Thread: Mac mini

Originally Posted by TheJackAttack

I even know happy Mac users that don't buy into Apple marketing.

Ha...
I started working with Apple products on the Apple 2C! Since then, I've been a PC man, but I've always built my own (except laptops). My first experience with Apple (other than the iPhone - I had the original iPhone 3G which sent me running to Android. I'm now back on the iPhone 4s - much improved) was when I bought an old Mac Mini for my kid to play on. It was $100 used online and I dropped the cold hard cash. It worked for 3 weeks then went belly up. I took it to the Apple store and they were very helpful. They gave me new system discs and applications discs for it without question.

While I was waiting for them to burn them for me, I checked out their laptops. One thing that has always driven me nuts about PCs have been their laptops. There seem to be no standards in quality or system loads and you never really know what you're getting. I was pleased with the MacBook Pro that I played with. When I went to a buddy's house, he had an MBP that he had used for 3 years. I tried it and to my surprise, it worked just about as well as the one in the store. My HP 64 bit, 8GB RAM uber-laptop went about 6 months of heavy use before it started dragging and skipping. (Bear in mind, NONE of my own computers that I've ever built have ever done this! In fact, I just pulled one of my servers out of commission after nearly 12 years of running. It was an AMD 350MHz running Win 2K AS and it never got rebooted unless the power went out for too long or I had to load patches. I used it all the time and it never went slow!)

Since I got my MBP, I've begun drinking certain formulas of the Mac Kool-Aid. I got my wife a MB Air and I got a big, fully-loaded iMac for video and composition work. I also have the iPhone 4s and the iPad (and just got my wife the iPad 2 for XMas). So, yeah, I've been drinking it. However, there are a few bits of "fan-boy" lore that I don't subscribe to. The fact is, the PC is just as viable of a platform as the Mac. I still use my Dell laptop for remote recording (Credit to the Dell - the series of laptop that I bought had absolutely NOTHING on it except Win XP Pro. NO bloatware of any kind). I also still use my power house (octa-core 32 GB of RAM) PC that I built for in-house editing and mastering.

Yeah - I love my Macs. However, one platform isn't inherently better than the other. To me, the biggest benefit of the Mac is the consistency between platforms. If Windows could manage that, they'd be the only game in town. However, since most Windows machines are made MUCH cheaper by software subsidies (in other words - crapware vendors pay them to load software on the computer thus driving down the costs), it's a trade-off.

A good solution for PC users looking to use their machines for audio recording - do a good ol' fashioned wipe on the stock drive and load in a fresh OS (spend the $$ and buy a new copy - it's only $100) with no crapware. Then you'll have a Windows machine running just as well as Microsoft intended.

Cheers-
J.

Nicely put Cucco! I share similar experiences. I use Mac for the web, apple TV and iphones and all PC's for audio. I use a PCAudioLabs laptop for mobile recording and its working very well.

Wow did i ruffle feathers. Well here is why I made the decision on Mac long ago. I am not a kid but a touring pro, so time in the real music business is money and one gets tired of a machine running on a very flawed OS crapping out at the wrong time. A couple years ago I came off the road for a while and was at Sony studios on music row in Nashville. While there a man from some association involving PC's dropped two fully loaded PC's that were optimized for music production. The producers put both in a back closet and we found out the studio next door put them in the trash. Like it or not there are tools that the pros use and then there are tools that everybody else works with. I personally will pay the tab to have worry free performance, but in no way am saying your head is up your butt if you use a non Apple product. When the chips are down in the creative arts business (music, photograph, video and cinema cgi) Apple or a Unix derivative is there. Again I am sorry if I tramped on any toes. :-)

You aren't stepping on toes. I would have called BS if you had made an extreme statement the other way too. There are pro touring rigs running computers by PC Audio Labs, ADK, Rain and whatnot as well. There are plenty of professional studios using the same. The fact that the studio you visited already had a favorite is no indication otherwise. I've been on tours myself though I am not currently a full time professional engineer so you wouldn't be the only one here that has been down that road. Hell, we have a 20+ year veteran of NBC as a contributor, too.

Now, Mac was once completely dominant except in mastering houses and such but that isn't as true today as it was in 2002. Pro Tools is just one of many pro level DAW's and arguably Pyramix is as good or better at soundstage scoring with Sadie being very respectable as well. I'm just pointing out that things do not remain static in life or in this industry even if we personally have experiences that may or may not bias us for against a particular product.

Peace, and welcome to RO. Join in the fun and hopefully helping each other and the next generation be better audio professionals.

You didn't ruffle the feathers. Many here are passionate and wise to the hype so it can read like aggression when we see it. When it comes to misinformation being posted, we tend to nip it or put it all in perspective. There are young people watching and learning.

The guy who tossed those PC in the trash did so for three reasons.

1. He saw they were poorly built,
2. He was clueless about optimization
3. He's ignorantly mislead, uninformed about PC, other software and brain washed.

I can't think of any other reason that this.

Originally Posted by macmedic

...a man from some association involving PC's dropped two fully loaded PC's that were optimized for music production. The producers put both in a back closet and we found out the studio next door put them in the trash. ...

I'll be the one to say it. I'm calling BS. Either that, or there are some stupid ass people working at those studios.

First, if the PC company was "giving" the computers to the studio, the studio is obliged by US tax code to report those computers as income. If they were thrown out, they're still responsible for reporting them.

There are lots of pros here. We use whatever tools we need. And FYI, some of the biggest, baddest tools are only available for PC (Pyramix, SaDIE, Sonic, Sonoma).

I love my Macs, but I'm not ignorant enough to assert that you can't use anything but...

And no - you didn't ruffle feathers. There are hundreds of Mac vs. PC posts on this forum.

Welcome to RO.
J.

Originally Posted by bigtree

And Mac mini with Lion Server Apple (Canada) - Mac mini with Lion Server
2.0GHz : Dual 500GB

• 2.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
• 4GB memory
• Dual 500GB 7200-rpm hard drives¹
• Intel HD Graphics 3000
• OS X Lion Server
• OS X Lion

Pretty impressive.

I wonder how hot these get.


Here are some old references for running PT. New 2009 Mac Mini 4GB RAM for PT8? - Avid Audio Forums
and more current in reference to the mini server:
Mac Mini Server i7 2.0 Quad - Avid Audio Forums

and

Turn a Mac mini with Thunderbolt Technology into a Full-function Metadata Controller and More
Sonnet - RackMac mini Xserver: Rackmount 1U System with PCIe 2.0 Expansion Slot

Better specc'd than many full sized units. Very impressive.

The Mini ( actually any thunderbolt-enabled Mac )can now run PT|HD via thuderbolt and a Magma expansion chasis.

Not cheap, but cheaper than 8-core mac pro.

http://www.magma.com/thunderbolt.asp