The M4 Mac Mini basic spec looks good for a beginner producer/recording machine

Comments

Philtre said:
FWIW I bought a Mac Mini M4 with 512gb internal drive and 16gb RAM and it's blazingly fast. I use a Dell UltraSharp U2723QE monitor.
That monitor seems to be well regarded when I did a search 
Benm39 Frets: 932
03 Dec, 2024

Philtre said:
FWIW I bought a Mac Mini M4 with 512gb internal drive and 16gb RAM and it's blazingly fast. I use a Dell UltraSharp U2723QE monitor.
That monitor seems to be well regarded when I did a search 
That's certainly the other monitor I'm considering.  Much more reasonably priced,  albeit minus the integrated webcam etc and 4k vs 6k.
marxski Frets: 276
05 Dec, 2024
marxski said:
I just bought a mint condition m1 Mac Mini with 
1TB SDD and 16GB RAM with 1 year return to base warranty for £575 (Hoxton Macs).

the rationale was they are still blazingly fast with Logic and had a large internal drive for a good price. Considered an M4 but it was pushing £1k after I’d got a large enough drive and RAM and I’d have to spend dosh on USB hubs etc.
I’ve looked at Hoxton macs at iMacs etc . My only worry with the mini is finding a cheap monitor that actually works with it like you get on an iMac 
Hang on… an M1 or later Mac Mini won’t work properly with, say, a sub-£100 24” monitor from Amazon or Currys?
Not at high resolution (1440p or higher, I think) - it's Apple displays only for hi-dpi displays. There's a hack to get around it, but it's something you really shouldn't need to do.

My information's a year or two old, though...they may have fixed it (although that'd be a customer-friendly thing to do, which isn't really Apple's MO).
I’m using an Apple Thunderbolt 27” Display with my M1. The quality is great and only cost £150 mint cond. I had to pay an extra £35 for a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt converter plug and it worked straight away. HDMi works fine on a second monitor as well.
Philtre Frets: 4322
05 Dec, 2024

Philtre said:
FWIW I bought a Mac Mini M4 with 512gb internal drive and 16gb RAM and it's blazingly fast. I use a Dell UltraSharp U2723QE monitor.
That monitor seems to be well regarded when I did a search 
It has a hub so I can connect my PC and Mac Mini to it together with one mouse and keyboard. I use BetterDisplay on the Mac and TwinkleTray on PC to adjust brightness and to switch from one machine to the other,
Better display seems a good program it looked a bit complicated though 
Philtre Frets: 4322
07 Dec, 2024
Better display seems a good program it looked a bit complicated though 
It's got too many options for my needs. I just use it for brightness and switching inputs between Mac Mini and PC.
Philtre said:
Better display seems a good program it looked a bit complicated though 
It's got too many options for my needs. I just use it for brightness and switching inputs between Mac Mini and PC.
That’s what I thought, it’s not too bad to set up:then & looks sharp 
The 4k vs 5k argument is a little bit overblown if you ask me. Yes font rendering is a little soft when you use a 4k display vs 5k at 27". Otherwise it works well. 1440p works perfectly however at 24" if you want the dpi Apple calls retina display