Mac Mini and Garage Band

[Ball]

The Mac Mini does not have an audio in. I need to get a UBS or Firewire interface.

Is anyone here recording with a mini mac and garage band? If so what are you doing?

Any help at all will be appreciated. I'm old fart analog guy in a digital world. HELP!

 

[guitar junkie]

There are a lot of great audio interfaces out there that would go really well with that unit, make sure you have the most amount of RAM possible on it and run GB as always, the new Intel Mini should be able to handle about anything Garage Band can throw at it. The older ones even did fairly basic stuff really well.

 

[aidan_m]

There a re a million choices (I'm sottty to say!!)

A few quesstions to ask yousself to help in the decision..

1. How many simultaneous tracks do you want to record?
2, Do you need USB or Firewire? (firewire would be th interface of choice for multi-tracking)
3. Any plan in the back of your mind to go to pro tools down the line (only m-audio or digidesign hardware works with pro tools).
4. Do you already have preamps and only need a line in? Or also need pre-amps?

Good luck!

 

[Benyah]

The Mac Mini does not have an audio in.

Yes it does...

FYI:
http://www.apple.com/macmini/specs.html

 

[kojdogg]

Yes it does...

FYI:
http://www.apple.com/macmini/specs.html

yep

The Mac Mini does not have an audio in. I need to get a UBS or Firewire interface.

Is anyone here recording with a mini mac and garage band? If so what are you doing?

Any help at all will be appreciated. I'm old fart analog guy in a digital world. HELP!

i'm recording with a mac mini in logic studio 8 and i'm really diggin the apogee duet for simplicity, form factor, integration, and audio quality (i.e. it works well). the echo audiofires are great too

 

[Ball]

Yes it does...

FYI:


Mine doesn't. Not all the Mac Minis do. It has an audio out but no input. I am looking right at it.

 

[antichef]

I used a mac mini for a while, but then switched to a macbook, just for convenience. I imagine all the good firewire (and USB, too) interfaces will work with it. I did go for 2 gigs of memory in the mini at the time I purchased it.

Mine does have an audio in, but the sound quality isn't very good. I then used Presonus Inspire 1394 for some time, and got some decent tracks that way -- this is the bottom of the line Presonus unit, and it worked best with the preamps set to low levels using high output condenser microphones (the preamps got noisy when you turned them up for dynamic mics and soft sources). I then got a MOTU Traveler (and later got it modded by Black Lion Audio). I'm not specifically recommending these units, just telling the story -- the message is that everything I tried worked fine with the mac mini, and so I can only imagine that you'd have similar results.

 

[Ball]

I used a mac mini for a while, but then switched to a macbook, just for convenience. I imagine all the good firewire (and USB, too) interfaces will work with it. I did go for 2 gigs of memory in the mini at the time I purchased it.

Mine does have an audio in, but the sound quality isn't very good. I then used Presonus Inspire 1394 for some time, and got some decent tracks that way -- this is the bottom of the line Presonus unit, and it worked best with the preamps set to low levels using high output condenser microphones (the preamps got noisy when you turned them up for dynamic mics and soft sources). I then got a MOTU Traveler (and later got it modded by Black Lion Audio). I'm not specifically recommending these units, just telling the story -- the message is that everything I tried worked fine with the mac mini, and so I can only imagine that you'd have similar results.

Is the Presonus inspire 1394 plug and play? Does it use its own software?

 

[antichef]

I think that it's plug and play in the sense that the latest versions of OS X recognize it without (if I recall correctly) installing any additional software. Presonus distributes for free some software to control it like a mixer, and you have to use that software to adjust the levels on the preamps (there are no knobs on the unit), but it's fine.

They may sell DAW software too, but I'm not aware of it. I used it with Garage Band (which automatically picked it up and exposed the inputs), and Logic (same thing). And I think I tried it with Cubase LE, which maybe I got with the unit in the first place, but I never did much with Cubase.

All in all, I was/am happy with it, but remember that there are only two preamps (and two other inputs without preamps), and with my unit anyway, the preamps were pretty noticeably noisy after about 12 o'clock on the dial (I hear that means they're noisy all the time, but you only notice it when the gain is up -- just parroting others when I say that, though). No complaints for the price, though, and I did record a bunch of keeper tracks with it.

 

[guitar zero]

i'm really diggin the apogee duet for simplicity, form factor, integration, and audio quality (i.e. it works well). the echo audiofires are great too

+1 for this. It's pure simplicity, great clean sound and great value.