iMac Aluminium.

[anne]

Hi guys - I'm actually trying to do both because EWQLSO says the Play engine will be available as a free upgrade to Silver Pro in the fall, but who knows if it will. I will go look for the K2 if my mac experiment doesn't work and they can't give me a date on the Play upgrade. Since the magic "discount" word was mentioned on the K2 I'm going to look for a price now.I'm reading the logic info on the distributed audio feature now and will share what I find when I have it figured out. What I'd like to do is load up my instruments that won't work on my intel Mac on the PPC iMac so I can share the sounds between the 2 computers. It looks like this is possible from the reading I'm doing. I still haven't upgraded the keyboard controller - I haven't made it to the music store yet as we've been pretty busy around here. My plan is to call and see who has which keyboards in stock as it is about a 35 mile drive to one and a 45+ mile to the other.

[mazz]

Anne, To network the Audio/MIDI the old school way, you need an Audio/MIDI interface (USB or Firewire) with at the very least a stereo output, hopefully analog and digital and at least one MIDI input/output.On the iMac you'd install the interface and run, for instance Kontakt 2. Each instrument in K2 would be on it's own MIDI channel. Your interface would have a MIDI cable coming in to it from the master computer and an audio cable going out to the master mac's audio input. On the master Mac you'd set up a MIDI instrument in AudioMidi setup that corresponded to the MIDI output port connected to the iMac to send MIDI over. In your DAW software on the master Mac you'd open an Audio input that corresponds to the output of the iMac.A bonus would be a multiple I/O MIDI interface (32+ channels) as K2 in standalone will handle 64 MIDI channels if you have the RAM to load them!Conceptually you're treating the iMac as if it's any other hardware synth/sampler that you're addressing from your DAW software.I have a PC that I use for this exact purpose and I've created a large orchestral multi in K2 on the PC and a large template on my main mac that is plug and play so when I select the solo oboe MIDI track, it triggers the solo oboe on the PC and the audio shows up on the input I expect it to. It took a bit of time to set up but it sure saves a lot of time now!I don't know anything about Logic or the distributed computing thang but I trust you'll figure it out.Good luck!Mazz

[kouly]

Interesting thread. I am wondering if you can do both, run the other mac as a sample server AND a Node machine in Logic. My gut instincts are saying no but I have been wrong before.I like to think I am fairly familiar with audio on the mac but what is being discussed here is definitely advanced stuff. As I am doing some work with Apple in a limited fashion I have access to some of their creatives and geniuses. I will run this by them and see what I can find out. BTW JD: The iMac is a great machine, it is not on par with a Mac Pro but more computer than most consumers need. Ram upgrades are stupidly simple with one screw to remove and two available slots. It will hold up to 4GB (2X2GB DIMM"s). The new models come with fire wire 400 AND 800 ( a first in this line). You could custom order one with a Terabyte of hard disc space and a 2.8 Core 2 Duo. Personally I would not suggest buying one for Pro audio production but that does not mean it can't do a decent job in a home studio.

[dgolding]

I was given an iMac yesterday, but I think it's pretty old. I know nothing about Macs. Is it possible to upgrade the cpu easily, like Windows pc's?The whole thing seems to work ok, and I threw in some extra Ram.I'm in the processs of building a dedicated music computer, but I guess the Mac would be an interesting alternative, if it was fast enough and could handle all the plugins etc.

[mazz]

There's places that sell CPU upgrades, Other World Computing being one. What type of iMac is it? Is it one of the old green, orange or blue ones with the CRT or is it the one with the LCD built in? The ones with the LCD built in come in three flavors: 1. The LCD is on an arm, this one has a G4 processor. 2. The whole computer looks like a monitor, this one has a G5 processor. 3. Just like #2 but with an Intel processor.If it's really old, it's probably not worth upgrading. If it's a G5, you'll be able to do quite a bit with it depending on the CPU speed and the RAM. My wife has a G5 iMac and she runs Digital Performer on it and can open up a few tracks of Stylus, record some audio tracks and even run Reason as a Rewire slave. I wouldn't use it for your main music computer for large orchestral productions but as a slave/node, it would be a great addition.Have fun,Mazz

[dgolding]

The monitor houses the computer. It's a kind of aqua colour with some grey. It has a recessed handle on top for carrying, but it felt a tad flimsy to me. It says that the cpu is 350mhz, which is pretty darned slow these days isn't it?. I had a 250mb pc100 laying around, so I put that in.It looks pretty much like this:

[mazz]

I'd use it for an iTunes server and a CD burner and for checking e-mail. It's got a G3 processor in it which you may be able to upgrade to a G4 but for a few bucks more, you could get a Mac Mini which is about 50 times more powerful, at least.Mazz

[dgolding]

Thanks for the info, Mazz