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-- iMac vs. Mac Pro?
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I had these reservations too, but then once I switched I relaized it all comes from the "PC mindframe". Becuase you constantly have to fuck with PCs to make them do what you want, the thought of being limited by hardware is enough to scare you away, but once you realise a mac just sits there AND WORKS, when you want it to, you just thank yourself that you made the jump.

I've had PC's six I was 6 years old and only switched to an imac last year. Best decision I've made relating to computing.

So nice not to: have chunky floor standing unit that pumps out noise and heat. Cables everywhere. Thinking I need to upgrade my graphics card. Thinking I need to get a nice screen.

I got the 2.4ghz 1gb ram version running Logic. After being a die hard Cubase user from cubase vst32 onwards and trying to grapple with previous versions of logic in the past, I can tell you Logic 8 took me 2 weeks to get a decent handle on and now I couldn't think of using Cubase unless I had to. I can't even get close to maxing out my imac, and I'm nearly totally in the box when producing.

The pro's are nice but the deisng of the imacs are just so nice and the extra $500 for the small increase in power is just not worth it unless money is no object, but if that were the case you'd be getting the the $8000 top of the line mac pro.

quote:

Originally posted by Zild Nothing is necessary, but I was specifying reasons why I would prefer to have a desktop I can open up and add drives or cards to if I feel like it as opposed to an all in one solution that isn't very customizable. Again still don't know what pro tools TDM has to do with it.

I know what you mean, if you really need all that stuff, DSP cards, 32gb ram and 4 tb harddrives, its good to have pro.
I only ment you dont need to go mac pro and PCI to get great audio interface, you can buy example RME fireface 400 for 800euros, which is great interface. For protools hd PCI is necesarry if you go that way.

Id like to have mac pro for myself too, but its because its so powerfull against imac, i dont need dsp cards, i have sonolksis plugs and some other great native plugins. maybe i buy one next time instead new imac every year=) My concern is just you cant update processor in mac pro so you need to update the whole system finally.

Why wouldn't you be able to upgrade the processors? I've seen it done before.

ok, I had both so I think I can speak.

There's simply no difference for audio work. Of course a mac pro quad is always faster. The iMac has everything built-in, screen, bt, wifi, ethernet, firewire 800 and 400, this at an incredible street price.

So you basically need to choose between all mac models. But if I were you, I wouldn't get a mac pro. It has a lot of downsides. First of all, it uses a lot of juice and you'll see your power bill go up, secondly it makes some noise at times. And the price, dear... no way I'll get one soon at that price. And you still need a screen, and wifi and bt might be optional (not sure though)

The iMac has only one downside, you can't install UAD cards as it has no pci-e slot.

What about the macbook pro with an express 34 slot then?? It will still cost you a lot less than the mac pro but a little more than the iMac, and you can replace hard drives on your own, which is not the case with the iMac! And it's a laptop, so it uses little power. And if you really need UAD, well you have express 34 options...

I'd go for the iMac (cheaper) or the Mb pro (better). If you don't need RAID-0 and all, stay away from a mac pro.

quote:

Originally posted by Lolo ok, I had both so I think I can speak. There's simply no difference for audio work. Of course a mac pro quad is always faster. The iMac has everything built-in, screen, bt, wifi, ethernet, firewire 800 and 400, this at an incredible street price. So you basically need to choose between all mac models. But if I were you, I wouldn't get a mac pro. It has a lot of downsides. First of all, it uses a lot of juice and you'll see your power bill go up, secondly it makes some noise at times. And the price, dear... no way I'll get one soon at that price. And you still need a screen, and wifi and bt might be optional (not sure though) The iMac has only one downside, you can't install UAD cards as it has no pci-e slot. What about the macbook pro with an express 34 slot then?? It will still cost you a lot less than the mac pro but a little more than the iMac, and you can replace hard drives on your own, which is not the case with the iMac! And it's a laptop, so it uses little power. And if you really need UAD, well you have express 34 options... I'd go for the iMac (cheaper) or the Mb pro (better). If you don't need RAID-0 and all, stay away from a mac pro.

thanks for the informative reply this is the kind of answer i was looking for.

I have a PC for making tunes and stuff on, but i also bought a Macbook Pro recently as my old Toshiba laptop was getting old.
It will only take you a couple of weeks to get used to OSX and after that youll be flying.
I get a free quad-core chip from work every year or so, so its cheaper for me to build my own PC - other than that i would probably switch to a Mac system altogether - just so nice to work on.

quote:

Originally posted by Notle Zild what is the benefits with PCI audio interfaces against fireware?? Fireware is very fast too, and I think the fireware is idustry standard nowadays so you cant go wrong with it..Ok, if you have 7000e to spend on protools tdm then you need pci. And i think uad is not necesarry, theres is lot of good plugs out there.

agree on this, and logic 7 dvds? u dont need all of that its mostly samples aint it, and u can choose to install only the basics? im not sure tho. omnisphere 40GB??? wtf! ok then u need a big HD

quote:

Originally posted by palm agree on this, and logic 7 dvds? u dont need all of that its mostly samples aint it, and u can choose to install only the basics? im not sure tho. omnisphere 40GB??? wtf! ok then u need a big HD

you can install instruments and apple loops separately. This is recommended when using smaller hd's on a laptop for example.

any 320 gig hd in a laptop can handle instrument libraries AND audio recording, especially a 7200rpm drive. Hd's cost nothing, though. And it's never lost until it crashes or becomes obsolete.

What I like is the drivedock, a sata dock that transforms any sata hard drive in a firewire or usb2 drive. I'd better get that, it's really useful.

You can easily imagine the applications for your own setup. you can either use external drive for instrument library storage or as a backup drive for each of your project folders...

What I have here is 4Tb storage in total.

A 2tb WD in FW800 is partitioned in 4... one contains my itunes and iphoto libraries, one contains all my projects and radio shows, one contains my sample and instrument library, and the last one is for backups.

A 1tb WD in USB and another 500gig are purely for backup, including the auto-backup with time machine

Then a 500gig WD in USB is connected to my Airport so I can share files and folders with the whole network.

And this is not ideal, but at least it gives me options.

One last tip regarding mac running leopard and pro-apps: put at least 4gigs of Ram in there... but don't get the ram modules off the apple store!

i have a question (about OSX in general really). is there some sort of remote desktop option in OSX which makes it possible to logon to a win server or xp somehow remotely? Im saving for a imac myself but i want the option to run my old PC too as a server or something in the network without having another set of screen, keyboard and mouse. actualy the server doesnt have to be WIN, it can be some sort of linux stuff if that makes it easier. just gonna use it for fileserver in the network for all my music and stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by palm i have a question (about OSX in general really). is there some sort of remote desktop option in OSX which makes it possible to logon to a win server or xp somehow remotely? Im saving for a imac myself but i want the option to run my old PC too as a server or something in the network without having another set of screen, keyboard and mouse. actualy the server doesnt have to be WIN, it can be some sort of linux stuff if that makes it easier. just gonna use it for fileserver in the network for all my music and stuff.

Google Apple Remote Desktop and Timbuktu Pro

it seems to be easy and free with this: Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2.
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/produc...op/default.mspx
i must try that on my Mac mini ASAP. if it works good all my problems are solved lol.


also Apple are very agresive nowadays i think:




i really hate the apple politics but i love their engineering.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN I had these reservations too, but then once I switched I relaized it all comes from the "PC mindframe". Becuase you constantly have to fuck with PCs to make them do what you want, the thought of being limited by hardware is enough to scare you away, but once you realise a mac just sits there AND WORKS, when you want it to, you just thank yourself that you made the jump. I've had PC's six I was 6 years old and only switched to an imac last year. Best decision I've made relating to computing. So nice not to: have chunky floor standing unit that pumps out noise and heat. Cables everywhere. Thinking I need to upgrade my graphics card. Thinking I need to get a nice screen. I got the 2.4ghz 1gb ram version running Logic. After being a die hard Cubase user from cubase vst32 onwards and trying to grapple with previous versions of logic in the past, I can tell you Logic 8 took me 2 weeks to get a decent handle on and now I couldn't think of using Cubase unless I had to. I can't even get close to maxing out my imac, and I'm nearly totally in the box when producing. The pro's are nice but the deisng of the imacs are just so nice and the extra $500 for the small increase in power is just not worth it unless money is no object, but if that were the case you'd be getting the the $8000 top of the line mac pro.

ive kind of decided on the imac, just wondering how often does your cpu max out?

mine almost never does. The maximum that I get is approximately 60%, except when working with omnisphere in multi mode.

BTW once you max your cpu too often, instead of buying another brand new imac, you can buy mac minis, a gigabit switch, and use those mac minis as servers AND extra cpu power when running logic pro, courtesy of logic node app!! I remember testing this with powerbook G4's and it worked fine!!

it seems pretty easy to freeze stuff in logic too but i dont know im new to it. wow im now writing remotely from my mac mini on my PC. it works just perfect, even screen resolution just addapted to my TV. awesome. had some firewall trouble to start with tho but it might be sorted out. then i def gonna get a imac later (is there a new version coming or is this the new?). this makes backup and compatibility MUCH better.

quote:

Originally posted by Lolo mine almost never does. The maximum that I get is approximately 60%, except when working with omnisphere in multi mode. BTW once you max your cpu too often, instead of buying another brand new imac, you can buy mac minis, a gigabit switch, and use those mac minis as servers AND extra cpu power when running logic pro, courtesy of logic node app!! I remember testing this with powerbook G4's and it worked fine!!

this is the spec ive decided to go with on the imac. hopefully it won't max out on me like my pc did:

2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM
320GB Serial ATA Drive

forgot to ask anyone know what sound cards work with the imac? my mac knowledge is next to none so i have to ask all these questions.

thanks

Don't buy extra ram from apple. You can get 4gb from newegg for $40.

quote:

Originally posted by sterilis forgot to ask anyone know what sound cards work with the imac? my mac knowledge is next to none so i have to ask all these questions. thanks

that of the external usb/firewire sort. I've got the presonus firebox, which has been solid for a number of years, but is now starting to get glitchy. Look around, there are an absolute plethora of options...but you'll probably want to spend over 150 on one.

quote:

Originally posted by Lolo mine almost never does. The maximum that I get is approximately 60%, except when working with omnisphere in multi mode. BTW once you max your cpu too often, instead of buying another brand new imac, you can buy mac minis, a gigabit switch, and use those mac minis as servers AND extra cpu power when running logic pro, courtesy of logic node app!! I remember testing this with powerbook G4's and it worked fine!!

Didn't know this...quality information.

quote:

Originally posted by sterilis forgot to ask anyone know what sound cards work with the imac? my mac knowledge is next to none so i have to ask all these questions. thanks

How many i/o do you need? On my bedroom iMac I have an Apogee Duet. Very limited but plug in play and sounds great.

Also, what are you looking to spend?

quote:

Originally posted by Zild Don't buy extra ram from apple. You can get 4gb from newegg for $40.

i live in ireland though by the time i pay for postage and packaging then the tax on it it will probably cost the same.

quote:

Originally posted by Numb How many i/o do you need? On my bedroom iMac I have an Apogee Duet. Very limited but plug in play and sounds great. Also, what are you looking to spend?

money isnt really an issue although i dont want to spend over the odds either. i dont think ill go past �200 due to other stuff i have to buy.

quote:

Originally posted by sterilis money isnt really an issue although i dont want to spend over the odds either. i dont think ill go past �200 due to other stuff i have to buy.

I wouldn't skimp on the soundcard. If you don't plan on adding any hardware an apogee duet is nice, if you need more in/outs try looking at the MOTU Ultralite.

Sucks that you're in ireland since apple charges $150 for those extra 2gb which really should cost about $20.

Echo Audiofire 4 is 299 (USD) i think and its very good (for the price), and the drivers is good on windows, havent tried it on mac but i guess it just works lol, hense the reason ur going for mac aint it lol

quote:

Originally posted by palm Echo Audiofire is 299 (USD) i think and its very good (for the price), and the drivers is good on windows, havent tried it on mac but i guess it just works lol, hense the reason ur going for mac aint it lol

what specs on your mac? keep getting different opinions on what to do. build a hackintosh was another option from someone although it seems unlikely ill go down that route.

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