iMac 2012 96khz performance

[whatsoup]

I just received an iMac late 2012 model. It’s bottom end of the 1418 range, 2.7ghz i5, 32GB ram and an SSD.

I’m curious how other mac users with similar spesc find recording 20+ channels of 96khz audio. Do you think it will choke? I guess I’ll know when I test it, but it’d be good to know what I’m up again in advance.

I’ll just be recording audio, probably in Reaper or Live 10. There will be no other applications of VSTs running. SQ-5. Any thoughts on what to expect? Cheers 🙂

[Anonymous]

@whatsoup
Greetings
I would be keen to know as well.
I can tell you that I used an 2012 Imac using Reaper recording 30 channels [tracks] continuously
for 1 hour multiple sessions for 2 or 3 months on end everyday for 2 years, archiving simultaneously Cassette Tapes
This was for weeks at a time.
I feel like I worked it out that only when I used multiple Pluggins in the iMac EQ and comps and few other pluggins within Reaper [simultaneously] on the tracking side that my iMac would sometimes jump tracks sideways and I would get the infamous noise sound!
So at that point I just backed off pluggins at the tracking stage within Reaper in tracking.
My iMac was an i7 using USB2 out the rear out a QU32 [48k] USB/B A-Plug shape 2.5 metres of cable.
16 Gig or RAM at that stage [now moved to 32 Gig] and the original 7200 RPM H/D ABout to upgrade to SSD
Thats when I knew that I had pushed the iMac with Reaper over the edge but never crashed.
I was also using extra monitor from the iMac
Hope this helps and look forward to hearing what others say.
And I hope this makes sense?
Cheers

[whatsoup]

Sorry for the slow reply but I was waiting to give some good feedback. Using Reaper I was can easily record 30 channels onto the mac at 96khz at 512 samples no problem. (Did get a very rare blip). I briefly tried 256 and 128 samples and it seemed just as good

Impressive for its age!

[SteffenR]

the problem is not the computer itself and it wasn’t the case in 2012
the limiting factor was the hard disc
if you are able to use a firewire 800 device with a fast RAID or SSD then it’s no problem to record around 64 channels
so the iMac could still record the whole traffic from the Dante card

btw the USB connection has a theoretical limit of around 160 channels
and firewire 800 of around 260
ok reality is far from that

[whatsoup]

You’re not the first person to tell me that, so it most hold weight, but what confuses me is when I look at the usage of a fast nvme SSD when recording large amounts of 96khz, it is next to 1-5% usage. Literally 10 to 20MB/s, which even the crappest of SSDs or mechanicals can handle – so I’m guessing this is a sequential statistic but the drive itself needs good random IO operations or something, and the metric does not show in the usual resource monitors. Any ideas? cos disk usage is almost nothing

[Author]

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