Apple Mac mini for recording?

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jontv

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I am planning to buy a new computer soon, and I want to record on it. I've used PCs for a decade but never tried to record on them. I have a lot of friends who are Mac-crazy and they keep pushing me to consider Apple -- but I don't have a lot of money sitting around.

I am looking at the new Mac mini as a possible compromise. They are pretty cheap, and you just hook them up to your existing monitor. They seem to have enough power to record with, but I'm not sure about issues like soundcards.

Does anybody know anything about these machines? What kind of software would you recommend for Mac?

Thanks for any help....
 
The firewire port would open up some audio interface options for you, and you'd have lots of options for recording/sequencing software.
 
I'd go for the eMac. Faster and much bigger internal HD, more available memory expansion, better graphics.
 
Yea, the hard drive space could become an issue very quickly with the Mac mini. And one firewire port will put forth some limitations. Good point.
 
Yeah I just looked again; the eMac has 2 FW ports, 3 USB2 ports, and two USB1.1 ports.

That means you could get a Firewire HD, a firewire interface, and still have places for mouse and keyboard, digital camera, and backup hard drive (always run your audio drive off of the FW port).

IF you're a student, you can get a pretty decent discount.
 
Keep in mind that the Mac Mini (like most off-the shelf macs) is somewhat "underpowered." Invariably, you will need to add RAM which will add to your cost. Also, the Mini uses an older G4 processor as opposed to the newer G5. I'm not sure what your track count needs are but it's something to keep in mind especially if you are going to be using numerous plugins. Regarding software, I would suggest looking at either Logic (Express or full) or Digital Perfomer. They are probably the most popular Mac audio software options.
 
Thanks for the replies, Everyone.

I have been recording on a digital 4-track for about 3 years, and it was a Tascam analog 4-track before that, so I am looking forward to using a lot of tracks -- but I am generally a one-man band, so I don't necessarily plan to plug a lot of things in at the same time. But I do think it would probably be best to bite the bullet and get something a little more powerful than the Mini. It's cute, and if I were just going to write and surf the Internet, it would probably be fine. But I think the added investment would probably be worth it.

So, Polaris20 recommends the eMac. I will look up the specs when I have a little more time, but does anyone know how much they cost? Is it possible to get one used? Will the soundcard that comes with it work all right, or will I want another one?
 
dwillis45 said:
Keep in mind that the Mac Mini (like most off-the shelf macs) is somewhat "underpowered." Invariably, you will need to add RAM which will add to your cost. Also, the Mini uses an older G4 processor as opposed to the newer G5. I'm not sure what your track count needs are but it's something to keep in mind especially if you are going to be using numerous plugins. Regarding software, I would suggest looking at either Logic (Express or full) or Digital Perfomer. They are probably the most popular Mac audio software options.

Some guys at my college last semester recorded 24 tracks using Logic Pro 7.0 on a Mac Mini with 1 effect on each track and it didn't even flinch.
So it's not as "underpowered" as you might think.
Also, there are two Mac Minis available, one is "souped up", and sells for about (or at least there were two different ones offered at that time) for about $100 to $150 more than the cheapo one. I think one was like $499 and the other was $600 plus.

We could get the Logic Pro for half price because we were in the Audio program, and that is the software that the studio course uses. The Instructor was a Mac-head. I never had been around a Mac before then. The Command Key was a new one for me. :D



Tim
 
Tim Brown said:
Some guys at my college last semester recorded 24 tracks using Logic Pro 7.0 on a Mac Mini with 1 effect on each track and it didn't even flinch.
So it's not as "underpowered" as you might think.
Also, there are two Mac Minis available, one is "souped up", and sells for about (or at least there were two different ones offered at that time) for about $100 to $150 more than the cheapo one. I think one was like $499 and the other was $600 plus.

Thats not what I witnessed at an Apple store on a mini running Garage Band and a few apps open in the background. Got dropouts a few seconds into hitting the play button on one of the demos.
 
brzilian said:
Thats not what I witnessed at an Apple store on a mini running Garage Band and a few apps open in the background. Got dropouts a few seconds into hitting the play button on one of the demos.

Were the apps running in the background just random, non-recording apps? I always close all apps that aren't recording-related when doing any sequencing, tracking, mixing, etc. That's common sense to me.
 
brzilian said:
Thats not what I witnessed at an Apple store on a mini running Garage Band and a few apps open in the background. Got dropouts a few seconds into hitting the play button on one of the demos.

In all fairness, GB is an amazingly bloated app. I was playing with a G5 iMac, and it was choaking on GB. I don't know WTF they were thinking with GB.

My buddy's 450Mhz G4 does far more tracks in PTLE than a modern G4 or G5 can do in GB. No shit. For real. :D

I'm no Apple fanboy, but just trying to play devil's advocate, or something.
 
The Mac minis are essentially the guts of a Powerbook stuffed into a small white box. I've been recording with a PB G4 1.25 for over a year (using Pro Tools LE w/ a 002) and I get fantastic performance out of it. Even recording on the "slow" internal drive.

Performance goes down noticebly when using an Mbox becuase it uses USB, but the thing rocks with a firewire interface.

The same money spent on a PC will probably get you better performance, though, if you chose carefully.

Take care,
Chris
 
The Mac Mini comes with 256 mb of Ram. For my purposes (Recording, Video Editing, and Graphic Design) that's a little "underpowered." Maybe that's not the best term to use since your performance will also depend on the speed of the CPU. At any rate, I would feel comfortable with more Ram.
 
dwillis45 said:
The Mac Mini comes with 256 mb of Ram. For my purposes (Recording, Video Editing, and Graphic Design) that's a little "underpowered." Maybe that's not the best term to use since your performance will also depend on the speed of the CPU. At any rate, I would feel comfortable with more Ram.

It's a shame they didn't design the Mini with 2 SO-DIMM slots instead of one 184-pin slot.

Sure the memory would be more, but then you could go to a full 2gig of RAM.

Plus the lack of abundance of USB2 and FW ports is disappointing. If it had the sme number of ports and the same expandibility as the eMac, it would be a more viable audio recording computer. Especially with 17" LCD's now in the $200 range.
 
Polaris20 said:
It's a shame they didn't design the Mini with 2 SO-DIMM slots instead of one 184-pin slot.

Sure the memory would be more, but then you could go to a full 2gig of RAM.

Plus the lack of abundance of USB2 and FW ports is disappointing. If it had the sme number of ports and the same expandibility as the eMac, it would be a more viable audio recording computer. Especially with 17" LCD's now in the $200 range.

I heard that there was some way that you could stack them to make a "rendering farm" (i.e., do XX amount of work on each one) so as to spread out the workload.

I wasn';t sure how it was supposed to work, but they were talking about it. My Instructor was a hardcore Mac-head.



Tim
 
You said you have a TASCAM 4 track and are a "one-man band". The Mac mini is ideal for your situation. You can use Griffin's iMic USB cable ($25 US) to plug a stereo 1/8 inch jack into your mini (use the TASCAM as a mixer), and the iMic has a stereo output also. Sure you could spend more on a firewire solution, but a one-man band won't need that.

I recommend getting the upgrade to a full gig of memory, OSX uses the RAM very efficiently, but the more you have, the more fx per track. You can do the upgrade yourself with a large putty knife to open the box. (I know, I know...) ;)

Garageband is fun, and a useful tool, but a real mac-based program like MOTU's Digital Performer is what you'll want to grow into.
 
Tracktion's supposed to be great on a Mac too. Really efficient.
 
The Mini Mac, and a Metric Halo interface would make for a nice ass combo.
 
AllOrNothinEnt said:
The Mini Mac, and a Metric Halo interface would make for a nice ass combo.

All this mini talk and I want to rush out and buy a Apogee MiniMe preamp and converter and a Mac Mini to record Mini Driver! Yes, she actually sings!
 
dwillis45 said:
All this mini talk and I want to rush out and buy a Apogee MiniMe preamp and converter and a Mac Mini to record Mini Driver! Yes, she actually sings!

Where's Vernon Troy when you need him? :D
 
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