I have a few Pro Tools setups. The main one in the studio is an older 24" iMac 2.66 GHz with 4 GB of RAM with an original MOTU 896 as the audio interface. That machine is pretty much trimmed down and only runs Pro Tools and a few other audio apps. I only update it to whatever OS Pro Tools has currently approved, so it's almost always at least one OS behind.

I have two other 27" iMacs that both run Pro Tools. One is a 3.06 GHz Core2Duo, and the other is a Core i7. I'm not sure of the memory on them, but both of them are over 8 GB of memory. I just switched one of them to a Focusrite interface, and the other one either uses built in audio, or a MOTU Ultralite.

Finally I run Pro Tools with no interface on a 2 GHz Core i7 11" MacBook air using the built in audio, and I just did a bunch of 24 track recording for a film shoot on a Core i5 Mac Mini.

As long as the machine is configured correctly just about any current Mac is great for Pro Tools. If I were buying new right now it would be a 27" iMac mainly for the large screen for editing. I'd also consider a second monitor. In my studio there's also a 40" LCD on the wall that is connected to the Pro Tools rig and it gets used quite a bit for ancillary windows, viewing the mix and edit window at the same time, opening lots of plug ins, etc. etc. I'd also have at least 8 GB of RAM in a current machine, and would recommend putting as much RAM into it as you can afford. Have a good fast external hard drive that you use to record the tracks. I've got a stack of FW800 drives that are used for this purpose, and then I have a 4 TB FW800 drive that also hangs on the main Pro Tools rig as a time machine volume, and then copy sessions off to a network drive at the end of each day when I'm doing big projects. Almost all the difficulties I've had over the years have been related to drives acting up, so I like my data in many places. Multitrack recording and editing is much harder on a hard drive than standard use. Lots of very fast random access reads and writes going on.

Okay, that was more long winded than in intended.

Feel free to ask any more specific questions you need.

No, that was exactly what I needed. Thank you.

I'm in the midst of converting all my old projects over to .wavs so I can use them outside of Roland's proprietary world. That alone is eating up my space, and that's just temporary, on the way to storing them offsite.

Oh, what's the deal with the Thunderbolt port?

Oh, oh, and I heard that solid state drives were slow because of the rewriting factor, so not appropriate for the recording drive, but would be good for loops storage?

Oh, oh, oh, and would the giant iMac travel? What's the story on the rumored rack-mountable Mac Pro? Is that vaporware? Maybe I should ask that over in tech.

I am having that feeling of "what if no one ever hires me again". I hate that. I swear it has more to do with me than the actual work, but it still feels scary.

I am having that feeling of "what if no one ever hires me again". I hate that. I swear it has more to do with me than the actual work, but it still feels scary.

I'm going through that now because I've hit my first dry period. I know this time is very slow in publishing, but I hate this feeling. I suppose it's good in that it's forcing me to start working leads that I've been lazy about, but, ugh.

On the upside, I'm happy to report that, with my 2012 taxes now finalized & paid, in my first 4 months of freelancing from Sept to Dec, I ended up clearing my regular monthly living expenses (which, as a singleton in SF, are fairly high). Not enough to also save for vacation, IRAs, etc., but still, I'm relatively pleased that my emergency fund remains intact.

Of course, since it’s been slow, I will probably need to dip into that soon. Yet, despite feeling slightly panicky about that, the psychic wages for quitting my previous crazy job remain high. I do not regret that decision in the least.

Thanks to everyone for the encouragement and tips here! They are very helpful and appreciated by this (mostly) lurker.

Pix and I have been working on the 2012 taxes. It's always a huge slog to make sure that we've gotten everything squared away correctly. I'm exhausted and there is still so much that needs to be done before my Noon meeting with the accountant on Wednesday.

I've hit my first dry period.

February. The month that freelancers hate.

with my 2012 taxes now finalized & paid, in my first 4 months of freelancing from Sept to Dec, I ended up clearing my regular monthly living expenses (which, as a singleton in SF, are fairly high).

This is great news! Huge congratulations on making such a good start.

February. The month that freelancers hate.

(shudder) it's true.

Pix and I have been working on the 2012 taxes. It's always a huge slog to make sure that we've gotten everything squared away correctly. I'm exhausted and there is still so much that needs to be done before my Noon meeting with the accountant on Wednesday.

Even though she was pricey, I'm very glad I got a good recommendation for an accountant from a fellow freelancer. Such a load off my mind, and now I can approach this year with a more critical and organized eye.

February. The month that freelancers hate.

Well, that's comforting I guess. I know there are projects waiting for me in March, so I'm trying to focus on enjoying my free time now. At least it makes the Oscar blitz a lot easier!

megan, I didn't know you were freelancing! I thought you took another job after leaving the crazy-bad one!

I'm glad it's going so well. My thing has always been to cultivate as many regular clients as possible and deliver good stuff on time, and keep them coming back. Which, you know, is easier said than done.

Well, almost all my work in the fall came from my previous employer (the publisher, not the crazy one). They never replaced me and have to freelance much of the French/Italian stuff anyway now, so between that and them passing the word, I had all I wanted. Frankly, after working 12-hour+ days for much of the summer, I was happy to take it a bit easy.

Oddly enough, my former boss is much easier to work with on this basis. But I know I don't want to be relying on one client, even if it's different areas of the company. The fall was sort of a trial run, but now I need to make this support me long term.