Recommend refresh model for music composition/recording?

[mrzeigler]

I occasionally play live music with a few of my buddies, and it's likely that I'll use my soon-to-be-purchased iMac to handle some of our music tracks. I'll probably get Logic at some point, but I'm likely spend more time playing around with multi-track songs in Garageband.

In recent years I'd basically given up on Garageband because I'm using an 8-year-old G4, and anything more than a 6-track, 2-minute composition would become excruciatingly slow if I were lucky enough not to overpower the machine. But I am the type of guy who probably would — if the computer can handle it — noodle around with a couple dozen tracks or more in a composition.

I expect that this and Photoshop CS5 projects (usually single-photo editing, but a couple times a year I will work on multi-layer, panorama images that could get up to ~400mb in size) are the most taxing work I'll be doing with the machine. The most intense gaming I do is the Civilization series.

It's possible that what I'm talking about wouldn't tax even a two-year old iMac, let alone the low-end refresh model, but I don't have a clue how to translate the specs into music capabilities. Most of the benchmarks I see refer to video and gaming. Some insight would be appreciated.

 

[pcypert]

I remember when the G5 came out and they all touted it as the end all be all for music recording professionals. Sure there's more taxing plugins by now, but wav files haven't really gotten much bigger the way video files have. I'd think any comps will do for most recording you'll need.

I ran the 2010 imac with Core i7 for stuff at home but my macbook air standard 13 inch runs all my DJ needs with traktor on the road...four decks with effects going and never a glitch or slow down...Not the same as producing music, but still...

Paul

 

[sth]

Any model will do performance-wise. And if the 4gb RAM become a bit limiting, you can always upgrade it later (no need to buy the expensive Apple BTO options).

More screen real estate is always nice when working with programs like Logic or Photoshop, so maybe give the 27" a shot.