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time for a new machine - recommendations?

PostPosted: Tue Jul 26, 2016 11:07 am
by Text_Edifice
Hi all,

my 'trusty' 10 year old macbook pro just gave up the ghost. It's been my home studio / location / project machine for ages and am now looking at options for a new machine.

I need something portable or a cheap-ish dedicated studio machine with a cheaper laptop.

What's everyone using out there at the moment?

Re: time for a new machine - recommendations?

PostPosted: Tue Jul 26, 2016 1:25 pm
by mylesgm
Macbook pro i7 2.5ghz 17inch, 16gb, 1x SSD 1x HD, late 2011. Been working a treat since I got it. Easy to upgrade parts, big screen with antiglare finish.

Mac Mini at studio, i7 server version I think it's from 2012 and it's also rock solid.

Re: time for a new machine - recommendations?

PostPosted: Tue Jul 26, 2016 4:08 pm
by Drumstruck
I have the identical machines as Myles and have the same excellent reliability. However, I don't think the 17" screen versions are available now - they seem to have moved to these air models.

I'm thinking of a windoh!s laptop (name brand) with a large screen when I'm forced to upgrade.

Re: time for a new machine - recommendations?

PostPosted: Tue Jul 26, 2016 5:18 pm
by Paul Maybury
Hi,
Hackintosh at the studio and an 8 year old macbookpro.
I like optical drives on my laptop.

Re: time for a new machine - recommendations?

PostPosted: Mon Aug 15, 2016 1:20 pm
by John Campbell
Dave, I’m coming in late here, so maybe you’ve already found a solution. But if not, here's a lateral suggestion. Not as elegant as what you had in mind, but could save you a heap of dollars.

Like Myles and Ian, I have a Mac Mini i7 which has been faultless (installed a SSD). One cheap-ish option you might want to consider is to use one machine for fixed and portable use. The Mini is very portable if you set it up in the studio from the start with the idea of making it easy to unplug and reconnect cables. It will not take much time at all if you make sure it’s easy to get to them. There are plenty of inexpensive keyboards and monitors around, if you don’t already have those.

Re: time for a new machine - recommendations?

PostPosted: Mon Aug 15, 2016 2:49 pm
by Text_Edifice
Looking at the specs of the machine I have and the mac mini's there's not much in them so I ended up paying to repair the machine and put an ssd in it. I lost a bunch of data (so a reminder to keep better backups) but the lappie is back up and working fine.

Did necessitate moving up a couple of PT versions but that seems to work fine.

I wish apple made a 2011 spec'd mac mini as those machines do seem great for smaller studios and maybe a better option than the trashcans. I think cost / performance wise the next physical machine I get will be a pc build.

Re: time for a new machine - recommendations?

PostPosted: Mon Aug 15, 2016 5:02 pm
by John Campbell
A useful feature of the Mac Mini (mine is also 2012) with a SSD is that it's extremely quiet in operation. Just about gotta stick your earhole on it to know it is running.

Re: time for a new machine - recommendations?

PostPosted: Tue Aug 16, 2016 12:03 am
by audioio
The trashcans are a pain in the arse... everything has to hang off them and can't go inside. Magma sort of had the right idea with one of their Robin units... PCI slots and space for 2 Mac Minis. But apparently they were a dog and never worked, and have now been discontinued.

Re: time for a new machine - recommendations?

PostPosted: Sun Aug 21, 2016 10:50 am
by chrisp
I'm in the same position of needing to update my DAW - and thanks to this thread I just bought this past week a late 2012 mac mini quad core i7s, tricked out with 16GB RAM, a 1TB HD, plus had an additional 256MB SSD. Loaded it up last night with Logic Pro X, so my bandwidth is now toast for the rest of the month!

For those looking for a comparison, the more recent mini's have a better overall architecture that makes them about 10-15% faster on single core tasks, as well as having better graphics. Think gaming and video streaming. The late 2012 quad i7 version has a better multiprocessing CPU and larger CPU cache, which means it smokes the newer versions on sheer grunt processing power by about 25% on threaded tasks - which Logic does utilise.

Even second hand a tricked out quad i7 costs as much as a brand new middle stream mini, and by the time you've added an HD TV as a monitor and bought the latest version of Logic, you're not getting much change from $2K. Sill, compare that to buying any other piece of decent audio equipment.

Re: time for a new machine - recommendations?

PostPosted: Mon Aug 22, 2016 4:44 pm
by rowmat
We have two Macs...

A mid 2012 MacBook Pro 15" Retina
2.7ghz Quad Core i7
16 GB 1600mhz DDR3 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M + Intel HD Graphics 4000
500GB SSD

Runs great.

We also recently replaced our ageing studio iMac Core Duo (2008) with a late 2013 27" iMac (not 5K screen), 3.5ghz Quad Core i7, 32 GB 1600mhz DDR3 RAM, Nvidia Geforce GTX 780M 4GB VRAM, 3TB Fusion Drive. 4x USB 3.0 plus 2x Thunderbolt ports.
This was purchased S/H for $3000.

Strangely the newer iMac runs a LOT cooler than the old one.

Re: time for a new machine - recommendations?

PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:54 pm
by reddirt
My 2010 MBP 17" has been great but have also been looking at the 2012 mini, as Chris said, anyone who's selling knows they are on a winner and pricing at a premium ; hoping for a more sensible i-Mac or mini refresh down the road but breath holding is probably only going to stuff my health particularly as Apple are I believe deliberately crippling the lesser machines so as to make the trash can the only realistic option for pro's.

Cheers, Ross

Ross Muir
Reddirt Recordings
Alice Springs

Re: time for a new machine - recommendations?

PostPosted: Wed Sep 07, 2016 9:28 pm
by chribble
Thinking about doing this soon too,
anyone running firewire audio interfaces over thunderbolt adaptors, without issues?

Re: time for a new machine - recommendations?

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2016 8:43 am
by Wiz
chribble wrote:Thinking about doing this soon too,
anyone running firewire audio interfaces over thunderbolt adaptors, without issues?



I runs a firewire disk via thunderbolt for my audio... I know its not an interface, but its been rock solid


cheers

Wiz

Re: time for a new machine - recommendations?

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2016 10:29 am
by Milo
Been running RME UFX for about 6 years with a TB adaptor, both studio and on location: not a whimper of a problem

Milo