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Speccing an iMac for production.

I'm about to enter a period of turmoil as I sell my place here and move to a bigger property, which means I'll probably have to pack up the majority of my studio for perhaps a couple of months.

I don't want a laptop/MBP as I just find them fiddly and awkward to use for more than 10 minutes at a time.

My current favourite would be a 2.7ghz(i5) iMac. I'll add another 4-8GB of RAM to it and plug in an external HDD myself. That's a considerable upgrade in terms of performance from my old Q9400 DAW and I've yet to run into any barriers with that.

Am I correct in thinking that I can run Core audio without a soundcard for a while quite happily as well (as long as i'm not recording audio obviously) as I want to be able to pick the thing up and move it to another room in 2 minutes if I want to.

This will also mean that I'm running my AKG's straight out of the headphone socket on the iMac. Is it loud enough to do this satisfactorally? I guess I could grab a little Apogee Solo if I really needed to.

This will also serve as my main DAW once I move as well.

Re: Speccing an iMac for production.

quote:

Originally posted by tehlord I'm about to enter a period of turmoil as I sell my place here and move to a bigger property, which means I'll probably have to pack up the majority of my studio for perhaps a couple of months. I don't want a laptop/MBP as I just find them fiddly and awkward to use for more than 10 minutes at a time. My current favourite would be a 2.7ghz(i5) iMac. I'll add another 4-8GB of RAM to it and plug in an external HDD myself. That's a considerable upgrade in terms of performance from my old Q9400 DAW and I've yet to run into any barriers with that. Am I correct in thinking that I can run Core audio without a soundcard for a while quite happily as well (as long as i'm not recording audio obviously) as I want to be able to pick the thing up and move it to another room in 2 minutes if I want to. This will also mean that I'm running my AKG's straight out of the headphone socket on the iMac. Is it loud enough to do this satisfactorally? I guess I could grab a little Apogee Solo if I really needed to. This will also serve as my main DAW once I move as well.

First congrats for seeing the light

Secondly, I have actually used my imac as a semi mobile DAW before and works really damn well. I've even taken mine on holiday before; the place we were staying at called me the day before to let me know the TV in our room broke and they wouldn't not be able to get replacement in time for our stay so I grabbed the imac and it all fitted in a duffel bag. It actually amazed me how robust the imac is as it took a bit of a kicking during the trip and there wasn't a scratch or hiccup from it.

In your case, you'll just need the imac, keyboard, mouse, external drive, headphones and the main IEC (kettle) power lead. That's it.

Personally, I would get the highest spec imac you can afford, or take a look at the Apple refurbished and buy the highest spec one there. A friend bought the previous Gen one for a saving of $500 and it's probably only 5% down performance wise on the current model.

Either way, you're in a good place as firstly, it's a massive step up in terms of performance over your old rig, and secondly, imacs are the most cost effective and best performing (vs cost) product that apple make.

You'll be absolutely fine using the core audio - I did it for nearly a year and have to say the Imac's built in DAC is actually pretty damn good. The only thing you will find is that on really chunky projects, you'll start to get system overload messages in logic - it's not down to CPU or RAM issues, just the internal bottle necking caused by the core audio, but having said that you should be able to work just fine on basic to medium projects with no trouble whatsoever.

Headphone level will be just fine too.

Ah nice that's all good news then.

I think i'm going to go for the 2.7ghz i5. The only one more powerful than that is the 3.1ghz i5 but that's �300 more expensive for CPU overhead I probably won't need. I'm squeezing 100 channels of pretty intensive VST laden projects on the Q9400 so I don't think i'll run into any issues. The only expansion i'll need in the future is extra RAM and HDD space for my ever expanding orchestral library collection and that's not going to tax my CPU any more than I already am.

I've got a little Saffire 6 interface sitting here if I need to quickly plug something in for DI/Mic duties as well and that's about as portable as they get and USB powered too.

The refurb store doesn't have any 27" models in stock at the moment and that's the one I want to go for so we'll see what they come up with in the next week or two.

Is it relatively easy to install a new HDD in an iMac? I know they can hold more than one drive but I don't know if that's just a factory fit jobbie? I can always run an external anyway so it's no biggie.

quote:

Originally posted by tehlord Ah nice that's all good news then. I think i'm going to go for the 2.7ghz i5. The only one more powerful than that is the 3.1ghz i5 but that's �300 more expensive for CPU overhead I probably won't need. I'm squeezing 100 channels of pretty intensive VST laden projects on the Q9400 so I don't think i'll run into any issues. The only expansion i'll need in the future is extra RAM and HDD space for my ever expanding orchestral library collection and that's not going to tax my CPU any more than I already am. I've got a little Saffire 6 interface sitting here if I need to quickly plug something in for DI/Mic duties as well and that's about as portable as they get and USB powered too. The refurb store doesn't have any 27" models in stock at the moment and that's the one I want to go for so we'll see what they come up with in the next week or two. Is it relatively easy to install a new HDD in an iMac? I know they can hold more than one drive but I don't know if that's just a factory fit jobbie? I can always run an external anyway so it's no biggie.

All good then and I don;t think 300 quid is worth the tiny bit of extra performance as you say.

In some ways, I wish I had the 27" but I just don't have the space, but my mate has that and it's really nice to produce on.

Couple of tips

- don't buy ram from apple. Get the base amount of ram it comes with then buy aftermarket RAM if you need more. It will work out cheaper and the apple ram is often just OK (not great) RAM.

- I would go SSD as your main system drive then use the other internal HDD as a working project sample drive. Here is the best guide for installing an SSD in to your IMac but bear in mind that you're best off going for an intel 510 series, and just following the instructions in this guide. It's not too bad but you need the right tools and be at least slightly technical so I'm sure you'll be fine.

http://www.btobey.com/learn/imac-ssd-install.php

Cheers big ears.

I'm still not entirely sold on the SSD route as I'm not too fussed about the extra few seconds i'd save here and there, but seeing as prices are so much closer to the old spinsters these days it might be worth a punt.

Luckily i've built about 200 PC's over the last decade so i'm pretty handy with that stuff! I'll use the trusty old Ebuyer for RAM. I think it's currently �30-40 for 8MB vs �160 from Apple. Bless 'em

quote:

Originally posted by jsrobinson SSD is probably the single most important, most overlooked component in a modern computer. It's not just a "few seconds here and there". It's an entirely different experience to computing.

How so?

Well I wouldn't say it's the single most important but if you can afford it, it's definitely worth getting. Their prices are really starting to drop to quite acceptable and affordable levels.

quote:

Originally posted by jsrobinson SSD is probably the single most important, most overlooked component in a modern computer. It's not just a "few seconds here and there". It's an entirely different experience to computing.

That's not quite true - I agree tht they are important, but they are not "the single most important component".

For a start, audio production relies heavily on sustained rate access times, which while being faster than traditional HDD's is no where near the extra speed quoted for the sequential benchmarks for SSD's out there.

Having said that, they are a massive improvement on a stock Apple/major brand HD, but the sizes of SSD's for the money are still not up there where you could put entire sample libraries on them, meaning you;re still going to bottle neck at the throughput of either internal or external drives for you samples. Yes, you can copy working sample to the project directly assuming your DAW has this option (most do) but still, for any of the ROM based synths that are so common for music production (omnisphere for example) it's simply not an option.

Yes, there will be a performance upgrade die to read/access times but you're still limited by your overall system performance (buss speeds don't operate at SATA III rates throughout) so there's a certain ceiling you will hit, regardless of how fast your drives are.

Basically, for a DAW, they will open up incredibly fast and you won;t get pin-wheel moments when opening up synths or loading local samples, but a completely different computing experience? Not really.

@Geoff - The reason I stated that bloke's method is that it;s the least invasive and easiest way out there. Given that you're looking for a second drive, you might as well go SSD as the price is now getting close to the top level HDD's, albeit far smaller for the money.

Oh, and I meant the NEW intel 520 Sata III drive - get the 240gb if you can. The speed of thing has now crushed everything else in the market.

It's $500, but damn that thing is incredible. My next upgrade.

i have ssds in both my computers for the OS and the audio drive for audio tracks and in 1 mac pro i have 2 ssds for a certain sample library that has a large foot print. So between both computers, i have 6 120 gb It really isn't that much faster. Higher audio count is great but you don't need it for EDM. It really isn't that awesome. And with speed, you just get used to it. Haven't you always noticed that your computers are always the samae speed. Its all relative. You get used to your new computer and boom, its slow again.

I think if you have a laptop and play live, it would be good as it generates less heat, no moving parts but ya, it isn't really that awesome.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Oh, and I meant the NEW intel 520 Sata III drive - get the 240gb if you can. The speed of thing has now crushed everything else in the market. It's $500, but damn that thing is incredible. My next upgrade.

I'd still go with an OCZ over an Intel one. Better Firmware and still has better products.

There's a good review on the 520 here: http://www.guru3d.com/article/intel...gb-ssd-review/1

I've been warned by 2 experts in the audio field to stay away from ocz for anything sensitive ie OS despite their speed. Although they see to be changing so fast that I don't know if applies. I use intel 520 for OS and project drive, and ocz for samples as if they fail, i heave the same samples on the he'd.

Reviews are one things but actual real tme application ie dealing with audio systems and noticing that certain things just fail more. And failures at this point suck because well actual I don't know iff this applies to ssd but like hdd failures, well around march April, your warranty,good as gold will not really matter because they won't have inventory to replace it. I Just had a hitchi replaced and noticed that they not say in the small print " if there is inventory"

Yea but weren't the Intel SSDs plagued with the most failures out of anyone last year? They've apparently fixed it now but lots of people had massive issues across the board with the SSDs.
It also depends on which OCZ SSD as they make a bunch. Two people is hardly a large enough sample base to make a valid decision.

There's also always Corsair to consider too.

it is surprisingly hard to find real studies other than retailer info. I saw one from 2010 and another from 2011 where intel was at 0.5 and ocz was was at 2% . But the data was only on a sample of 500 returns. And they all pretty much had similar failure rates except intel.

I don't know. OCZ seems to be putting more effort in their SSD line or maybe better marketing.

But ya, failure rate should be on the fucking spec. Honestly, that is something people should know. I think failure rates are dependant on alot of things. The interface you are using, the power supply, the temperature the gravitational pull of the moon.

I'm still 50/50 on the SSD idea.

The ideal pricepoint here is �120 for 120GB which would work well for the OS, apps and probably the Omnisphere install. I don't really feel comfortable spending any more than that for something I still don't think I really need, but I could spend �120 on a punt.

I'd be grabbing 16GB RAM for about �70 as well. I can't see me needing more than that for the foreseeable as 8GB servers me well at the moment.

in general buy as fast as yuor budget allows
SSD is a good idea, got my DAW with 4 SSD's 1 for OS, 1 for samples and NEXUS libraries, one for recording and one for apps

I would defo buy Win7 x64 based PC now, apple is really obsolte and bad value for money as workhorse

quote:

Originally posted by Raphie in general buy as fast as yuor budget allows SSD is a good idea, got my DAW with 4 SSD's 1 for OS, 1 for samples and NEXUS libraries, one for recording and one for apps I would defo buy Win7 x64 based PC now, apple is really obsolte and bad value for money as workhorse

While I agree that my W7/64 machine is infinitely better VFM than any Apple product there are two very good reasons I'm going with an iMac. Firstly I'm going to move over to Logic as well as I just adore it, and secondly I'm going to be doing lot's of tutorial videos this year and it is a total PITA on a PC. In a Mac I can use Screenflow and it just works.

2 solid and well overthought reasons, why not a hackingtosh then?

You get way more for less, buy a nice LianLi case and it will look high-end too... just look at the hackingtosh forums for the lastest validated configs, most recent ASUS boards even have EFI BIOS so you can re-flash them tricking OSX into it being an Apple on hardware layer.

quote:

Originally posted by tehlord While I agree that my W7/64 machine is infinitely better VFM than any Apple product there are two very good reasons I'm going with an iMac. Firstly I'm going to move over to Logic as well as I just adore it, and secondly I'm going to be doing lot's of tutorial videos this year and it is a total PITA on a PC. In a Mac I can use Screenflow and it just works.

quote:

Originally posted by Raphie 2 solid and well overthought reasons, why not a hackingtosh then? You get way more for less, buy a nice LianLi case and it will look high-end too... just look at the hackingtosh forums for the lastest validated configs, most recent ASUS boards even have EFI BIOS so you can re-flash them tricking OSX into it being an Apple on hardware layer.

I'm not really a fan of stuff like Hackintiosh and even overclocking. One of the reasons I'm happy to spend the extra as well is that this is partially income related so downtime is a bad thing. I'm not saying for one second that a Mac won't fail, but I'm pretty sure that a Hackintosh will fail more.

And I'm not taking GAS advice from somebody like you either

Signed

Jealous of Windsor

Intel currently have the lowest failure rate of all SSD's.

OCZ are good drives but their failure rate is substantially higher (some reports as L4C mentioned put it at 2% which is a 1 in 50 chance) than intel's and for audio is unacceptable IMO.

Intels figures for the x25 g2 across 100,000 drives was 0.26% and apparetnly so far they are expecting even less failures with the 320, 510 and 520 ranges due to changes in their new chip providers and firmware selection, not to mention TRIM now being widely availble on all platforms.

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