Looking to begin recording - need help selecting the right computer

[Zack Pomerleau]

Hi there. I’m a classic blues musician and also do a one man band. I’m hoping to begin recording at my home. I have a decent amount of experience with Logic and Pro Tools but never dived deep. I don’t even have a computer so I’m at a loss with every option and hoping to get insight. 

I imagine a more complicated recording would have vocals, two guitars maybe three, bass, drumset, harmonica. I’m thinking I’d use amp simulation using logic and also would record a keyboard part or two (Rhodes or organ). 

im currently looking at possibly an M3 iMac with 16g of ram and 512 or 1tb of storage. I’ve had some people mention I should consider an M2 Pro because of the cores. I’m not totally sure how necessary that is because of me not using many samples and such. I also have been told the M1 Pro max might be worth considering but my issue with that is maybe not going to be supported as long?

I would also have to buy all the stuff so I would need keyboard mouse monitor. Honestly I might consider the super nice apple screen but the iMac is enticing because for around 2k I can get everything including logic. 

looking for some thoughts!

[enossified]

I use an M1 MB Air, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD.

Assuming you will be running a smaller number of tracks (i.e. 32 or less…some modern pop productions use over 100) that iMac setup will be just fine.

I just recorded a demo session for a friend's blues band playing live (no overdubs) and we only used 7 tracks…2 vocals, harp, bass, guitar and 2 mikes on the drums. About 105 minutes of music total at 44.1/24 took up less than 6GB. Even with more guitars and using more than two mikes on drums, you’d still be looking at only needing 16 tracks.

If you’re at all concerned about disk space, buy an external SSD when you need more storage. You can buy 2TB for $150 these days, way cheaper than Apple’s prices for a larger onboard SSD. I keep all my photo and Apple Music libraries on an external SSD and have plenty of space so far on the internal SSD for my Logic projects. If old projects start taking up too much space, off to an external SSD for archiving.

 

[Zack Pomerleau]

8 hours ago, enossified said:

I use an M1 MB Air, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD.

Assuming you will be running a smaller number of tracks (i.e. 32 or less…some modern pop productions use over 100) that iMac setup will be just fine.

I just recorded a demo session for a friend's blues band playing live (no overdubs) and we only used 7 tracks…2 vocals, harp, bass, guitar and 2 mikes on the drums. About 105 minutes of music total at 44.1/24 took up less than 6GB. Even with more guitars and using more than two mikes on drums, you’d still be looking at only needing 16 tracks.

If you’re at all concerned about disk space, buy an external SSD when you need more storage. You can buy 2TB for $150 these days, way cheaper than Apple’s prices for a larger onboard SSD. I keep all my photo and Apple Music libraries on an external SSD and have plenty of space so far on the internal SSD for my Logic projects. If old projects start taking up too much space, off to an external SSD for archiving.

 

This is wildly helpful as that’s exactly what I’ll be doing right there. As I mentioned I play a little keyboard so may use the onboard samples and such for that for a piano sound. And amp sims. I’m curious, do you know how much ram that’s typically using doing something this size? 
 

Also, thanks for the file size info. I hadn’t thought much of that. I’ve considered get the 1tb one but not sure that’s necessary considering you can just get drives as you mentioned I’d be a tad iffy with smaller drives because of logics size. . 

[enossified]

Zack,

It’s a common question around here, do a search and you’ll find posts similar to yours.  I’d go with 16GB of RAM. I’m not convinced you need more for Logic.

8GB is pretty tight these days and the $200 additional cost is worth it for some level of future-proofing. I was using 16GB in a MB Pro back in 2010 and 32GB in an iMac in 2011, but those were the days where you could still install your own RAM and hard drives to save money.

 

[Zack Pomerleau]

38 minutes ago, enossified said:

Zack,

It’s a common question around here, do a search and you’ll find posts similar to yours.  I’d go with 16GB of RAM. I’m not convinced you need more for Logic.

8GB is pretty tight these days and the $200 additional cost is worth it for some level of future-proofing. I was using 16GB in a MB Pro back in 2010 and 32GB in an iMac in 2011, but those were the days where you could still install your own RAM and hard drives to save money.

 

Hey, I’ll definitely do that! My question was more related to the specific project you showed. I know there’s a meter or something that shows ram usage I believe. 

[analogika]

If the M3 iMac with 16 GB of RAM comfortably fits in your budget, that’s just about the perfect machine for your needs for the years to come. 
 

You are not going to be running high track count complex productions with dozens and dozens of super complex modelled instruments and high-end plugins. The base M3 will be well enough. 
 

Get as much internal storage as you can afford, and don’t forget to budget for an external Time Machine backup drive or two. 

[Zack Pomerleau]

3 hours ago, analogika said:

If the M3 iMac with 16 GB of RAM comfortably fits in your budget, that’s just about the perfect machine for your needs for the years to come. 
 

You are not going to be running high track count complex productions with dozens and dozens of super complex modelled instruments and high-end plugins. The base M3 will be well enough. 
 

Get as much internal storage as you can afford, and don’t forget to budget for an external Time Machine backup drive or two. 

Appreciate that. It’s literally right in my price range and I probably could get the terabyte one too. I guess now I need to decide if I should upgrade to the one with 2 inputs or more with the better graphics card then! 

[enossified]

16 hours ago, Zack Pomerleau said:

My question was more related to the specific project you showed. I know there’s a meter or something that shows ram usage I believe. 

There are CPU (per thread) and Disc performance meters but not RAM (someone correct me if I’m wrong about that). You can monitor memory usage in the Activity Monitor. That project hovers around 320MB, including bouncing the mix.

[Zack Pomerleau]

Thanks for the info guys. I’m going to get one of these. I’m just deciding if I should get the one with the upgraded gpu as it has an extra fan and more ports. Seems like it would save me troubles in the long run. 

[enossified]

Zack, definitely get the one with the extra GPUs because you get two more USB-C ports. With at least a USB or Tbolt audio interface, a USB-MIDI keyboard and an external drive, you’ll be able to avoid getting into hubs and docks.