Hi there!
I'm an amateur (soon-to-be professional, I hope!) composer for orchestra, mostly soundtrack style, yadda yadda, & I'm looking for a new computer that will be able to support a variety of heavy programs such as Miroslav Philharmonik (soon upgrading to Vienna or EastWest), Sibelius 6, Logic, etc.
The iMac caught my attention and from looking at the specs and playing around with customization, it seems to be able to cover my need fairly well (I have at least 2 older computers to serve as slaves, so the lack of high-performance, high-end drives & RAM chips isn't much of an issue). Besides, it's fairly cheap for a decent computer.
However, I fail to find ANY mention of a sound card. Not anywhere, and this worries me greatly. The reason I am attracted to Macs is that I hear so much good about them from other composers I know and a lot of well-known composers use them too, and seeing that there might not be a soundcard (or worse yet, an INTEGRATED one) that's going to put a huge damper on my potential Mac adventure.
The issue with composing using VSTi's is that 1) there is sound lag & 2) without a good soundcard, you're sacrificing sound quality.
So how good IS the iMac for music production, then? How is the sound lag? What type of soundcard does it have (if any)?
If it doesn't have a soundcard, can I add one?
Is it ASIO4ALL-compatible?
I'm an amateur (soon-to-be professional, I hope!) composer for orchestra, mostly soundtrack style, yadda yadda, & I'm looking for a new computer that will be able to support a variety of heavy programs such as Miroslav Philharmonik (soon upgrading to Vienna or EastWest), Sibelius 6, Logic, etc.
The iMac caught my attention and from looking at the specs and playing around with customization, it seems to be able to cover my need fairly well (I have at least 2 older computers to serve as slaves, so the lack of high-performance, high-end drives & RAM chips isn't much of an issue). Besides, it's fairly cheap for a decent computer.
However, I fail to find ANY mention of a sound card. Not anywhere, and this worries me greatly. The reason I am attracted to Macs is that I hear so much good about them from other composers I know and a lot of well-known composers use them too, and seeing that there might not be a soundcard (or worse yet, an INTEGRATED one) that's going to put a huge damper on my potential Mac adventure.
The issue with composing using VSTi's is that 1) there is sound lag & 2) without a good soundcard, you're sacrificing sound quality.
So how good IS the iMac for music production, then? How is the sound lag? What type of soundcard does it have (if any)?
If it doesn't have a soundcard, can I add one?
Is it ASIO4ALL-compatible?