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.

 

[NoBadMojo]

Good tips thanks. I dont plan on trashing the old workstation just in case plugin makers like Native Instruments start offering Kontakt in CLAP format. I have no idea how difficult it would be to do something like that.

As for me, I;m older than dirt and have been using Windows since before there was Windows. There was a GUI word processing app Called AmiPro that might have been the first of its kind. There was no Windows as an OS yet. It required 'Windows Run Time' to function. I too have my Windows machine optimized (which was mostly removing things like co-pilot, one drive and my win 11 machine was an unsupported Win10 machine so has no tpm chip. I feel a little less invaded. I;ve removed as much crap as I could..I didn't use Windows since retirement and just got back in a small handful of years ago when I started making music. anyway

I thought having a dual boot rig was a good test of speed on Studio One and Bitwig comparing the two os's. So I ran both with stock plugins and the Linux machine flew in comparison

nice conversation thx

 

[tpittman]

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.

I run a 2018 Mac Mini. Works fantastic for what I do. My projects are NOT CPU intensive like your's I'm assumming.
I run less than 20 tracks per song with 3 or 4 tracks being virtual instruments i.e. Ezdrummer Ezbass and a few others
here and there.

Now, if I start getting much more than that like let's say I throw on"Ampire" I can start to have issues. To get right to the chase
I will be going to M4 or M5 with 32 gig ram and 1tb drive hopefully sooner than later. With that kind of power and storage
I should be able to add more Instrument Tracks (if i need them) without getting bogged down

 

[Number6]

If VST was supported in Linux even without VST plugins I suspect it would be a lot slower.

Wasn't a big Lotus fan, I was a WordStar person myself.

 

[NoBadMojo]

If VST was supported in Linux even without VST plugins I suspect it would be a lot slower.

Wasn't a big Lotus fan, I was a WordStar person myself.

Yikes..Wordstar..that goes back to the days of CP/M I think. Personally I enjoyed AmiPro because it didn't look like you were looking at a heart monitor :

 

[NoBadMojo]

I run a 2018 Mac Mini. Works fantastic for what I do. My projects are NOT CPU intensive like your's I'm assumming.
I run less than 20 tracks per song with 3 or 4 tracks being virtual instruments i.e. Ezdrummer Ezbass and a few others
here and there.

Now, if I start getting much more than that like let's say I throw on"Ampire" I can start to have issues. To get right to the chase
I will be going to M4 or M5 with 32 gig ram and 1tb drive hopefully sooner than later. With that kind of power and storage
I should be able to add more Instrument Tracks (if i need them) without getting bogged down

I;m certainly no Mac expert, but I think 2018 was pre 'M' chip era so runs on an Intel i7 (something like that). I think the M chips are supposed to be a quantum leap above that level so it is likely that we don't need an m5. Yea, amp sims consume a lot of resources it seems. Ampire seems to be one of the lighter ones from my experience. I use Amplitube 5 and it's great but is slow to load and hits my CPU hard, as does the new Fender reverb thingy.

 

[js1]

OP, that's a tough choice. Fender Pro Studio One thrives on performance cores. M2 Pro can have 4, 6 or 8 performance cores. The base M4 has 4 performance cores that are a lot faster. So, for 4 or even six cores, no way. But 8? Maybe...

If you hang tight, when the M5 comes out, the M4 Pros will come down. And as someone who owns one, that machine is a monster.

 

[NoBadMojo]

OP, that's a tough choice. Fender Pro Studio One thrives on performance cores. M2 Pro can have 4, 6 or 8 performance cores. The base M4 has 4 performance cores that are a lot faster. So, for 4 or even six cores, no way. But 8? Maybe...

If you hang tight, when the M5 comes out, the M4 Pros will come down. And as someone who owns one, that machine is a monster.

gotcha. I think the m2pro comes with at least 6 performance cores and there was one with 8 cores. I think both would run about as fast as a base m4 w. the same ram and storage (In Studio One anyway)...Is that what you think? That could be my no brainier choice given the bump I would get from my old i7 workstation and the pricing vs m4..No question the m4Pro kills it...probably overkill for my case use. But I do plan on waiting unless I find a great deal on an m2pro with 8 cores preferably. I don't do video editing or gaming much at all. Will be interesting to see what happens to the used market when the m5 emerges.

 

[Navar]

I'm a windows user on my main studio workstation but I also have a M4 for our touring and live recording rig and this thing is a killer. There is one thing that still keeps me away from switching mainly to Mac and thats the complete insane and unrealistic pricing on RAM and storage upgrades. But the M Chips are awesome and if I wouldn't be so focused on memory and storage, I would make the switch to an M4 Mini and they are really nice priced acutally in their basic configurations. And if you can get away with maybe a Thunderbolt dock and external drives, than this is a great choice.
I've developed several audio applications for Linux and I would never ever switch my studio work to a Linux system. Funny if you want to troubleshoot things and spend the time with not making music but beside that I don't see any reason. It's like people building Hackintoshs, yes you can do it but what's the priority, spending time with computer systems or making music.

 

[Number6]

it but what's the priority, spending time with computer systems or making music.

Some of us are tinkerers, some of us are not.
Building a Hackintosh gives me a sense of sticking two fingers up a proprietary ecosystem and spending a whole bundle of money on over priced hardware. M$ wants that too, but we are always gonna find a way around it. That's why Linux appeals but sadly it isn't ahead of the audio game....yet.

 

[NoBadMojo]

I'm a windows user on my main studio workstation but I also have a M4 for our touring and live recording rig and this thing is a killer. There is one thing that still keeps me away from switching mainly to Mac and thats the complete insane and unrealistic pricing on RAM and storage upgrades. But the M Chips are awesome and if I wouldn't be so focused on memory and storage, I would make the switch to an M4 Mini and they are really nice priced acutally in their basic configurations. And if you can get away with maybe a Thunderbolt dock and external drives, than this is a great choice.
I've developed several audio applications for Linux and I would never ever switch my studio work to a Linux system. Funny if you want to troubleshoot things and spend the time with not making music but beside that I don't see any reason. It's like people building Hackintoshs, yes you can do it but what's the priority, spending time with computer systems or making music.

Thx for the good advice. I;ll look at Linux again in 2027 and see what happens to the market when the m5 comes out. My rig seems to be hanging in there for now, but is definitely well obsoleted (other than for Linux)...I think I would get a huge performance bump by just changing to either a m4 mini or even an m2 pro mini for my use cases. I;ll keep the workstation just in case. If anything just to put the Mac stuff on top of out of the way and off my desktop...ha.

 

[Navar]

My problem with Mac is, I don't like to be settled into this eco system, I don't like the pricing of components and I don't give a damn about the style and look of a computer, especially when it's placed under my desk. But I love Core Audio. My RME ASIO based Windows system runs great but Core Audio is so convinient and just performs.

 

[Chris R]

Buying a more recent machine will guarantee you longer update support, and the additional performance cores shouldn't matter as much for low track count projects. The M4 single core performance is better, much better.

I too switched from a Windows desktop i9-12900K/32GB to an M4 Pro Mac mini/512GB/24GB (base model) a few months ago. I went with an M4 Pro for the Thunderbolt 5 (80Gbps) ports and added a Beelink Mate Mini-A for dual NVME drive expansion with 80Gbps bandwidth split between the two drives. I needed at least 24GB RAM and expandable storage for large sample libraries, and two additional PCIe slots in a single dock occupying a single port was best. If you don't have a need for that now or into the future, the M4 will be fine.

The computer is rock solid. The performance, stability, power consumption, and fan noise (none) have been amazing relative to my Windows desktop. Give or take a couple of plugins that didn't have M-Series support because they were old, or required a paid upgrade, practically everything was smooth in the transition.

 

[NoBadMojo]

Buying a more recent machine will guarantee you longer update support, and the additional performance cores shouldn't matter as much for low track count projects. The M4 single core performance is better, much better.

agreed. I think I will likely end up just buying a new m5 base device if the rumors are true that it will come w. 16 ram and a 512ssd for $699 unless I can get a crazy good deal on a used Mx