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Hi
I have imac snow leopard (10.6.8) logic pro 9, mbox pro audio interface and Apex microphone. What are your thougths on upgrading my system and gear to achieving broadcast quality tracks for submission for film and tv and libraries. I have people telling me I need to upgrade to logic pro x and dont want to mess with the operating system if I don't have too. Thanks for your feedback!

Hi Rona

Logic Pro 9 is a very capable DAW, just because it's not the latest doesn't mean you can't make Broadcast Quality music with it. I'm still using Sonar 8.5 which came out right around the same time, and running it on Windows 7. Libraries are still accepting my music.

I can run any Vst Instrument or FX plugins just as well as the newest version and I know my way around it like the back of my hand so I can work efficiently.

It's not the DAW that makes it possible to produce Broadcast Quality tracks... it's the skills of the person using it.

Mark

In addition to what Mark said and which I agree with : “it’s the ear not the gear”

You have to be super careful about how you are going to upgrade your iMac.

Depending on the version, you might be stuck at OS X 10.6.8. The fact that you have that installed on the machine makes me worried as that version of OS X became obsolete a long time ago.

Your particular iMac be new enough to run a newer OS X version, but Apple frequently updates the minimum machine and OS X standards. You can check on the App Store what the most recent specs are.

If your iMac can’t run OS X Sierra or high Sierra you might be looking at a new machine.

https://www.apple.com/ca/logic-pro/specs/

Looks like you need 10.11 or newer which is El Capitan.

You can find your iMac model in the about this Mac specs under the Apple menu and then find it on http://www.everymac.com and it will tell you what you can run on it.

Hope that helps.

Research before you update anything. And hopefully you have an external drive thar you can back up your system drive to before messing with it. You need a way to restore your working installation of 10.6.8 plus Logic 9 if you mess something up trying to update the whole thing.

The only way imo you ever need to upgrade is if there is a must have software or feature such as an instrument or effect that requires it, or you change the way you want to work.

When you narrow it down to broadcast quality, depending on the sampled instrument, you may need to have cutting edge vst's, eg. orchestral to compete because they've never quite achieved realism in the first place, and as the new ones get better they make the old ones obsolete. Drums, piano, not so much.