Apple Logic Pro /LogicExpress Discussion

I have the $1199 aluminum iMac (20inch).

I bought it last May and immediately maxed it out with 4B or Ram from  
newegg ... and now I run Logic Express without any trouble. I also  
have an RME FireFace 800 of which the standard Firewire 400 port does  
NOT work. Apparently the new iMac's are not using the TI (Texas  
Instruments) made Firewire 400 interface and the RME Fireface driver  
has trouble with that.

http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=11068

But, fortunately, the Fireface has two Firewire 800 ports which the  
iMac also has. I went to my neighborhood Mac Store for this cable  
(Best Buy generally doesn't carry the Firewire 800 cables - their  
sales kids were terrible at trying to grasp at what I was asking for).

Anyway, I run a few of the soft synths that came with the software,  
two MOTU MIDI interfaces, the RME fireface and Addictive Drums and the  
CPU and Memory barely ever blip. Mind you, I'm not doing anything  
significant ... but so far, so good.

In other words, any of the aluminum iMacs should suite you just fine.  
The larger the monitor, the taller you can make your faders and the  
more tracks you'll see - but I'm doing just fine with the 20inch ...  
and even plugged in a second monitor. Don't forget to get the  
converter for that port. The iMacs do not have a standard DVI port (or  
VGA for that matter). The do have goofy DVI jack of which the sell a  
$20 adapter for several different monitor types ... of which I can  
attest to, the standard DVI works just fine.

If, on the other hand, you need to attach a set of Apogee converters  
or Pro Tools interfaces and want to make sure you can install your OWN  
firewire interface, you will likely need the Mac tower to accommodate  
amongst other things, peripheral PCI cards, etc.

Hope that helps. For what its worth, in Britney's 'Making of Circus'  
mini movie, one of the producers can be seen working in ProTools on a  
large screen iMac. I don't think you can wrong with any of the new  
Mac's ... unless you get something like the mini which I'd avoid for  
your purposes. One of the biggest differences between the aluminum  
iMacs is the graphics card ... and unfortunately, I'm not sure how  
much that really buys you.

-Luther



On Feb 11, 2009, at 11:24 AM, Andy Brook wrote:

> I have a fairly new macbook pro which is playing up - overheating,  
> several
> keys have stopped working, doesn't always start up properly and even  
> so, it
> was my first mac and I fell in love with mac compared to a pc. I am  
> going to
> buy a new mac, with a budget of up to the price of a macbook pro,  
> but I
> don't necessarily need a laptop.
>
> Could anyone suggest what I should go for within that sort of  
> budget? Other
> than that I don't want an absolutely huge ugly monster of a computer  
> in my
> living room, I want to go for whatever is best for logic pro  
> (including
> recording audio).
>
> I love computers but haven't got a clue when it comes to deciding  
> what to
> get so any help would be much appreciated.
>
> By the way, thank you for the help in unmuting the tracks. The live  
> gig went
> down a storm.
>
> Andy B
>
> 



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