Would an I mac be enough for any big project?

[mazz]

If you can learn to play an instrument or wire up a studio, you can learn this stuff. Like it or not, the studio is your instrument, learning to play it well is what will make your compositions sound great, unless you can afford to hire an engineer. These days, clients expect that you will be able to deliver a great finished product and they don't want or need to know how it happens, but, of course, they don't necessarily want to pay for someone to record it elsewhere or hire engineers and musicians. So we have to make our peace with technology in order to survive in the business, at least as production music composers.

Or until our leaky ship comes in!

[ernstinen]

If you can learn to play an instrument or wire up a studio, you can learn this stuff. Like it or not, the studio is your instrument, learning to play it well is what will make your compositions sound great, unless you can afford to hire an engineer. These days, clients expect that you will be able to deliver a great finished product and they don't want or need to know how it happens, but, of course, they don't necessarily want to pay for someone to record it elsewhere or hire engineers and musicians. So we have to make our peace with technology in order to survive in the business, at least as production music composers.

Or until our leaky ship comes in!

I Gotcha, Mazz! I'm at peace with the technology that I've learned, and am still learning, albeit at a slower pace than some.

I believe I'm a very good audio engineer. I'm a lousy electrical engineer! I can barely solder a cord correctly. --- But I can, and do, deliver a great finished product. Done it for years and years. 100s of satisfied clients. Actually, I worked so much as a studio engineer/producer/arranger that I had no time to write my own music. So I quit that rat race. Maybe that's why I'm behind the times, but as Samuel L. Jackson said in Pulp Fiction, "I'm trying --- I'm trying so hard."

Who I DO need to hire is a techie to get my studio running like a top again. It DID for a long time, but with a new 'puter, I'm going to hire someone from W. L.A. Music or my Mac tech to get the iMac and the tons of interfaces purring like a kitten again. That's worth a few $$ to me, saving me the aggravation of trying to figure it out myself! I'm stubborn, but not THAT stubborn!

Thanks again for your input,

Ern

[fusilierb]

Everything you know about wiring a studio is going to help you to "wire" a virtual studio, but today most of the wiring happens "in the box" these days. You got the hard part down, understanding what all the knobs mean.

Now you just have to figure out how to access where those "knobs" live in the software that you are using. They are there somewhere.

You seem to have lot's of external gear. I like that about you. You already know that you just have to figure out how to route through the board from your sequences out to your modules and then back into your mixer. Thing is, with the new virtual instruments, there is no more "out" in the sense of physical devices. It's just out to virtual instruments and then back to (probably a real board in your case) and an internal one that it a digital mixer. It's all the Same Sh!T.

You'll get it. And if you get a new iMac, the audio routing is very simple, at least on a one system setup. All handled under the Audio preferences of the mac and then the DAW's just sort of recognize everything and then its just inputs to outputs from there.
B

[mazz]

Apple just announced a new iMac.

www.apple.com

[fusilierb]

And they are powerful!

[ernstinen]

Apple just announced a new iMac.

http://www.apple.com

Good things come to people who wait! I've been waiting and waiting for the price of iMacs to come down, and they just never did --- until now. Same price actually, but much more advanced processor, from what I've just read. I am so stoked! I almost bought a PC with one of the new Intel processors, but this seals the deal for me!

NOW it just boils down to what interface to get for about $500. I'm looking at:

Mackie Onyx 820i
MOTU UltraLite-mks
M-Audio ProFire 610
Apogee Duet

Gotta do more research ---

Ern

[orest]

I love my ultralite card.

[kclements]

Here is an interesting article. I have been going around and around re: iMac v MacPro. I have decided to save my pennies a little bit longer and go with the MacPro. And this well written article does a nice job of boiling it down, i think.

http://www.marco.org/868606627 - courtesy of http://www.daringfireball.net

kc

[ernstinen]

Here is an interesting article. I have been going around and around re: iMac v MacPro. I have decided to save my pennies a little bit longer and go with the MacPro. And this well written article does a nice job of boiling it down, i think.

http://www.marco.org/868606627 - courtesy of http://www.daringfireball.net

kc

Good article, KC. That's a lot of pennies for me, though! I'm gonna start with the $1199 iMac and a $500 interface 'cause that's my budget. I agree that a MacPro would be a better investment. I just sold $2000 worth of gear I'm not using, and guess what? It's all gone, paying bills and buying groceries. We refinanced our home, so that's where the $$ will come from at this point --- Ah the life of a poor musician.

Ern

[mojobone]

Ern, you should look into a refurb Mac Pro; now that the new stuff's announced, lotsa folks will be upgrading, and the article linked to above offers some very compelling reasons to avoid an iMac.