Hi guys!
Hope it's the right forum for a question like this...
I have been using a PC and Cakewalk/Sonar for making music since 1993 or so. There are some issues leading to Sonar crashing that I'm quite annoyed with and that I've actually been really scared of for the past five years, and now I am (again) considering ditching the PC/Windows world, and getting a Mac for dedicated DAW purposes.
I've had a Mac Mini for some time now, and I really like how it works. I have not tested its DAW capabilities (only 2 GB RAM), other than installed Ableton Live on it, but OS X is quite nice, and overall it just feels solid. I can see myself quite happily using OS X without missing Windows too much (not that I have anything against it, W itself has worked perfect for me).
Then there's the wife situation.
She's lately been occupying my PC, and I can see that happening a lot in the future as well. To remedy that, I have (almost) decided to get a small & light MacBook Air in a few weeks or so for miscellaneous semi-work stuff happening on the living-room couch as well as on the road, and to give to the wife when I just absolutely need to do my music thing. However, I don't necessarily see myself making music on a laptop, in the mobile sense. I only use hardware synths, and for me it feels right to be in that environment when I make music, although, technically, once everything is recorded, I guess I could continue tweaking "offline", on the couch. I might do that, or not. I guess that's the big question here.
I have an iPad with lots of nice music apps, but I haven't seriously used any of them, except occasionally when connected to the ioDock. So maybe I'm just not a "mobile musician".
I don't make any money from my music. I don't even try. And I don't gig. But even though I'm not a Professional Musician, I want my tools to work. I value my spare time.
So given these circumstances, I've been primarily looking at an iMac to be used as a DAW. My current PC is quite capable: quad i7 processor, 16 GB RAM, SSD's, so I would expect favorably comparable muscle from whatever I end up getting. My DAW needs to handle my two Fireface 800's (and probably a third at some point). If it does that, and is otherwise spec'd as my current PC (has RAM, has SSD), I guess I'm happy. I might add that I use lots of tracks and realtime effects, so the processing power will be an issue. Memory not necessarily as much. I don't use soft samplers using huge sample libraries.
I have never really upgraded anything inside my PC's; I've bought the one I've wanted and then I've lived with it for 3 to 6 years, and then got a new one. The exception to not upgrading was when I swapped my HDD for an SSD, which gave the PC two more years of service.
So to my choises:
The iMac is simply gorgeous, and the esthetic half of me definitely wants me to get that one, plus I really like the all-in-one -concept. But I understand that the MacBook Pro might be more suited for my purposes? In that case I would not want to look at a laptop screen, so if I ended up choosing the MB Pro, I would go for something like a Henge Dock.
The upcoming Mac Pro appears to have both the expandability and the muscle, but I fear the pricing will be way out of my reach. On the other hand, not getting the "extra" MB Air would free up some cash, but that would leave me one machine short (the PC would exit).
Decisions, decisions...
To cut a long story short, and to finally arrive at some questions, do you guys think the iMac does the trick for me, or do you feel getting it involves risks not worth taking? Is the MB Pro clearly more capable, and at which specs?
I've planned to buy sometime around march/april next year, so I have ample time to consider my alternatives, but I would greatly appreciate comments, especially regarding possible iMac dealbreakers. The MB Air purchase will most likely happen regardless of everything else.
Cheers,
Kim
Hope it's the right forum for a question like this...
I have been using a PC and Cakewalk/Sonar for making music since 1993 or so. There are some issues leading to Sonar crashing that I'm quite annoyed with and that I've actually been really scared of for the past five years, and now I am (again) considering ditching the PC/Windows world, and getting a Mac for dedicated DAW purposes.
I've had a Mac Mini for some time now, and I really like how it works. I have not tested its DAW capabilities (only 2 GB RAM), other than installed Ableton Live on it, but OS X is quite nice, and overall it just feels solid. I can see myself quite happily using OS X without missing Windows too much (not that I have anything against it, W itself has worked perfect for me).
Then there's the wife situation.
She's lately been occupying my PC, and I can see that happening a lot in the future as well. To remedy that, I have (almost) decided to get a small & light MacBook Air in a few weeks or so for miscellaneous semi-work stuff happening on the living-room couch as well as on the road, and to give to the wife when I just absolutely need to do my music thing. However, I don't necessarily see myself making music on a laptop, in the mobile sense. I only use hardware synths, and for me it feels right to be in that environment when I make music, although, technically, once everything is recorded, I guess I could continue tweaking "offline", on the couch. I might do that, or not. I guess that's the big question here.
I have an iPad with lots of nice music apps, but I haven't seriously used any of them, except occasionally when connected to the ioDock. So maybe I'm just not a "mobile musician".
I don't make any money from my music. I don't even try. And I don't gig. But even though I'm not a Professional Musician, I want my tools to work. I value my spare time.
So given these circumstances, I've been primarily looking at an iMac to be used as a DAW. My current PC is quite capable: quad i7 processor, 16 GB RAM, SSD's, so I would expect favorably comparable muscle from whatever I end up getting. My DAW needs to handle my two Fireface 800's (and probably a third at some point). If it does that, and is otherwise spec'd as my current PC (has RAM, has SSD), I guess I'm happy. I might add that I use lots of tracks and realtime effects, so the processing power will be an issue. Memory not necessarily as much. I don't use soft samplers using huge sample libraries.
I have never really upgraded anything inside my PC's; I've bought the one I've wanted and then I've lived with it for 3 to 6 years, and then got a new one. The exception to not upgrading was when I swapped my HDD for an SSD, which gave the PC two more years of service.
So to my choises:
The iMac is simply gorgeous, and the esthetic half of me definitely wants me to get that one, plus I really like the all-in-one -concept. But I understand that the MacBook Pro might be more suited for my purposes? In that case I would not want to look at a laptop screen, so if I ended up choosing the MB Pro, I would go for something like a Henge Dock.
The upcoming Mac Pro appears to have both the expandability and the muscle, but I fear the pricing will be way out of my reach. On the other hand, not getting the "extra" MB Air would free up some cash, but that would leave me one machine short (the PC would exit).
Decisions, decisions...
To cut a long story short, and to finally arrive at some questions, do you guys think the iMac does the trick for me, or do you feel getting it involves risks not worth taking? Is the MB Pro clearly more capable, and at which specs?
I've planned to buy sometime around march/april next year, so I have ample time to consider my alternatives, but I would greatly appreciate comments, especially regarding possible iMac dealbreakers. The MB Air purchase will most likely happen regardless of everything else.
Cheers,
Kim