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First DAW - New 2017 iMac!


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It's time for me to enter the world of DAW'S. After a lifetime of windows, I've decided that swapping to apple for music production would result in a more stable system with less problems.

 

So I'm going to buy one of the new iMac's and I have a few questions -

 

Do I want 21.5 or 27 inch screen? The room I will be in will only fit a small desk, will 27 inch be too big?

 

Should I go with fusion drive or SSD?

 

Is 16gb ram enough? If I choose 21.5 inch then it's not so easy to change, 27 inch then I can easily upgrade so question isn't so important.

 

Thank you in advance for any help.

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27 inch is not that big by today's standards, and you'll be probably quickly frustrated (limited) with a 21.5 inch screen – I would definitely go 27 inch if you can afford it. Your screen is what you'll be staring at all day pretty much, so you want that experience to be a comfortable one! My wife uses a 27" iMac on a tiny desk, it's perfectly fine. 

 

Choose SSD. 

 

16GB RAM is enough for most uses, unless you're a film composer and want to play tons of large sample libraries in which case you may want as much RAM as the Mac can support. 

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Thank you David for the quick reply.

 

I was swaying towards 27 inch, my last pc had a 24 inch screen so going down in size would be a bit silly.

 

My follow up question is what size SSD should I choose? I can't afford to go too high. Surely all you need is enough space for one project at a time, that gets put on the SSD, and all other projects can be stored on a slow external HDD? How much space is needed for 1 project plus everything else that logic needs for that project?

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Also, check the external video capabilities of your new toy.  Apple offers excellent, calibrated (of course ...) digital monitors that are big.  Furthermore, the moment you plug one in, your "desktop" now encompasses all of them.  "It just works.™"  It can be very handy to, for example, move the Mixer display to a second screen.  Or, if you do music-scoring work, to see an entire page of an orchestral score all at once without scrolling.

 

There are several options for connecting external hard drives, and you should purchase a drive that is compatible with your machine's fastest option.  (Probably "Thunderbolt.")

 

Also:  from day one, use Time Machine backups!  (I actually dedicate a second daisy-chained external drive to this purpose.)  Plug it in, set it up, turn-on Time Machine and let it make its first backup.

 

I predict that you will be very happy with Apple for music work, since, unlike Windows, Apple sells both the software and the hardware it runs on.  The hardware is not cheap, but it's not "cheap," either.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I agree with everyone else - go for the 27" i7 - 21" is smaller than it used to be, the i5 is underpowered, you can't install more than 16Gb of RAM and you can't change the memory at all without dismantling the whole thing - the 27" has a convenient door in the back for memory installs.

 

Also, stay away from the wireless keyboard and mouse - they blow through batteries like crazy and when the battery goes you're completely disabled.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 months later...
iMac features powerful new Radeon Pro 500 series graphics that make a spectacle of everything you see. The 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display is loaded with up to 8GB of dedicated VRAM. And the 21.5-inch iMac with Retina 4K display ignites with up to 4GB. Both deliver visual effects and 3D graphics that exhibit raw power in its most polished form. On top of that, you get advanced video editing capabilities. Now you can edit multicam projects in Final Cut Pro X with up to five streams of full-resolution 4K video.
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