Calling all Apple people...

[Marlon]

Hi,

My brother is looking to get a Mac for his music production, and I have been given the task of sourcing it for him. However, my views on Macs are lets say biased - so I need help.

His basic requirements are Logic 8 software iLife 08/09, preferably latest OS version, enough power to run music editor software and to record without becoming out of time (core2duo > 2.4ghz). I assume he'll need some sort of pci card with audio encoding and midi. I don't know if macs have pci cards or whatever lol.

My brother is also not the cleanest of people and so I'd ideally like something robust and fixable if something goes wrong which it will. Due to this I'm not keen on the idea of iMacs with it all built into one as I imagine it cost lots to get Apple to fix anything.

So... suggestions on a postcard, or if you must type, then a normal post will do.

oh and price, ideally we want this to be about a grand, but if this is not feasible I'm willing to up that slightly.

[Splash]

I'm not a Mac user, but you're basically looking at a Mac Pro, and 1k ain't going to cut it, even with educational discount if it's available.

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/hom...ro?mco=MTE3MDQ

EDIT - Power Mac? What was I thinking it was, the 80s? I of course meant Mac Pro

[Pob255]

AFAIK, even with the Mac Pro being in a normal type chassis and using ATX standard, they are not fully ATX
I seem to remember that a lot of mac hardware is still special, they have extra chips on them that work like plug'n'play but instead work as hardware locks for the mac OS
ie you can install windows or OSx on a mac with an offical motherboard, but if it's just any old pc motherboard OSx will refuse to install unless it's hacked.
Upshot if hardware dies you may have to shell out 3 times the price for mac authorised replacements.
(How is apple allowed to get away with this kind of crap, yet MS gets done for anti-compertition?)
On the plus side hardware doesn't break that much and the bits which are more likely to break are hard drives which shouldn't be part of the apple hardware authorisation
The reason most PC's get so slow and break is software not hardware.

[aceuk]

An iMac is probably your best option if he can't afford a Mac Pro. Out of warranty repair is going to be expensive whatever Mac he chooses, so Apple Care would definitely be a good idea. We had to repair a PowerMac G5 at work which had a faulty motherboard and that cost in excess of £600!

Since iMacs don't have PCI slots an external Firewire or USB sound card would be fine. Echo Audio make some really nice sound cards which also support Apple's Core Audio too.

[Marlon]

cool, cheers guys,

he has opted with the 20" iMac with apple care so hopefully it should be ok, I got him to go for 4gb of ram just to be safe too.

[Nick F]

cool, cheers guys,

he has opted with the 20" iMac with apple care so hopefully it should be ok, I got him to go for 4gb of ram just to be safe too.

Good choice, the extra 4" might have been handy for music editing though. I've used logic express on my iMac and it runs perfectly.

[DecomposingStar]

I'm using the 13" 2.0ghz 2gb macbook with an Edirol UA-25 on it, using logic and reason. The direct monitoring you get from the UA-25 is great and takes a lot of strain off the computer. It runs fine although i don't do anything to intensive on it. I would suspect that even just upgrading to 4gb RAM would see you through. It all runs SO much smoother on my mac than on my PC which has 4gb RAM, 2.5~ghz C2D etc etc.

If he needs extra workspace he could always hook up an external monitor like I do. I have a 20" Samsung monitor that serves very well.