new Mac Minis / iMacs + PROS are HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mkelly]

I should check with Propellerheads & their forum to learn if Reason 4 can also run well enough on a mini. I haven't seen my CPU bar go over 40% in a few years on my first-gen MBP. I almost never use plugins, but I do like to have 6 MIDI instruments at once (each controlled by a string on my guitar). I also run 2 or 3 audio tracks, to capture & loop, and 1 more pair MIDI/audio tracks to bring Reason drum kits into the fun. I am guessing that, relative to many other Live users, I don't demand much of the CPU, but do demand much of the audio/midi interface, with lots of data going back & forth (MIDI guitar data, MIDI foot pedal, Trigger Finger, and audio in/out).

Take a look at the specs of your first-gen MBP and see how it compares to the Mac Mini. I have an MBP with a 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo, but only 800MHz front side bus, so I reckon my new Mini will be of a similar power for audio applications. The only real difference will be from a video perspective - the MBPs have dedicated video card and RAM, so will be a bit beefier there.

[mkelly]

oo oo oo my mini has just left the depot

Mine arrived last Thursday - did you customise yours?

[beats me]

just got the mini...realised a second later that the new mini has firewire 800...i have two firewire 400 drives.....found the adapter:
http://www.sonnettech.com

There are also seemingly infinite numbers of 6-pin to 9-pin cables out there. I own half a dozen. Readily available wherever cables are sold, like at, oh, the Apple store.

Seriously. I read all these threads turning the firewire 400/800 issue into the most complex problem in the world. Is it really that difficult to just buy a different cable? Am I missing something?

[mkelly]

Seriously. I read all these threads turning the firewire 400/800 issue into the most complex problem in the world. Is it really that difficult to just buy a different cable? Am I missing something?

Seriously. As far as I am aware, FW400 devices will work on a FW800 interface with an adapter (or cable with 400 connector at one end and 800 at the other.) Of course, you do have the downside that you effectively take the bus down to 400 speed when you hook up a 400 device. But that's the case even now with the last gen MacBook Pros that had both 400 and 800 ports - they were both on the same bus anyway.

[beats me]

Seriously. I read all these threads turning the firewire 400/800 issue into the most complex problem in the world. Is it really that difficult to just buy a different cable? Am I missing something?

Seriously. As far as I am aware, FW400 devices will work on a FW800 interface with an adapter (or cable with 400 connector at one end and 800 at the other.) Of course, you do have the downside that you effectively take the bus down to 400 speed when you hook up a 400 device. But that's the case even now with the last gen MacBook Pros that had both 400 and 800 ports - they were both on the same bus anyway.

I'm asking if this is really an issue or is it up there with the Live sound quality arguments? You can drive any protocol to it's limits and ramble off spec differences but how often does that really happen in practice? People say firewire is far superior to USB but I've used plenty of USB external drives to stream audio and video with no problems. It seems like driver errors are more common than protocol bottlenecks. Just my experience though.

[Harmonic Canon]

All the macs need esata imo

mac mini especially to be used as a media server

I'm glad someone else recognises esata connections.
I'm not updating my desktop / laptop until this is standard.

You can get pci esata cards for desktops but i've heard about
some installation issues.

With an esata hardrive you would have the external hardware performance
to keep your library in one place and plug into multiple computers if
supported instead of the time consuming file transfer. Also audio
data transfer would surely be better

[mkelly]

Yeah, got 4GB Ram (I didn't fancy doing it myself this time) and an English config (I live in France)

How are you finding yours?

Not had much of a chance to use it. Am actually daunted by the simple task of putting all my software onto it - didn't fancy letting the Migration Assistant "help" me. Mine's gonna be more of a media PC in the living room, as well as a day-to-day computer for general usage. Music-making is staying on my MacBook Pro until I can afford a Mac Pro later in the year.

[n0nce]

So... will the new Mini be a good Ableton Live machine? Or is that a crazy idea?

THAT IS SO FUCKING CRAZY. The only machine that Ableton Live will work with is at least a Quad-Core machine with 8 gigs of ram and a 27 1/3rd" monitor.

LIVE HAS NEVER WORKED ON A MACHINE WITH SPECS EQUAL OR INFERIOR TO THAT OF THE BRAND NEW MAC MINI.

BE FOREWARNED.

[mooncaine]

LOL, whatever, n0nce.

mkelly, thanks for the idea: my MBP has an even slower bus than yours (667).

"beats me" asked if the FW/USB difference really is an issue. Yep, it is. I use a bunch of USB stuff, like a wireless keyboard, a Trigger Finger, and an Oxygen. Sometimes other things, like a wireless mouse or a wacom tablet. When the mouse or tablet are plugged in, my USB TASCAM audio interface sometimes got skippy and zippery. Not so with the Firebox. There's nothing on the FW bus but the audio interface and, when I'm not playing music, 1 to 3 FireWire external HDs.

FireWire drives have proven reliable for many years at my job, where we make multimedia fancy stuff for professors. USB drives have not... and, they're slower, uniformly and consistently slower to transfer data. I still buy HDs for work that have USB2 as well as FW ports, but FW works well without probs for me.

[mkelly]

Seriously. I read all these threads turning the firewire 400/800 issue into the most complex problem in the world. Is it really that difficult to just buy a different cable? Am I missing something?

Seriously. As far as I am aware, FW400 devices will work on a FW800 interface with an adapter (or cable with 400 connector at one end and 800 at the other.) Of course, you do have the downside that you effectively take the bus down to 400 speed when you hook up a 400 device. But that's the case even now with the last gen MacBook Pros that had both 400 and 800 ports - they were both on the same bus anyway.

I'm asking if this is really an issue or is it up there with the Live sound quality arguments? You can drive any protocol to it's limits and ramble off spec differences but how often does that really happen in practice? People say firewire is far superior to USB but I've used plenty of USB external drives to stream audio and video with no problems. It seems like driver errors are more common than protocol bottlenecks. Just my experience though.

Sorry beats me, I missed your response on this.

As with many of the hardware related posts on this forum, it's all down to what you do with your hardware as to how much effect it will have. If your data throughput requirements demand FW800 (lots of tracks, streaming audio to/from HD) then sticking a FW400 device on there could have consequences. Then again, someone who has that much throughput requirement should really be speccing themselves an adequate system with a number of separate busses. As you said, does it really happen in practice?

With respect to USB vs Firewire, a reasonable test is to take an external drive with FW and USB interfaces and do some tests on both. While I haven't scientifically tested these things, I have observed that when the same drive is plugged in via USB, it is less "performant" than when plugged in via FW. Now obviously this could be down to Apple having better FW ports than USB, better FW software support than USB, or the drive itself having better FW interface than USB.

Part of me would love to see some proper testing and analysis to settle this once and for all. The other part of me says "hey, fuck it. I know that for me, FW performs better, so I'm sticking with it for high bandwidth applications."

[mkelly]

I finally received my 4GB Mac Mini today

Now I have to go through all the fun of installing everything from scratch (I prefer to do this than use the Mac migration assistant).

Do yourself a favour, and write down a list of all the programs you install, their serial numbers, and the major settings you change as you go along. Will make life easier if you have to do it again.