ReasonTalk.com

Hi guys,
hope you're all well.
I'm finally going to upgrade from my haggard old Win laptop to a better machine in the next weeks. Being a teacher, Apple offers an educational discount (approx.8%), so a 2018 Mac mini with i7/16GB RAM/128 SSD will set me back £1170 (£1203 with Applecare+) here in the UK. I'm close to pulling the trigger on one, but just curious of any issues I should be aware of when migrating/reinstalling my software. I'm running Reason 10/Presonus Studio One 2/Waves plugs/Voxengo plugs. For example, can I open old Reason projects without a hitch, etc.?

Thanks

Provided you install the Mac vst versions everything should work fine.

I hear you can do the RAM upgrading yourself, so I would get the standard RAM and then buy more for cheaper elsewhere.

motuscott wrote: ↑

15 Nov 2018

I hear you can do the RAM upgrading yourself, so I would get the standard RAM and then buy more for cheaper elsewhere.

Are you sure. The 2014 mac minis didn't allow this.

The 2012 mac minis did.

I went from a mid grade msi A5000 windows to a MacBook Pro 2017 with the second to best stats, literally a world of difference
If you mainly use Re, you’ll get to use more of them ( this obviously depends on what stats you had beforehand)

Also my Mac can actually run serum and other popular high powered vsts, my msi wouldn’t dare to have a song playing while I’m editing serum.

Overall the only limitation regarding software is maxing out the amount of devices.
But in my case I was literally able to use double the synths and effects

Last note, regarding vst, I haven’t had any issues. All my vst issues have always been due to a bug that is inside the vst, well actually vps avenger is a special case now that I remember it. It makes your MacBook heat up, something to do with how it displays on a Retina display

Otherwise vsts run perfectly if you get to know how to use your system

Awesome machine you're getting! I'm sure you will be happy with it. Reason has always been 100% compatible on both systems so no worries there. Studio one: same; everything Adobe: same. Apple has the AppStore built in since nearly 10 years now and it makes it super easy to find both free and cheap games and other programs & you install and uninstall just as easily as on iPhone & iPad. Rent this week's special price movie for $1 when you're bored. I think you'll be pretty amazed. Many things are built in from scratch such as PDF conversion, selectable screen dumps and whatnot & the audio performance is impeccable even using the built in audio, just like a computer should be. Updating the computer takes 5 minutes... yup I'm a fanboy Welcome!

[/quote]
Are you sure.
[/quote]

No I am not. Should not have facilitated "false news".
My bad.

jlgrimes wrote: ↑

15 Nov 2018

motuscott wrote: ↑

15 Nov 2018

I hear you can do the RAM upgrading yourself, so I would get the standard RAM and then buy more for cheaper elsewhere.

Are you sure. The 2014 mac minis didn't allow this.

The 2012 mac minis did.

Yes, you can swap RAM on the 2018 Mac minis! It's not very easy, though, apparently it involves removing the fan and the motherboard....

The hard drive is not replaceable though, since it's soldered in place.

buddard wrote: ↑

16 Nov 2018

Yes, you can swap RAM on the 2018 Mac minis! It's not very easy, though, apparently it involves removing the fan and the motherboard....

Yep, I recently read an article detailing the process. Sounds incredibly fiddly, and would almost certainly void your warranty.

I found migrating from a Windows machine to a Mac to be pretty painless, especially as I wasn't really using too many VSTs at the time. Reason & RE installation was a piece of cake. I'd strongly suggest keeping a copy of absolutely everything from your old machine and making it readily accessible on your Mac, at least until you're 100% sure you've got everything you need. I ran into a couple of instances where I had to grab a couple of obscure files I wouldn't have otherwise considered keeping.

The main thing I miss is an audio player on par with Foobar2000. I still have a copy running in Wine (Wineskin is super useful, btw!) but I would LOVE a native macOS equivalent. Also, XLD is a fantastic audio file converter.

when I switched back in 2010 the only problem I had was I was used to closing windows on the right side of the screen in Windows now on left in Mac

See I'm gonna be upgrading my mac mini to the 2018 version as well . . .

Hey, thanks guys for your comments and advice. I watched a vid recently of a guy dismantling one - I’m already experiencing pre-surgery tension! I considered another Win laptop, a Dell XPS13 (my entire budget of £1500), but rarely used the screen/keypad on my old one (it lived in my studio 99%), so a Macmini seems the logical choice. A friend has an older one, possibly 2014, and he highly recommends it. I was close to buying one a year ago, but read somewhere that a newer one was imminent.
One thing that nags me, however, is that I’ve collected programs over the years, mainly utility tools for file conversion, etc. that have become so convenient and second nature that I would probably miss if not available on macOS. The effort involved in finding equivalents seems a pain the arse. I’m definitely getting lazy in my ageing process! But having a nice machine to hook up all my Volcas to a mixer and MIDI controllers, as well as a nice projector, is close to perfection considering my last machine was a 2008 i3 laptop that choked on 4 tracks!

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...XLD is a fantastic audio file converter.
[/quote]
Cool, thank you!

buddard wrote: ↑

16 Nov 2018

The hard drive is not replaceable though, since it's soldered in place.

Oh my!

Update:
Well, I'm now a very happy owner of a Mac mini i7/16gb ram/256gb storage. Quiet as a mouse and none of the ground hum/overheating issues I had with my previous machine. Plug and play! So far, Mojave is proving extremely intuitive compared to Windows 10 and Reason/Studio One runs like a dream - no BIOS tweaking or overclocking! Loaded up some projects that were bounced in succession, copied all the tracks into one and bam, no agonising drop-outs or glitches. Holymoly, I can finally use those cpu hogging REs that gathered dust for years! For the price (£1200 with Apple+), I couldn't be happier.
Someone pinch me

bitley wrote: ↑

15 Nov 2018

...yup I'm a fanboy Welcome!

Cheers, you and me both!

ionly wrote: ↑

04 Dec 2018

Update:
Well, I'm now a very happy owner of a Mac mini i7/16gb ram/256gb storage. Quiet as a mouse and none of the ground hum/overheating issues I had with my previous machine. Plug and play! So far, Mojave is proving extremely intuitive compared to Windows 10 and Reason/Studio One runs like a dream - no BIOS tweaking or overclocking! Loaded up some projects that were bounced in succession, copied all the tracks into one and bam, no agonising drop-outs or glitches. Holymoly, I can finally use those cpu hogging REs that gathered dust for years! For the price (£1200 with Apple+), I couldn't be happier.
Someone pinch me

Does mojave get better performance than windows 10?

aeox wrote: ↑

04 Dec 2018

Does mojave get better performance than windows 10?

Can't really compare mate as I was working with a crappy old laptop previously. However, in terms of how intuitive it is and the ease of migrating over, then a smooth 10/10 thus far

ionly wrote: ↑

04 Dec 2018

aeox wrote: ↑

04 Dec 2018

Does mojave get better performance than windows 10?

Can't really compare mate as I was working with a crappy old laptop previously. However, in terms of how intuitive it is and the ease of migrating over, then a smooth 10/10 thus far

Oh alright I was about to say.. I'll switch to mojave very quickly if that was the case!

Mac has always been more user friendly in that way from what I could tell. It's all very elegant and intuitive.

Welcome to the club. I'm actually on an IMac from 2016 with 17 16gb Ram and still stick on High Sierra that I find pretty stable and
without any problem
Everything is smooth but I've some MIDI issue with Reason still not solved.
No needs to install audio drivers for every Soundcard and lot of good stuff

Been using Max to convert audio files on Mac for years now. It’s a free program and allows you to specify the format, quality and output location in the preferences to it. It’s quite old but still keeps on working with every macOS update and remains my go to for the task ... https://sbooth.org/Max/


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Good Luck! wrote: ↑

05 Dec 2018

How convert audio files? I find this onlineconvert What else would you advise?

tons of program there are to convert any format in any other ( also in native quicktime you can do it )
anyway I use Soundstudio, Twistedwave or Sound forge, Audition, Amadeus as well and other dozens of those.

For file convert, I’ve used iTunes and Doug’s Apple Scripts for many years. As other, allows specifying file type and location etc, and you already have iTunes (and the apple script is free). Works transparently and I’ve never had a problem with it for MANY years now. BTW, this does NOT add files to your iTunes library, or more accurately it adds them then converts then deletes (quickly too).

Simply drag and drop files on this icon - couldn’t be simpler:

https://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ ... pafewmyway


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Audacity. Has scripts for converting .WAV to a variety of formats in bulk to a separate folder, so you don't lose the source material. Runs well. I don't know why more people don't use it, it's insanely fast, and runs some VSTs and Audio Units. And it's free.

I strongly recomend you twisted wave. He's an editor but It has that secret weapon batch files system where you can apply effects, convert, making various audio operation in multiple audio files and save them all in a folder of your choice without affect original format. And it is very very intuitive as hell!

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