# Buying new iMac - Is this spec overkill?



## Levon (Feb 12, 2016)

Hello,

I'm planning to jump ship from PC to an iMac for my music production.

I'm currently using Cubase (started using it back in 2010) but I've never really got into it and dislike the various pop-up windows and the floating transport bar. I've mainly used it for composition and haven't really done any mixing/mastering production work with it as I've used other producers to knock my songs into shape. However I'm now wanting to take more control and make a serious attempt to get into the production side of things as well. I've got to the point with Cubase were I don't look forward to opening it up and battling with it. Also since moving to Cubase 7.5 and 8 I've had several serious problems with the eLicense/Dongle system that has rendered Cubase unusable for weeks at a time. The latest battle was the other week when I couldn't open Cubase because it was complaining there wasn't a valid license. I raised a support ticket but 10 days later I still haven't had any response from Steinberg. In the meantime I've eventually managed to get it working again thanks to various online forum suggestions. So the plan is to move across to Logic Pro X and hopefully kick start my music recording again. One big factor for moving to Logic is that most musicians/producers that I have collaborated with in the past tend to work in Logic. Obviously the biggest minus point is the initial outlay on an Apple computer. But I think a fresh start will be beneficial.

The iMac specification I'm thinking about is as follows:

iMac 27" 5K Retina
4.0GHz Quad Core i7
8Gb RAM (I plan to buy additional third party RAM to take it up to 16Gb or perhaps even 32Gb)
256Gb Flash Storage (For a system drive - I plan to use external SSD/HDD drives for audio and sample libs)
AMD Radeon R9 M395 with 2Gb
Superdrive
Apple Care
Logic Pro X

That is coming in at approx £2500. An expensive machine!

I'll be using the following VI's that I already own:

Komplete Ultimate
Spitfure Audio's Hans Zimmer Piano

Eventually I'll probably look to add some orchestra VIs to my collection.

A few questions that I have are:
1. Do you think the above specification for an iMac is overkill for my music recording/production?
2. Would I notice any difference if I were to go for an i5 rather than i7?
3. Is 256G a big enough System drive?
4. Should I opt for the higher spec graphics card which has 4Gb memory?

Any assistance would be very much appreciated.

Kind Regards,
Paul.


----------



## mc_deli (Feb 12, 2016)

1. No, get more ram
2. Probably, based on recommendations to go with i7 for demanding synths and e.g. Play
3. It is big enough, but it is also lightning fast. Get bigger
4. Less graphics card, less Applecare, less superdrive, more ram



(In advance of a debate about Applecare, of course if it makes you feel better. Without it you have a warranty. And with playing with software, music hardware etc. you are on your own - with the help of the interwebs. I haven't heard about Applecare fixing a Logic crash, setting up a template or tweaking someone's VEPro thread allocations. Apple is going to take enough of your money for cables, remote controls, phones etc.)


----------



## JohnG (Feb 12, 2016)

Good advice from mc deli about RAM. Can't have too much RAM. You also might ask the Logic gurus hereabouts but I hear that it's helpful to have VE Pro on Logic because VE Pro helps spread the load better across your cores.

Also agree on graphics. I have rubbish graphics cards on the whole and wouldn't pay extra for them.

Whether or not this computer is going to serve you well for a long time depends a lot on what direction and type of composing you get into. If at some point (I know you're not now) you are trying to emulate an orchestra convincingly (or somewhat convincingly), it will be tough no matter what you buy. I personally have never seen a single (that is, just one) computer that can do it. On the other hand, if you're writing for synths, that usually can be done on once computer, but it also can pull you into a ton of CPU-demanding reverbs / delays etc. and / or some demanding plug-ins like Diva from u-he (sounds great).

Whatever one starts off with seems to become less adequate over time.


----------



## Mike Marino (Feb 12, 2016)

As an iMac owner (late 2013 model):
1. Nope
2. Stay with the Quad i7 (as mc_deli pointed out). Could help "future proof" you a bit as well to get a little more mileage out of the machine. As John pointed out this will depend on the tools you're using to write with.
3. Go bigger. I have a 250GB SSD in mine and I'm about to upgrade to a larger internal SSD (after just a couple of years). I'm running very low on space (even with external sample drives, back-up and project drives).
4. Stay with the stock graphics card; saves you some money which you can grab a larger system drive and/or more RAM.


----------



## Baron Greuner (Feb 13, 2016)

Check 'Advice on This' thread in this part of the forum.

http://vi-control.net/community/threads/advice-on-this.50992/

btw - minimum internal SSD should be 500 GB. You go through it very fast.

I have a 500Gb internal SSD and wish I had bought a 1TB. 500GB is OK though.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 13, 2016)

I mostly agree with all that has been said. But I disagree on the internal SSD because you do _not_ want to write audio or stream samples from your boot drive, that is looking for trouble IMHO. So stick with a smaller SSD for booting and get a second and possibly third bigger SSD for samples and audio that connects either by Thunderbolt, USB 3, or eSATA.


----------



## mushanga (Feb 13, 2016)

1. Nope.
2. Yes. Stick to the i7.
3. It will probably be large enough but, as @Baron Greuner said, you will fill it up quickly. I went for 512GB of internal flash storage.
4. Unnecessary in my opinion. I went for the one above the basic (AMD Radeon R9 M390 with 2GB video memory) as this was the minimum spec if I wanted to go for the i7 processor. Zero issues so far.


----------



## PeterBaumann (Feb 13, 2016)

I have the late 2014 model of the 4Ghz i7 imac 5k and it's a fantastic machine - best purchase I made last year. The screen is just amazing. I would say though that it'd struggle with my large orchestral template if I didn't have a powerful slave to do some of the heavy lifting. I'm on the 250GB internal too, and still have about 100GB remaining after about 6 months, with the majority of any programmes I want to install already on there. I house EVERYTHING else on an external USB 3.0 SSD, with Aliases set up on the internal so that everything still makes sense for the mac to route it all to the right place. 

Like you, I got the minimum ram I could from Apple and then upgraded it myself. Double check though, because I seem to remember reading somewhere that they had removed the function to upgrade ram from the iMacs in their newest versions, but I may be misremembering that, so don't quote me on that! In general, if it can be upgraded by you, do that, because Apple's markup on drives and memory is just obscene. 

I'm a student, so I got it with the apple student discount, so it was slightly less painful on the wallet! Double check that you don't know anyone with a corporate/student discount who could sign in for you and then you could use their discount (although that's probably not encouraged by apple!)


----------



## synthpunk (Feb 13, 2016)

What are you 512G guys putting on your your internal SSD's ? As per Jay 256G is fine for a boot drive. That's all you should be using your internal SSD for.



EastWest Lurker said:


> I mostly agree with all that has been said. But I disagree on the internal SSD because you do _not_ want to write audio or stream samples from your boot drive, that is looking for trouble IMHO. So stick with a smaller SSD for booting and get a second and possibly third bigger SSD for samples and audio that connects either by Thunderbolt, USB 3, or eSATA.


----------



## Baron Greuner (Feb 13, 2016)

edited


----------



## mushanga (Feb 13, 2016)

PeterBaumann said:


> I have the late 2014 model of the 4Ghz i7 imac 5k


As I posted in another thread, the only negative for me has been the lack of retina display support and scalable versions of Kontakt, Omnisphere and so on. Nice to see VSL making progress on this with their new Vienna Suite Pro and Vienna Instruments player updates which they have confirmed they are working on. I wonder why most developers are taking so long to support retina displays and higher screen resolutions. How do you deal with this? Do you find PLAY, for example, to be quite pixellated with blurry graphics?


----------



## synthpunk (Feb 13, 2016)

I would make a external partition or get separate drive for your photo's Baron. The more you put on your internal SSD the more potential you have for issues and bottlenecks. Keep that internal SSD as lean, fast, as possible for system tasks.



Baron Greuner said:


> I put photographs on mine. Usually temporarily until they get sent off to the agencies. But the files can be big because I use a Nikon D800; always RAW files. Don't want to to put them on the Black Magic Dock and get them mixed in with samples and audio.


----------



## PeterBaumann (Feb 13, 2016)

Matt Taylor said:


> As I posted in another thread, the only negative for me has been the lack of retina display support and scalable versions of Kontakt, Omnisphere and so on. Nice to see VSL making progress on this with their new Vienna Suite Pro and Vienna Instruments player updates which they have confirmed they are working on. I wonder why most developers are taking so long to support retina displays and higher screen resolutions. How do you deal with this? Do you find PLAY, for example, to be quite pixellated with blurry graphics?


Not at all, PLAY is crystal clear on mine. I'll admit, Kontakt is blurrier than PLAY, but still completely readable.


----------



## Prockamanisc (Feb 14, 2016)

Levon said:


> Eventually I'll probably look to add some orchestra VIs to my collection


I think this is the most important statement of all. If you don't know what your studio and setup will eventually be, then how do you know what tools you'll need? You wouldn't walk into a sports store and say "I need a ball, it has to be the best ball with the best leather, and eventually after I buy it I'm going to decide which sport I'm going to play". You pick the sport and buy the ball for it.

This would be a killer machine if you maxed out the RAM, but keep in mind that lots of people get really deep into libraries and end up needing a slave. If that happens to you, then this computer will be overkill. If you plan on staying relatively small in terms of processing power, then this computer will be great.


----------



## Levon (Feb 17, 2016)

Thanks everyone for your feedback. It has been a great help.

One other question that I have is if I were to go down the PC Slave route what sort of specification should I be looking at in terms of the iMac running Logic and controlling the Slave PC?


----------



## PeterBaumann (Feb 19, 2016)

Levon said:


> Thanks everyone for your feedback. It has been a great help.
> 
> One other question that I have is if I were to go down the PC Slave route what sort of specification should I be looking at in terms of the iMac running Logic and controlling the Slave PC?


I had a dual core 3.2 GHz I think it was (an old imac) before this one, went down the slave route, but because I had a sizeable template with EW Spaces and various other plugins running, even the mac was struggling with that. I now have two very powerful systems and have not run into any issues to date. To be honest, not sure where the best cutoff is for you, but I'm very glad that I went for high end for both of my systems


----------



## synthpunk (Feb 19, 2016)

Even if your thinking about adding a slave, Always buy the fastest system you can to get ahead of the spec game, because chances are in 4 years you will be back where you are again now.

I found the slave route with VEP, etc more obtrusive than it needed to be to creativity and spontaneity. Perhaps you should look at 6-8 core Mac Pro's if you can fit it into your budget. 

Saying that, if Play is going to be a big part of your system, the slave pc may be the smartest route.



Levon said:


> Thanks everyone for your feedback. It has been a great help.
> 
> One other question that I have is if I were to go down the PC Slave route what sort of specification should I be looking at in terms of the iMac running Logic and controlling the Slave PC?


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 19, 2016)

aesthete said:


> Even if your thinking about adding a slave, Always buy the fastest system you can to get ahead of the spec game, because chances are in 4 years you will be back where you are again now.
> 
> I found the slave route with VEP, etc more obtrusive than it needed to be to creativity and spontaneity. Perhaps you should look at 6-8 core Mac Pro's if you can fit it into your budget.
> 
> Saying that, if Play is going to be a big part of your system, the slave pc may be the smartest route.


I respectfully somewhat disagree. Play libraries or no Play libraries, a well set up PC slave with VE PRO facilitates creativity with Logic Pro and adds no more obtrusiveness than plugging in a Roland JV-5080.


----------

