iMac for recording Or PC??

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Hi everyone.. I'm setting up a little studio in my home where I'll record myself and a few other bands/artists, I have a small mixer and all the mics I just need a computer,, what do you think to the new
iMac?? The cheapest of the i5 processors, will this be more then a good enough computer for this?? Or for a thousand pounds am I better getting a PC in which the specs double the mac for the same price??


Thanks or the help
 

robduckyworth


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the iMac will be more than capable of this. they also run very silent, so you dont have to worry about fan noise spilling onto your tracks.

PCs generally run a little louder due to standardised fans and cooling systems.

the CPU is the most important aspect of any music production computer, and rest assured to effectively "double" the power of the iMac you are going to have to build one yourself - and seeing as the only consumer grade CPU that is above the i5 2500/k right now is an i7 2600k (and they definitely don't double the performance compared to the i5) You would have to look into server-grade parts. And they ain't cheap.

anyway, i am rambling.

The iMac is a perfect computer for recording. I would be more worried about your hardware, room acoustics & microphones. in particular your audio interface. has it got enough ins/outs for what you want to be able to do?
 
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Thanks for the reply, I think I will go with the Mac i5, I'm going to study audio production at university and all the computers there are macs so useful to have one my self, and yeah my mixer is fine for what I want to do at the minute, I was more worried about what sort of RAM and processor the recording software like pro tools and logic would need to run, but I gather from what you've said the i5 processor and 4gB ram should do fine

Thanks :)
 

robduckyworth


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Pro Tools and Logic run like a dream on i series processors.

RAM wise, apart from Logic, hardly any DAWs are 64bit compatible anyway and are only gonna be able to use 4GB max.
And as long as you aren't using tons of sampler instruments you aren't gonna max it out anyway.

You wont go wrong with the iMac.
 
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Cool I think you've just finished the last step of me converting to MACs :) one last question, I read somewhere that with the new
iMacs it has easy acess slots so you can update the Ram yourself in the future?? Is thy correct
 

robduckyworth


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yep. its in the bottom. two screws. cover off, RAM in, cover on, done.
 
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chas_m

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Actually the iMac has always had easy access to at least some of the RAM slots.
 
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Program choice matters more than computer choice. The only reason I wouldn't go with an iMac is screen choice. I have a 30" and it wouldn't exactly match.
 
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Hi. I'd go with an iMac, simply because the Operating System in general is faster too. You can get a PC with doubled specs, but the speed of it would NOT be doubled. Macs in general are better for audio production anyway. I switched from PC to Mac for recording and the difference in spectacular. Except, I use a MacBook Pro with only an intel 2.4. :)

Plus, what do you expect from a Mac Forum when asking PC or Mac? ;P
 
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Hi. I'd go with an iMac, simply because the Operating System in general is faster too. You can get a PC with doubled specs, but the speed of it would NOT be doubled. Macs in general are better for audio production anyway. I switched from PC to Mac for recording and the difference in spectacular. Except, I use a MacBook Pro with only an intel 2.4. :)

Plus, what do you expect from a Mac Forum when asking PC or Mac? ;P

Hi. I'd go with an iMac, simply because the Operating System in general is faster too. You can get a PC with doubled specs, but the speed of it would NOT be doubled.

Well duh. Due to diminishing returns this is true of a wintel machine and an Apple computer. An iMac with double the specs of an AIO PC won't necessarily run at double the speed. You'd see speed/reliability in performance upgrades if you were doing stuff like encoding video, batch processing photos, editing music with a lot of tracks.

Macs in general are better for audio production anyway.

How? The only way Macs are better for audio production is if you're using software that only runs on OS X. Like when cubase finally came out for OS X you still wouldn't want to touch it with a 10 foot pole. There were so many bugs and it ran like crap compared to it's Windows counterpart.
 

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