kennywtelejazz
I saw this thread the other day and I wanted to see where it went before I said anything in it .
My impression then and now is still the same …
Your friend would do well to get a hold of a decent USB interface first so he could record before he spends money on any thing else …( he may not need anything else if he learns his way around G B )
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny
 

Thanks Kenny, that's kind of what I was thinking too......any good audio interfaces you can recommend in the $100 range? (just thinking out aloud here and haven't spoken to him yet.....possibly 1 to 2 line/mic in/out and headphone)

Mesh

kennywtelejazz
I saw this thread the other day and I wanted to see where it went before I said anything in it .
My impression then and now is still the same …
Your friend would do well to get a hold of a decent USB interface first so he could record before he spends money on any thing else …( he may not need anything else if he learns his way around G B )
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny
 

Thanks Kenny, that's kind of what I was thinking too......any good audio interfaces you can recommend in the $100 range? (just thinking out aloud here and haven't spoken to him yet.....possibly 1 to 2 line/mic in/out and headphone)

Hi Mesh , 
 
Your friend can probably get himself a Scarlett Solo or the next one up from that model price wise .
I'm sure one of those would be more than OK as a starter card ….
( I wouldn't mind getting one to keep in my lap top bag )
 
Your friend may need to look into a USB interface that runs well on both PC and Mac since we don't know if he is gonna bootcamp his Mac or pick up a Win computer at some point later on down the road …most of them out there do work fine in both platforms .
 
If your buddy decides to stay Mac only The Apogee One sounds like a solid contender if he could ever swing the coin ..
I have an Apogee GiO ( Love IT ) and I'm trying to save up for The Apogee One myself .. wink .
 
Anyway , back to the cheap seats in the bleachers , lol 
 
I have the 2i4 and it runs great on my Mac's  I'm getting much better Audio performance and significantly lower latency than what I get in Windows 10 64bit 
 
Never even had to install any drivers for the 2i4 …it was plug  & play Baby …Core Audio Rocks Man 
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny 
 

Once again, thanks Kenny....very helpful info.
 
Not sure if he'll want to go the Windows route as he only has used Macs/iPhones/iPads etc....and probably won't want to start messing with Windows right now (especially if has to troubleshoot).
 
BTW, he has in iMac 8.1 (2.4GHz) and 4GB of RAM. Not sure how well that 4GB of ram will hold up, but it should be ok if he doesn't use a lot of soft synths.
 
I also have a 2i4 and love it, but wasn't sure how well they work on Macs/drivers etc...
So, it's good to know that the 2i2's & 2i4's work well on Macs. He probably only needs a 2i2 which should serve him well.   
 
I don't how good that Scarlett Solo Studio pack is, but that's about what he needs......I'll find out what his budget is before looking into a separate mic/H-phones.
 

I have some friends who run a divercity of Scarlets on Macs - they are very happy and get super low latencies. I think you can safely recommend it ;)

I've used a Scarlett for a few years. Apple's own default drivers seem to work just as good as the manufacturer's own in many cases - I'm still using the default drivers with my NI Komplete Audio 6.

Rain
I've used a Scarlett for a few years. Apple's own default drivers seem to work just as good as the manufacturer's own in many cases - I'm still using the default drivers with my NI Komplete Audio 6.

That's actually a very commendable thing for Macs to have such good drivers. PC parts on the other hand are cheaper, but there's more work involved.
Rain, thanks for chiming in on the Scarlett.......I can recommend it to him with confidence.  

That iMac's a little underpowered perhaps, but should run Garageband and even Logic so long as it's not too heavily loaded. The 4GB RAM is possibly the weak spot, though OS X is pretty light on system resources as modern operating systems go.

One thing he probably would benefit from is an external 7200rpm drive (with its own power supply) to spool audio to. The hard drive built into a lot of iMacs is a 5400rpm one and spooling multitrack audio to and from it while it's also used for paging and is the system drive might be a bit much for it to cope with. Apple hybrid drives also have a bit of a question mark regarding using them for audio spooling. If it has an Apple-fitted SSD that should cope OK to start with, but an external drive is still the better way to go.

Thanks Tim!!
Some excellent advice you and all others (well Bapu is Bapu ) have given here. I haven't had a chance to discuss the details about this whole setup with my friend, so I doubt he's aware of what's lying ahead for him.
 
I appreciate the details about 5400HD and the external HD (very useful to know)......it's going to be a bit tough for him considering his iMac is quite equipped for pro audio, but that's a decision he'll have to make.