Audiobus: Use your music apps together.

What is Audiobus?Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.

Download on the App Store

Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

OT: Need some advice regarding my desktop music situation

Hey guys, this probably isn't the right forum to post considering this is geared around iOS music and not desktop but I know there are some knowledgeable people here so I figured I'd throw this out there. I'm currently struggling to pick a direction and decide what I want to do. Currently I have a 2011 27" iMac that I used to use for music production. Ever since I got my iPad Pro last year I really haven't done much of anything with desktop. A big reason for that was because of my apartment didn't have a good space to actually sit down and do any creative music work, hence why I was so drawn to the iPad for music making because I could use it anywhere. Well now I moved to a new place and have a dedicated office/music studio setup. I dusted off my iMac, booted it up, ran Logic Pro X and realized, my goodness this thing is slowwwww. It's definitely showing it's age. It's functional, it works, it gets the job done, but I'm so used to the speed of my iPad that I get impatient waiting 60 seconds for Logic to boot up and 15 to 30 seconds every time I do something relatively significant (add in a new track). Okay, long preface, I'm sorry, but my question is, is it worth it to upgrade the machine I have or should I try selling it and buying a newer system? (Either a newer iMac or a Mac Mini and connect my monitor to that). I've done some research and the process of putting in an SSD is very complex and I probably wouldn't feel comfortable doing it on my own. So I could pay someone to do it for probably around $75 to $100 just for labor. Then I'd have to get an SSD, which, granted isn't too expensive these days, but adds cost. The other route would be to upgrade the RAM instead. Currently I have 4GB (I know, paltry) so I could spend $150 and bump that up to 16GB. Would that make enough of a difference if I just upgraded the memory without touching the HD? Another option would be to buy a Thunderbolt drive and keep Logic on the main drive and all my projects on the Thunderbolt drive. All these things would help speed things up. However, is it worth it to put that kind of money ($150 to $300) in an iMac that is 7 years old? I could probably sell it and make a decent chunk of money which would go into a newer system. And if I go that route, is it worth it to get another iMac or would a Mac Mini suffice? Sorry for the long post, just wanted to get some thoughts from the wonderful people at the AB forum. Thanks guys!

Comments

  • SSD‘s are one of the best things to speed up a machine. 4GB RAM is indeed the minimum you need for Logic. I can go very far with 8GB (macbook pro).
    The CPU might be a bottleneck for some things and the more cores, the better of course.
    My macbook is 5 years old and it‘s the entree i7 with just 2.0 Ghz. But Logic boots up in a few seconds, as well as loading multi-instruments with 20 synths and tons of FX etc.
    Running 30 instances of Sunrizer at once....no problem.
    So i guess an SSD and RAM bump could help a lot but the CPU and GPU might struggle if you plan to do larger projects.
    But then an iMac 27“ from 2011 should have as much power as my 2013 macbook.

  • @Cib said:
    SSD‘s are one of the best things to speed up a machine. 4GB RAM is indeed the minimum you need for Logic. I can go very far with 8GB (macbook pro).
    The CPU might be a bottleneck for some things and the more cores, the better of course.
    My macbook is 5 years old and it‘s the entree i7 with just 2.0 Ghz. But Logic boots up in a few seconds, as well as loading multi-instruments with 20 synths and tons of FX etc.
    Running 30 instances of Sunrizer at once....no problem.
    So i guess an SSD and RAM bump could help a lot but the CPU and GPU might struggle if you plan to do larger projects.
    But then an iMac 27“ from 2011 should have as much power as my 2013 macbook.

    Thanks for the response! Yeah my iMac has an i5 in it, so not quite an i7 from two years later but still gets the job done for the post part. I'm just hesitant to put extra money into something as dated as this. Doesn't have USB 3.0, the bluetooth doesn't seem to support MIDI over BT, etc. more RAM plus an SSD will probably cost me $350 between parts and labor, but I think it will make a big difference. But if I sell the system for $600 or so, then that plus the $350 in upgrades is $1000 that could go toward a new system. Hence my conundrum.

  • Get 16GB of RAM that should speed it considerably install it yourself its not that difficult.

  • edited June 2018

    I've just checked ifixit for your iMac model.
    Exchanging the disk is classified as 'moderate', about half an hour - but needs special tools.
    The front glass (held by very strong magnets) must be removed, which is the most challenging aspect. You need something that 'sucks' on the glass to take it off, one of those things they use to carry large windows (if you don't want to buy their special version)

    Imho the machine is still capable for with a quality SSD and expanded Ram.
    The 2.7 Ghz i5 isn't a rocket, but I have similiar versions in 2 Windoze DAWs and no reason to complain.
    Older Macs are notoriously lame with their stock disks, and you may improve performance by using the lowest version of the OS that Logic allows.
    There's likely a lot of background stuff that you can shut down, too.
    If you like the display, I'd stay with the machine.

  • edited June 2018

    I'm still using my 2012 MBPro and it still keeps up with my needs. I maxed out ram and swapped to ssd. Not that complicated for MBP, but I've never cracked an iMac before...

    As for making music, I really love Maschine and hope someday the iOS version can hold a candle to the desktop version, ugh - completely disappointing is the iOS version. I mean, come on NI, at least let me use my hardware with iMaschine...

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