Shifting from hardware multitrack to DAW

The Lounge Other Gear
#1

Hi I’ve been using hardware multitracks for decades, and haven’t had a DAW since using Acid in 2004 (not the pills)
Currently I have a Korg D3200 wich is dying on me, and seeing as there are basically no new multitracks that cater to my needs,
I’ve decided to bite the bullet and get a computer and DAW

Budget 1500€ ish

I’m thinking a refurbished Imac
I saw a pimped out one from 2011 with a SSD 1To, 32go ram
but only 2.5ghz quad core
going for 1400€
a new Imac with decent specs and a 21" would be 2300€
2011 was a long time ago, but the SSD and ram make me think this would be pretty competent
what do you think?

I would then need a soundcard with low latence,
Maybe the Focusrite Thunderbolt 2 tracks

If Overbridge worked, I would only need the soundcard for the OT and maybe vocals
though my TC Helicon Voicerack can act as a soundcard too

In terms of the DAW, I would probably go for Cubase rather than Live, seing as I already have my machines to play music, the Daw would really be to have a linear song based setup
where I could easily edit and structure, then EQ mix master export

VST’s could become appealing if the AK can work as a midi keyboard (which I presume it does)

I’ve never had a mac, but have always been seduced by the idea that they’re more reliable,

Any input would be welcome about key things to look for in a refurbished mac, or if you think apple is a waste of money
and concerning low latence soundcards (I HATE audible latency, the hardware multitracks have none) plus quality convertors
and experiences with DAW’s

Plus from what I’ve read OB seems like a latency nightmare, so I guess I’d just use it for recording separate tracks in sync (hopefully)

Thanks

#2

Here some thoughts of mine …

  1. Computer platform.

Six years is quite a long time for a computer. Considering repair and upgrade options, I would check very careful, whether the purchase could be a kind of dead end, if anything fails.

The specs of your second hand Mac is not too bad. Much RAM and 1 TB of SSD is pretty much for a start and enough for professional use. The 2.5 GHz should be sufficiant for most tasks, if the quadcore is going to 8-virtual cores as a i7 Intel processor does.

Since SSD is not as long living as HDD, it would be good to know, how long the SSD might do the job. Maybe you are not aware that SSD technolgy wears off. Each saving of data decreases life-time. There are only a given cycles, well it’s a huge number, but depending from usage of the former owner it can be an issue. The older the SSD technology, the worse the case might be.

The most CPU demand today is required by virtual gear, which is circuit-simulating analog hardware … like the U-he Diva, the Roland Plug-Outs, the AES synths from Arturia or the synths from Xils-Lab, which all try to be the original analoge technology in the box. Great sounds but much CPU demand. Same goes for many effects, if they try the same.

But there are enough plug-ins, which are “digital”, do a fine work, and are much less demanding.

Modern DAWs have normally a “freeze-function”. If the demand on CPU performance get’s higher and higher by using more and more plug-ins, each track can be frozen to audio. All plug-ins are sent to sleep after the audio of the track has been rendered to audio and the plug-ins have vanished from the CPU payroll. The CPU can handle pure audio with dramatically less performance and you can have many demanding plug-ins in the project, if you make use of the freeze-function. It’s nicer to have everything online in real-time, but freezing is an acceptable alternative to a very expensive maschine.

  1. Latencies

This is a sad chapter of our personal computer technology of today. All those maschines we can get from various vendors use “cooperative” task scheduling and this means that there are no fixed timeslots and priorities for tasks, which we as users can define. We can not tell the maschine that timing of our DAW, audio, and midi shall have adequate high priority. This leads to latencies and jitter, which might have a magnitude between unnoticable to unacceptable and this depends on our gear and our setup.

But often the culprit is not OB or the DAW. It’s the “cooperative” operating system. With enough CPU power (speed) and omitting time consuming tasks, which are running in the background, a quadcore 2.5 GHz CPU should do the job in most cases.

But there might still rise the one or other issue, which needs some time and tweeking of the setup. This is normal business, if a computer is used for music making and you can count on support from many people, who have been there already. You are in the right forum, I would say :wink:

#3

Thanks a lot SoundRider , useful information! No I didn’t know SSD’s had a shorter life span
In this case I believe it’s a new one that’s been fitted
Various info I gleaned from the net seemed to point towards SSD’s being a better option in regards to speed and noise
and many stated that the Mac Fusion drives could be problematic as you don’t control where your data is saved, and also the SSD part tends to be quite small

Regarding latency I’ve never understood why any hardware multitrackers have no noticeable latency, whereas even top end DAW systems tend to have slight noticeable latency,
but nevermind that’s just the way it is,

#4

I sold my MacBook pro 2011. Not Because of the specs, they were fine. I sold it Because I dont like making music in a continuous hoover sound from the van

#5

As I said … unacceptable latency and jitter is often caused by software, which runs on a multi-thread tasking system in a competitive manner and no task is setting priorities according to the use case. But this is a consumer product issue. As an example, flight computers, which control aircrafts or satellites, do it differently and are also controlled by software, just better engineered for the specific job.

The reason why hardware is “faster” and generates less latency is just that, if software or firmware is controlling the device, the programmers applied better methods to achieve best timing and latency performance. If no software is required, the hardwired timing is just very reliable and tight. Both support best latency performance.

A computer used for making music in real-time without crackles and latency should run a “real-time” OS. It’s feasible, not more expensive then what we use today, there seems only not to be enough demand :wink:

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#6

I guess “noticeable” is subjective - with the right hardware and drivers you can get latency down to ridiculous levels (compared to PC music making 20 years ago!).

SSD’s are faster, no doubt about it, but opinions around reliability vs HDD are mixed. It seems both are just as prone to failure as each other. My suggestion - get dropbox or some other cloud saving option to saving your projects into. I can handle my PC failing if all I need to do is reinstall everything. I can’t face another trawl through a messed up HDD in the hope of finding some projects I liked! Even getting into the habit of saving projects onto USB sticks would be an idea!

Anyway, as much as I like Macs, I would go with a pc - easier to fix if things go wrong now that Macs are difficult to upgrade. Not sure on the 2011 mac though - that was probably pre-welding everything to the board days!

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#7

This is absolutely true … and 2.5 GHz should get it done.

#8

The advantage of Ableton Live is that there is so much bias towards it in terms of tutorials, hints, tips etc. for someone new to a modern DAW.

3 Likes
#9

I just wanted to add some miscellaneous comment regarding this point: on any UNIX-based OS it is indeed possible to control process priorities using the command “renice”. A process’ nice value in UNIX actually defines how nicely a process behaves when requesting CPU cycles. The higher the value, the less demanding the process is. If you renice a process to -20 it will basically always sit at the front of the queue. The only issue is that a DAW will have many processes running inside of it and striking the right balance between all of them can be tricky and a lot of work.

But back to the original question: I would probably not go with a 6 year old iMac which does not have any upgrade path left. Memory is maxed out, I’m not sure if the SSD is actually user accessible so you might not be able to swap it out and the CPU
is not bad but at least 3 generations behind current parts. If you can, you should wait a few more months. The new iMacs have only been in the market for two months and there might be a wave of better used iMacs coming as people start upgrading their ~3 year old computers.

Just a thought - hope it helps!

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#10

you may want to check out the Zoom r16/r24 as a replacement option for the korg if switching to a daw doesn’t work out for you.

#11

Thanks for the replies
@sampleNhold , thanks for the advice and interesting info, I’m not in a rush, and by the time I’ve saved up enough that Imac will probably have been sold, yeah waiting makes sense, the refurbished market remains pretty expensive but not as scary as the new prices

@J0n35y regarding SSD’s + 1 on the backup advice, though surely time consuming if you have a lot of audio files, actually the main thing that attracts me to the SSD is the silence, the computer would be in the same room as the mics unfortunately
As to Macs, yeah that would be a worry if something goes wrong and you can’t change a component, though apparently you can have them fixed at your “local” apple store
I’ve always been a bit anti mac 'cos of the way they make you need special connection cables and use their programs, but at the same time I’m quite sold on their build concept and feel it would be a more reliable investment for a studio context, plus I’m really not into building or modding, I just want it to work.

@wouzer I presume you mean it was too noisy? that’s what puts me off normal hard drives, though my D3200 doesn’t make much noise and it writes to disc

@123alastairj I will have a hard time choosing, Cubase to me represents a no thrills multitrack which is all I want (and was something I used 15 years ago, Ableton has more creative possibilties but I already have them with my Elektrons and OP1
I fear I would remain stuck with loops if I use Live, though it seems it’s the only sure DAW to be able to integrate OB

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#12

I think the best multitrackers available are all older models, the Korg 32x looks really good, the old Yamahas the Roland with the possibility to plug in a screen, but they’re all quite expensive and old so I don’t think it’s really worth it, the Zoom’s look too gimicky and not deep enough, the modern new multitrackers seem less good than my Korg and often don’t have Midi for some bizarre reason
Which is essential to record everything in sync

#13

You should consider studio one 3 if you are starting out.
It’s pretty deep but the artist version would cover your needs if you aren’t planning on using vsts yet.
It’s a great mixing environment and the single window workflow is great, no need to switch windows to see your arrangement when you are fine tuning certain parts, just resize the mixer to your needs!
Plus it has a good hands on controller, the fader port 8, I am planning on getting one myself.

#14

Going the digital audio workstation route will open myriad creative paths and may enhance your workflow. If you mainly want to use the computer as a digital tape machine, hardware specs will be the least of your worries.

These days most semi-pro audio interfaces have negligible latency, so concentrate on one with great features, and more importantly, great converters. (That’s very subjective.)

Maybe most important is getting to know your DAW, whichever one you choose. Get to know the core functions that you use most (slicing, trimming, fades, etc.) and you’ll never be so productive.

I will highly recommend Reaper as the DAW because it’s so configurable and has a Pro-Tools-like interface. It can be as simple or deep as you wish.

My Steinberg/Yamaha UR824 is the best interface I’ve ever used. Clean, colorless. Check for compatibility issues.

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#15

Hey,
I had almost the same idea this year when I started to think about replacing my good old mac-mini from 2011.
At least I decided to invest some more money in a 2013 macpro. I got a standard 2 years old quad core for 2.000(€) and pimped it up with third party RAM and SSD. The reason was that I could change almost evrything I want, USB 3.0 support and Thunderbolt 2.0.

I’m running Cubase 9pro on it - it works very smooth.

Actually I’m working with a StudioLive 24.4.2 AI on a firewire-thunderbolt adaptor, latancies are acceptable though not the best you can get. If I had the money I would choose a Presonuns Quantum (<2ms) or one of the second generation AI’s with AVB support.

If you were on budget I would recommend Focusrite USB, if not RME or Presonus. If you were thinking about a second hand deal, take a look at the Scarlett’s, the 18i6 i.e. They have an excellent sound, are pretty reliable and a lot of in and outs for such tiny devices.

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#16

I wouldn’t go with MAC. You’re stuck with what you get. No way to upgrade it.
for 1500 you can get a kick ass custom PC with more RAM that you’ll ever need and CPU fast enough to handle all the audio and plugins, decent audio interface and enough money left for a DAW software.
Easy to expand or upgrade.
As a user of both systems (mac for graphics as some of my customers use them but I used to run logic few years ago) drivers were flimsy at times. I even created a topic here about a how MAC works with OB as I had a option to get a loaded setup for fairly cheap and opinions weren’t very solid.

#17

I also use both. Generally the pc is a nightmare at times with constant updates and no core midi or core audio. It gets the job done but nowhere as solid as my Mac which is a 2012 pro with 16 gig and an SSD. I use it with ableton for production and serato for djing.

Tbh both work for people and people have different preferences between the two

#18

Not only the hard disc
Also the van
Old computers have problems with their cooling
And are oftenly used on their max capacity since this is usually needed for the new hardware

And by the way
The amount of rounds per minute can be a problem with old hard discs
Especially When using many tracks Or long tracks (I dont know exactly, but with a flash card my mac runs much better, especially in Ableton live)

Find someone who really understands building computers, build a silent computer with cheap But good ram memory (Or expendible), and good processor, no sound card (I assume you have an external soundcard, Or buy an kop Lets audio 6 Native instuments for a low price), cheap gpu… etc…

Of you hear a van
It will be difficult to make a good mix

I am not an expert, just an experienced used…

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#19

It makes big difference whether uou’ re just multi-tracking or using a lot of VSTis. If you’re using it as a tape machine, I’d suggest a mid-range PC is adequate. If you’re gonna start using heavy plugs like Diva or Kaivo, it becomes substantially more demanding on the CPU. I’ve got a laptop that can run as many live inputs as I’ve ever wanted to use without latency, but one instance of Kaivo will cause serious glitching…
I also second Reaper as an option to consider if you want a hardware-style recorder. Cheap, stable, compatibility is good, unfriendly GUI but great for mixing.
In summary: if you can resist the allure of soft-synths, you could get an average PC and Reaper, and spend the difference on a really nice interface or something.

2 Likes
#20

Very good advice.

Let me add this, there are special coolers available for CPU, which have a relatively huge mass and many cooling fins. If combined with a CPU correctly, the fan speed can often be reduced to a minimum, which is controlled automatically. The cooling is passive (if the temperature is under a certain threshold) and quiet. You have only to ask the technician, because this technology is a bit more expensive, then the usual “office” cooler. If this is not enough cooling power, there are active cooling systems, more expensive, and working with heatpipes and heat exchangers.

From my experience the onboard graphics solution should almost always be sufficiant, to display a typical DAW GUI. If you can, get a similar solution as I have. I can decide, whether the graphics is done by a NVIDIA graphics card or the on-board processor. Windows 10 supports easy switching between both options.

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