Boudoir Guitar
Rock Star
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New computer is arriving later today, so maybe I'll kill the time waiting by documenting thought process a bit:
Current computer: I've been running a late 2012 Macbook Mini 2.5Ghz dual-core i5 since before I started posting on these forums circa 2016. In either 2017 I maxed out its RAM to 16 gb. I upgraded the internal harddrive to a 1Tb SSD last fall of 2021. It still works reasonably well for modest recording -- say 1/2 dozen vocal tracks, 3-4 guitar tracks, a bass track, a track of EZ or Superior Drummer; maybe one soft-synth. If I'm not being smart with busses and just slap compressors and EQs on every track and am running 1/2 dozen guitar amp plugins, EZ Bass, Superior Drummer, Logic's Drummer and have Google Chrome and Spotify running in the background it can get a little glitchy. Main point of the upgrade is (1) this machine is stuck on Mac OS 10.15.7 Catalina...which is making it not able to run some software, and also a little more vulnerable to security issues. and (2) I want a more mobile music computer.
Incoming computer: New M1 Macbook Air with 16Gb ram and 512Gb SSD. My initial impulse was to go with the base model, but as I started looking at my current harddrive, I started to become worried 256 MIGHT not be enough. In hindsight, I think it could be fine, but I would definitely need to be pretty diligent about immediately moving projects (both musical and photo/videographic) off to external drives.
Associated extra crap:
(1) a Plugable dock: https://plugable.com/products/ud-cam/ Shopping for this was honestly the biggest PITA. Nothing like buying a dongle for all your dongles. Given how many USB-A ports most music making workstations need (I need one for my Helix Rack; one for my FM3; one for my MIDI keyboard; preferably a spair one for when I grab some random other thing that needs to be plugged in for firmware updates from time to time + to be used for occasionally connecting external storage devices.) a dock is required and there are a million to choose from, with various shopping filters being of little assistance. The Thunderbolt ones are $300+. I decided to go USB-C that powers the Macbook Air, leaving the other TB connector on the Macbook Air available to directly connect a fast TB drive to -- I only need fast data transfers from my primary external drive so don't really need a whole dock to be super fast. The one I chose does not have a card reader, so I also had to spend $15 on a USB-A card reader for photo/video stuff. I'm going to hard-mount (i.e., screw) this docking station to the back of my music desk keeping it permanantly wired in without annoying cable-pull-creep, etc.
(2) a 1Tb Sandisk thunderbolt SSD. This will hold all sample libraries and as noted above will connect directly to the Macbook Air rather than going through the dock. My feeling was no matter what the dock spec was, data transfer would be slower thorugh the dock than by plugging the drive directly into the computer, and not having this drive plugged into the dock allowed me to spec a lower grade dock since everything else would be fine at USB-C dock speeds.
(3) Not really computer-related, but purpose-related, I just ordered a Native Instruments M32 MIDI controller to leave in the house. My main music work space is detached from my house and during winter can require some motivation to make it out to (see below). I wanted the new computer to be a laptop so I could do some basic idea sketching in the house at night/on weekends without having to trek out to the office/music room. My only concern is whether this thing will work with a USB-B to USB-C cable, or whether I'm going to need ANOTHER dongle-for-a-dongle. For that very reason, I also strongly considered the Korg battery-powered Bluetooth 37-key microkey controller. Sweetwater says the $140 M32 comes with the $200 Komplete Select software package, so that is what tipped the scales towards it.
Goal for today is to get Logic installed, with all content chucked off to the external SSD and get Superior Drummer and the smalles amount of its library necessary for it to run installed on the internal SSD. Will worry about getting other plugins and sample libraries installed later in the week.
Will report back with any hiccups, etc.
Current computer: I've been running a late 2012 Macbook Mini 2.5Ghz dual-core i5 since before I started posting on these forums circa 2016. In either 2017 I maxed out its RAM to 16 gb. I upgraded the internal harddrive to a 1Tb SSD last fall of 2021. It still works reasonably well for modest recording -- say 1/2 dozen vocal tracks, 3-4 guitar tracks, a bass track, a track of EZ or Superior Drummer; maybe one soft-synth. If I'm not being smart with busses and just slap compressors and EQs on every track and am running 1/2 dozen guitar amp plugins, EZ Bass, Superior Drummer, Logic's Drummer and have Google Chrome and Spotify running in the background it can get a little glitchy. Main point of the upgrade is (1) this machine is stuck on Mac OS 10.15.7 Catalina...which is making it not able to run some software, and also a little more vulnerable to security issues. and (2) I want a more mobile music computer.
Incoming computer: New M1 Macbook Air with 16Gb ram and 512Gb SSD. My initial impulse was to go with the base model, but as I started looking at my current harddrive, I started to become worried 256 MIGHT not be enough. In hindsight, I think it could be fine, but I would definitely need to be pretty diligent about immediately moving projects (both musical and photo/videographic) off to external drives.
Associated extra crap:
(1) a Plugable dock: https://plugable.com/products/ud-cam/ Shopping for this was honestly the biggest PITA. Nothing like buying a dongle for all your dongles. Given how many USB-A ports most music making workstations need (I need one for my Helix Rack; one for my FM3; one for my MIDI keyboard; preferably a spair one for when I grab some random other thing that needs to be plugged in for firmware updates from time to time + to be used for occasionally connecting external storage devices.) a dock is required and there are a million to choose from, with various shopping filters being of little assistance. The Thunderbolt ones are $300+. I decided to go USB-C that powers the Macbook Air, leaving the other TB connector on the Macbook Air available to directly connect a fast TB drive to -- I only need fast data transfers from my primary external drive so don't really need a whole dock to be super fast. The one I chose does not have a card reader, so I also had to spend $15 on a USB-A card reader for photo/video stuff. I'm going to hard-mount (i.e., screw) this docking station to the back of my music desk keeping it permanantly wired in without annoying cable-pull-creep, etc.
(2) a 1Tb Sandisk thunderbolt SSD. This will hold all sample libraries and as noted above will connect directly to the Macbook Air rather than going through the dock. My feeling was no matter what the dock spec was, data transfer would be slower thorugh the dock than by plugging the drive directly into the computer, and not having this drive plugged into the dock allowed me to spec a lower grade dock since everything else would be fine at USB-C dock speeds.
(3) Not really computer-related, but purpose-related, I just ordered a Native Instruments M32 MIDI controller to leave in the house. My main music work space is detached from my house and during winter can require some motivation to make it out to (see below). I wanted the new computer to be a laptop so I could do some basic idea sketching in the house at night/on weekends without having to trek out to the office/music room. My only concern is whether this thing will work with a USB-B to USB-C cable, or whether I'm going to need ANOTHER dongle-for-a-dongle. For that very reason, I also strongly considered the Korg battery-powered Bluetooth 37-key microkey controller. Sweetwater says the $140 M32 comes with the $200 Komplete Select software package, so that is what tipped the scales towards it.
Goal for today is to get Logic installed, with all content chucked off to the external SSD and get Superior Drummer and the smalles amount of its library necessary for it to run installed on the internal SSD. Will worry about getting other plugins and sample libraries installed later in the week.
Will report back with any hiccups, etc.
