Tell me what to buy

[CaseyBrian Casey]

Hi guys,

 

I'm a Sonar user and it looks like my hand is being forced into moving to ProTools quite quickly for my now commercial studio.

 

Essentially I am upgrading to a nice Allen and Heath gs-r 24 mixer/interface, and for numerous reasons I won't get into both its midi control and audio functionality aren't jplaying well with Sonar and my PC. I could send it back but I don't want to because its just a computer issue.

 

Anyway, I'm weighing up jumping to working off the mac and ProTools exclusively, which may sound some what foolish an it probably is, but I did use ProTools and Voice Over for a few projects when 8.0.4 came out first and I'll mostly be working from my desk and outboard equipment, so it should be a little easier.

 

I am thinking of going for a quad core imac because a mac pro is out of my budget and I don't need too much processing heft.

 

So I'd like suggestions of what I should get to start off, I have a potential list so far and tell me what you might add/change.

 

1. Obviously an external thunderbolt drive for the audio, iLock, full keyboard with the num pad etc, most here seem to recommend a track pad too?

2. The latest osx and protools 12 should cause no problems so may as well go with the new one?

 

 

3. I want to get the ProTools with speech tutorials straight away to get up and running with basics fast, is it all still up to date and relevant?

4. Does anyone have or wish to compile for me/future users a list of ProTools preference settings, Voice Over preference settings etc that will serve me well, I have a quick run through the archives but honestly I don't have time to read anymore than I have and information is fragmented between all the various PT changes etc since 8.0.4.

 

Other than  these things I don't have any huge ideas short of just hitting the buy button and jumping in.

 

As I say I've used Mac's sparingly and not with loads of joy in the past, and I do have an iPhone so I'm at least some bit in tune with the evil Apple ways.

 

Thanks in advance,

Brian.

[TheOreoMonster]

Quad core iMac should serve you well. Envious of your board. I am  a user of the originator and younger brother of that board the ZED r16 and love it. From what i understand PT with speech should walk you through settings and ge you going. 

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[Brian@Wavefield Recordings]

Thanks for that, I was wondering if the PT with speech had setup stuff
but there might be extra tips and tricks in PT and V O prefs that
people are using here.

The gs-r 24 m is in fact an amazing desk, so much so I'll invest in a
mac and PT and change everything to use its features fully. Its a
sizable investment though even for a professional setup, but its
appearance alone is nearly bringing in clients. People will really
think I'm a grown up studio when I have a mac and a desk now, where as
before despite some great outboard and great converters people were
still like, wheres the mixer and what software are you using.

Now figuring out which mac to buy as always is a head ache as they've
ingeniously set out all options to wind up making it a choice between
spending lots or settling for less.

If they still had the quad core mac mini I think that would be perfect
for me, not sure how much performance PT will get out of the current
dual core i7 at the top of the mini range.

I'm coming from a quad core i7 2.7 ghz on the windows side with 16 gig
ram, but the new PT and mac OS is presumably much better at using
hiper threading etc than Sonar 8 and Windows 7, so maybe a seemingly
lesser processor in a mac now won't actually leave me too
disappointed.

That's kind of off topic though.

All ideas welcome still!

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[Scott Chesworth]

Is it worth picking up a quad core Mac Mini second hand? If you go
that route, keep an eye open for the server version. It allows you to
shove two drives in the box for a slightly neater setup.

Scott

[Brian@Wavefield Recordings]

The quad core mini's server or otherwise are very thin on the ground
these days unfortunately, especially here in Ireland.

Plus they're almost becoming a saught after item used so probably not
the best value.

Now I remember why I dislike macs, even shopping on the mac store
online is frustrating as hell!

Thanks for your thoughts!

[Ricky Prevatte]

Sweet water music can set you up in a great way with this tot package. Your ProTools with speech you can find the free things on YouTube that will give you the nuts and bolts to optimize for work with voiceover.

Ricky Prevatte LMBT1154

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[Kevin Reeves]

What if you were to buy a used quad Mini? Then, you could max out the ram 3rd party, and send it off to have an SSD put in 3rd party.
Bryan Smart recommends this great company in Kansas that will do the drive swap pretty cheap, and a 1TB Samsung SSD is incredibly reasonable.
I have the I7 Quad and love it, and I don’t care that it’s a 2012.
Hope this helps.

Kevin

[Brian Casey]

Actually I think I've just had the good fortune of finding a mid 2011 iMac with 3.3 quad i7, 32 gigs of ram, ssd and 1 tb sata drive for the equivalent of just under 2000 dollars. A film production company in my town are upgrading!

Seems a no brainer to me

Sent from my smart-ish phone!

[Ricky Prevatte]

That thing no doubt will work. I believe that i would take them up on that. The age is not important to me that thing will run forever. That is until you upgrade yourself out of house and home. I kept my sonar rig for about 10 years.

Ricky Prevatte LMBT1154

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[Poppa Bear]

Kevin is Brian working on the Mac side now?

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