Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
Non AB/tech question
Ok, thanks to the world of AB and apps I went from an all acoustic folk musician to a synth loving and studio building musician. It all started with IK's amplitube and now I genuinely have a software AU/VST and app addiction. Howver it has paid off as my studio is now making near daily money.
Besides creating pieces on my phone (I used Figure and Z3TA as the backbone for a teen pop song recently) I use a Mac Air from 2011 as the center piece of my studio. I have multiple interfaces and mastering gear, but the Mac Air is the heart. And this heart is just not cutting it anymore. I have now reached a point where I am making music with too many tracks, or synth patches that are just beating this machine down. It only has 60gb so SampleTank and all the samplers must be stored on 2 300gb external hard drives.... This is no good. My machine can't handle my workload.
I use a tv screen as a monitor (to see better) and I am thinking of purchasing a Mac mini? Does anyone use one of these? Roughly 500-800... Or should I get a Mac Pro? I want to know what is best to handle the intensity of modern music making. Lots of space and fast lately I lose money and time due to slow machine and crashing.
Thanks
Comments
I've been using a macbook pro for years and can recommend it highly. A friend uses a mini and loves it . I think a mac pro would be overkill as well as expensive. I personally prefer a laptop for being mobile. I've never thought the mbair would make a good studio machine. Just make sure you get something with a big enough hard drive and use time machine with an external drive.
+1 Macbookpro. Get as much RAM as you can afford.
For sure, Mac Pro will work wonders but I think you need to be Hans Zimmer or Mark Mothersbaugh to justify the cost. A macbook pro and then a second box to help with sound creation would be cheaper and more flexible. For instance, your MBA could be your sampletank player.
I've never used a MBA for music but those are pretty fast machines. What specifically taxes it? Do you have reverbs on every channel?
Solid state drives also make a huge difference when running samples. Can be a costly upgrade though
Software like Diva and Kaivo can beat it down. Basically anything that uses high voices and CPU (even certain massive patches). And most of all, live recording taxes it. I just finished a popular children's song using 10 tracks (including the new Arturia VOX Continental) and once I did the singing over it... Just crashed constantly. Same when I add live guitar or bass.
I also use a lot of plugins like Camel space/phat, t-racks, native plugins.... Anything free. It just seems the more I advance in projects the less the computer can handle it.
I actually meant to write Mac book pro in my original post.... Another auto correct fail.
My preference is a fully loaded Macbook Pro. The solid state drive or Fusion drive is a big performance booster, as well as putting in as much ram as possible.
A colleague recently built a new studio around a fully loaded Mac Mini and he's a happy camper, running Logic comfortably with room to spare.
What would be considered a fully loaded Mac mini? Because a refurbished one I could buy outright next week...
If you have $600, that should get you a decent 256 or 512 GB ssd and also max out your RAM on your current laptop.
Personally, I was shocked by how well my 2007 MBP runs with OSX 10.9 and a new SSD.
Fastest possible cpu model, maximum ram and a solid state drive. I think you can save money by getting minimum ram and the cheapest HD from Apple, then upgrading ram and solid state drive by yourself. I've upgraded ram on my Macbook Pro and a Mini before that. Wasn't hard with the right tools and a little patience. (I think Retina model Macbook Pros are not user upgradeable.)
I like this idea of buying lower priced Mac mini and upgrading ssd and ram myself. Like a 2.3 ghz quad core intel core i7??
Or I don't know which is better dual core or quad.
This is why I stayed acoustic for so many years... Ha!
Quad is generally considered better as it has 4 processing cores versus 2 for dual core. It really depends if the software you're using was written to take advantage of multi-cores.
Here is a very interesting discussion I read back in September. It really helped me out, hope it helps you too. You can find them upgraded on ebay often!
https://discussions.apple.com/message/23349239#23349239
Brief segment:
The 2011 Mac Mini Server 2.0 Ghz.. was the bargain of the year when it was being sold by Apple for $650.. as it is a quad core i7 and quite powerful for the price.. Unfortunately they are all gone now.. though every so often Apple put them up in their refurb store... though the last i heard was the final stock of them had sold out very quickly (I bought 3 in total at that time!) and it's unlikely any more will become available.
Of the current range I'd get a Quad Core i7 Mac Mini...if you can.. those extra cores (both real and virtual) really do make a big difference in Logic... However the current range doesn't include internal 7200 rpm drives any longer... which is a shame... The Hybrid drives are ok.. but they still don't seem as efficient to me for Audio work.. as the 7200rpm drives were... so Id probably get a basic drive conbfig and use external Thunderbolt or FW800 7200rpm drives for my audio stuff... and just use the Hybrid or 5400rpm drives for the OS.
Addirional.. A friend of mine just bought two good spec'ed 2013 i7 Mac Minis along with VEP5 and has a really powerful system that beats any iMac.. (and most Mac Pros for that matter) at less than the price of a single high spec'ed iMac...that his system can run rings around!
If you are fairly stationary with your set up I would recommend an Intel IMac. I have a Macbook Pro 2.2 4Gb Ram and and Intel IMac 2.14 3Gb Ram, both from late 2007 and the IMac is so much more reliable. I don't use them much for audio these days but video editing works so much smoother on the IMac despite lower CPU speed and Ram. There must be something about smallness of the components in the laptop and the power combo of battery and power adapter that I think makes it a bit more fragile performance wise. Maybe the newer machines are better but my GF's 2013 macbook air ain't great either. So if you're on a tight budget I'd say go for a most recent IMac you can afford. I would steer clear from the mini mac as you are very likely to have resolution problems on an external non-apple monitor. My friend has these issues with his and I'm using a non-Apple external monitor for my old IMac (my daughter smashed the original display) and have them too despite having spent ages with all sorts of software tricks. Hope this info doesn't confuse you further.
I kind of have the resolution issues now using a tv screen with the Mac air... It sucks at times but I have gotten used to it. But it's better when adjusting midi notes... Before I strained to see them. When my parents had an extra tv I decided it would be perfect for fine adjustments (before I did not own or watch a tv for traditional purposes... They are only good for bigger screens ha!)
I will look into iMacs...
I literally just now figured out the resolution issue. It's all in the Mac settings. It has pretty much sealed the deal for a Mac mini. They have one with an ssd, so if it's around by next week I am picking it up. If not I will install it myself.
Some great advice in this thread... That is exactly why I posted on this forum.
@ShawnLeonhardt said:
Hey, can you share? I presume resolution output of my imac 20" is too low for my 27" monitor but would be good to know it for future reference.
+1 for the mac mini server. We're using one internally for development and have upgraded it to use 2 SSDs instead of the 2 regular drives. That thing flies.
@Supadom for months I could barely see fine print on screen. Like programming patches for Massive was a beeyotch. Last night I went into system preferences and under display or maybe monitors (not at computer right now) a menu came up for my sony tv plugged in... I clicked on one of the top amounts am voila... Screen became crystal clear and beautiful. I will look again later and give more specific details.
@Sebastion.... That is exactly what I want to hear and will most likely be my plan. Very affordable