anyone using mac minis?

ive been offered a mac mini cheap because my brothers mate works for apple I don't know wether to buy it or not .they seem ok but I don't know if there ok for music I also need one with firewire because my soundcard (tc electronic konnekt 6)is firewire.the new ones have thunderbolt and I was told I can buy a thunderbolt to firewire adaptor so it can run but samething I cant find any reviews of people using mac minis for music.

ive been offered a few different versions of mac mini..
heres a link too show you the new mac minis specs.
http://www.apple.com/uk/mac-mini/
and this is the one I was thinking of getting.
http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/comput...sktops/apple-mac-mini-10081088-pdt.html#cat-0
I can also get older refurbished ones cheap too but some of those have the newest operating systems installed but most have 2--4gb installed and have older processors some are upto 8 years old.

hope someone has experience with these and can help.thanks

 

the Mac Mini in Curries is the bare minimum.

personally, i would say that you need a 'Quadcore' i7 Processor for current music making needs, otherwise you will get CPU issues.

sowari

 

Recently stop using my macbook pro 2011 2.9 i7 8gb and bought a late 2014 mac mini 2.8 i5 16gb fusion drive. I use the mini just to run maschine 2.2.3 and ableton live 9. My pro ran maschine floorless and the same for the mini on Yosemite. I am not getting these high CPU issues and no crashes. My advice is if you get a new one MAX it out as you can't add more ram later if you buy second hand get a quad core preferably i7 with the fastest processor speed you can.

 

What soundcard are you using with the mini and how low can you get your latency.thanks

 

I am using komplete audio 6 soundcard /maschine studio with a komplete kontrol keyboard I have my latency set at 512 which works fine for what I am doing I have no latency issues at all. I did a bit of research before I got my Mac mini and the late 2014 come with latest generation processors which give better performance than the previous so My 2014 i5 gave better results then 2011 i7. Haven't really tried to run lots of instruments at the same time but up until now it coped with everything I have thrown at it. Its basically a Mac pro with out the screen and keyboard/mouse.

 

those minis are great for creating an external dedicated synth on if you have a non-mac monitor that permits multiple input sources: like using it just for a reaktor ensemble..... or you could use legacy software that has lesser requirements and do the same..... also can run 32 bit dedicated on it ... so you could turn an old mac mini into a synth... load up 10.6 on one and run rapture on it... or put live on it, or even live lite, and host a multi synth you can layer on a single midi channel... put m1.8 on one set to external sync..

if you have a laptop already, adding a mac mini can be the same as adding a second processor.


for the later version of maschine 2, keep in mind you would only be able to do about 16 significant instances on it, like 8 instance of massive and 8 non-internal plug effects on 2 full groups... if you don't use a lot of massive or realtor.. or extensive soft synths.. i would be fine....

 

I currently use a Mac Mini. 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 with 16 GB of Ram. I use an external thunderbolt drive for audio. The internal drive is not really fast enough to record audio. The Mac Mini does get hot when it is on. However, it is more than enough for music production. If you use a lot of plugins, than you may have to ''freeze' or 'print' them to your audio tracks to free of your CPU.The latest Mac Mini can have a 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7.

 

Ive been checking the specs and the harddrives are only 5400rpm and thats in most macs and imacs and thats unbelievable in this day and age.it seems apple are going backwards there making there computers slower but charging more for them.
Im looking at the mac minis and when ive speced it up with more ram or faster processor then its cheaper to goto scan and buy one which will kick its ass and have a tweaked i7 processor too.
Ill ask my brother too see how cheap he can get a mac mini for but if its closer to my dream scan pc then ill wait until i get enough too buy one from scan.

 

I love the fact that the Mac Mini is small and sits perfectly under my Apple Thunderbolt monitor. If I ever replaced the one I have, I would definitely get the i7 model and put in an SSD drive (500 GB+ Samsung drive).....or even consider their Fusion drive.

 

i saw posts on other forums about the fusion drives and they were all saying they were a rip off and the speed boost is only slightly more than 7200rpm.have you ever upgraded a mac mini?ive seen mac mini 7200rpm 2tb drives on ebay which work out much cheaper to buy and if easy fit myself if I did get one.
the ones my brother can get are standard not upgraded ones if I buy new and older ones may have been upgraded by previous users so you don't know what your getting with those until you plug them in and check yourself.some may have low memory but I read its easy too upgrade ram on mac minis so that shouldn't be a problem.
after checking though I see some older ones do have more ports such as 5 usb and firewire ports which would be good for me because I can then use my soundcard with no problems.

 

Yeah 2010 Mac mini i5 2.5ghz 8gb ram. Audio via presonus fire studio & fw external drives (fast 3.5" drives are good). No significant problems with apps like Live or Tracktion & waves plugs. Only gripe is that osx 10.9 is more sluggish than 10.7 (though less buggy & better memory mgmt).

Maschine 2.0 sometimes audio glitches but I tend to work in mpc/Maschine standalone & then just record (via sound flower) or drag into a daw for mixing. I don't use as plugins. That's just from my past engineering w. samplers into PT & Deck etc back in the day.

 

the fusion drive is just a seagate, 8gb flash SSd + 1TB 5400 rpm HDD..it only creates the illusion of having a faster drive in general use, the 8G of flash SSD is insignificant to audio production.... .. . still not fast enough for multitrack audio unless you use a large buffer and load all the samples to ram... you would get better performance with a 120GB SSD + an external 750 wd black 7200 rpm HDD. unfortunately the WD black hybrid is not mac compatible...

i would avoid a 2tb 2.5 7200 rpm drive on ebay...... never heard of such a thing....



http://www.neowin.net/news/fake-chinese-500-gb-external-drive-is-one-clever-paperweight-literally

 

My 1 TB fusion drive has 120gb SSD which works faster than the 500gb samsung SSD i put in my macbook pro.
I think its all about what you are planning to do as far as production goes.
If i ever run into trouble i can always bounce down to audio and keep on sailing.

 

I'm using Mac Mini 2012, quad core i7 2,6 GHz. Running great.
Don't buy 2014 crap – they are dual cores only. Almost 50% less powerful than 2012 model.

 

my error, that is right.. the sea gates are being marketed by some as fusion drives as well... though i would not bet on that drive lasting very long as SSDs have limitations on writing and it uses the SSD to constantly write to for a buffer interesting idea of apple's, but i think the reason behind it is cutting cost and not performance. fusion, 1TB... sound atomically marvelous in the marketing sense... in theory it could produce some very fast 8TB drives in the future using the 256G SSD for the cache...

 

a lot of the new apple computers are lesser or the same than the previous ones .. i think the first gen of quad i7 with the tb port and retina from like 2011 - 12 is much better than the new ones.. the 2014 mac pros give the same performance as the 2012 models if you put good video cards in them and an SSD. i actually like my ancient duo core mbp better than the 2014 one i am using right now... it is becoming so much about size, though like one is every going to put their mbp in their pocket and at a certain point with the needed monitor size or our sizes as humans, any weight reduction or decrease in thickness is insignificant....

 

Yeah you never really know until it gets old but I am really enjoying the speed and how the CPU is handling the 2.2.3 update and hope it continues for a couple more years

 

If you test for multiple cores but its slower core v core all about what's best for you personally I used my MBP and had no issues it had 2 cores.

 

i wonder about the internal flash on the mbp... as it is constantly rewriting the pref and log files for the system.... i think they are only made to last 3 years, all of them..... even most HDDs.. and the battery in my disposable 2014 MBP.

 

Yes you are right. Measuring one core a 2014 (benchmark result 3460) is 6% faster than one core on my 2012 machine (benchmark 3257). But measuring multicores my old 2012 mac (benchmark 12705) is 79% stronger than 2014 mac mini (benchmark 7095). And ask around this forum about problems with dual core CPUs and you will know why I'm not recommending new mac minis.

BTW. New mac mini (the better one) is only 45% more powerful than my MBP i5 early 2011.