fresh install on a new HD first if you already have a working system, just to play it safe :)

[@jackgerberuae]

@@GreenEngineRecording thanks. As an aside my son is alao in the music business and has a band and small recording studio in Cape Town. I shared this video with him, and yeah, the response was laid back, but a cool 👌🏻

[@leoviolabh]

Hello everything is fine ? Do you have the z590 D Vision EFI? I can't get my antelope to work...

[@assuerodavid]

Hello friend, great video, I have a ROG STRIX Z690-I GAMING WIFI, no venture. but I have no success with Thunderbolt... it doesn't work for me

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Unless the mobo has a built in thunderbolt chip header adding a thunderbolt PCI card won’t work I’m afraid

[@vinodsrivatsava]

Lots of missing steps on adding kets, acpi, and dortania opencore guide for your processor,

[@GreenEngineRecording]

This guide lets you avoid spending hours creating a custom EFI by providing the finished EFI file including the kekst and acpi needed for this mobo/processor combo

[@tobyglyn]

Ah, but doing this means we miss out of the joy of when (not if) our M series Mac's SSD fails resulting in an expensive paper weight! :)

[@GreenEngineRecording]

Hah! Well yes that would be a terrible shame! It’d be a very pretty paperweight after all!

[@BurninSven1]

I have been building hackintoshes for years and I have a videoediting hackintosh with thunderbolt and you do not need any of what you show here (I have the nvidia card too).

[@GreenEngineRecording]

That’s interesting, how are you building yours?

[@drykedorsay8748]

I'm pretty sure I just found my favorite video on youtube!! The number one spot for online marketing ᴘʀᴏᴍᴏsᴍ!

[@GreenEngineRecording]

🤔