Time to upgrade my Windows 11 machine to which Mac mini ?????

[NoBadMojo]

Hi all.

I;m not interested in starting or continuing an OS feud here. I;m just looking for some experienced solid advice from people who have used Studio One/Fender Studio Pro with both Windows and Mac who can recommend a good machine for me because it is time to upgrade my music rig. I am thinking to some kind of Mac Mini.

My situation is that I use Chromebooks for getting most everything done. I have a Dell workstation that dual boots into Win11 and Linux Zorin that I use almost exclusively for making music. This is some kind of i7 running at 3.4Ghz, 32 ram, 1TB SSD me, etc. It was my hope to port over to Linux since Studio One has a
native Linux version. I also have Bitwig and same for Bitwig. Linux is out for me because of the difficulties in getting some vst's to work like Kontakt instruments.

That seems to indicate a move to a Mac mini (assuming most things I;ve heard about them are probably true). I;I've been using Windows machines for decades and have had it w. Microsoft in many ways.....so this would be a big (but not important) change for me

So my question is which Mac mini on a budget for me for my use cases?

I don't run a ton of tracks in projects, but they tend to be pretty CPU intensive ones with several effects. I feel as though I can get a big performance bump by switching to a Mac mini and wouldn't have a big learning curve issue with switching..but which one.?? I;I've been reading about how DAW's use cores (performance vs efficiency) and it seems that Studio One does use efficiency cores, but does not use them well. That made me think that I might be better served by buying a used Mac mini with more performance cores than the base m4.

So I am thinking a M2 Mac Mini Pro with 16ram and a 512ssd? or would it really not matter much for my use cases and I just go with a new base M4 w. a 512ssd?

sorry this is long. Thx for reading and any informed help.

 

[Number6]

Obviously windows better bang for your buck.
From experience I've configured macs for people who used to have windows, and windows for people who used to have macs. Within a year or two they were back to their original OS.

Then again you are a Linux user, so with the Mac OS you'll gonna probably fit right in with it. I have best of both, a windows 11 PC that dual boots into and Hackintosh and Linux.

 

[NoBadMojo]

Obviously windows better bang for your buck.
From experience I've configured macs for people who used to have windows, and windows for people who used to have macs. Within a year or two they were back to their original OS.

Then again you are a Linux user, so with the Mac OS you'll gonna probably fit right in with it. I have best of both, a windows 11 PC that dual boots into and Hackintosh and Linux.

I wouldn't be one of those :

I was mostly interested in finding out which Mac Mini would be best for me. I think I have it boiled down to the 2 machines I mentioned, but was happy to get some good input from knowledgables. am starting to think that it would not matter which one of those two I chose.Not in a hurry as this is not a good time to buy a Mac or anything with storage and ram. I think I will just wait until the m5 comes out and see what that does to the used m4 Mac mini market and other m4 chip devices

I really think I will get a big [performance bump by the change..my workstation has an older i7 in it... In large part I;ve had it with all the Microsoft shenanigans and would like to rid Microsoft from my life. I;ve noticed that just opening and running native Studio One (I still call it that) stuff, they run MUCH faster in Linux than Windows using less cpu. even setup was easier. Didn't need any audio drivers and I get much more audio output. If I could run my plugins without much fuss I would just go to Linux because everything else is good to go in Linux now,

Thanks for your input. If you know of any big obstacles about making the switch I would be happy to know. seems like all my sound libraries will work and I will just have to copy over the projects I need to modify

 

[Number6]

I don't think there are any big obstacles, just stick with VST3 for both platforms. Of course you won't get that with Linux, that may well be why things run faster, support is not there, so no overhead and less bloat even without the plugins..I would run Linux too if it wasn't for that.

I prefer the flexibility of Windows but it can require a lot of optimization. I've spent decades optimizing windows and probably hundreds of man hours so I've more or less got it licked, although every now and then there is the odd curve ball.

 

[Number6]

BTW I have my data on one drive that can be read by my Hackintosh and Windows. The same projects seem to work fine on both platforms but I may have to change drive paths but that's a lot it. I've also installed stuff like Native Instruments Komplete on both OS's and they can share the same sample files.