iMac help

preston61

So I am now in a position to be able to buy an iMac for recording (have been promising myself one for a long time now) and just wondered if anyone might be able to help as far as how the price increase improves the computer? Can I get most entry level recording done on the most basic model? I've always been one for wanting the more expensive stuff, but for the purpose of recording (probably with Ableton) what would you suggest?

Drew_TNBD

I would recommend whatever you do, upgrade the hard-drive to an SSD. That makes a huge difference.

preston61

Drew_fx said:

I would recommend whatever you do, upgrade the hard-drive to an SSD. That makes a huge difference.

SSD??

dindude

I'm in exactly the ame boat and was going to go with the basic £899 jobbie to run Logix Pro X - anyone see issues with this?

Also, SSD?

JezWynd

Solid State Drive = V fast.

preston61

Apprecaite the help guys, could you be a bit more talkative though when you say things like SSD and solid state drive, as although it's helpful to know those thins exist and need to be looked for, I still have no idea what they are or why they are important (this is a new world to me so if you could be gentle and explain things in a bit more detail that would really help)

stickyfiddle

Can you even buy a Mac that doesn't have an SSD (solid state drive) these days? In any case, they do make for a good zippy machine.

If it's a desktop I wouldn't worry too much about storage space, but memory is a good upgrade. 

Drew_TNBD

preston61 said:

Apprecaite the help guys, could you be a bit more talkative though when you say things like SSD and solid state drive, as although it's helpful to know those thins exist and need to be looked for, I still have no idea what they are or why they are important (this is a new world to me so if you could be gentle and explain things in a bit more detail that would really help)

Regular hard-drives are mechanical. IE: They comprise of moving parts. So the read and write times are limited by how fast the mechanics can operate.

Solid State Drives are not like that. They have no moving parts, and so the read and write times are incredibly quick.

This boils down to things like how quickly Windows or OSX will boot up. How quickly files will open and save. How quickly your applications launch and how smoothly they run. It's pretty basic stuff to be honest, you might want to go and do some research before spending any cash.

ThorpyFX

Ok I have a fusion drive which is 3tb....it's a mix of solid state and regular memory. The solid state is used to run the operating system whilst the storage uses regular memory. The computer opens in 10 seconds, closes in 11. Seconds. Do not whatever you do buy the ram from Apple on the desktops. So 32gb of ram from Apple (increase over 8gb) costs £470. I paid £100 from crucial. The rest is up to you, although the retina screen is truly great.

preston61

Drew_fx;837467" said:

preston61 said:

It's pretty basic stuff to be honest, you might want to go and do some research before spending any cash.

Basic if you know it mate, and as for doing research, I believe that's kind of the point of posting this. Thanks for the other parts of your post though, they were worth reading

spark240

Save some cash and get a late 2012 Mac mini ? You might find one with SSD, I paid about £600. I7, 16G ram, 2.6ghz,

Wazmeister

@preston61 - any iMac will suffice here mate. You wouldnt believe this but new 27" iMac 5k arrived tonight; im just setting it up.

i went for every option with mine (£2700 !) but this earns my salary and ive tried to future proof it. Even the base model would do you fine. As Thorpy said, you can upgrade your own memory on the 27" and its much cheaper from Crucial.

SSD is meant to be quicker than normal Hard drive. Fusion combines the two. Feel free to ask any questions.

digitalscream

preston61 said:

Drew_fx;837467" said:

preston61 said:

It's pretty basic stuff to be honest, you might want to go and do some research before spending any cash.

Basic if you know it mate, and as for doing research, I believe that's kind of the point of posting this. Thanks for the other parts of your post though, they were worth reading

@Drew_fx's answer didn't seem snarky to me. The point is that you're not going to get the perfect answer by asking other people; you only get that by spending time on it, doing the legwork yourself after being pointed in the right direction here and - as a result - learning. Lots.

It's an unfortunate fact that while it's possible to do recording without knowing anything about computers at all, you'll get far better results by understanding how it works...and a forum simply isn't the right format for that, because there's vast amounts of information that needs to end up in your brain.

Wazmeister

@Preston61 - PM me mate if you want any info...

stonevibe

Take a University student with you and get 12% off the price or buy from the refurb store online at apple.com/uk. Just type refurb in search box.

Buy as fast as you can afford and look out for 0% interest near Christmas time online, as is often a promotion this time of year. Last year it started in November and finished in January.

kin

 @preston61, I'm recording on an iPad air2 , using garage band and Auria and various apps, it's enough to let me join in with the various riff challenges on here and looking around u tube there are people who can put together really impressive recordings with the same setup.

 Go the basic route, become familiar with it until you find the limit and then upgrade.

Deijavoo

Don't upgrade the ram with Apple. Get one with 4 slots that you can upgrade yourself from Crucial.

My 2011 iMac spec for comparison:

2.8 quad core i7 

1tb hard drive (7200rpm, not ssd)

20gb ram

and mine is pretty nippy. Currently using it for all band stuff. 

Wazmeister

@deijavoo - nice spec that

Deijavoo

It's only a titchy little 21.5 but is ideal for me, for now.

domforr

On this subject, I'm also thinking of upgrading my very old imac (it's white!). The issue I have is that I'm using a digi002 rack as my interface and it needs firewire to work. Anyone have any experience of Thunderbolt to Firewire? Some not great reviews for the adapter on the Apple website, so not sure how reliable it will be. Otherwise I suppose an older mac with firewire might be the way to go?

sweepy

I use my digidesign 003r with my macbook Pro using the Thunderbolt to Firewire adaptor and it works fine