mac mini? hmmmmmmm.....

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bentonevolution
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mac mini? hmmmmmmm.....

Post by bentonevolution » Thu Jan 13, 2005 7:41 am


markee2004
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Re: mac mini? hmmmmmmm.....

Post by markee2004 » Thu Jan 13, 2005 12:02 pm

crap.
you can buy all the equipment in the world but it won't write the music for you.

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Re: mac mini? hmmmmmmm.....

Post by junior » Thu Jan 13, 2005 12:35 pm

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep"...
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Re: mac mini? hmmmmmmm.....

Post by drliebs » Thu Jan 13, 2005 12:46 pm

It is what it is, and for what it is it is pretty cool. (God I love the English language!)

Get one for your grandma, your brother, or your teenager and they will use the way it was intended. I don't know how much professional work you are going to get out of it, well at least since we are spoiled by our modern computers. Maybe photoshop 2.0 would run ok on it, but I don't think Photoshop 6.0 would be getting the most out of it, and you aren't going to run a 24 track Logic session in that box. (I am speaking from oppinion not experience)
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Re: mac mini? hmmmmmmm.....

Post by kcrusher » Thu Jan 13, 2005 3:28 pm

You could run PS6 on this. The faster 1.42ghz processor is probably equal to the dual 800/G4 i was running PS 6 on and it worked quite well.

With a FW hard drive, you should easliy be able to run a 24 track Logic session on this, plus a decent amount of plug-ins, just like I did on the G4/dual 800.

I don't know why you would call it 'crap' - this little box would be great for almost anything, and cheap to boot. No, it's not top of the heap, but it should be able to hold it's own quite well.
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Re: mac mini? hmmmmmmm.....

Post by sonikbliss » Thu Jan 13, 2005 9:09 pm

I've been recording music on my G4 466Mhz (on a Digi 001) for about 4 years now and haven't had any problems at all with that machine until some recent programs have started to bog it down, granted I can't run a whole lot of plugins (being that it's PTLE and host based processing). The mini is 3-4 times as powerful as my 466 so I don't forsee any problems using it to record with (unless you need a machine for intensive mixing or playing back a 100 tracks, even then there's options (UAD-1) to relieve the load put on the cpu).

At work I have a 1.25Ghz G4 and a 002 in my office that I use for mixing just about everyday. I am actually pretty surprised at how intensive the plugin usage can get with this machine (3-4 altiverbs + a bunch of other plugins). The mini has the same (or greater) processor speed as this computer but has a faster system bus, so it should perform fairly well.

All in all the mini is a great machine for the money and to call it crap is just idiotic. The thing that really sucks about it though is that it only has 1 RAM slot so it's pretty $$$$$$$$ to max it out. You can definately run the price up on this thing very quickly if you want all the extras, but even so it's still more powerful than any other G4's in the same price range.

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Re: mac mini? hmmmmmmm.....

Post by theistheman » Thu Jan 13, 2005 11:27 pm

yeah...seriously, to say it's crap is fucking retarded.

I have a Powerbook that you'd probably jack off over, souped up to all hell, and it costs 4 times as much as that mini does, and the mini is pretty comparable. It sucks compared to a G5 tower...but what do you expect? If it would've come out 6 months ago, I wouldn't have my powerbook, that's for sure.

And I'm not even going to go into it about the windows machine vs. mac machine thing. I have both, and I don't really have a preference. Both have their place.

All I know is I can run a shitload of tracks in logic and run a lot of signal processing in Max/Msp or Supercollider with my powerbook, and considering the fact that the mac mini specs out to almost as good, I would imagine it would work fine.

My main problem with apple before recently has been that their systems are trendy overpriced crap. I only sold out because the mac is what everyone uses in my field. (academic experimental electronic music, etc, etc.)

Now just about anyone can afford one. Certainly anyone that can afford a PC can afford a mac now. I don't think that either one is better...but it's good that there're more options now.

Plus, I don't get any spyware on this shit, beotch!

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Re: mac mini? hmmmmmmm.....

Post by lancebug » Fri Jan 14, 2005 5:24 am

I think it can handle photoshop just fine as well. When I was in grad school we were running PS5.5 on power mac 9600's in some of the labs. I easily run PS6 on my 400mhz imac. All it (a faster processor) will really do is speed up the application of certain effects and saving and 1.25ghz should be pretty luxurious in that regard. Photoshop isnt that processor heavy in my opinion. Unless you are designing billboards or something absolutely jinormous.

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Re: mac mini? hmmmmmmm.....

Post by markee2004 » Fri Jan 14, 2005 5:52 am

"To call it crap is just retarded"

Yeah possibly. But not half as retarded as slobbering all over every new gimmick apple decide to bring out. If you bought one of these, by the time you'd bought a monitor, mouse, keyboard, and upgraded it sufficiently it would probably cost more than a new imac G5. Which is even smaller and less obtrusive than a mini-mac any way. This is nothing but a corporate gimmick, and a joke, designed to send people like you into a buying frenzy.

That's what I meant by crap.
you can buy all the equipment in the world but it won't write the music for you.

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Re: mac mini? hmmmmmmm.....

Post by Rigsby » Fri Jan 14, 2005 6:04 am

markee2004 wrote:...by the time you'd bought a monitor, mouse, keyboard..
I think the cool things about these is that if you;'re going from an older machine you can keep your monitor, mouse, keyboard and use those with it, and that's a pretty functional aspect.
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markee2004
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Re: mac mini? hmmmmmmm.....

Post by markee2004 » Fri Jan 14, 2005 6:23 am

It's marketed twoards new customers though. that was the whole idea.
you can buy all the equipment in the world but it won't write the music for you.

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Re: mac mini? hmmmmmmm.....

Post by Rigsby » Fri Jan 14, 2005 6:34 am

markee2004 wrote:It's marketed twoards new customers though. that was the whole idea.
Fair enough, but if you're clever enough with buying all the extras then i'm pretty sure it's a good deal.
The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away.

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Re: mac mini? hmmmmmmm.....

Post by comfortstarr » Fri Jan 14, 2005 6:53 am

It presents an interesting problem for me. I have a G4/533 that is getting slow with Logic... plus it doesn't have a DVD drive so I can't upgrade to Logic 7 with it.

However, it's got a lot of memory and two internal drives.

I certainly don't need to update tomorrow, but I may in the next year. I had thought of a processor upgrade... but those make me nervous for some reason.

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Re: mac mini? hmmmmmmm.....

Post by drliebs » Fri Jan 14, 2005 7:28 am

I have never performed a hardware upgrade on a Mac, with PC's upgrading the processor is a simple chore that doesn't effect the opperating system. (Unless you need a new MOBO, but that is a different story and REALLY effects the OS)

If you are buying a computer and your main purpose is audio, desktop publishing or gaming this box leaves a lot to be desired. The 4 highlights are (1) it runs OS X (2)price compared to other Macs (3) superdrive (4) its small footprint.

I still say this is consumer gear aimed at word processor users, digital photo takers, mp3 freaks, garage band dabblers, internet surfing computer users. And for that audience it is a fine machine. The graphics card leaves ALOT to be desired, and the RAM is too low for a professional workhorse IMHO.
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Re: mac mini? hmmmmmmm.....

Post by Vartan K. » Fri Jan 14, 2005 7:38 am


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