which mac?

D!ve^Bomb!

I'm looking to buy a mac but not sure which one.. it will mainly be used for music production etc, as well as the norm - internet, work etc.. which should i go for.. imac, ibook, emac?? i'm good with computers but when it comes to the tech specs i have no idea, any help appreciated;)

Gordon

What do you mean by music production?

oh and of course, whats your max budget?

D!ve^Bomb!

well you know... music production, recording music.. multiple tracks, pro-tools and the likes.. well i defo wouldn't go above 2k, i'd rather have something around the 1500 mark.. i know the ibook and emac are nice and cheap but i dont know if they would be suitable for recording music etc

SteveFE

newband wrote:

well you know... music production, recording music.. multiple tracks, pro-tools and the likes.. well i defo wouldn't go above 2k, i'd rather have something around the 1500 mark.. i know the ibook and emac are nice and cheap but i dont know if they would be suitable for recording music etc

I use an eMac (1.25 GHz, 512MB/80GB) for music - Ableton Live and Garageband - and it's fine for them, plenty fast enough. I get up to about 8 or 9 tracks in Garageband with FX on every track before it starts to stutter. I don't use Pro Tools so can't say how that would go, but the freebie version always used to go fine on my old 333MHz iMac with OS9.

I chose the eMac mainly because I wanted something with a decent size screen and half-decent built-in speakers; I like to bung it in the car and record stuff live on-site (usually straight to stereo with SoundStudio) and play it back to the recordees, and it's just about manageable for that. For your budget I'd say it's worth going for the cheaper CPU and maxing out memory and HD with what you save, maybe even getting a dedicated USB audio or audio/MIDI box and some nice mics with the change.

monkeyfudge

If I was buying right now I'd go for the new G5 iMac. It's just at the begining of it's product lifecycle, so you know something better isn't going to come out next week.

For €1,759.00 (Including Vat and Delivery from AppleStore) you can get the following set up:

• 17" G5 iMac
• 1GB DDR400 SDRAM - 2 DIMMs
• 160GB Serial ATA drive
• Keyboard & Mouse + Mac OS
• 17-inch TFT display
• 1.6GHz PowerPC G5
• DVD/CD-RW drive
• GeForce FX 5200 Ultra - 64MB DDR

You can customise this as much as you want, maybe add a DVD burner.

http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/irl/

Maoltuile

newband wrote:

well you know... music production, recording music.. multiple tracks, pro-tools and the likes.. well i defo wouldn't go above 2k, i'd rather have something around the 1500 mark.. i know the ibook and emac are nice and cheap but i dont know if they would be suitable for recording music etc

Are you looking to record live? If so, you're looking (at a prosumer level) at either bagging a G4 or G5 PowerMac from somewhere (to use with add-in cards), a 15/17" PowerBook for PCMCIA cards (the 12" doesn't have the slot) or PowerBook/iBook/iMac/eMac for a FireWire sound recording solution. From my own limited knowledge, I've heard nothing but bad things about USB recording on any platform).

Congratulations on your sensible choice of platform, though

D!ve^Bomb!

monkeyfudge wrote:

If I was buying right now I'd go for the new G5 iMac. It's just at the begining of it's product lifecycle, so you know something better isn't going to come out next week.

For €1,759.00 (Including Vat and Delivery from AppleStore) you can get the following set up:

• 17" G5 iMac
• 1GB DDR400 SDRAM - 2 DIMMs
• 160GB Serial ATA drive
• Keyboard & Mouse + Mac OS
• 17-inch TFT display
• 1.6GHz PowerPC G5
• DVD/CD-RW drive
• GeForce FX 5200 Ultra - 64MB DDR

You can customise this as much as you want, maybe add a DVD burner.

http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/irl/

would it not be better and cheaper to get an emac with the same ram and HD? for only 1200, 500 less than what you paid for this?

monkeyfudge

eMac's are G4s.

The new iMac is a G5, with considerable performance enhancements elsewhere too. And also it has a flat screen. And is well worth the extra cash.

You can see some of the Benchmark results here:

http://www.macworld.com/2004/09/features/imacbenchmarks/index.php

D!ve^Bomb!

ok the imac will be that *little* bit faster than the emac, but in due time there will be an improvement on that and there will be something faster than the imac... besides i've never used the imac so i wouldn't notice any difference between the two anyway re speed... and i dont wanna pay 500 extra for a flat screen.. i think the emac is the better option in this case

monkeyfudge

newband wrote:

but in due time there will be an improvement on that and there will be something faster than the imac...

The iMac is at the start of it's product life cycle, it was just updated to a G5 processor 2 weeks ago, while the eMac is approaching the end of it's life cycle. And the eMac might also be updated to a G5 soon too. So it might be worth waiting a month before making any descisions.

You can see an analysis of the Apple product life cycles here:

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

SteveFE

monkeyfudge wrote:

The iMac is at the start of it's product life cycle, it was just updated to a G5 processor 2 weeks ago, while the eMac is approaching the end of it's life cycle. And the eMac might also be updated to a G5 soon too. So it might be worth waiting a month before making any descisions.

Good advice. Also worth remembering that products at the end of lifecycle are often available way cheaper than list price once the new one's out, as the dealers want to clear old stock. So, if that 1.25GHz G4 iMac/eMac or whatever will comfortably do what you want performance-wise and you can save cash for some better mics or outboard gear, you'd get better value and results for your €2k. Crap in crap out as they say, or quality in quality out for optimists.