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I've been thinking about replacing my worn out PC with an iMac Aluminium.Anybody got any views,reviews,advice (which Iwill ignore )

The iMacs are very nice because of the integration of the monitor, amongst other things. If you don't need to use PCI expansion cards or internal hard drives, then it's a very good way to go. You will have to use Firewire and/or USB drives and Audio/MIDI interfaces. More than one Firewire buss is always a plus, not sure if the iMacs have more than one. Depends on how much data you're going to be streaming at one time. Also, how easy is it to add more RAM in the future? You're going to want more RAM than the amount it comes with, if not now, then probably soon.Basically it comes down to expansion options, some people prefer internal expansion and will get a Mac Pro or desktop PC, others like all in one and go for an iMac or laptop and use external peripherals.One more thing, on the new macs with Intel processors, you can run Windows on them as well.Have fun,Mazz

Quote:The iMacs are very nice because of the integration of the monitor, amongst other things. If you don't need to use PCI expansion cards or internal hard drives, then it's a very good way to go. You will have to use Firewire and/or USB drives and Audio/MIDI interfaces. More than one Firewire buss is always a plus, not sure if the iMacs have more than one. Depends on how much data you're going to be streaming at one time. Also, how easy is it to add more RAM in the future? You're going to want more RAM than the amount it comes with, if not now, then probably soon.Basically it comes down to expansion options, some people prefer internal expansion and will get a Mac Pro or desktop PC, others like all in one and go for an iMac or laptop and use external peripherals.One more thing, on the new macs with Intel processors, you can run Windows on them as well.Have fun,MazzThanks mazz,I should have said the music side is pretty much taken care of with Mac already and the iMac could be useful as a node.How does Safari compare with Windows?

Quote:One more thing, on the new macs with Intel processors, you can run Windows on them as well.and i can use a brand new Mercedes to take 3 weeks of trash to the dump... (just teasing of course, I understand the benefits of being able to use windows on occasion. I just find it so much less stable the OS X, and even that is just my preference.)

Quote:I left Macs years ago, but I still admire their design. I saw this review at arstechnica.com and it seemed favorable although the default RAM and video card options seemed to be only average if you will push the machine hard in graphics or memory. It looks like a beauty and you could use a remote app like vnc to talk to other PCs and Macs.Thanks Song!

I think the iMac would be a great virtual instrument node as a slave to your main music mac.If you are going to stream samples at all (orchestra for instance) you'll want a fast Firewire hard drive and a fair amount of RAM.Safari is the mac web browser and I like it. I like the tabbed browsing option a lot. I'm a pretty solid mac guy but I am not a fanatic at all, I still like Windows for some things, like looking out at my back yard or letting light in to my studio! hee hee Good luck,Mazz

Can anybody tell me how to use an iMac as a node? I have an intel Mac Pro and can't use a lot of my old software as well as my EWQLSO software (yet). My husband just bought a new Mac for his business and will have an iMac G5 (non-intel) to sell - I was wondering if its worth keeping it to "tie in" to my rig and run my VIs / plugins that don't work on my intel unit - is that possible to do?Also I have a trigger finger question on another post that I could use some help with -

Quote:Can anybody tell me how to use an iMac as a node? I have an intel Mac Pro and can't use a lot of my old software as well as my EWQLSO software (yet). My husband just bought a new Mac for his business and will have an iMac G5 (non-intel) to sell - I was wondering if its worth keeping it to "tie in" to my rig and run my VIs / plugins that don't work on my intel unit - is that possible to do?Also I have a trigger finger question on another post that I could use some help with - Hi Anne,You have to hook up a fire wire cable and then put the node computer in firewire mode. I've done it just for transfering files, and it looks purty. Nice little floating firewire designs floating all over the slave monitor. I don't do it yet for VI's/plugins, but I will when you show me how! I have a G-4 kicking around that I'd like to do the same thing with, so I'm watching. Macs rule, except that they're more expensive, as is their software. I don't even run virus protection because I haven't found enough reason to yet. ps: What keyboard controller did you settle on?

Anne, I think what you are referring to is running the iMac as either a MIDI/Audio slave using a MIDI/Audio interface interconnected with your main machine (which is what I do), or using it pretty much the same way only using the fast ethernet connections. Now Logic may have a way to do this via Ethernet but I don't use it so I don't know how this would be done.I can offer more info on how to hook things up using MIDI/Audio if that is what you are looking for.BTW: You can get Kontakt 2 right now at a pretty good discount and it will run on the Intel Mac and will load up the EWQLSO instruments. The Kompakt player that ships with the EW stuff is not Intel compatible and will probably never be. But Kontakt 2 itself is a pretty awesome program and will serve you well for some time to come.Hope this helps,Mazz

Quote:Anne, I think what you are referring to is running the iMac as either a MIDI/Audio slave using a MIDI/Audio interface interconnected with your main machine (which is what I do), or using it pretty much the same way only using the fast ethernet connections. Now Logic may have a way to do this via Ethernet but I don't use it so I don't know how this would be done.I can offer more info on how to hook things up using MIDI/Audio if that is what you are looking for.BTW: You can get Kontakt 2 right now at a pretty good discount and it will run on the Intel Mac and will load up the EWQLSO instruments. The Kompakt player that ships with the EW stuff is not Intel compatible and will probably never be. But Kontakt 2 itself is a pretty awesome program and will serve you well for some time to come.Hope this helps,MazzI think what she's wanting to do is distribute the processing power among the two macs. It's a cool feature built into logic and OSX 10.3 and higher. I won't type a bunch of explaining... there's info here:http://www.apple.com/logicpro/distributedaudio.htmlAub