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Hi All,

As I get on very well using GarageBand on my iPad, I am considering obtaining either an iMac or a Mac Mini. I do have a 21” monitor which is fairly new and good quality which would suit a Mac Mini. My main reason for thinking along these lines is that I have Macula Disease, and do struggle somewhat with the iPad. It looks like I would have to go for a pretty old model of either owing to the cost of these things, but I don’t really mind as long as it does the job!
Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Ian

Ian Miller wrote:Hi All,

As I get on very well using GarageBand on my iPad, I am considering obtaining either an iMac or a Mac Mini. I do have a 21” monitor which is fairly new and good quality which would suit a Mac Mini. My main reason for thinking along these lines is that I have Macula Disease, and do struggle somewhat with the iPad. It looks like I would have to go for a pretty old model of either owing to the cost of these things, but I don’t really mind as long as it does the job!
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Ian

Hi, Ian.

If you already have the compatible monitor and keyboard, the iMac Mini looks very good value.

Having used Mac mini for the past two years I can recommend it highly. For the past 13 years I have been using an iMac system with Logic pro 7, 8, 9 and 10 installed at the appropriate times.
I bought a 2011 Mac Mini for very little money loaded with Logic pro and it does the job fine I paid £250 for it on eBay. If you take this route I recommend you go for SSD rather than mechanical hard drive. As you already have a monitor screen you are halfway to having a good set up at a reasonable price, I recommend you check out eBay

If you can stretch to it the new Mac Mini with the M1 chip is unbelievable. It's £699 new but it is blowing away machines 3 or 4 times the price it really is a game changer.

Hank2k wrote:If you can stretch to it the new Mac Mini with the M1 chip is unbelievable. It's £699 new but it is blowing away machines 3 or 4 times the price it really is a game changer.

Thanks for that Steve Iwasn't aware of it and I'll be checking it out.
To use Logic Pro X to it's full capacity you need as much power and cpu speed as you can get, so this sounds very interesting and isn't too expensive compared to a lot of what is out there.

Hi Dave,

The new iMac range are about to be released fairy soon, these are possible better value at the lower end because they include retina screen, keyboard and mouse, entry price is anticipated to be about the same as current models.

They also use Rosetta 2, which provides a good level of compatibility for non Apple Silicon software.

Regards

Gary

Hi Ian,

The mac-mini is listed at between £699 t0 £899, at Currys, but they need a bit of researching before you buy, to avoid paying for features, which you will not make use of. Most suppliers these days are very good at quoting a low price in ads, to get you to enquire, and then when you settle on what you need, you find the final cost is 25% to 33% more.

I use garage band, together with iRig and a iPhone, iPad and MacBook, and they do what I need them to.

I understand your eyesight problem - tiny, on screen keyboards, and big fingers don't help either. But you mention you have a monitor, so first thing would be to check that it can link with whatever device you settle on.

In normal times you can watch what other people use, and go with that if it suits, but, sadly, not much chance of that for a while methinks.

Kindest regards,
Christopher

dave robinson wrote:

Hank2k wrote:If you can stretch to it the new Mac Mini with the M1 chip is unbelievable. It's £699 new but it is blowing away machines 3 or 4 times the price it really is a game changer.

Thanks for that Steve Iwasn't aware of it and I'll be checking it out.
To use Logic Pro X to it's full capacity you need as much power and cpu speed as you can get, so this sounds very interesting and isn't too expensive compared to a lot of what is out there.

Hey guys - firstly an early Happy New Year! Be careful Dave - the M1 (at the moment) has a maximum of only 16GB RAM - I don't know what Logic requires, or what you are currently running - but ProTools is fussy and needs more for full functionality and I am guessing that Logic will be pretty much on a par with PT in terms of system efficiency / optimisation requirements. My DAW is also Mac based - and as soon as they can get the Apple silicon to run >64GB RAM then I am in - but not right now - way too early.

Stay safe chaps.

Tony

I've already checked and the one at £699 is entry level and my own machine has a higher spec that that apart from the chip.
I use guy over in Lancashire who does refurbs and puts stuff together ith the Logic software in place along with the movie programme.
I'm going to mention it to him and see if we can put something together along the lines of the M1 chip with big RAM and SSD on board.

Although it’s only 8gb and 16gb of ram it is blowing away machines that are running 64gb of ram. The m1 chip is a real game changer. The specs don’t mean much with this it’s like comparing apples and pears.

The bench mark tests are unbelievable just check out some of the videos comparing to Mac Pro

https://youtu.be/Mf7WY4UkFV4