New recording setup (Mac) - advice?

Vibetronic

Afternoon all. After about 6 years, my iMac has just broken, so I need to get a new one. It's for home use - I do a lot of recording - and previously had it set up with Logic Pro X with a M-Audio firewire soundcard. The iMac itself was mid-2011 with 12GB RAM and was working fine until it died. I really want to replace it with a very similar setup - mainly because I know how it works, and also because all my teaching/music stuff is backed up on it. (I've run as many checks as I can think of and the hard drive is knackered).

At the moment I'm going towards the iMac 21.5-inch screen, 3.4GHz processor, 1TB Storage, 1TB Fusion Drive and getting it with 16BG of RAM rather than the standard 8GB it comes with. (I've gone towards the higher specs as I'd ideally like to have it running smoothly for years and not have to think about upgrading anything). Does this sound sensible?

The second thing is which audio interface to get. The M-Audio one I had worked really well; I'd like to get something that uses the Thunderbolt connection on the iMac, but is this strictly necessary? I was thinking of that mainly as it's a load faster than the USB connection and would probably sound better...but I don't really know that much about it. There's the Zoom TAC-2 interface available (which uses Thunderbolt) for just over £200 which would do the job; it's very basic, but I'm only recording guitar and bass, so would be fine.

Any thoughts welcome

cheers,

Ben

wave100

A thunderbolt AI doesn't necessarilly sound any better than a USB one - that is down to the convertors and associated analogue circuitry. What it should give you is lower latency, so might be useful if you use amp sims or otherwise use plug ins while tracking.

Having said that, if your M-Audio AI is getting on a bit, it might be a good oportunity to replace it... I'm pretty sure convertor technology has come on a bit in the last few years.

Vibetronic

wave100 said:

A thunderbolt AI doesn't necessarilly sound any better than a USB one - that is down to the convertors and associated analogue circuitry. What it should give you is lower latency, so might be useful if you use amp sims or otherwise use plug ins while tracking.

Having said that, if your M-Audio AI is getting on a bit, it might be a good oportunity to replace it... I'm pretty sure convertor technology has come on a bit in the last few years.

Cheers, useful to know. The m-audio one isn’t supported any more; had to use a bit of crowd-sourced software after I upgraded the OS recently to get it to work at all, so time for a new one.

spark240

A Presonus device maybe?...Im using a Mac mini 2012 16G Ram, i7 2.3Ghz.

sweepy

You can still use your FireWire interface with a Thunderbolt adaptor, this is my setup with a Presonus 1602 and 2015 MacPro

wave100

What's your budget and what do yo need to record, and is USB an option or are you set on thunderbolt?

wave100

you

ToneControl

16GB RAM is not much now I think

I bought a laptop 4 years ago with 32Gb
My latest machine has 64GB

If you don't use any virtual sampled instruments you might be OK, but I'd want 32G as a minimum now

robinbowes

ToneControl said:

16GB RAM is not much now I think

I bought a laptop 4 years ago with 32Gb
My latest machine has 64GB

If you don't use any virtual sampled instruments you might be OK, but I'd want 32G as a minimum now

This is one area where Macs have fallen behind - their laptops don't go higher than 16GB. However, the iMac supports up to 32GB and the new iMac Pro goes up to 128GB.

R.

BigLicks67

Have you taken the Mac into an Apple store, I had a problem with mine and it was fixed for very little money.

Vibetronic

sweepy said:

You can still use your FireWire interface with a Thunderbolt adaptor, this is my setup with a Presonus 1602 and 2015 MacPro

I'd still have to use the workaround to get the interface compatible with the current OS though (it won't function on High Sierra, and a few OS before that), and I don't want to be messing about with the setup of a brand new computer, so it's going to be a new one.

Vibetronic

wave100 said:

What's your budget and what do yo need to record, and is USB an option or are you set on thunderbolt?

it's really whatever I need, but I don't want to be spending (or need to be!) more than £2,000. I'd rather use Thunderbolt just as it's that much faster, but I'm not dead set on it. If it's going to cost a hell of a lot more to get one that's compatible with Thunderbolt then I'd reconsider, but seeing as I can get a basic one for just over £200 I'm not too bothered.

Vibetronic

BigLicks67 said:

Have you taken the Mac into an Apple store, I had a problem with mine and it was fixed for very little money.

no - I was thinking about it, but I don't think it's really worth it, bearing in mind it's about 6 years old; the cost of a new hard drive or logic board is probably better spend going towards a new one (just in my opinion though!). I've run all the diagnostics I can in Recovery Mode/Disk Utility, Single User Mode etc and it's properly knackered. Can't really complain as it's been used heavily since I got it and I've never had a single problem with it until now.

Vibetronic

Vibetronic said:

BigLicks67 said:

Have you taken the Mac into an Apple store, I had a problem with mine and it was fixed for very little money.

no - I was thinking about it, but I don't think it's really worth it, bearing in mind it's about 6 years old; the cost of a new hard drive or logic board is probably better spend going towards a new one (just in my opinion though!). I've run all the diagnostics I can in Recovery Mode/Disk Utility, Single User Mode etc and it's properly knackered. Can't really complain as it's been used heavily since I got it and I've never had a single problem with it until now.

(and bearing in mind it'd cost me at least an initial £50 to get it looked at in the first place)

Heartfeltdawn

You don't need a huge amount of RAM for just recording guitar and bass. Talk of 32Gb just sounds like wasting money to me. 

Thunderbolt isn't strictly necesaary. For your needs, USB would be completely fine. However, as a PC User with no Thunderbolt option, if I were running a Mac I would definitely give the TAC-2 or TAC-2R a go. 

Vibetronic

Heartfeltdawn said:

You don't need a huge amount of RAM for just recording guitar and bass. Talk of 32Gb just sounds like wasting money to me. 

Thunderbolt isn't strictly necesaary. For your needs, USB would be completely fine. However, as a PC User with no Thunderbolt option, if I were running a Mac I would definitely give the TAC-2 or TAC-2R a go. 

yeah; I'd upgraded from the 4GB RAM it came with (too slow) to 12GB which was nice and smooth.

I wouldn't be looking at the Thunderbolt thing if it was going to cost me a significant amount on top of the new computer, but if it's not a huge amount more than a standard USB interface then I'd rather go with that option.

spark240

My Mac mini has 16G Ram....I do load of hefty multi track stuff with VST, FX etc...never had a real issue.

kizzer

I had the same hardrive failure a year or so back on a similar aged Imac. It kept ticking over, but was not accessible. I installed a new harddrive using this video:



I also found out that the mother board could have a 2nd hardrive installed, so added a 2nd solidstate drive to run the operating system.



It all works fine now and is a pretty simple fix to follow.

ADP

You can replace the hard drive in an iMac. It's a bit of a fiddly process involving using suction cups to take the glass screen off to get inside, but it's doable. Replace the old one with an SSD, put as much RAM in as it will hold, and you'll be amazed at the transformation. A six-year-old iMac isn't ready for the scrap heap.

goldtop

+1 on repairing the iMac - and using an SSD for a real-world performance upgrade. Apple definitely made it daunting, but I'm about to do the same on my (even older) iMac. Samsung Evo 850 seems to be a popular choice.