2012 Macs: quad core, dual core, i5 i7?

[Thomas Rein]

I'm contemplating making the move to Macs for recording acoustic guitars and my acoustic duo. Garageband and iMovie seem robust enough for what I am wanting to do. I really don't like the tack Apple has taken with soldering RAM and hard drives into their current offerings. That pretty much guarantees disposable computers. So, I'm looking at mid-2012 Macs and Mac minis. The RAM in these machines can usually be stretched to 16MB so I don't think that is an issue. It boils down to i5 or i7, and dual core vs quad core. Should I hold out for an i7 quad core or would any of these configurations work well enough for the amateur grade programs of Garageband and iMovie?

[Bob Womack]

I can only speak from experience. When we were using Macs for audio production DAWs here at the studio we moved into to dual quad-core Xeon 5 Mac Pros and they were slicker than grits with no hiccups. We were recording 24-track audio with video and the system worked great. Then Apple abandoned pro video and audio editing and went to the recent soldered RAM, hard-to-add-peripherals-to Mac 'trash can shape.' In order to be able to continue to grow and interface with the industry, we replaced the dual quad-core Macs for our DAWs with faster i7 PCs. Everything is faster still and all is hunky-dory again. Now I surf the net and get my email here at work on the dual quad-core Mac. Life can be funny.

Bob

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by Thomas Rein

I'm contemplating making the move to Macs for recording acoustic guitars and my acoustic duo. Garageband and iMovie seem robust enough for what I am wanting to do. I really don't like the tack Apple has taken with soldering RAM and hard drives into their current offerings. That pretty much guarantees disposable computers. So, I'm looking at mid-2012 Macs and Mac minis. The RAM in these machines can usually be stretched to 16MB so I don't think that is an issue. It boils down to i5 or i7, and dual core vs quad core. Should I hold out for an i7 quad core or would any of these configurations work well enough for the amateur grade programs of Garageband and iMovie?

I think when you're talking about hardware that's 4 or 5 years old you really first and foremost need to be sure of what OS runs (ran) best. There's always that uncomfortable time span where Apple still supported a newer OS on an older machine but in reality the machine had hard time lugging through the thick new Operating System. I don't remember now what OS was happening in 2012 but be aware everything down stream of that OS is tangibly affected. It might box you in to a particular version of both Garage Band and iMovie. There were some great versions of iMovie but there were some ginormous dogs as well.

I'd be diligent here as when it comes to media production software you could end up with a boat anchor.

[Thomas Rein]

Joseph, Good points that I had not considered. I'm leaning towards the Zoom H5 with good external mics for recording so the audio processing part inside the computer would be fairly minimal. If I go with with pc instead of mac the main thing is to find a Windows based video program that is as easy to use as iMovie. I've tried Windows Movie Maker and it is a clunker, at least in my experience. The videos/sound clips I will be making are for distribution on the web so the nth degree of resolution is not necessary since compression will throw out a good part of the file anyway.

[Bob Womack]

Ah, in that vein, we stopped upgrading at Mac OS X 10.6.8 because it worked and didn't conflict with any software or peripherals.

Bob

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by Thomas Rein

Joseph, Good points that I had not considered. I'm leaning towards the Zoom H5 with good external mics for recording so the audio processing part inside the computer would be fairly minimal. If I go with with pc instead of mac the main thing is to find a Windows based video program that is as easy to use as iMovie. I've tried Windows Movie Maker and it is a clunker, at least in my experience. The videos/sound clips I will be making are for distribution on the web so the nth degree of resolution is not necessary since compression will throw out a good part of the file anyway.

Well..I have a Zoom and it's great. Quite honestly in a good room the mics are fine as is. The thing I don't like about the Zoom (and this is more my own work flow preference) is I enjoy having plenty of tracks (during recording). It helps me in multiple takes and punch-in's. I tend to stop and start while building a track and that of course is difficult at best with the Zoom. Also I find the visual references easier.

As far as PC video editing you probably don't need to look past Adobe Elements. It's a power house, it's cheap and it's work flow is logical and intuitive. The only package out there that's easier is Apple's Final Cut.

[paulp1960]

I just took a look on Ebay and 2012 quad core i7 Mac Mini machines are really quite expensive. Almost collectable.

One of those should easily be able to cope with your demands I would have thought.

[myersbw]

Pretty much everything 2012 on (Mac-wise) will run OSX 10.11.x. I've upgraded quite a few of those iMacs with SSD drives and they perform very well when that bottleneck is removed. (It takes removing the glass (suction cup) and the LCD screen, but it's very doable.

8GB is workable, 16GB is much better. i5 vs i7? The mechanical drive vs. SSD is the bigger bottleneck to resolve. And, if buying a used one with a mechanical drive, expect replacing a drive on that age of a machine. So much so that I'd use that to bargain with.

I'd also purchase via friends or Craigslist locally...always preferable to fire it up vs. awaiting an unknown via eBay shipping. And, you'll get likely get the best price that way.

Want to see the machines potential? Check out everymac.com. They'll print specs Apple won't share or support. cheers!