PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production MAC and PC...any new tech rumours ??

Mike.

thanks for the m2 boot info.
i agree..im sure it was the tech stores net slowing things down.
fyi...tbh...with this apple m series pc's..
this is the first time in my song creation life that ive given serious thought
to getting a apple product for song creation.
the m4 mini IS a beast...its just some things are 'niggles'.
but of course the same goes for the pc side of the house.
tho'...to be fair im super happy with my ry mini pc.
not one prob yet.

(ps Mike..many prayers re your stroke. i wish you always the very very best.)

Brian.

yep im sure your m4 is a beast of a bargain.

i also do the same with my mini ry pc re a usb extender...works
great. frankly on my ry 7 mini i have trouble getting above 25 percent
cpu use. and as its m.2 ssd bb gens are blink of an eye.
rb reports i can do over 200 tracks with it.
the ry does the job for me but then i dont do large track/plugin
counts in a song.
so particularly for creators useing lots of high resource useage vsti's etc..
i would probably recommend something else.
for example some of the songs in my sig used just pg vst fx plugs..
do the job for me on vocs.

imho if apple wanted to slay the pc market...
offer a 250 buck m1 or m2 mini pc barebones...user adds their own memory etc etc..
as well as two internal m.2 ssd's. sales would soar imho.
then once people got comfy do the old upgrade marketing strategy...
eg replace the m1 cpu with a m3 processor that plugis in...
ie similar strategy to iphones...new model every year.
wow...just the idea cranks me up...lol.
excites the whatsits out of me.


happiness to all.

om

Ain't never coming back.

ARM has already come to PCs and as it becomes more popular, expect modular do go the way of the dodo. Why? A unified chip offers far greater power and efficiency at a much lower cost.

Apple's last modular Mac was the 28 core 2019 Pro. Fully tricked out with the complete AV package, it cost over $56,000. Since it was designed to take on 56 core Win10 Maya Rendering boxes costing $150,000 at their own game and did it better, it was quite successful with the film and animation studios that were the target market (not needing to crunch animation for Hollywood, I had no need).. The version for us mortals was the iMac Pro 8–18 core @ $5,000 – $11,000 with 2TB storage—I had a 14 core, then 18 core and both were impressive.

The 2023 Mac Studio M2 Ultra runs circles around both of those machines and cost me $6,000 with 8TB — yes, I have one so I don't have to speculate.

A tricked out Mini M4 Pro is $2,800 with 2 TB storage. Absolutely overkill for anything that one wants to do with audio. A standard M4 Mini with 1TB onboard runs $1,000 and handles most needs. No monitor included but a 24" iMac with a 5K screen costs $1, 700. No one makes a modular PC that can touch those+ anywhere near the price. Oh, the Mac runs cool to the touch.

Mike.

re unified...

good point but its all question of how much does a user need in terms of prerformance.
crikey even the little el cheapo 150 buk mini pc i got only for netting is pretty fast....not up to my song pc but useable.

i just feel that apple is loseing sales to low end el cheapo pc
configs and pc refurbs. one can find pc refurbs these days with ssd for peanuts with i5. ive even seen nice lenovos for under 100
buks on amazon....its nuts out there.

so my concept was get the punters into mac base model and accomplish two things....

..slay the low end pc market due to useing m series cpu...
..get people into the apple ecosystem...

its an old mktg strategy.
for example pg are smart in useing this biz strategy...
ie... their 120 buk or so on fast likkle drive....ie the pro pak.
heck of a deal imho.

in summary with the m tech plus user supplied mem...
one heck of work could be done.
imho it would sell like hot cakes.

(btw..wishing you the very very best re health matters.)

happiness.

om

Apple doesn't want the low end market - they make more than enough money doing what they do and catering to the higher end market. It would be like asking Mercedes to build something to compete against Hyundai.

Exactly- The above config is pretty much all anyone needs.
For BIAB and Logic (at least for those of us using less than 200 midi tracks) its more than enough.
I use DaVinci Resolve and it gets the job done.
Google Earth Pro, QGIS and ArcGIS. No problem.
The only issue I have is stitching together UAV photogrammetry.
That's a pretty hardware intensive operation.
The solution to that is offload it to the many services that have popped up and will soon beat the price down where its not much of an issue.

For 99.9999999% of computer users (who do a LOT less than the above) there is no need for even this much hardware.
I've got an M2 mini 32GB with 4TB i bought a 2-3 years ago from AAPL refurb. Its all I need for a while.

re giving up the low end....maybe consider the following..??

1..sadly many wonderfull high end studios no longer exist due to the creative power now available with a project studio.

2..i once worked for a tech company that was getting sales all over the world and growing like crazee. it was like a rocket ship.
but new entrants came into the market and now the company no longer exists.

just two examples...re dangers of ignoring the low end.
but we shall see what happens.

Mr G...that was a smart play getting a mini refurb imho because of the fast turnover of tech and new products.
before my new current ryz mini pc i did a ton of songs on a intel i5 refurb pc.
ithe ry was a ridiculous low price i couldnt say no to.

btw for any people lurking in the background there are some great threads/posts on gearspace.com re m4 mini.
loads of complimentary posts in the music computers section of GS.
some very very impressive performance stats.

@Simon....re mercs.

yeh where i live its tons of hyundais in driveways...way different from years ago.
hy has swept many car models of the past out of peoples driveways.

happiness.

om

That reminds me of an example given about design targets:
Which is the better car, A Rolls Royce or a Citroen 2CV?
If the purpose is for a peasant farmer to drive across a ploughed field with eggs on the passenger seat and a pig in the back, then it's the 2CV.
That was the design brief for the deux-cheveaux and it met it perfectly.

heres some interesting info re m4 mini.
first is a looong thread of 35 pages...re m4 mini with loads of comments from studio folks.
second is a vid about the m4 mini on a recent post in same thread.

1..the thread...oldest posts first....

https://gearspace.com/board/music-computers/1437461-new-mac-mini-m4.html

2..vid...page down to see it.

https://gearspace.com/board/music-computers/1437461-new-mac-mini-m4-35.html

notice the comment in the vid re m.2 socket.
interesting vid.

lots of info in above.

frankly i think the m4 is pretty exciting....and hope this portends more amazeing apple product initiatives coming.

ps...Gordon..lol...gotta love the 2CV.
if PI gets to above 5ghz for cheap....watch out world imho assuming the price is still cheap.

om

2CVs are great fun, but the doors really do fall off.

The Pi hasn't reached that yet, but the Pi5 is £48 for 2.4GHz with 2GB of RAM. £76 with 8GB.
Of course it's also only 4-core (64 bit), so a very long way from Apple's chips, but surprisingly good.
It's not so long since PCs were way less powerful. Actually, I thing three of my older PCs are!

Gordon.

im really enjoying this mini pc era.

im glad i kept an open mind and listened to you...
there are so many exciting things happening in mini pc's.

the reason i suggested apple have to be carefull re the low end is the pi is one example...but my mini pc i use for the net and useing it now cost peanuts under 150 buks.
now its processor is slower but will turbo up to 3ghz etc.
in a pinch if it was optimised fror music production it could handle i reckon a 40 track song possibly with a few low resource useage plugins.
on my production ry mini bb loads in blink of an eye.
but this el cheapo 20 secs. so its no speed demon.
just good for email/general tasks etc. win boot from cold is surprisingly fast but ive turned off boot stuff i dont need.
but to be fair i reckon if this el cheapo was around years ago the great producers of songs would have still produced kick A songs.

why i think apple has to be carefull is imagine this puppy mini had a 5ghz processor or the PI...and could do big music production projects with big track and plugin counts all for under 250 bucks...watch out world....lol.

my concern is if Apple offer only higher priced products that the rug might get pulled out from under them.
its MBA basics...and repeated over and over in various markets.
for example usb audio interfaces where lots of people are buying cheap
interfaces because of price and bearing in mind the low end is getting sooo very good due to competition.
im just riffing off your comment re pc's people used to use yonks ago to make music.

finally the win mini pc's techs are advanceing very very fast now for little
money...
..multiple m.2 slots
..5ghz cpu's
..usb 4 speed busses.
..higher speed memory.
..expandibility features
etc etc.

the only thing one has to be carefull is power wattage needs.
which is why i chose a lower wattage ry cpu.
but its way more than i need as im not running 200 tracks and plugins...lol.

so lots of things happening that are exciting in both the apple and
pc worlds.

so im keeping myself aware of the mini pc offerings from various companies...eg beelink/minisforum/geekom and many others.
these companies ARE selling product....and if you read reviews on the net and
you tube lots of good star rateings....plus some will take 64 gb memory...eg..this beast...
page down for tons of tech info. notice the bus speeds and other beastly features...lol.

https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-PCIe4-0-Desktop-Computer-Fingerprint/dp/B0DXKR32ZP

fun times...lol.

happiness

om

With all due respect my friend another thing one has to worry about is how well the mini PC is shielded. I bought a $550 (USD) mini for my Internet computer. When installing software I was not near my music studio and it worked perfectly. But when I moved the mini into my studio the mini was extremely noisy, i.e. unusable. Fortunately I got my money back on it. Note that I have two desktop computers, one for the Internet and one for music, in my studio and neither of them are noisy.

I also have a $170 (USD) mini for my wife and it works just fine but again it is no wheres near my music studio.

YMMV

It's not an M.2 slot, it's a proprietary slot. Thankfully it at least offers the possibility of third party upgrades and replacement, which will hopefully come to the M4 Pro soon. I worry about that on my own M1 machine - since the SSD is soldered to the main logic board, once the SSD wears out and fails the computer will become garbage.

They're offering a 16gb version now, currently about $170 at some Canadian shops.

If benchmarks are to be believed, the Pi 5 is roughly as powerful as a 2014 Mac Mini - not bad. My Pi 3B+ is apparently less powerful than a 2007 model...

I know a few of my PCs are - I still have a 450mhz Pentium III kicking around!

Well it's been working for them for 20 years or so...

Mario. re noiseless pc.

thats an excellent point.
neither of my mini pc's have noise problems.
i was carefull in my selection of a mini of course.
the first thing i did was test the mini re dpc.
turns out its one of the lowest dpc....so i kept it after various further testing.
been a champ so far.

the one used for the net im typing this on is fanless.

of course if one wants a barn storming silent pc for music
production and has the money...ie the following are beasts for music
production..but i cant justify one personally cos of the fact musos make no money from plays on the net.

https://silentpc.com/daw/

there are many other companies also.
but the nerd in me fancies one...lol.

frankly a buyer has to be carefull re choice of mini pc...things are
moving fast.

what is exciting me is we are seeing more and more on these pc's up to 64 gigs of memory and multiple m.2's that a user can install.
my production mini pc has 16 gigs mem cos thats all i need.

Simon.

re 'garbage'...yep thats troubling re hard soldered m1 ssd storage.

im sure someone is working out or has worked out how to upgrade an m1.
gonna check that out this week to see if theres a way.
of course warranty would be invalidated.
as to 'rugs' we shall see.


om

I believe it's technically possible to use a hot air soldering station to remove and replace the raw flash chips, but that requires specialized tools, specific flash chips, and risks the possibility of damaging the motherboard even further. I wouldn't bother trying it myself, given that the machine is already 5 years old, and by the time the flash wears out it'll be much easier and preferable to simply get a new computer.

Mercedes Benz does make the Smart Car. Just sayin’…


My wife’s M1 MacBook Air is showing 1% usage wear after nearly 5 years.

If a laptop, the NAND is soldered. Apple Silicon Desktops have socketed NAND. It’s proprietary as the controller is built into the CPU but upgrades and replacements are available on the grey market from those reboxing the Samsung OEM.

Yes, but it's not really branded as a Mercedes product. I view it a bit more like Toyota/Lexus, or to keep things music related Gibson/Epiphone. This kind of branding isn't common in the computer world. Not to mention that Apple is far from the only company who only caters to the upscale market - Microsoft makes the Surface which is more expensive than the cheaper iPads, but they don't make a low end version.

My Mini is showing 21% after 5 years, which could be extrapolated to say I'll get 25 years of life out of it - however it's also showing 628tb written, which on a 1tb SSD is VERY high. Most 1tb SSD's are rated for 300-600TBW which I've already crossed.

Not all Apple Silicon desktops are socketed - so far only the Pro, Studio, and now the M4 Mini. All of the M1-M4 iMacs and M1-M2 Minis have storage soldered to the logic board.

You had to, didn't you?

OK ... I checked. My oldest PC is a 2004 laptop with a 1.5GHz AMD 64-bit something, so I think you probably win the "mine's wimpier than yours" challenge.

I'm pretty sure a Pi 5 would blow it away, especially as the laptop is still on spinning rust storage.

Yes. Yes I did.

Dang, I threw out a perfectly good 486 during the pandemic, knew I should have kept it.
/ISA slots

well heres some rumours re the raspberry pi 6..
google for more info.

https://9meters.com/technology/raspberry-pi-6-rumors-point-to-massive-upgrades-if-we-ever-see-it

dunno if we shall see such...but one can dream...lol.


and Mac m5 processors ?

https://www.geeky-gadgets.com/m5-mac-mini-leaks/


i gotta say...as ive said before...i really like what apple is doing..
and i would have rushed out to get a mac mini m4 if but for the
hard soldered issue. that bugs me. plus i can get mini pc with tons more memory...
sigh.
lol...i would love the challenge to see if i could get realband running on it
under win emulation...but maybe i would fail miserably...lol.
just haveing fun.

ps i got an old i5 refurb here stored away for one of those winters i get bored and maybe will see what it can do with a linux distribution for fun.

om