Help me get a better Mac for recording [edited]

ijonty

It's time to replace my 2012 Macbook Air.

 I use it every day for work - I'm a freelance writer so it needs to be portable for taking to different offices.

I want to buy a Pro or Air that can comfortably handle music too.

My current one struggles despite a recent clean install: http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/132460/update-not-enough-wallop-processing-power-for-making-music

 Therefore would I buy one of the brand new models, or is there an earlier model that I'd be better off getting second hand?

I've been told that this eBay seller for example sells quality stuff:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/macansysltd/m.html?ssPageName=&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2654

 My current spec that I want to considerably improve on is:

MacBook Air Processor: 1.7 GHz Intel Core i5
memory: 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB

(I've no idea what any of that means)

At this stage I'm not looking for alternatives to a Mac. I'm keen to stick with Apple as that's what I like using for work. I don't want to get a second machine purely for music either.

Would really appreciate some advice.

andy_k

IMHO, I wouldn't like to recommend anything other than the last upgradable macbook pro, which has pretty much same specs as yours-except for the memory and drives. I picked mine up on here--13 inch 2009 macbook pro, which came with a 500gig SSD, and an unresponsive cd drive, so I pulled that out, and put a 2 tb rust disc in. At the same time I stuck 16 gig of ram in there, and its working fairly well for me -using reaper, and most projects are using at most 25% of resources.
Its about the same processor spec, as yours, and is the model before the retina display. I got mine for £400, plus the extras I mentioned.
As far as I know, all later models have soldered ram and drives, and cost considerably more.
The only new mac I would consider now is the Mac Mini, which is also slightly upgradable, but costs about 900, I think.
Ports are another issue on newer macbooks, so I think you will struggle to get much of an upgrade without spending a lot of money.
My B machine is a mac mini, with 16 gig ram, but I havent bothered upgrading the drive on that, and I use it plugged into a Toshiba TV via HDMI, My C machine, is a 2008 15 inch macbook pro, which is stuck at El capitan, and can only take 8 gig of ram, but still running Reaper absolutely fine, and the cd drive still works-that was the last one with a removable battery, and I had to recently get a new one cos the old one expanded enough to stop the trackpad working. my 13 inch has just started showing a warning about battery service and has had just over 500 cycles-supposed to last 1000.
My other B machine, is a windows zenbook, only 4 gig of soldered ram, but running off ssd, which also runs 50 audio tracks in reaper, although the fan runs permanently.
The dustbin mac is the pro choice, but again you are looking at at least 1500 second hand for an average spec.
good luck.

ijonty

Thanks @andy_k ;Perhaps I should keep the Air I've got and use it only for work. Then get a Mac Mini dedicated for music.

Would I go for a new one, and if so, which and how much would I upgrade it? Looks like the cost would be around £1,200.

Or would I get better 'power per pound spent' if I got a secondhand one?

Limehouse_Blues

I have a mid 2012 MacBook Pro. This year I maxed out the ram and replaced the hard disk with a 1TB SSD and the difference is incredible. The machine flies and handles reaper and cubase with ease. Startup time The is is super quick too

andy_k

I definately think there are diminishing returns with Apple products the last few years, you have to spend an awful lot of money new to get modern spec.
The mac mini was refreshed this year, for the first time since 2014, and even that one was the end of user upgrades, surprisingly, the 2018 version allows ram to be upgraded, but not hard drive, and doing so invalidates warranty.
There is an i7 server version of the 2012 spec, which has 2 tb drives, and user upgradable ram-about £400 if you can find one, and the modern one comes with 4 gig of ram and a 256g  ssd (i think) for about £900, but that will have a more modern processor.
In the end, you will have to decide where you will see best bang for buck, and what your expectations are for making music.
The macbook pro  ( 2009-upgraded )ticks a lot of boxes for me, portable and powerful enough for what I do, but if i HAD to spec out a home studio now, I would go new mac mini, and would wait for warranty to expire before I upgraded ram myself, or second hand dustbin mac pro, which would be higher spec, but maybe wait for new stuff to come out, as second hand prices are still high.
the world is your lobster.

spark240

After considering a new Mac Mini Im sticking with my 2012 for now, got 16G Ram, and just about to add SSD drive, Im running Presonus Studio One V4 no problem

ijonty

andy_k said:

There is an i7 server version of the 2012 spec, which has 2 tb drives, and user upgradable ram-about £400 if you can find one, and the modern one comes with 4 gig of ram and a 256g  ssd (i think) for about £900, but that will have a more modern processor.

I'm out of my depth already here I think. I don't know what a server version is, for example.

As a real-world example, are any of these what you mean? 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Apple-Desktops-All-in-Ones/111418/i.html?Memory=16%20GB&_sop=12&_dcat=111418&_nkw=mac mini&rt=nc&LH_BIN=1&_trksid=p2045573.m1684

(Appreciate I'm pretty much asking you to be my personal shopper here, so if that's over-stepping the mark in the forum, ignore that question!)

In the end, you will have to decide where you will see best bang for buck, and what your expectations are for making music.

My expectations are quite low - perhaps I'm getting greedy. I've only been in a band a couple of years and at the moment use Reaper just to record multiple guitar tracks, sometimes with a bit of reverb and delay for example, not loads of plug-ins. Add in some vocals and that's about it. I don't do anything with the music afterwards either - just share these rough demos with band mates. 

But of course I want something with longevity and my music might get more ambitious in the long run.

It will also become my 'home computer' and my Air will be purely for work, so I'd like something decent. But then I guess if it's good enough for music, it'll be good enough for all the more day-to-day stuff any home computer has to do.

Cheers

spark240

@ijonty - to me those ones you refer to seems more than adequate, and thought you might not need it now, you will find recording becomes addictive and you will want bigger and better ! 

octatonic

I bought a 2018 Mac Mini a few days ago, still waiting for it to turn up but will report once it does. Will be able to benchmark against a 2017 MBP 15 and a 27” iMac 5k.

Haych

spark240 said:

After considering a new Mac Mini Im sticking with my 2012 for now, got 16G Ram, and just about to add SSD drive, Im running Presonus Studio One V4 no problem

I also have a 2012 Mac Mini, and I too maxed the RAM out at 16GB and I've installed two SSDs.  It's a very rapid machine to be honest.  I'm running Logic Pro X with a few plugins and it never seems to break a sweat.  I certainly have no need to upgrade the machine for anything faster.

In all honestly the SSD upgrade was the best thing I ever did.  The stock internal HDD is very slow and booting up or waking from a deep sleep seemed to take eons.  Since swapping it for an SSD it now takes about 10 seconds, if that!

octatonic

Haych said:

spark240 said:

After considering a new Mac Mini Im sticking with my 2012 for now, got 16G Ram, and just about to add SSD drive, Im running Presonus Studio One V4 no problem

I also have a 2012 Mac Mini, and I too maxed the RAM out at 16GB and I've installed two SSDs.  It's a very rapid machine to be honest.  I'm running Logic Pro X with a few plugins and it never seems to break a sweat.  I certainly have no need to upgrade the machine for anything faster.

In all honestly the SSD upgrade was the best thing I ever did.  The stock internal HDD is very slow and booting up or waking from a deep sleep seemed to take eons.  Since swapping it for an SSD it now takes about 10 seconds, if that!

Interesting.
What plugins are you running?
How many instances of Diva or Omnisphere can you get out of this machine?

Haych

octatonic said:

Haych said:

spark240 said:

After considering a new Mac Mini Im sticking with my 2012 for now, got 16G Ram, and just about to add SSD drive, Im running Presonus Studio One V4 no problem

I also have a 2012 Mac Mini, and I too maxed the RAM out at 16GB and I've installed two SSDs.  It's a very rapid machine to be honest.  I'm running Logic Pro X with a few plugins and it never seems to break a sweat.  I certainly have no need to upgrade the machine for anything faster.

In all honestly the SSD upgrade was the best thing I ever did.  The stock internal HDD is very slow and booting up or waking from a deep sleep seemed to take eons.  Since swapping it for an SSD it now takes about 10 seconds, if that!

Interesting.
What plugins are you running?
How many instances of Diva or Omnisphere can you get out of this machine?

Toontrack EasyDrummer, Bias FX and Bias AMP 2 mainly, I usually have a few active sessions of the last two running.

No idea what Diva or Omnisphere is so unable to answer that one soz.

octatonic

They are synths and they use quite a lot of DSP.

Haych

octatonic said:

They are synths and they use quite a lot of DSP.

Ah right, fair enough.  I'm not really a synth kinda guy - guitar is difficult enough for me and I should probably have just stuck with the recorder at school lol

octatonic

octatonic said:

I bought a 2018 Mac Mini a few days ago, still waiting for it to turn up but will report once it does. Will be able to benchmark against a 2017 MBP 15 and a 27” iMac 5k.

I've got the 2018 Mac Mini here now and it is a bit of a beast.
Significantly faster than either of the computers I have here, a 2017 5k iMac and a 2017 MBP:



I've had a couple of 60 track sessions running and it is barely ticking over, CPU usage is under 10% across all the cores with a lot of plugins.
Fans spin up when installing large files but not when mixing.

spark240

octatonic said:

octatonic said:

I bought a 2018 Mac Mini a few days ago, still waiting for it to turn up but will report once it does. Will be able to benchmark against a 2017 MBP 15 and a 27” iMac 5k.

I've got the 2018 Mac Mini here now and it is a bit of a beast.
Significantly faster than either of the computers I have here, a 2017 5k iMac and a 2017 MBP:



I've had a couple of 60 track sessions running and it is barely ticking over, CPU usage is under 10% across all the cores with a lot of plugins.
Fans spin up when installing large files but not when mixing.

Im no expert - where do you think a fully spec'd 2012 Mini would fare in that list ?

octatonic

spark240 said:

octatonic said:

octatonic said:

I bought a 2018 Mac Mini a few days ago, still waiting for it to turn up but will report once it does. Will be able to benchmark against a 2017 MBP 15 and a 27” iMac 5k.

I've got the 2018 Mac Mini here now and it is a bit of a beast.
Significantly faster than either of the computers I have here, a 2017 5k iMac and a 2017 MBP:



I've had a couple of 60 track sessions running and it is barely ticking over, CPU usage is under 10% across all the cores with a lot of plugins.
Fans spin up when installing large files but not when mixing.

Im no expert - where do you think a fully spec'd 2012 Mini would fare in that list ?

Here you go:



(I googled Geekbench Mac Mini 2012)

sweepy

2015 MacBook Pro, still has USB ports, should say it all really

ijonty

Thanks for the advice folks, think I'll get a Mini of some sort and keep my Air for work.