- Joined
- Mar 5, 2014
- Messages
- 3
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 1
- Location
- Indiana, United States
- Your Mac's Specs
- Mac Mini with 2.6GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, 4GB of RAM and 1TB Fusion Drive
Hello everybody! First off, let me say that I'm a complete Mac newbie. I just purchased my first Mac (a Mac Mini to be exact) last week after being a Windows and Linux user for a number of years. Also, I searched around for the answer to the questions I have but didn't really get any relevant answers to my case specifically. However, if there's a similar post that would answer my questions, and I just happened to miss it, please link me to it! Thanks!
Before I get started I should also say how I intend to use Logic. I usually have around 16-20 tracks by the time one of my projects is completed. I VERY rarely need to use more than 25-30 tracks. Also, I use a lot of software instruments in my projects, and throw in some apple loops from time to time as well. On top of all of that, I do record my own guitar/bass/vocal tracks, and a lot of times record MIDI input from a USB keyboard I use. Okay, now that that's out of the way..
I want to get the most out of my Logic Pro X experience. That being said, I'm open to any options to improve my experience (well, besides buying a new mac). One of the performance upgrades I saw someone talking about was using an external hard drive to store Logic's sound libraries and loops. Something else I read, completely un-related to music, is that the Mac Mini that I have can hold two hard drives with a hard drive kit I can purchase online. If I bought a second hard drive and used it to store my Logic sound libraries and loops and such, would I notice a significant improvement? Would the improvement be that much better than just using a USB 3 or FireWire hard drive, as the internal hard drive actually uses SATA (I assume)? And finally, is there any real improvement to storing these files somewhere else, or should I just keep my current configuration of having everything on the same hard drive?
The other big question I had was relating to RAM. I have 4GB in my system now, and it seems to do pretty good for the number of tracks that I record. I'm actually quite impressed at how well it runs Logic. Should I plan on upgrading my RAM soon? I found a nice 2x8GB memory kit at a local hardware store that would be compatible with my Mini for $150, which I see as very affordable. Would I get a significant improvement by upgrading my RAM? I don't record 100+ tracks or anything crazy like that so I don't know if it's all that important to me personally.
Here's my Mac Mini specs as it is now:
2.6GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 processor
4GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM
1TB Fusion Drive (my friend said to get this instead of the SSD option, was that a bad suggestion?)
Also, I said I purchased this last week, but just to be 100% clear, this IS the newest current model (Late 2012 model).
Thanks so much for your help! I really appreciate it!
-Gunzar
Before I get started I should also say how I intend to use Logic. I usually have around 16-20 tracks by the time one of my projects is completed. I VERY rarely need to use more than 25-30 tracks. Also, I use a lot of software instruments in my projects, and throw in some apple loops from time to time as well. On top of all of that, I do record my own guitar/bass/vocal tracks, and a lot of times record MIDI input from a USB keyboard I use. Okay, now that that's out of the way..
I want to get the most out of my Logic Pro X experience. That being said, I'm open to any options to improve my experience (well, besides buying a new mac). One of the performance upgrades I saw someone talking about was using an external hard drive to store Logic's sound libraries and loops. Something else I read, completely un-related to music, is that the Mac Mini that I have can hold two hard drives with a hard drive kit I can purchase online. If I bought a second hard drive and used it to store my Logic sound libraries and loops and such, would I notice a significant improvement? Would the improvement be that much better than just using a USB 3 or FireWire hard drive, as the internal hard drive actually uses SATA (I assume)? And finally, is there any real improvement to storing these files somewhere else, or should I just keep my current configuration of having everything on the same hard drive?
The other big question I had was relating to RAM. I have 4GB in my system now, and it seems to do pretty good for the number of tracks that I record. I'm actually quite impressed at how well it runs Logic. Should I plan on upgrading my RAM soon? I found a nice 2x8GB memory kit at a local hardware store that would be compatible with my Mini for $150, which I see as very affordable. Would I get a significant improvement by upgrading my RAM? I don't record 100+ tracks or anything crazy like that so I don't know if it's all that important to me personally.
Here's my Mac Mini specs as it is now:
2.6GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 processor
4GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM
1TB Fusion Drive (my friend said to get this instead of the SSD option, was that a bad suggestion?)
Also, I said I purchased this last week, but just to be 100% clear, this IS the newest current model (Late 2012 model).
Thanks so much for your help! I really appreciate it!
-Gunzar