iMac or Mac Pro recording studio?

I have a copy of Cubase 4 ready to install on a new Mac. However, as powerful as the Mac Pro is, I really don't want to have to bother with external displays and space-taking equipment if I don't have to.

Is the iMac powerful enough to run, say, 24 tracks simultaneously? And if anybody has this setup, what would you estimate is the maximum number of tracks that I could play simultaneously without straining the CPU?

Thanks for your help.

What are you using for an interface? I've used a Motu and Firepod simultaneously with Logic and it ran like a champ on a macbook pro with 3 gig's of ram. I was recording a jazz band.

I am (or will be) using a Roland VS-1680 or a Tascam FW-1082. I just want to know if a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM will suffice to run at least 16 tracks simultaneously with no problems.

iMac is plenty fast enough.

24 tracks? some kind of joke? an iMac could probably run 128 and more tracks of pure audio without any worry.

The problem would be if you started using a lot of audio processing plugins. This would begin to slow things down after you were running what? 56 or so?

In general, yes, if that's what you're using it for the iMac is fast enough.

Professional studios tend to go with Mac Pros because it will allow them to run almost as many plugins as they like. But think back to the days when the fastest machines available were 400MHz Power Macs. Professional studios were still running up to 48 tracks of audio on them.

Johnt hit it right on the nose. Johnt, were you around for those pro tools computers? i've heard about them but never seen one. I'm a newbie to the industry. I started out with a DIGI002 and a Yamaha 01v 96k.

To be honest I've never really been into the Pro Tools side of things. As powerful as it is, it isn't the pinnacle of all DAWs that some people make it out to be. It is only comparable to the other "top" systems around at the moment, no better. My choice is however that I generally don't like the user interface of the Pro Tools software.

But anyway, that's off on a bit of a tangent. To be honest I'm only about 3, perhaps nearly 4 years experienced to the industry myself, so I could well still be considered a newbie. I've not been in the industry long enough to remember when the best machines were 400MHz...

To be honest, what you've started out with is FAR better than what I started out with.

Nice to talk anyway. Always good to hear from other like-minded people.

Thanks a lot for your help guys; I was sure that the Mac Pro would be overkill. Works out much nicer for me financially as well, so all of your help was appreciated!

Well, THIS is what I started out with...

I use an iMac for my studio....

i run a recording studio with an iMac (8GB ram, and 1TB internal HD and 1TB external HD)
and i bounce back and forth between Cubase 4 Le and Logic Studio 9...

I also use plugins/programs:
Supperior Drummer 2.0, Amplitube 2, Antares AutoTune, Lounge Lizard, Reason...etc...

it runs amazing!
i have a producer style desk, and the iMac saves so much room, with no tower...
i got the 24" model...
it runs great, and is big enough, it makes editing/mastering a breeze even sitting on my couch with the blue-tooth keyboard

i love my set-up, and would highly recommend it

I use the Presonus FireStudio 8 Channel Interface...
i have had NO problems at all...
worst thing was spending an hour registering all my software lol...

I would like to add a question to this one...

1. I want to do professional recording (produce albums) and am looking at the 24" imac, 2.93 GHz with 4Gb ram. Will it be fast enough for general recording using Logic and maybe 20 audio tracks without partitioning the drive to separate system files from audio files?

2. Would a separate hard-drive be good to send audio files to, or is the imac professional enough to handle everything? I don't want to go mac pro unless I really have to - space, $ etc.

3. I could upgrade to imac 3.06 with NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB memory instead of 256, but not sure that the value gained is worth the expense.

any thoughts appreciated

I'm thinking of getting an iMac like yours instead of paying much more for a Mac Pro. Do you use another LCD Monitor? Is it possible do add another monitor? Can you post some pics of your studio setup, curious on how awesome it looks. Please post or pm me with pics. Thx

Behr Studio said:

i run a recording studio with an iMac (8GB ram, and 1TB internal HD and 1TB external HD)
and i bounce back and forth between Cubase 4 Le and Logic Studio 9...

I also use plugins/programs:
Supperior Drummer 2.0, Amplitube 2, Antares AutoTune, Lounge Lizard, Reason...etc...

it runs amazing!
i have a producer style desk, and the iMac saves so much room, with no tower...
i got the 24" model...
it runs great, and is big enough, it makes editing/mastering a breeze even sitting on my couch with the blue-tooth keyboard

i love my set-up, and would highly recommend it

I use the Presonus FireStudio 8 Channel Interface...
i have had NO problems at all...
worst thing was spending an hour registering all my software lol...

Click to expand...

Behr Studio said:

i run a recording studio with an iMac (8GB

Click to expand...

Excuse my lack of knowledge, but how have you got 8GB Ram on your imac?