Interstate couriers for studio gear

[mustgroove]

Anyone have any recommendations for couriers for transporting studio equipment interstate? Looking to transport my studio Mac Pro from Sydney to Melbourne for some sessions down there and I'm keen to know if anyone has any experience or can recommend someone decent who will insure the package as well... Cannot afford for this machine to get lost/delayed/damaged...

[ChrisW]

Then I would drive the journey myself.
Even with the best 3rd party shipping there are no guarantees.

Or if you don't need specific plug-ins, rent a machine in Melbourne and take a drive with you on the plane.

[mustgroove]

- renting a machine in Melb isn't feasible - the sessions are all in that machine, and I don't wanna spend a day or so installing plugin licenses all over again on whatever machine I could rustle together down there

- driving's not really an option either, flights are booked & can't really afford to lose 2 days of productive time for the roundtrip journey

[DarkSky]

It's a relatively simple matter to take the internal hard drives (including the boot drive) out of a Mac Pro - they just slide out.

My advice would be to slide out the hard drives and take them in your carry-on luggage, and rent or borrow a similar spec Mac Pro to put the drives into when you're in Melbourne. With the same boot drive and secondary drives (plus iLok attached and any required PCIe cards etc) the machine will effectively *be* your Mac Pro for the duration.

It's a hassle, maybe, but probably better than trusting your Mac Pro to a courier. Even if it's fully insured, that won't be much consolation if it goes astray or is damaged in transit.

[wez]

Some plug-ins (for example the original T-Racks stuff) used to use a challenge/response-type system that was actually aware of your hardware... I found this out when shifting old drives to a new machine. But I'm not sure if anyone still uses that sort of system anymore, just something to be aware of.

Otherwise I would think that pulling the drives out would be the best option. Even if you were to courier the machine (or even check it in if you had a good box!) I'd probably still take the drives out and carry them on.

[mustgroove]

Hmmm thanks for the replies... out of interest has anyone had a horror story with couriering studio computers?

Driving to Melb isn't actually unfeasible in this particular situation so maybe I might give that some more consideration...

[ChrisW]

I'm not working 7 days a week I admit, but I often drive my music gear places to avoid post and couriers.
This isn't computers, but hard to replace synths, outboard and drums.
I've driven stuff Sydney to Adelaide for Rob to fix. Granted, he often posted them back.

[norm]

I do one or two trips a year to visit Rob for pick ups and drop offs. No problems either way when done personaly, but plenty when done by couriers. Plus Rob is a bloody good cook.

[gigpiglet]

i drive (well - i don't - but i pay crew to) all the time
thats how i have done pickups and drop offs for people on this board before..

its the best/ cheapest/ most reliable way.. but remember.. you too can crash a van.
so back everything up anyway (which of course you would - right?!)

if not myself, i always use showfreight.. they are not common carriers, but entertainment carriers, and they are awesome

but for a mac pro.. they are the easiest thing in the world to ship!
have sent them all over the place, with or without original packing, in or out of roadcases.
they are extremely solid beasts
i would think there is much more chance of a drive head crashing in transit, than anything actually happening to the computer itself.
so no matter how you move it - the drives are the "tender" bit

[mustgroove]

Riiiiight, so freighting a Mac Pro sans drives is actually not too problematic? What about the PCI cards (i.e. graphics card, and in my case, UAD-2 card)?

[DarkSky]

Riiiiight, so freighting a Mac Pro sans drives is actually not too problematic? What about the PCI cards (i.e. graphics card, and in my case, UAD-2 card)?

I don't think that's the main point, Gareth's observations notwithstanding. Drives are certainly one point of particular vulnerability, but there are others. However, if you have the drives with you, you have a fallback option if the Mac Pro goes astray or arrives damaged, whereas if the drives are trashed or lost along with the machine, you're SOL, so to speak.

PCI cards are a lot more replaceable than your drives and all your software, settings, session files and data, so whether you need to also consider taking them out to carry aboard your flight depends on how easily you can expect to find suitable substitutes on short notice in the event that there's a problem. If you're using common industry standard cards such as AES16e or HD|Core/Accel, etc, then you should be able to get up and running again pretty easily in a worst case scenario where the cards are missing or damaged. If you depend on more obscure PCI cards that are unlikely to be so easily sourced, then as with the drives, it may be wisest not to let them out of your care and protection.