Need help chosing a DAW for DP7

[zash]

Hello,

I've been out of the music making game for a while (15 years or so). I would like to get a new DAW and I'm not sure how much CPU Power and RAM I need. I've read a lot about this but I'm still confused

Here are my Hardware Options:

Mac Mini 2.5GHz with 8GB RAM
or
Mac Pro Quad Core 2.66GHz and 12GB RAM

What I plan to do:

Recording: guitar, bass and vocals
FX: Mostly Lexicon Reverb plugin and some delays
VSTi: Kontakt only, no virtual synths. I think on using strings, brass, woodwinds and drums/percussion to go with the above real instruments...

I don't plan on making high track counts or use loads of effects...

The interface will be a Metric Halo ULN-2 and I plan to do most projects at 24/96Khz.

What do you guys think, 8GB or 12GB RAM, 2 cores or 4?

If you use one of the 2 Macs mentioned above, I would appreciate if you could give an overall picture of what they can handle (number of tracks, types and number of plugins used, project sampling rate)

[KEVORKIAN]

Hello,

I've been out of the music making game for a while (15 years or so). I would like to get a new DAW and I'm not sure how much CPU Power and RAM I need. I've read a lot about this but I'm still confused

Here are my Hardware Options:

Mac Mini 2.5GHz with 8GB RAM
or
Mac Pro Quad Core 2.66GHz and 12GB RAM

What I plan to do:

Recording: guitar, bass and vocals
FX: Mostly Lexicon Reverb plugin and some delays
VSTi: Kontakt only, no virtual synths. I think on using strings, brass, woodwinds and drums/percussion to go with the above real instruments...

I don't plan on making high track counts or use loads of effects...

The interface will be a Metric Halo ULN-2 and I plan to do most projects at 24/96Khz.

What do you guys think, 8GB or 12GB RAM, 2 cores or 4?

If you use one of the 2 Macs mentioned above, I would appreciate if you could give an overall picture of what they can handle (number of tracks, types and number of plugins used, project sampling rate)

The ram will be more important to you than the processors based upon what you describe.
I would go with the Mac Pro, as you will have more options down the road regarding expansion.

If you were doing mostly audio (8-24 tracks) and maybe a drum VI I would say go with the mini, but if you are looking at Kontakt etc I would say the Mac Pro.

[Frodo]

Yes. MacPro is going to be the best bet.

Also, it could be just a matter of terminology, but VSTi specifically refers to virtual instruments in Steinberg format (ie: makers of Cubase and Nuendo). As long as you are on a Mac, you'll fare better just using the Audio Units version and not the VST since you'd need additional software to run the VST version in DP.

[newrigel]

You don't need to go to 96k... but go ahead if you want to but the more you get the more you want and as you start adding things the resources @ 96 will eat you alive and for what? What your dog can here? And your transducers can't even reproduce those frequencies anyway so what is the use of wasting up all that drive space and the DSP resources for headroom that you'll need to keep the audio buss open and clean... native DAWs start getting smeared and artifact induced when you push the processors to their limits... you should never go over 50 to 60% of your DSP power IMO! I can hear it when the processors get over worked and on that machine (I have one) @ 96 you'd be pushing it especially with native plugs (I have 3 DSP cards doing all my processing except Altiverb) and it sounds way more open now with the DSP just barely working.... but, do as you want! I compare my stuff to these guys that are 96 and they always complement my mixes @ 48k... I lie to them and tell them I'm @ 96 and their like, we told you it's better! I just laugh to myself... yeah, if your a dog! I'll post up an 18khz test tone and most if not all can't hear it! Just my 2 cents. But the 2009 MP's are workhorses and if you go with an SSD RAID 0 it will scream! You should just wait a few months for the 6 core machines! The new entry level 6 cores will spank the present entry 8 cores and not breaking a sweat!