Thinking of DM4800 with OS Mojave, plus more

[PasadenaPV]

Hi all,

I've been looking for a control surface for my 2017 27" iMac running OS Mojave...
...and I'm looking at used DM4800s.

I already have Apogee interfaces (Quartet and Element 88) for a total of 12 inputs.

I'd love to be able to use a DM4800 with this setup to mainly:

1) Control Logic Pro X (10.4.4 latest version)
2) Possibly add (in an aggregate device) inputs of the DM4800 when more channels are needed

A few questions:

First off, does this make sense? Going with an older discontinued, albeit powerful product?
Second, are all the files/drivers/firmware etc available for using with OS Mojave?
Third, is there any other way (besides the FW card) to get audio from the mixer to the iMac?

I'm sure I'll have a million other questions, but for now I'd appreciate any comments...

Best to you all,

Paul

 

[Marvel]

Well, since you came to this forum, you will probably already know that the answer to the second question is yes. Especially since this is indeed a very powerful product. Even if support for Windows and macOS would finally cease to exist, it's still a powerful mixing desk in its own right.

The other question you're raising:
You need the firewire card to get 32x32 channels to and from the Mac. And yes, that is the only way to get the audio from the DM to the computer, except when the computer has an optical input/output, but for that you need a converter (signals are compatible, but the connectors not -> optical vs coaxial). And this is only 2x2 of course.

And speaking of firewire: as far as I know the 2017 iMac has no fw ports, and you would have to use a series of adapters, from FW400 to 800 to Thunderbolt. It should work, it's the setup I used before I bought my 2010 Mac Pro last year.

Of course you can create an aggregate device, where you can add up all the inputs to the computer into one large interface. So that would give you a grand total of 44 inputs to Logic (DM and Apogees combined). I did it with the optical I/O and firewire, although I still need to buy the converters.

Logic and Mojave are working just fine with the latest firmware and drivers. Although there are some that have run into trouble after upgrading to Mojave. Makes us all wonder how long we can keep updating macOS before anything breaks.

And as much I love my DM4800, I am also looking for a while now at the Behringer (ahum.. ) X32, who has many if not all of the functionality of the DM, but with a smaller footprint and with USB, which would mean that it will be supported longer eventually. The latest version also has DAW support on all 32 faders (where the early models only worked on the 8 faders to the right). Unfortunately they are not much offered second hand at the moment, certainly not the more recent ones.

Hope this helps in deciding.

UPDATE: I checked the specs for the 2017 iMac and noticed it has USB-C connectors for Thunderbolt 3. This means an extra adapter:
FW400 -> FW800 -> Thunderbolt 2 -> Thunderbolt 3.
This might help: