# My next Mac?



## NYC Composer (Sep 22, 2019)

What’s the most powerful Mac out there other than the iMac Pro (too expensive for me.) I’m looking for a machine, new or used, that will run a lot of effects without complaining. Probably 64 GB RAM, new, refurb or used. Thoughts, anecdotal or otherwise? Thanks!


----------



## jtnyc (Sep 22, 2019)

At the moment I'm looking at the 2019 8 core i9 iMac. - https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/...-processor-with-turbo-boost-up-to-4.6ghz-2tb#

This looks like the best bang out there right now. I would buy this model with the minimum 8 gigs of ram and then buy 3rd party ram to taste.


----------



## BassClef (Sep 22, 2019)

I too am looking at a new iMac but will likely go with the Pro. Although the 8 core i9 is no slouch!


----------



## NYC Composer (Sep 22, 2019)

jtnyc said:


> At the moment I'm looking at the 2019 8 core i9 iMac. - https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/...-processor-with-turbo-boost-up-to-4.6ghz-2tb#
> 
> This looks like the best bang out there right now. I would buy this model with the minimum 8 gigs of ram and then buy 3rd party ram to taste.


Interesting. Can the drive be modified by the user as well?


----------



## BassClef (Sep 22, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> Interesting. Can the drive be modified by the user as well?



Yes but not easy... to swap the internal drive you must remove the screen by first cutting through the perimeter adhesive and then unplugging it. Then after drive replacement you must install new adhesive strips (basically double sided tape) around the edge and reinstall the monitor.


----------



## NYC Composer (Sep 22, 2019)

That is unbelievably dumb. (sigh)


----------



## dzilizzi (Sep 22, 2019)

What's the difference between a fusion drive and an SSD? 

Costco started carrying Macs, but the are really basic versions - i3's and i5's, 8 GB RAM. Really not usable for me. I am kind of interested in trying Logic. 

I do like that they are semi-user upgrade-able now. Really, all I ever want to upgrade is the RAM and drives. I don't really want to mess with anything else. I've heard the mini may be good for upgrading? I was googling it a few months ago, but it's hard to say as finding info on the newer models wasn't really available.


----------



## NYC Composer (Sep 22, 2019)

A fusion drive is a combo small section of flash (SSD) memory and traditional spinning drive. It’s probably fine as s boot drive but you wouldn’t want it for samples.

I believe the new Mini has the same upgrade path as the new iMac-memory yes, drive not so much. Apple wants you to buy it configured with a drive they sell you, making the price somewhat less reasonable.


----------



## kgdrum (Sep 23, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> What's the difference between a fusion drive and an SSD?
> 
> I've heard the mini may be good for upgrading? I was googling it a few months ago, but it's hard to say as finding info on the newer models wasn't really available.




I will recommend avoiding Fusion drives for what we do.
check this out: https://www.techlila.com/fusion-drive-vs-flash-drive/
From what I remember I think the Mac mini is pretty easy to upgrade ram.
I doubt Costco will discount a Mac or if so it will be minimal.

I don't know where you are located but.......
I bought my last 2 Macs from Micro Center,from my understanding they are the largest independent brick and mortar Apple reseller in the USA.They are also authorized by Apple for service so they will be better for tech questions than Costco.
They often sell recently discontinued models(full warranty w/ a discount)
I bought a new 2012 Mac Pro in 2013 or '14 (it was a Quad 3.2 ghz 8gig ram)for $1200. Later I updated to 6 core 3.3 ghz 32 gig.
I also bought a Mid 2012 Macbook Pro 15" 2.8ghz i7 8 gig for either $899 or $999(can't remember)
Later upgraded to 16 gig
Next upgrade besides replacing the battery I want to add a SSD to it.










Store Locations for Micro Center


Micro Center Store Hours, Location, Maps, Employment, Repair Service. Thousands of computer products including hardware, software, upgrades, accessories, books, and more.




www.microcenter.com






Good luck


----------



## cmillar (Sep 23, 2019)

After reading this.... the PC world is looking better and better!

(I'm still on my 2009 MacPro and 2011 MacBook Pro for a bit longer, or until they die)


----------



## Ashermusic (Sep 23, 2019)

Larry, I answered then on another forum.


----------



## AndyP (Sep 23, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> What’s the most powerful Mac out there other than the iMac Pro (too expensive for me.) I’m looking for a machine, new or used, that will run a lot of effects without complaining. Probably 64 GB RAM, new, refurb or used. Thoughts, anecdotal or otherwise? Thanks!


The strongest one besides the iMac Pro is the iMac i9 (Intel 9900K). 8 cores, up to 128 GB RAM. 
RAM I upgraded myself, the internal SSD has 500GB, the sample libs are external.
I am very satisfied.


----------



## dzilizzi (Sep 23, 2019)

kgdrum said:


> I will recommend avoiding Fusion drives for what we do.
> check this out: https://www.techlila.com/fusion-drive-vs-flash-drive/
> From what I remember I think the Mac mini is pretty easy to upgrade ram.
> I doubt Costco will discount a Mac or if so it will be minimal.
> ...


Costco has a 90 day return policy on computers. And an additional year warranty. 

MicroCenter is somewhere between 2 and 3 hours away, depending on traffic. I have looked at their online website. Truthfully, I am not buying unless it is upgrade-able by me.


----------



## JamieLang (Sep 23, 2019)

Yes Fusion must be avoided for VI work. Non starter--you're LITERALLY better off with a standard magnetic because they'll use a faster one than the one they put in the fusion set. But, also--don't get a regular magnetic.  

Apple's drives have not been user upgradeable for MANY generations. Their PCIe drives are proprietary form factors. As were their M2 SATA SSDs before them. 

RAM--it depends on the year and model. they were soldering it all in for a while if it wasn't a 27" iMac....I feel like they've backed off that now--but there's certainly no easy user upgrades like those iMacs or old Pros....you will absolutely have to disassemble it.


----------



## dzilizzi (Sep 23, 2019)

JamieLang said:


> Yes Fusion must be avoided for VI work. Non starter--you're LITERALLY better off with a standard magnetic because they'll use a faster one than the one they put in the fusion set. But, also--don't get a regular magnetic.
> 
> Apple's drives have not been user upgradeable for MANY generations. Their PCIe drives are proprietary form factors. As were their M2 SATA SSDs before them.
> 
> RAM--it depends on the year and model. they were soldering it all in for a while if it wasn't a 27" iMac....I feel like they've backed off that now--but there's certainly no easy user upgrades like those iMacs or old Pros....you will absolutely have to disassemble it.


Really this is what stops me from getting a Mac. I swear, even the used ones I see for sale are i3's and i5's with 8 GB RAM. I have been thinking about building a Hackingtosh. I would have to buy a newish old Mac to get access to the OS though. I wish I could just buy the OS. (My ethical indoctrination makes it difficult to just grab a copy, even if it would work. I think you need to have it in your iTunes account?)

I was looking at some of the used/refurbished Mac Book Pros and they were almost as much as a new one. With soldered parts. That can't be easily replaced if they die. Sorry. Not paying over $3K for that.


----------



## kgdrum (Sep 23, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> Really this is what stops me from getting a Mac. I swear, even the used ones I see for sale are i3's and i5's with 8 GB RAM. I have been thinking about building a Hackingtosh. I would have to buy a newish old Mac to get access to the OS though. I wish I could just buy the OS. (My ethical indoctrination makes it difficult to just grab a copy, even if it would work. I think you need to have it in your iTunes account?)
> 
> I was looking at some of the used/refurbished Mac Book Pros and they were almost as much as a new one. With soldered parts. That can't be easily replaced if they die. Sorry. Not paying over $3K for that.




That’s the problem with trying to buy a Mac @ Costco,they have a very limited selection,they offer no knowledgeable Apple support staff,no authorized tech or service..
I always buy ram from OWC and install after the purchase.
IMO Costco is a store that sells a few Macs they are not a “legitimate Apple retailer”.
Speaking for myself this makes it worthwhile to find a legitimate Apple retail store even if it requires a few hours of time instead of weeks or months of frustration from buying the wrong Mac.
Bestbuy might be a bit better with knowledgeable people and service but their selelection is probably about the same as Costco.

fwiw my closest Microcenter is about 1 hour away from where I live in NYC by car and about 1.5 hours by public transportation each way.
The Microcenter I bought my Mac Pro was actually 1.5 hours away by car each way but I snagged a NEW discontinued 2012 Mac Pro for $1200.
It was a nice 3 hour drive 
I got a deal I couldn’t get at an actual Apple Store,for me it was worth the time.
They list all Macs in stock at whichever store you want to go to even discontinued models.That’s how I bought both of my last 2 Macs,it saved me more $$ than the time it took to drive to.


----------



## NYC Composer (Sep 24, 2019)

AndyP said:


> The strongest one besides the iMac Pro is the iMac i9 (Intel 9900K). 8 cores, up to 128 GB RAM.
> RAM I upgraded myself, the internal SSD has 500GB, the sample libs are external.
> I am very satisfied.


Yes, I'm definitely looking at this one. Two questions:

1. Any heat problems, fans kicking in?
2. How did you migrate your old programs to the new computer? Did you do a clone, or use Migration Assistant, or?

Thanks..


----------



## AndyP (Sep 24, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> 1. Any heat problems, fans kicking in?
> 2. How did you migrate your old programs to the new computer? Did you do a clone, or use Migration Assistant, or?


So far there have been no problems with the fans. I only hear them when I install something bigger or when many files are unpacked.

I have some bigger projects running on iMac, standalone, and they don't cause any problems so far. As a VEP master it is almost oversized.

I did a completely fresh installation. That seemed to make more sense.
When I switched from my old to the new MacBook I used a clone and had several problems with older plugins. Hence the decision for a completely new installation.


----------



## Ashermusic (Sep 24, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> 2. How did you migrate your old programs to the new computer? Did you do a clone, or use Migration Assistant, or?
> 
> Thanks..



Carbon Copy Cloner or Superduper.


----------



## Sarah Mancuso (Sep 24, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> Really this is what stops me from getting a Mac. I swear, even the used ones I see for sale are i3's and i5's with 8 GB RAM. I have been thinking about building a Hackingtosh. I would have to buy a newish old Mac to get access to the OS though. I wish I could just buy the OS. (My ethical indoctrination makes it difficult to just grab a copy, even if it would work. I think you need to have it in your iTunes account?)
> 
> I was looking at some of the used/refurbished Mac Book Pros and they were almost as much as a new one. With soldered parts. That can't be easily replaced if they die. Sorry. Not paying over $3K for that.


Hackintosh can be a bit of a project and isn't for the faint of heart, but it's a viable option. I'm typing this from an i9-9900k hackintosh tower that I built last month. Prior to that I was working from an i7-4790k hackintosh since early 2015. (And prior to that I used various Apple computers for 20 years.) I've been very satisfied with these as daily work machines.



Spoiler



r/hackintosh on Reddit is a great resource, as well as the recommended parts lists on tonymacx86 as a starting point (though I'd strongly avoid using their proprietary tools like MultiBeast). In my experience one of the easiest ways to go is to just find a forum thread where somebody went into detail about their successful build and how they did it, and get the same motherboard that they used. This is my current build, and the thread I used as reference.

(If you don't have access to a Mac to download the OS from the App Store, "gibMacOS" is a script that can download the installer directly from Apple for you.)


----------



## dzilizzi (Sep 24, 2019)

Sarah Mancuso said:


> Hackintosh can be a bit of a project and isn't for the faint of heart, but it's a viable option. I'm typing this from an i9-9900k hackintosh tower that I built last month. Prior to that I was working from an i7-4790k hackintosh since early 2015. (And prior to that I used various Apple computers for 20 years.) I've been very satisfied with these as daily work machines.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you! This is very helpful. I had heard about tonymacx86, but not the rest.


----------



## seclusion3 (Sep 24, 2019)

Super duper clone, from my Mac Pro 3.33 to iMac 4.2 2017 64 ram just over a year ago.
Always do a fresh install of the OS before restoring from backup.
Never hear the fans on Logic unless I’m bouncing or doing Movie conversion in Handbrake.
All Ilok stuff is ready to go, some of the challenge and response software needs to be redone, like spectraSonics . All in all it took a couple hrs. I reused all my ssd's as external drives for audio and samples. I’ve noticed minimal difference in Logic's performance running usb-a or usb-c for the 2 external drives that are hardware raid 0. I recall 500mb/s ish usb-a and almost 900 usb-c.
Go for SSD main drive, don’t even consider anything else, I have that drive partitioned 300 GB OS and 1.7 samples. All my piano samples are on that partitioned main drive. Drums, spectra, Kontakt libraries on my other drive.
I also grabbed OWC Thunderdock 3, so I have everything plugged in and extra I/O. No regrets. also used my old 27” monitor in the dock, so more screen real estate. USB-C and Presonus Quantum... 🤤.


----------



## synergy543 (Sep 24, 2019)

Sarah Mancuso said:


> r/hackintosh on Reddit is a great resource, as well as the recommended parts lists on tonymacx86 as a starting point (though I'd strongly avoid using their proprietary tools like MultiBeast). In my experience one of the easiest ways to go is to just find a forum thread where somebody went into detail about their successful build and how they did it, and get the same motherboard that they used. This is my current build, and the thread I used as reference.



So you used an i7 reference thread to build an i9? That's very brave of you! How much RAM do you have running in it? I'm running a Dell 9700 i7 with 64G RAM and am looking for an i9 128G reference build. I'm not as brave as you to try it on my own though for the first time!


----------



## Sarah Mancuso (Sep 24, 2019)

synergy543 said:


> So you used an i7 reference thread to build an i9? That's very brave of you! How much RAM do you have running in it? I'm running a Dell 9700 i7 with 64G RAM and am looking for an i9 128G reference build. I'm not as brave as you to try it on my own though for the first time!


Yep! From prior experience, I figured it would be safe enough — the motherboard is the bigger issue to get right, whereas using a different CPU generally doesn't change much (if anything at all).

I have 32gb of RAM in here currently (two 16gb sticks), with two more slots available if I want to upgrade to 64gb somewhere down the line. The amount of RAM installed also shouldn't make any difference to your config, so you don't need to worry about matching that to the reference. The initial OS install is easier to get through if you wait until afterwards to put in more than your first stick of ram, though.

As far as bravery, maybe a bit  
It is like diving into the deep end of the pool to learn how to swim, even if there are resources out there to go to for help and reference. When I did my first Hackintosh build in 2015, I came at it with the mindset of "if I have too much trouble getting this to work and run completely out of patience with it, I can still install Windows on there and it'll still be a perfectly good computer".


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 24, 2019)

Fusion drives make no sense anymore. When SSDs were expensive, sure, but now they're just silly.

iMacs are great computers for general things. My wife's is perfect for her general purpose activities - Internet, word processing.

But then you don't need that much machine. And for studio use, where you do need it, having to break the glue holding the screen on to swap out that stupid hard drive is ridiculous. Plus I have my machines on the other side of a wall, so it wouldn't work for me.

I dunno. If I were buying a new machine today rather than 2-3/4 years ago I'd probably look at the iMac linked earlier even though it's not ideal. Still, maxed-out 5,1 Mac Pros are hard to beat for their value, but the downside is that they're lacking a couple of buzzword letters that may turn out to be important going forward.

Anyway, the three choices for me would be a 12-core 5,1 like I have, that 8-core iMac, or (now that memory is cheaper) a Mac Mini.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 24, 2019)

This + a $100 video card for running Mojave is going almost as powerful as an iMac that costs almost 4X the price:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Mac-Pro-5-1-3-46GHz-12-Core-64GB-RAM-2TB-SATA-Nvidia-GT120-Sierra/223624594072?hash=item3411108298:g:wbsAAOSw9V1aXUnM


----------



## Mike Marino (Sep 24, 2019)

AndyP said:


> The strongest one besides the iMac Pro is the iMac i9 (Intel 9900K). 8 cores, up to 128 GB RAM.
> RAM I upgraded myself, the internal SSD has 500GB, the sample libs are external.
> I am very satisfied.


Online this computer is listed at 64GB ram; good to know it can take more!

Did you end up with eight sticks of 16gb ram?


----------



## synthetic (Sep 24, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> This + a $100 video card for running Mojave is going almost as powerful as an iMac that costs almost 4X the price:



I'm afraid the cheesegrater Mac isn't a great idea in the long run. No Thunderbolt, and the processors are already getting out of date. I just updated Komplete and it wouldn't run Massive X. So that doesn't look good for future NI updates. So when mine dies, I don't know what I'll do. I've started advising people to get the best Mac Mini that they can afford. I like having a big monitor (my 4k 32" was around $700) so I prefer something with no monitor to the iMac. But I don't think the Mac Mini is as powerful as the iMac Pro. 

Damn I miss the days when you could get a good Mac tower for $1500-2500. I updated every 3 years or so when they did that. Now that Mac Pros are over $6k I haven't bought one in over a decade.


----------



## synergy543 (Sep 24, 2019)

Sarah Mancuso said:


> When I did my first Hackintosh build in 2015, I came at it with the mindset of "if I have too much trouble getting this to work and run completely out of patience with it, I can still install Windows on there and it'll still be a perfectly good computer".


That's exactly the same approach I took with my Dell. I used it for several months as a PC slave and was happy with that so I had nothing to lose trying it as a Hacintosh, I could always go back. Still, we built 3 at the same time which made trouble-shooting easier. And my son designs computers so I had little at risk. Without these safety nets though, it wouldn't be nearly as comfortable for the risk-averse like me.


----------



## lp59burst (Sep 24, 2019)

Mike Marino said:


> Online this computer is listed at 64GB ram; good to know it can take more!
> 
> Did you end up with eight sticks of 16gb ram?


There are 4 DIMM slots so 128Mb is 4x32Mb


----------



## NYC Composer (Sep 24, 2019)

I appreciate all the helpful responses.

@Sarah Mancuso-I’m just not that brave 

@Nick-yeah, Massive X won’t run for me either, I want Tbolt and though I upgraded my grater with USB 3.0 via PCIe I’d just as soon have it native. I’d also rather have Mojave there and the i9 iMac is a beast according to reviews, so. I guess there’s no bargain for me-I’ll probably just buy their $300 one TB SSD and call it thievery.

@jay-I has an interesting time with my last CCC clone. I ended up having to use it as primary and K5 got f’d up somehow. Made me a little wary

@seclusion-if you’re restoring from a clone , how do you do a fresh install? Sorta confused. I’d also have to look at something like Thunderdock.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 24, 2019)

synthetic said:


> I'm afraid the cheesegrater Mac isn't a great idea in the long run. No Thunderbolt, and the processors are already getting out of date. I just updated Komplete and it wouldn't run Massive X. So that doesn't look good for future NI updates. So when mine dies, I don't know what I'll do.



Right, although it depends on how long the run is that you're talking about. Apple is supposedly developing their own processors, and and that will require another transition. When will that happen?

But yeah, if you need Thunderbolt you're SOL. As far as I know, Massive X is the only program that requires that acronym I mentioned but don't remember (it's technically not the processors that are out of date, it's an additional hardware technology or chip or something... I forget because I was annoyed when I heard about it and didn't want to remember  ).

My plan is just to keep this 5,1 machine running, and if I need another machine then add another one. I have too many 32-bit programs to want to update everything.

Anyway, hopefully our 5,1s won't die! Nothing lasts forever, but none of the Macs I've bought has died.

Well, none of the desktop ones. We did have one laptop that was sort of a turd. One out of 23 or so isn't bad, though.



> I've started advising people to get the best Mac Mini that they can afford. I like having a big monitor (my 4k 32" was around $700) so I prefer something with no monitor to the iMac. But I don't think the Mac Mini is as powerful as the iMac Pro.



Yeah, I think Mac Minis are good advice - now that you can get memory from third parties. My thought is that if one Mac Mini isn't powerful enough, you add another one. Multi-machine setups are totally seamless these days.



> Damn I miss the days when you could get a good Mac tower for $1500-2500. I updated every 3 years or so when they did that. Now that Mac Pros are over $6k I haven't bought one in over a decade.



The good news is that it's no longer necessary to buy a new machine every three years or so, that they remain viable for over a decade!

And as I've said too many times, I think $6K is a silly amount of money to pay for a computer. It isn't necessary.


----------



## kgdrum (Sep 24, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> I appreciate all the helpful responses.
> 
> 
> @jay-I has an interesting time with my last CCC clone. I ended up having to use it as primary and K5 got f’d up somehow. Made me a little wary




fwiw

I lost 2 drives a few years ago using Super Duper to clone boot drives,I subsequently switched to CCC which I prefer.
Although a Mac tech I trust advised me Migration Assistant is a safer bet for a boot drive(preferences or hidden files of some sort,I don't know it's above my paygrade).
So for the last few years I use Migration Assistant when cloning boot drives and CCC when copying other(sample drives etc...)
This might not be accurate info but I haven't had any problems since and I've done this several times over 3 Macs.
ymmv


----------



## Monkey Man (Sep 24, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> As far as I know, Massive X is the only program that requires that acronym I mentioned but don't remember (it's technically not the processors that are out of date, it's an additional hardware technology or chip or something... I forget because I was annoyed when I heard about it and didn't want to remember  ).


IIRC Modo Bass now also requires it, Nick. It's the Advanced Vector instruction set (AVX).

It's part of the writing on the wall for my 2012 hot-rodded cheese grater, unfortunately. If I can sell enough old gear and organise finance, the new tower will be where I'll be headed.


----------



## kgdrum (Sep 24, 2019)

Hi Monkey 

long time!

btw nice to see you here.


----------



## Monkey Man (Sep 24, 2019)

LOL You're the _only_ member who's name I recognised from M'Nation during my initial perusal of the site, KG. I'm sure there'd be others 'though...

Great to see you too, bud; hope you're doing well! :emoji_beers:


----------



## kgdrum (Sep 24, 2019)

Doing OK.there are a few.....


----------



## AndyP (Sep 25, 2019)

Mike Marino said:


> Online this computer is listed at 64GB ram; good to know it can take more!
> 
> Did you end up with eight sticks of 16gb ram?


This iMac has 4 slots which can be loaded in pairs. Currently I have 2 x 4 (delivery condition) and 2 x 32 installed. You can do it yourself in 1 minute.


----------



## seclusion3 (Sep 25, 2019)

NYC, before u restore, install the OS fresh. I’ve had new Mac computers I’ve bought have weird anomalies with the install from the store. Advice was to install the OS fresh (now is over the air) then restore from your back up.
Yes an extra step, but to ensure there is no issues.
Interesting with super duper, I've never had issues with it. I always do a full bootable backup of the OS and full Bu of my audio drive. I don’t do incremental ones. The faster external drives make this process much faster. With my samples, I Downloaded them to my download drive usually are compressed, then installed them on separate drives. So in essence, they are backed up. But if worst comes to worst, they are backed up at the company I purchased from if disaster hits.
Yes, new computer talk always comes down to backups.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 25, 2019)

Monkey Man said:


> IIRC Modo Bass now also requires it, Nick. It's the Advanced Vector instruction set (AVX).
> 
> It's part of the writing on the wall for my 2012 hot-rodded cheese grater, unfortunately. If I can sell enough old gear and organise finance, the new tower will be where I'll be headed.



AVX, okay. Thanks.

Anyway, there are now two instruments that need it and 63,976 that don't.  I personally am having a hard time worrying about that.

Also, it turns out that my early 2014 11" MacBook Air - which I don't use in the studio - is totally AVX-ed to maximum hipness. That's a relief.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 25, 2019)

seclusion3 said:


> NYC, before u restore, install the OS fresh.



Yeah, while I would never disagree with Jay Asher about anything ever, I'd just use Migration Assistant on a new computer. Who knows what hidden system stuff it wants in there to run properly.

But of course you also want to keep bootable clones of your system in a working state in any case.


----------



## Symfoniq (Sep 25, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> AVX, okay. Thanks.
> 
> Anyway, there are now two instruments that need it and 63,976 that don't.  I personally am having a hard time worrying about that.



I think there are more VSTs using it than we realize. I accidentally discovered my Strezov choirs were using AVX because the CPU's AVX clock speed offset was being triggered.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 25, 2019)

I don't use VSTs.


----------



## jcrosby (Sep 25, 2019)

As much as the new cheesegrater looks fantastic I've already been through a series of T2 chip related woes on my MacBook. I kind of hate the thing... It also seems inevitable that the NMP will ship with Catalina which looks like a minefield... It brings way too much useless iOS garbage to macOS, and kind of suspect full-on deprecation of 32 bit is going to be a lot more problematic than most people realize... I'll be steering clear of it for as long as I can...

Anyway the main point is I cured my waning mac pro woes by building a hackintosh. It runs beautifully and absolutely destroys my old cheesegrater... 200 instances of Kontakt simultaneously playing various libraries, (Novo, Gravity, OT, etc) and Logic was cool as a cucumber. CPU hovered around 45-55%... Plan on keeping it frozen on 10.13 or 14 for the foreseeable future...

Not blowing my horn, just can't believe I waited this long to build one... It really does run exactly as if it's a legit mac...


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 25, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I don't use VSTs.



(Meaning that I use virtual instruments and sample libraries; VSTs are for Cubase only. Yes, I will die on this hill.)



jcrosby said:


> absolutely destroys my old cheesegrater



What were the specs of your old cheesegrater and what are the specs of your Hackintosh, just out of interest?


----------



## Symfoniq (Sep 25, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> (Meaning that I use virtual instruments and sample libraries; VSTs are for Cubase only. Yes, I will die on this hill.)



Many DAWs besides Cubase host VST plugins. But that's not my point. If the VST version of a plugin uses AVX, odds are good that the AU and AAX versions do, too. It's reasonable to expect that AVX usage will only increase.


----------



## Sarah Mancuso (Sep 25, 2019)

jcrosby said:


> As much as the new cheesegrater looks fantastic I've already been through a series of T2 chip related woes on my MacBook. I kind of hate the thing... It also seems inevitable that the NMP will ship with Catalina which looks like a minefield... It brings way too much useless iOS garbage to macOS, and kind of suspect full-on deprecation of 32 bit is going to be a lot more problematic than most people realize... I'll be steering clear of it for as long as I can...
> 
> Anyway the main point is I cured my waning mac pro woes by building a hackintosh. It runs beautifully and absolutely destroys my old cheesegrater... 200 instances of Kontakt simultaneously playing various libraries, (Novo, Gravity, OT, etc) and Logic was cool as a cucumber. CPU hovered around 45-55%... Plan on keeping it frozen on 10.13 or 14 for the foreseeable future...
> 
> Not blowing my horn, just can't believe I waited this long to build one... It really does run exactly as if it's a legit mac...


Nice, what did you put in it?


----------



## Dewdman42 (Sep 25, 2019)

I'm with Nick on using my cheese grater a few more years..it runs everything I need and you can't beat the price for the power. That being said, if you want something that will last more years..and especially if you feel you need to use something that requires AVX, which are only a few things really at this point in time. MassiveX and ModoDrums are the only two things I know of that actually REQUIRE avx... AVX is used optionally in a lot of other plugins.

In any case if you must have AVX...then forget the 5,1 cheese grater. For me the cheese grater is a stop gap until Apple releases some more affordable mac pro options... If...

If it were me in your situation, I'd build a hacktinosh now. There are motherboards with TB3 ports and AVX i9 CPU's and super fast, lots of cores..such great value compared to macs. The new MacPro is way too expensive. Me personally I just can't go for the iMac or MacMini thing..I want t tower with slots and choose my own monitor. So for me that's it..hackintosh in 2020 would be my choice. By the time we get to 2024, which is about when I will probably retire my cheesgrater, we shall see what's available...hopefully more choices from Apple, but I expect them to do a lot of crazy things between now and then with T2 and who knows what else...so we really can't predict right now what the landscape will be by then. 

That's why for me, the affordable measure, which is quite functional aside from no AVX, is the 5,1 cheesgrater, good for a few more years...then figure out the next mac if and when Apple provides some more options for us.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 25, 2019)

Symfoniq said:


> Many DAWs besides Cubase host VST plugins



But the term irritates me. What can I say, it's wrong and I'm an irritable guy.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 25, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> If it were me in your situation, I'd build a hacktinosh now. There are motherboards with TB3 ports and AVX i9 CPU's and super fast, lots of cores..such great value compared to macs. The new MacPro is way too expensive.



Yeah, that would be tempting, although the idea of not being able to update the OS without worrying about destroying your machine would be a negative - never mind that my 5,1 is frozen on Mojave (unless I decide just to make a new startup drive, which is possible).


----------



## Sarah Mancuso (Sep 25, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Yeah, that would be tempting, although the idea of not being able to update the OS without worrying about destroying your machine would be a negative - never mind that my 5,1 is frozen on Mojave (unless I decide just to make a new startup drive, which is possible).


If you do a proper vanilla install (as in, not using tools like MultiBeast or otherwise making any modifications to the OS itself), updating is generally as easy as first updating any kexts you’ve installed and then running the system update normally. Also, checking r/hackintosh to see if there are any common issues with the update that might be worth waiting for a solution to.

I still don’t do updates very often, but I was just as stubborn when I was on real Apple hardware: if my system works the way I want it to, I try to avoid getting too adventurous unless an update really tempts me.

Beyond that, a couple things. Make sure to keep your install USB around to boot from just in case you get too adventurous and make a mess. And scheduling nightly bootable backups of your system disk (via Carbon Copy Cloner or similar) will keep your mind at ease and is something I’d strongly recommend for any computer you’re using for work, hackintosh or otherwise.


----------



## Dewdman42 (Sep 25, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Yeah, that would be tempting, although the idea of not being able to update the OS without worrying about destroying your machine would be a negative - never mind that my 5,1 is frozen on Mojave (unless I decide just to make a new startup drive, which is possible).



When you choose the right mobo ahead of time and setup a so called “vanilla” install then updates generally just work. But it’s a good point, there are no garauntees in the future. Nonetheless if I had to replace my 5,1 with something this year that is what it would be


----------



## dzilizzi (Sep 25, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> But the term irritates me. What can I say, it's wrong and I'm an irritable guy.


What I hate about it is I had VST plugins with Sonar. Then I switched to Cubase. Suddenly, everything is VST. WTH??? The i/o's, the busses, everything. It drives me crazy. I have trouble trying to figure out what they are trying to say because those aren't VST to me. VST should just be plugins....


----------



## NYC Composer (Sep 26, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Yeah, while I would never disagree with Jay Asher about anything ever, I'd just use Migration Assistant on a new computer. Who knows what hidden system stuff it wants in there to run properly.
> 
> But of course you also want to keep bootable clones of your system in a working state in any case.


Oddly, in 30 years of using Macs I’ve never used Migration Assistant or Time Machine. I’ve always had two bootable clones, which of course get older and increasingly incomplete without Time Machine...ah well.

I just had a new Samsung boot drive completely refuse to boot, leaving me with one too old and one too new-an El Cap just old enough that it would be a true pain to update and a Mojave that will only run my old version of Cubase with quirks. Upgrading Cubase on the Mojave drive made everything impossibly slow. I’m just purely screwed and have to move up.

I remain leery of the obsolescence of the cheesegrater 5.1. I’ve considered the trash can as an almost equally cheap option with expandability, but I dunno. I think it’s the 6 core i9 iMac for me. One nice thing-my monitor is an old 1080 I-INC so the iMac monitor will actually be a nice upgrade.


----------



## Monkey Man (Sep 26, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> AVX-ed to maximum hipness


LOL


----------



## jcrosby (Sep 26, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> (Meaning that I use virtual instruments and sample libraries; VSTs are for Cubase only. Yes, I will die on this hill.)
> 
> 
> 
> What were the specs of your old cheesegrater and what are the specs of your Hackintosh, just out of interest?




Cheesgrater: 3.4g Ghz 12-core. (Also multiple M.2's, 64 GB Ram...)

Hac: A single i9 9900k. No tricks, no OC, stock... (Same drives, same amount of memory.)
((It also has fully working native thunderbolt 3  ))

The thing to keep in mind is that iMacs still have thermal issues... A 9900k in a well ventilated case will perform better than a 9900k iMac because the iMac's form factor isn't tailored to a CPU like the 9900k... Basically a 9900k draws a lot of power and generates a lot of heat when needed, and an iMac case is just too thin and congested to dissipate the heat a CPU like the 9900k needs to displace to show off its horsepower.


----------



## ridgero (Sep 26, 2019)

I have a Mac mini 2018 i7, 64 GB RAM. It’s absolutely stunning performance wise. Sometimes the fans kick, thats the negative part. I am saving for an iMac Pro, this device is pure silence


----------



## NYC Composer (Sep 26, 2019)

ridgero said:


> I have a Mac mini 2018 i7, 64 GB RAM. It’s absolutely stunning performance wise. Sometimes the fans kick, thats the negative part. I am saving for an iMac Pro, this device is pure silence


I just started doing a deep dive between the new iMac (non pro) and the Mac Mini. Very interesting how hard the Mini kicks ass in geek bench scores.


----------



## Dewdman42 (Sep 26, 2019)

Yea I don't trust Migration Assistant and I've never used it, though I'm sure it probably works fine. Me personally, if I get a new computer, which isn't that often, I will just manually reinstall my Apps and everything on a clean OSX install...call me paranoid. But I have no facts whatsoever to not trust Migration Assistant.... 

The heat issues on the fast iMac's is a real concern, I agree.

If I were building a hackintosh today in 2019-20, this is the one I would build, I would just follow Terese's instructions, pay for a subscription to her patreon site to stay updated with any late breaking news about that specific hackintosh build:


----------



## Sarah Mancuso (Sep 26, 2019)

I love Migration Assistant, I think it's one of the best kept secrets on the Mac platform. After I upgraded to my new machine, Migration Assistant took care of 99% of the setup and effortlessly had everything basically identical to how it was on my previous computer, even things that I didn't expect it to do so well with. I pretty much just had to deauthorize/authorize some plugins and update one or two programs that I had neglected to for a few years.


----------



## prodigalson (Sep 26, 2019)

Am I the only keeping an eye on the supposedly upcoming 16” MacBook Pro as possibly the first really possible workstation/mobile rig?

I’m looking at upgrading my 2013 i5 iMac and my 2015 MacBook Pro but if it ships with i9 with a good clock speed and maybe even 64gb RAM it might be all I need??? 

Am I being naive?


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 26, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> Yea I don't trust Migration Assistant and I've never used it, though I'm sure it probably works fine. Me personally, if I get a new computer, which isn't that often, I will just manually reinstall my Apps and everything on a clean OSX install...call me paranoid. But I have no facts whatsoever to not trust Migration Assistant....



The problem with your method is that it would take me at least a week of full-time swearing.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 26, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> Oddly, in 30 years of using Macs I’ve never used Migration Assistant or Time Machine. I’ve always had two bootable clones, which of course get older and increasingly incomplete without Time Machine...ah well.



SuperDuper and I'm sure Carbon Copy Cloner can do incremental backups on your bootable clones.

But my strategy is to have two alternating Time Machine backups on my system as well as bootable clones.. Out of signt, out of mind, and if I lose my mind I can go back to an earlier version of something I screwed up beyond repair.



> I remain leery of the obsolescence of the cheesegrater 5.1. I’ve considered the trash can as an almost equally cheap option with expandability, but I dunno. I think it’s the 6 core i9 iMac for me. One nice thing-my monitor is an old 1080 I-INC so the iMac monitor will actually be a nice upgrade.



Makes sense, especially if you can use the monitor. Again, my worry isn't about the 5,1's obsolescence, it's about my 32-bit software.

But I might feel differently if I were shopping for a new machine today rather than three years ago. The current iMac and Mac Mini weren't available then.


----------



## Monkey Man (Sep 26, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> Yea I don't trust Migration Assistant and I've never used it, though I'm sure it probably works fine. Me personally, if I get a new computer, which isn't that often, I will just manually reinstall my Apps and everything on a clean OSX install...call me paranoid. But I have no facts whatsoever to not trust Migration Assistant....


Same here, mate. We must be getting old, and old-school dies hard.

I'm the same with Time Machine. Never used it. Instead I use manual copying, CCC-scheduled backups of those copies and boot-partition images made with Disk Utility.


----------



## jcrosby (Sep 26, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> Yea I don't trust Migration Assistant and I've never used it, though I'm sure it probably works fine. Me personally, if I get a new computer, which isn't that often, I will just manually reinstall my Apps and everything on a clean OSX install...call me paranoid. But I have no facts whatsoever to not trust Migration Assistant....
> 
> The heat issues on the fast iMac's is a real concern, I agree.
> 
> If I were building a hackintosh today in 2019-20, this is the one I would build, I would just follow Terese's instructions, pay for a subscription to her patreon site to stay updated with any late breaking news about that specific hackintosh build:



I've definitely had it screw up permissions pretty severely twice now... It does do the job, but not without a few headaches...

FYI that's the build I have... Z390 Designare and 9900k, etc... My RAM and other things like cooling are different but the core of the machine's the same.. The native TB3 is great. Works with no fuss with the right EFI settings...

If you're seriously considering building one all of the links to resources you need are in the reddit thread below including the EFI folder. Once macOS was installed the thing just worked straight out of the box as if I bought it straight from Apple... It really is one hell of a machine.. And, after salvaging stuff like drives out of my cheesgrater, all in it set me back about $2500... 

Also super important: The one thing nobody mentioned in any of the threads I found was that you need to initially use a USB 2 port to install macOS. I spent an entire weekend dicking around only to find out this was the only issue!


----------



## dzilizzi (Sep 26, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> The problem with your method is that it would take me at least a week of full-time swearing.


This sounds really familiar. Last new computer, my husband disappeared into his woodshop anytime I went near my new computer

I'm thinking about seeing if my old studio computer (not really old, just didn't have enough RAM) could be a Hackingtosh. I was going to upgrade it to Windows 10 anyway, so it wouldn't hurt to throw a new HDD in there and attempt it. Might be fun. And my husband will finish that hall table he is working on.


----------



## NYC Composer (Sep 26, 2019)

Sarah Mancuso said:


> I love Migration Assistant, I think it's one of the best kept secrets on the Mac platform. After I upgraded to my new machine, Migration Assistant took care of 99% of the setup and effortlessly had everything basically identical to how it was on my previous computer, even things that I didn't expect it to do so well with. I pretty much just had to deauthorize/authorize some plugins and update one or two programs that I had neglected to for a few years.


Does that include the OS? Did your old OS match your new OS, boot drive to boot drive? Sorry if it’s a stupid question,but after 30 years of Mac use, I’m a complete Migration Assistant noob.

Meanwhile, bang for buck-wise, I’m starting to think the new Mini 3.6ghz i7 6 core might be my choice. Amazingly though, the RAM upgradeability isn’t really “user”, at least not me-looks more like... take it to a Mac tech. I checked a local one out-$195 to install, and not even an Apple blessed tech. Sheesh.


----------



## GingerMaestro (Sep 26, 2019)

Can anybody me predict if there might be some New 2019 Mac Minis coming out before the end of the year. The current model is being reduced in price at the moment. I was hanging on as I’m in the market for a new one...


----------



## NYC Composer (Sep 26, 2019)

I haven’t noticed a price reduction, at least not on the high end. Where have you seen this?


----------



## Sarah Mancuso (Sep 26, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> Does that include the OS? Did your old OS match your new OS, boot drive to boot drive? Sorry if it’s a stupid question,but after 30 years of Mac use, I’m a complete Migration Assistant noob.


It doesn’t transfer the OS itself, no. I ran Migration Assistant after installing Mojave on my new machine, and used it to transfer all of my programs, data, and settings from my previous computer (which had been running Sierra).


----------



## GingerMaestro (Sep 26, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> I haven’t noticed a price reduction, at least not on the high end. Where have you seen this?


B&H and a couple of others upto $200 off..however I think the offer may have just expired


----------



## jcrosby (Sep 27, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> I’m starting to think the new Mini 3.6ghz i7 6 core might be my choice. Amazingly though, the RAM upgradeability isn’t really “user”, at least not me-looks more like... take it to a Mac tech. I checked a local one out-$195 to install, and not even an Apple blessed tech. Sheesh.


Don't get caught up in this mentality that Apple encourages. There's nothing complicated about replacing the RAM in a new mini. (Not to mention it it warranting you throwing away $200!)

It'd be like bringing your guitar into a music store and shelling out cash just because the ball-end snapped off when replacing your strings... Unless you've never changed a guitar string before that's just silly... Either push it through the top using a spare string or break out a screw driver, take off the damn backplate and problem solved 

I thought the same thing when I bought a 2012 Mac Mini server and wanted to add a second drive. I looked up the process and found an OWC video which looked intimidating... (This involved essentially completely gutting the entire machine. By the end the only thing left inside the case was one drive.) Turned out to be painless. Sure it took about 30-40 mins and some patience, but nothing about the disassembly/reassembly warranted me paying someone $200...

Frankly this is a big part of why I built my hackintosh... Apple really does go out of their way to make their users feel frustrated if not cautious about opening the thing up...There's nothing complicated about removing a few screws, moving a couple things around then them putting them back in...

(I'm available for $200 per 30 mins if you still feel the same way 
((Seriously... Don't let Apple make you feel powerless....))


----------



## GingerMaestro (Sep 27, 2019)

https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/09/13/incredible-price-drops-issued-on-apples-2019-macbook-pro-ipad-imac


----------



## rocking.xmas.man (Sep 27, 2019)

has anyone experience on how a 10-core trashcan mac pro compares to a new 6-core mac mini? those 10-core mac pros are accessible for quite reasonable pricings nowadays - very well comparable to the mac mini. not shure about the lack of thunderbolt 3 and usb-c though.


----------



## macmac (Sep 27, 2019)

synthetic said:


> I'm afraid the cheesegrater Mac isn't a great idea in the long run. No Thunderbolt, and the processors are already getting out of date. I just updated Komplete and it wouldn't run Massive X. So that doesn't look good for future NI updates. So when mine dies, I don't know what I'll do. I've started advising people to get the best Mac Mini that they can afford. I like having a big monitor (my 4k 32" was around $700) so I prefer something with no monitor to the iMac. But I don't think the Mac Mini is as powerful as the iMac Pro.
> 
> Damn I miss the days when you could get a good Mac tower for $1500-2500. I updated every 3 years or so when they did that. Now that Mac Pros are over $6k I haven't bought one in over a decade.



Yep.

This is just my opinion, but I think if a person already has a cheesegrater, then go with it until you can't any longer. They were and are good machines, and the most upgradable of any Mac still around. But to buy one today is just risky. I had 2 of them which died in short succession, both after having been brought in a couple times for repair. Apple won't supply parts for it so you're on your own when anything goes wrong. And IMO it will, eventually.

My Apple service place kept old macs just for parts. How sad is that.


----------



## macmac (Sep 27, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Yeah, while I would never disagree with Jay Asher about anything ever, I'd just use Migration Assistant on a new computer. Who knows what hidden system stuff it wants in there to run properly.
> 
> But of course you also want to keep bootable clones of your system in a working state in any case.



Over the years I've done a clone and upgrade, fresh OS install and Migration Assistant, and total clean install of everything.

I recently partitioned a new hard drive to test run High Sierra before I officially upgrade. (I'm still at Sierra which is running fine). I fresh installed the OS then used the Migration Assistant. HS was fine.

I then did the same thing for Mojave on the second partition. Mojave was, well, unusable. It had so many beach balls along and forced shutdowns, etc. that after the second day it crashed so badly that it blew out that partition to where I had to erase it. Now it won't even show up in DU.


----------



## seclusion3 (Sep 27, 2019)

It does look like the HacknMacs have come a long way from 2007 when I tried. Building the computer, getting the tested components can be rewarding. I got lost in (back then) some of the terminal commands not working and not having eg wifi intermittent. We are fortunate to have all these choices. For me it came down to using the computer for music or spending time getting the computer to make music. It’s almost to the point the computer is too powerful now a days... yea right


----------



## macmac (Sep 27, 2019)

My original idea was that I was going to get a new 2018 Mini and run Mojave. However with my recent experience with Mojave I am not so sure. Granted it probably would have fared better had I done a clean install of every single thing, but....

Currently my computer is a 2014 mini that had originally been intended to be a temporary machine. Since it ran things much better than I expected, I am still using it, but I would like a little more power mostly due to some CPU hungry synths.

I use a 30" Apple Cinema display so having another mini would be very convenient to swap connectors from one mini to the other. I don't know if you can stack them but that would be great.

I am even considering a 2012 quad 2.6 mini or a 3.4 gHz iMac that was offered to me at a good price. How much of a step up would that be from this 2014 i5 2.6 TB2 mini? Or would it be? I don't do orchestral templates.

The only problem with getting the iMac is both my mini and the 30" cannot fit on my desk, so the current mini/30" would have to be elsewhere. Not a big deal but one consideration.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 27, 2019)

macmac said:


> I then did the same thing for Mojave on the second partition. Mojave was, well, unusable. It had so many beach balls along and forced shutdowns, etc. that after the second day it crashed so badly that it blew out that partition to where I had to erase it. Now it won't even show up in DU.



My sympathies, but I doubt this is because of Migration Assistant. Mojave uses a new file system, firmware, etc. Or maybe you just got a corrupted file somewhere.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 27, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> Does that include the OS?



Migration Assistant doesn't copy the OS, it brings all your cruft into a new installation.


----------



## seclusion3 (Sep 27, 2019)

Yes above, MA only updates your settings, installs etc. All the more reason to start with a fresh install before migrating, cloning or whatever you do.
Superduper clones the whole thing, bootable backup.

FYI, Yamaha updated the CP4 to 64 bit




__





USB-MIDI Driver V1.5.0 for Mac macOS 12, 11 (Intel/Apple silicon with Rosetta 2) - Yamaha USA







usa.yamaha.com


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 27, 2019)

macmac said:


> However with my recent experience with Mojave I am not so sure



Obviously something went wrong with your installation. If it were inherent to Mojave, that's all you'd read about on the Internet.

Really, Apple is the biggest company in the world. They aren't going to release a macOS version that only results in spinning beach balls. Stray bugs, okay, but what you're reporting is clearly not what everyone who runs Mojave can expect.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 27, 2019)

macmac said:


> I use a 30" Apple Cinema display so having another mini would be very convenient to swap connectors from one mini to the other. I don't know if you can stack them but that would be great.



You might look into screen sharing. It's become fast enough to replace KVM switches for most applications.


----------



## NYC Composer (Sep 27, 2019)

I use screen sharing between my MacPro and my Mini. Works seamlessly.


----------



## babylonwaves (Sep 27, 2019)

MP2013 here. Upgraded from an 6 core I bought in 2014 to a 12 core w/ 128GB of RAM. the upgrade in 2018 was at 800 Euros for new RAM and the processor. with selling the old RAM and having things build in the addition costs were at 750 Euros for a IMO pretty hast machine. If you get a used 6 core with pretty much no RAM, his is a good deal.

note: the "slow" single core speed is an issue when you pile plug-ins on the master buss in logic but the amount of cores is bliss when you run many many plugs on individual channels. my projects which spiked on the 6 core have loads of headroom on the 12 core.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 27, 2019)

^ I abused my moderator position to change that to MP2013.

The knights in 1013 were still using Mac Pluses.


----------



## macmac (Sep 27, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Obviously something went wrong with your installation. If it were inherent to Mojave, that's all you'd read about on the Internet.
> 
> Really, Apple is the biggest company in the world. They aren't going to release a macOS version that only results in spinning beach balls. Stray bugs, okay, but what you're reporting is clearly not what everyone who runs Mojave can expect.


Absolutely true. That's why my next sentence there was that if I had done a clean install of everything my results would likely have been better. I know Apple doesn't deliver a malfunctioning operating system and know my experience was not the norm, nor is it an experience I may have next month when I try again. No reaction necessary.

Everyone's computer and contents are different. I didn't get to find out what the problem was because the drive's partition was made inoperable before I could do so. I had one partition for High Sierra and one for Mojave to test on a brand new drive. The High Sierra partition is OK. I don't know what went wrong with the install. So I just went back to Sierra for now. My next plan is to clone my drive and try updating the clone.


----------



## macmac (Sep 27, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> You might look into screen sharing. It's become fast enough to replace KVM switches for most applications.


That's a good idea.


----------



## jcrosby (Sep 28, 2019)

seclusion3 said:


> It does look like the HacknMacs have come a long way from 2007 when I tried. Building the computer, getting the tested components can be rewarding. I got lost in (back then) some of the terminal commands not working and not having eg wifi intermittent. We are fortunate to have all these choices. For me it came down to using the computer for music or spending time getting the computer to make music. It’s almost to the point the computer is too powerful now a days... yea right


Hackintoshes aren't really that complicated anymore... And definitely don't require any kind fo maintenance. If you spend a few days researching ahead of time to look for a 'golden build' you should wind up with a machine that works exactly as if you bought it from Apple...

So far the machine has _just worked_ as you'd expect... My UAD card, audio interfaces, app store/logic/itunes/app/media purchases.... Everything works as expected... I haven't found a single instance where a peripheral or piece of software didn't work... Everything has been peachy, and frankly glad I won't be regretfully-tiptoeing my way through Catalina any time soon...


----------



## jonnybutter (Sep 28, 2019)

jcrosby said:


> Hackintoshes aren't really that complicated anymore... And definitely don't require any kind fo maintenance. If you spend a few days researching ahead of time to look for a 'golden build' you should wind up with a machine that works exactly as if you bought it from Apple...
> 
> So far the machine has _just worked_ as you'd expect... My UAD card, audio interfaces, app store/logic/itunes/app/media purchases.... Everything works as expected... I haven't found a single instance where a peripheral or piece of software didn't work... Everything has been peachy, and frankly glad I won't be regretfully-tiptoeing my way through Catalina any time soon...




I built one in 2013 and even then it wasn't so hard (if it were hard, I wouldn't be the person to do it, believe me!). Yes, there was a bit more fiddling, but most of the time it just worked, and was fast and reliable. I am set for a few years with my trashcan 6,1, but I'm with jcrosby - it's really not that bad, and surely is even easier now.


----------



## jcrosby (Sep 28, 2019)

jonnybutter said:


> I built one in 2013 and even then it wasn't so hard (if it were hard, I wouldn't be the person to do it, believe me!). Yes, there was a bit more fiddling, but most of the time it just worked, and was fast and reliable. I am set for a few years with my trashcan 6,1, but I'm with jcrosby - it's really not that bad, and surely is even easier now.



Ironically I'm coming from the opposite end.  I've been a die hard mac user for 13/14 years. My original cheesegrater was by far the best and most solid machine I've owned...
The past few years have been really eye opening however in seeing just how much Apple has been its own, (and its user's own) worst enemy in many ways.

Apple' become obsessed with form factor and image over performance, whereas myself, the end user, I just want pure horsepower to run Logic... And an OS environment where I don't feel like I need to either duck and cover from updates every other operating system, or be worried I'm about to buy into some unforeseen unpleasantries because Apple's never been keen on installing an older OS than the machine was released with...

Anyway seeing just how well macOS performs in a machine where its performance isn't held back by its form factor has been eye opening for sure...


----------



## jonnybutter (Sep 28, 2019)

jcrosby said:


> Ironically I'm coming from the opposite end.  I've been a die hard mac user for 13/14 years.



I'm coming from the same end you! 27 years on macs. I had only the one Hack for about three years, but it was a reasonably good experience. I came across a great deal on a refurb trashcan and so have gone that route for a while, but am seriously considering a Hack for the next machine, for all the reasons you mention.


----------



## kgdrum (Sep 28, 2019)

If assembling a Hackintosh was simply putting the parts of a recommended build together in a case & installing the OS I'd be totally on board.
But when I see all of the coding/adjusting bios stuff(I guess unix related code)It looks like you need to be comfortable with computers on the level of going deep into the land of Terminal which scares the shit out of me the few times I've tipped my toes in that realm.lol
My eyes glaze over when I get past the parts and see all of the code related procedures you need to go through to get these machines up and running.
Rarely updating an OS doesn't really bother me I'm happy to be parked at the moment in Sierra on my 2012 MP but I'd love to have a more powerful beast........


----------



## jonnybutter (Sep 28, 2019)

kgdrum said:


> If assembling a Hackintosh was simply putting the parts of a recommended build together in a case & installing the OS I'd be totally on board.
> But when I see all of the coding/adjusting bios stuff(I guess unix related code)It looks like you need to be comfortable with computers on the level of going deep into the land of Terminal which scares the shit out of me the few times I've tipped my toes in that realm.lol
> My eyes glaze over when I get past the parts and see all of the code related procedures you need to go through to get these machines up and running.
> Rarely updating an OS doesn't really bother me I'm happy to be parked at the moment in Sierra on my 2012 MP but I'd love to have a more powerful beast........




I don't remember having to do any stuff in the terminal on my 2013 hack, but I could be wrong (and the Terminal is pretty easy to deal with after you get used to it, honestly). The bios stuff is super easy these days! There's a GUI. The key is to just take your time and be extremely deliberate about everything. 

But, to each his/her own of course.


----------



## Dewdman42 (Sep 28, 2019)

I just want to say, building a hackintosh, while way easier then it has been in years past, its still not for everybody. If you are not comfortable using the terminal, for example, then it probably says something about your general computer technical aptitude that should be taken into consideration before taking on the self-responsibility of building and maintaining an unsupported hardware platform. It is definitely way easier then it was 10 years ago, but make no mistake, depending on your technical makeup, it still may be more then you bargained for, so take that into consideration. 

I built one hackintosh in about 2007. It was way harder back then, and I was a working software engineer at the time to give you an idea of my comfort level with the terminal. 

But my motherboard was supposedly one of the easier ones and once I navigated all the hackintosh user forums for hours on end and finally figured out the easy way to do it, it wasn't that bad...but it still involved installing a few little custom drivers and hacks to make it look like a normal mac and be able to use the apple store, etc. It took some doing to figure all that out...but eventually i did and I was quite happy with it

Since then things have improved a lot in the hackintosh community with nice GUI tools that make many of those technical tasks easier, especially if you make sure to choose the right hardware ahead of time that has maximum compatibility with actual mac hardware, so the drivers will be properly in OSX to begin with, without requiring any special hacks. But still, even these little special hacks are easier now because of tools provided by the hackintosh community, but they can easily be overwhelming to navigate through and figure out what you're supposed to do, etc. it requires a bit of a technical mind. If you don't have that mind, then don't do it!

What happened with my 2007 hackintosh? Well first to be clear, this machine is old enough that it does not officially support Windows 10 anymore either, FWIW. But I am able to run Windows10 on it anyway and seems to work fine, but Gigabyte(the motherboard) basically says it should not go past Windows7 officially. So what about OSX on it?

I was able to upgrade it each time without much trouble until Mavericks. Then at Mavericks suddenly a lot of stuff changed, both in OSX and in the hackintosh community in terms of the EFI emulation. Suffice it to say that I was never successful to upgrade it past Mavericks, I tried several times. Maybe it was possible but ai ran out of patience and wasted a lot of time trying. Another issue was that the built in network realtek device on the motherboard became no longer supported with native drivers from Apple in newer versions of OSX, including Mavericks actually. Some guy on the internet on a forum somewhere hacked up the realtek network driver to make it work, but eventually that had problems. I actually even hacked on that code at one point a bit to build it for a version of OSX that he skipped over and I needed. Is that technical enough for you to reconsider hackintosh or not?

Granted with the right hardware selection, you may never have that kind of issue. Granted that this computer is 12 years old now, so who cares if it doesn't work with OSX anymore. With the right hardware selection today in 2019, it can be relatively simple, but I recommend you choose a hackintosh platform that is being duplicated by many people so that in the future you will all be in the same boat when apple changes something related to T2, or they drop some drivers because they moved all their computers to new network chips now or something weird like that. If you have lots of people depending on that same platform, then someone will figure it out and give you the exact instructions. Otherwise you'll be totally on your own to figure it out. There is always a chance of that happening, nobody knows the future.

But all the being said... Apple is turning my 5,1 MacPro into a glorified hackintosh with the upcoming release of Catalina. So what's the difference? My 5,1 is only from 2012...the hackintosh I built actually lasted longer...


----------



## jcrosby (Sep 28, 2019)

kgdrum said:


> If assembling a Hackintosh was simply putting the parts of a recommended build together in a case & installing the OS I'd be totally on board.
> But when I see all of the coding/adjusting bios stuff(I guess unix related code)It looks like you need to be comfortable with computers on the level of going deep into the land of Terminal which scares the shit out of me the few times I've tipped my toes in that realm.lol
> My eyes glaze over when I get past the parts and see all of the code related procedures you need to go through to get these machines up and running.
> Rarely updating an OS doesn't really bother me I'm happy to be parked at the moment in Sierra on my 2012 MP but I'd love to have a more powerful beast........



I haven't had to go into terminal once. It's just not like that anymore, (if it ever was?) Maybe your thinking of the video people often post where the woman posts steps to create a bootable installer and uses terminal to do it? (Which can and often is done by legitimate mac users too. I've been doing this for the past few OS's instead of using something like DiskMakerX.)

Terminal also isn't a scary place. At least it shouldn't be... Frankly every mac owner should at least be aware of its capability... I've always used it for disabling animation, unhiding things Apple hides, etc... It's also how you properly repair disk permissions now that they scrubbed that out of disk utility...

Changing the bios is something Windows users do... If composers on Windows can take the time to fiddle with bios there's no reason why a Mac-based composer should be afraid to. Plus the bios settings are always posted with the build, you just make the changes listed, save the profile once and your done...

This is part of what I've really come to dislike about Apple, the impression that something windows composers do all the time is somehow outside the scope of their understanding. It really is no more complicated than learning how to set up VEP with a slave machine, (which was anything but intuitive the first time you do if you don't have a background setting up things with a static IP in macOS...)


----------



## jonnybutter (Sep 28, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> make sure to choose the right hardware ahead of time that has maximum compatibility with actual mac hardware, so the drivers will be properly in OSX to begin with, without requiring any special hacks.



Hardware is the key to the whole thing. I am not a software engineer like Dewdman42 and wouldn't have dreamed of building a Hack with anything but a very conservative, well proven 'golden build' - hardware that had been long proven to work. Nothing risky and nothing that '_should_ work..'. I left the testing to others who knew what the hell they were doing. I just took a very long afternoon, built the sucker, and then went down the checklist very slowly and methodically. It really wasn't that bad. But again YMMV.


----------



## Dewdman42 (Sep 28, 2019)

That is all true now and was true back then too. but even a so called "golden build" is not garaunteed to remain so..its an unsupported platform. You have to be willing to roll with the punches in the future and hack your way around it without sniffling if and when that happens.

All that needs to happen is for apple to withdraw support for the network device, for example, that is built into your motherboard, because they decided their newer macs are all using something else anyway. Or some other component. A so called "golden build" is basically just using components that happened to be well supported in today's version of OSX...but there is no garauntee whatsoever that will continue. Even apple hardware eventually gets deprecated.

Now if you know that all the hardware pieces in your golden build are the same exact models as a 2019 Apple model...everything.... Thunderbolt chipsets, USB chipsets, network, motherboard sleep mechanisms, memory busses, etc.. everything. If you know its all exactly the same as a current model Mac, then you can be reasonably sure it will keep working just as long as the current macs. But that is not always the case. OSX has lots of older drivers that they leave in OSX for older mac hardware to a degree. But once that older mac hardware has been officially deprecated, then there is no garauntee those drivers will continue to exist in the OSX install. So a golden build might be using some hardware components which are slightly older but happen to work, but who knows about next year or the year after that? There is simply no garauntee. I'm not meaning to diss the whole idea, like I said earlier, myself...if I needed a new mac today in 2019 I would build a hackintosh using Tarese's golden build would basically follow her instructions for each OSX update until it can't be done anymore. I'm right there with ya...

I'm just saying, this approach is not for everyone and I cannot recommend it for everyone...


----------



## kgdrum (Sep 28, 2019)

jcrosby said:


> I haven't had to go into terminal once. It's just not like that anymore, (if it ever was?) Maybe your thinking of the video people often post where the woman posts steps to create a bootable installer and uses terminal to do it? (Which can and often is done by legitimate mac users too. I've been doing this for the past few OS's instead of using something like DiskMakerX. Termnial isn't a scary place. At least it shouldn't be..)
> 
> Changing the bios is something Windows users do... If composers on Windows can take the time to fiddle with bios there's no reason why a Mac-based composer should be afraid to. Plus the bios settings are always posted with the build, you just make the changes listed, save the profile once and your done...
> 
> This is part of what I've really come to dislike about Apple, the impression that something windows composers do all the time is somehow outside the scope of their understanding. It really is no more complicated than learning how to set up VEP with a slave machine, (which was anything but intuitive the first time you do unless if you don't have a background setting up things in macOS with a static IP...)






Maybe I looked at builds that weren’t “Golden Builds” & will have to take a deeper look at this.
I know I can’t afford the MP trash cans and and certainly not the new Mac Pro’s that are coming. 
The Hackintosh route otherwise seems so damn enticing.........


----------



## dzilizzi (Sep 28, 2019)

What is Terminal the equivalent of in PC speak? 

I'm trying to decide if I should try hackintoshing my recent PC build or saving up a bit and buying a tested setup.


----------



## Dewdman42 (Sep 28, 2019)

you don't need to use terminal to build a hackintosh, someone said that earlier...but its more of a symbolic point. If yo aren't comfortable getting things like the terminal, you are probably making a mistake trying to build a hackintosh.

windows user use an equivalent called CMD.exe


----------



## dzilizzi (Sep 28, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> you don't need to use terminal to build a hackintosh, someone said that earlier...but its more of a symbolic point. If yo aren't comfortable getting things like the terminal, you are probably making a mistake trying to build a hackintosh.
> 
> windows user use an equivalent called CMD.exe


Ah, so like using DOS to fix things. I can do that.


----------



## Dewdman42 (Sep 28, 2019)

as I said, you don't have to use terminal to build a hackintosh...someone said that earlier, but its not accurate..its just a symbolic statement that you will have to get "technical"


----------



## dzilizzi (Sep 28, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> as I said, you don't have to use terminal to build a hackintosh...someone said that earlier, but its not accurate..its just a symbolic statement that you will have to get "technical"


Thanks. As long as I don't have to do major programming, I think I can deal with some basic stuff. It does sound similar to PCs in that at some point, the OS will not support your computer. And you either upgrade or stay where you are as long as you can. I am hoping Apple stays with Intel chips. If they go back to proprietary chips, it won't be so easy. 

Has anyone had issues with the lack of a T2 chip yet?


----------



## Dewdman42 (Sep 28, 2019)

as far as I can see, the people with T2 chips are the ones having the problems so far.


----------



## jcrosby (Sep 28, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> Granted with the right hardware selection, you may never have that kind of issue. Granted that this computer is 12 years old now, so who cares if it doesn't work with OSX anymore. With the right hardware selection today in 2019, it can be relatively simple, but I recommend you choose a hackintosh platform that is being duplicated by many people so that in the future you will all be in the same boat when apple changes something related to T2, or they drop some drivers because they moved all their computers to new network chips now or something weird like that. If you have lots of people depending on that same platform, then someone will figure it out and give you the exact instructions. Otherwise you'll be totally on your own to figure it out. There is always a chance of that happening, nobody knows the future.
> 
> But all the being said... Apple is turning my 5,1 MacPro into a glorified hackintosh with the upcoming release of Catalina. So what's the difference? My 5,1 is only from 2012...the hackintosh I built actually lasted longer...



Sounds pretty frustrating... That's why I went with a widely duplicated build where the EFI folder is up on github, and set up as a 'vanilla' EFI for long term compatibility... (The EFI folder is basically set up so that all peripherals are "natively" supported at the hardware level instead of "hacked" in at boot which means less chances of botched updates.)

I also don't think it will be a bumpless ride... That solution I have for this is having two system drives One's my boot drive the others a clone. If I feel the temptation to update the OS I'll leave the clone in its last bootable state before installing a new OS.. If an OS install goes weird on me I can just boot back to clone and work off of it until I work out the kinks with the new OS...

Although it sounds like a lot of work it actually isn't any more of a headache then Apple was making it to keep my old cheesgrater running as you pointed out... Apple's already set me up to jump through hoops so having a redundant backup inside the machine isn't something I haven't already tried at least once...


----------



## jcrosby (Sep 28, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> Thanks. As long as I don't have to do major programming, I think I can deal with some basic stuff. It does sound similar to PCs in that at some point, the OS will not support your computer. And you either upgrade or stay where you are as long as you can. I am hoping Apple stays with Intel chips. If they go back to proprietary chips, it won't be so easy.
> 
> Has anyone had issues with the lack of a T2 chip yet?



In a hackintosh? None that I'm aware of... Apple still supports 10.14 on non-T2 machines. Plus the new iMac doesn't have a T2...

Basically this should mean that PCs will remain hackintoshable through whatever OS the current iMac supports. (At least the next 5 years  ) Most likely Hackintosh will thrive for at least a few more OS's. Even then I typically stay two OS's behind, so barring a miracle like Apple getting its head out of its arse I plan on running this thing for at least 5 years, 7 would be really nice.



Dewdman42 said:


> as far as I can see, the people with T2 chips are the ones having the problems so far.



Indeed. My MacBook is what planted the seed that lead me to building a hackintosh. Recurring audio issues since December, still.


----------



## Dewdman42 (Sep 28, 2019)

Having the hardware all work without KEXT hacks is definitely the bare minimum for me, I would not ever build a hackintosh without having that level of compatibility. That's just me. Even still, there is always a possibility that in a future OSX update, your unhacked hardware will no longer work because Apple removes the needed drivers from OSX. 

Like I said, I'm right there with ya its a risk I would be willing to take in 2019 if I needed a new mac because my 5,1 can't run ModoDrums, 

just want to make sure people understand the inherent risks associated with building an unsupported platform. There will always be more risk then buying a new mac...even with the golden builds. I have corresponded with enough musicians to know that many a musician should not go the hackintosh route.. due to lack of technical skills/desire to be doing that kind of stuff. 

But if you have at least a little technical skill...and if you're willing tot take the risk....worst case scenario is you're stuck on some version of OSX or have to install Windows on it eventually or something like that. then why not... And I agree, with a golden build...its not THAT technical to do... but for some people...it might be...maybe not at first but later when they have a problematic update or something. 

Not everyone should jailbreark their iPhones either....


----------



## Dewdman42 (Sep 28, 2019)

jcrosby said:


> In a hackintosh? None that I'm aware of... Apple still supports 10.14 on non-T2 machines. Plus the new iMac doesn't have a T2...
> 
> Basically this should mean that PCs will remain hackintoshable through whatever OS the current iMac supports. (At least the next 5 years )



I was kidding. What I meant is that so far the existing of T2 has only cause some issues and confusion for mac users with new macs that have the T2 chip. I haven't heard about hackintoshes having a problem due to the T2 being missing...but personally I think in the future we could see that issue come up.. That is where golden builds may need some hacks...or apple may be able to lock them out entirely for good...we shall see. I don't think apple will do that until they officially deprecate all macs that don't have T2...and they aren't quite there yet.


----------



## kgdrum (Sep 28, 2019)

Again maybe I have looked at the wrong builds,I saw all sorts of steps for installing driver codes etc....
So looking on a site like TonyMac you recommend looking for a popular build that uses actual parts that Apple uses and you can keep the coding to a minimum? Maybe I missed it but I wish they had a list of reliable easy to assemble builds. 
Thanks


----------



## Dewdman42 (Sep 28, 2019)

That's where it starts to be a time drain. You have to read a lot of opinions all over the web about what the best system is...and you know what they say about opinions...


----------



## Dewdman42 (Sep 28, 2019)

@kgdrum - there are a lot of cases where people have an existing PC and they want to hackintosh it. SO people have figured out how to do it. Its the hard way, but they get it working. That's what you saw. If you pick the right hardware ahead of time, you can reduce all those steps down to only a few or even practically none. Back in the old days, at a minimum you'd have to install a different EFI emulator to run on top of BIOS and install that, at a bare minimum, which frankly would already be a show stopper for many low-tech users. I'm not even sure if the newer golden builds are using compatible EFI in the hardware and its just a matter of setting the settings appropriately or what. But that is already a lot easier then installing a hackintosh installation on top of a BIOS motherboard.

The rabbit hole can get deep if you have hardware that is further away... if you get the best stuff..it will not be hard to install it the first time with just a slight bit of technical ability. No garauntees about future updates...

I am not sure if there is a best respected place to find the golden builds. i have seen some articles written even on mainstream pc magazines with their opinions about hardware that is particularly good for hackintosh. The forums...google around...you'll have to do some homework.

The reason I like the video I posted earlier is because Terese has been involved in the hackintosh community for a long time and waded through thousands of hours of tech stuff...and basically tested out a system completely and figured out all the exact steps...and isolated a golden build...and documented exactly what you need to do. On top of that, she has a Patreon site, which you have to pay a small fee to be a subscriber, but basically you can probably feel pretty confident that she will continue to update her information for that golden build as time goes by if anything comes up. There are no guarantees, but its something more than just reading countless random internet forum posts and hoping to find out the right hardware to use.


----------



## dzilizzi (Sep 28, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> Having the hardware all work without KEXT hacks is definitely the bare minimum for me, I would not ever build a hackintosh without having that level of compatibility. That's just me. Even still, there is always a possibility that in a future OSX update, your unhacked hardware will no longer work because Apple removes the needed drivers from OSX.
> 
> Like I said, I'm right there with ya its a risk I would be willing to take in 2019 if I needed a new mac because my 5,1 can't run ModoDrums,
> 
> ...


As long as you won't accidentally brick the CPU or motherboard, I'm good with experimenting.


----------



## Dewdman42 (Sep 28, 2019)

you don't have to worry about bricking anything


----------



## gsilbers (Sep 28, 2019)

for wha it worth i tried doing a hackintosh twice and failed. the most recent one is mainly for compatibility issues since i had other components. but got to learn a lot. if you get the right components you can do it. its not easy but also not too hard. but after reading hundreds of threads i got to the point of understanding thats a commitment which defies the whole apple concept of stuff just working as it should and not having to tinkle with crap after crap and update after update or like in windows where there is a million ways to do one thing if you go all around different apps, code, random windows etc etc. and just like some windows users, there are hackingtosh users who love the customization and challenges. yes, there is a way to do hackingtosh with some simple apps for pre and post installation but every update is a crapshoot you wont be able to use something. or it can be the audio interface or as simple as the wi fi or having the computer go to sleep mode. there is always something. and yes, some folks are clever and figure it out, can find stuff online and different version of stuff etc etc but if you are not that into hackingtosh and want just a computer for music then you are screwed. no support. and hours of frustration. plus you wont know if in the next OS release mac decides to end the lax support it has given hackingtosh lately. if u are in a big city and know someone who sells built hackintoshes or does the installation and support then i say maybe. use mojave, install everything you use and try not to change anything for 5 years. than Thats a good deal.


----------



## dzilizzi (Sep 28, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> you don't have to worry about bricking anything


Now I'm starting to get excited about trying this. Thanks!


----------



## NYC Composer (Sep 28, 2019)

Well, no Hackintosh for me. It’s down to:

1. Trashcan- if I don’t mind staying a little underpowered, old and want to save a little dough. Interim solution

2. 2018 Mini-surprising single core speed, cpu should be sufficient at 3.2 6 core i7 with hyper threading and Turboboost. Annoyingly diificult to upgrade RAM. Not inexpensive.

3. 2019 iMac i9 8 core @3.6, gorgeous screen, easy to install RAM, the most expensive.

About a $1500 difference from top to bottom, assuming 1tb SSD and 64 GB RAM. I got 11 years from my cheesgrater that cost $2500 with 34 GB RAM-I think the iMac would last me at least 5, probably more, maybe much more.


----------



## jcrosby (Sep 28, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> just want to make sure people understand the inherent risks associated with building an unsupported platform. There will always be more risk then buying a new mac...even with the golden builds. I have corresponded with enough musicians to know that many a musician should not go the hackintosh route.. due to lack of technical skills/desire to be doing that kind of stuff.



True, however Apple's own T2 bugs blew out the left speaker on my MacBook. (I was working on the thing the moment it happened.) Not to mention the thing doesn't playback audio in Logic without stuttering every few hours.

So AFAIC even macs come with inherent risks now. Risks that cost you a lot more, from a company that that's become pretty awful about acknowledging their own issues.

So IMO I'm fine with the risks as I have 1st hand experience that Apple's perfectly capable of damaging their own devices via an update...


----------



## Dewdman42 (Sep 28, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> Now I'm starting to get excited about trying this. Thanks!



Doesn't hurt to try it. When I did mine in 2007 the only reason I did was because I had a back surgery and though I could stand up, i was not allowed to leave the house for like a month...I needed a project, so i ordered a bunch of parts and built a hackintosh. It definitely consumed a lot of time, but because I had nothing better to do, it was sorta fun. But later on I did buy two real macs.... so.. that being said...Apple has really let me down since then, I would not buy any of the macs they offer, if I had to get a new mac now it would be a hackintosh again, its not even a close contest I would absolutely do that and run it for as long as I can. 

Instead my plan is to keep using my 5,1 a couple more years and watch Apple to see if they come out with a better solution for me in the next couple years that will keep me out of the hackintosh quagmire. If they don't, I will probably build one again...or switch to PC-cubase once and for all.


----------



## Dewdman42 (Sep 28, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> Well, no Hackintosh for me. It’s down to:
> 
> 1. Trashcan- if I don’t mind staying a little underpowered, old and want to save a little dough. Interim solution
> 
> ...



NYC, my personally recommendation is to stick with 5,1 or 6,1 macs until we hear more from apple in the next couple years about the MacPro line. If you can live with their capability, I certainly am able to. AVX is the only thing giving me a little grief. But I think in the next couple years either things are going to change for the better from Apple or we will all be whistling some different tunes about whether we want to be using Logic and OSX after all. well some of us...


----------



## NYC Composer (Sep 28, 2019)

Well, I’m on Cubase, though I may explore Logic at some point. As to 5.1, if my grater was ONE YEAR younger Id try it, but I have an early 2008 and it can’t upgrade....so. I don’t want to buy another grater for 5.1, and I’d finally like to catch up.


----------



## jcrosby (Sep 28, 2019)

kgdrum said:


> Again maybe I have looked at the wrong builds,I saw all sorts of steps for installing driver codes etc....
> So looking on a site like TonyMac you recommend looking for a popular build that uses actual parts that Apple uses and you can keep the coding to a minimum? Maybe I missed it but I wish they had a list of reliable easy to assemble builds.
> Thanks


Only Apple makes their logic boards available. There's essentially no such thing... Gigabyte and ASUS boards are typically the most plug and play... Gigabyte or Asus Z370 or Z390's have apparently been some of the most natively working boards to date...

What you want is a link to 'golden builds'...





__





reddit.com: search results - golden


r/hackintosh: A community for those looking to install macOS on their PC!




www.reddit.com







https://www.tonymacx86.com/forums/golden-builds.87/



The link I posted a page back is one, and has all of the EFI tweaks already done... You just have to read through the thread and find the link to his github repo. The EFI folder is plug and play with the Designare, pretty sure it is with the Aorus as well... You just replace the system drives EFI folder with it and voila, it's fully compatible on reboot as long as you were smart and picked the same parts...


----------



## Dewdman42 (Sep 28, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> Well, I’m on Cubase, though I may explore Logic at some point. As to 5.1, if my grater was ONE YEAR younger Id try it, but I have an early 2008 and it can’t upgrade....so. I don’t want to buy another grater for 5.1, and I’d finally like to catch up.



Yea I get that. consider this also. No matter what you buy will depreciate in value over time. A new one will actually depreciate more in value then a 2012 or 2013 which has mostly already depreciated a lot. Even if you buy at 2012 Mac for under $2k, you would lose that much in value on a new mac after the first couple years of owning it, while the 5,1 and 6,1 are probably about as low as they are going to get for a while. I don't think they are going to decrease much in value until Apple releases more affordable MacPros. In a few years they might really be old news and finally start to go down some more...

But anyway, point being, it would not be the end of the world if you buy a 5,1 or 6,1 and use it only a couple years and then finally get a new computer from Apple...

Secondly, I would think you would transition to the 5,1 better then then 6,1 because of the PCI slots and drive bays. Unless you aren't using them. As a temporary solution, i view the 5,1 a better choice because its closer to what you already have in terms of your peripherals and dropping them all into the 5,1. While the 6,1 requires you to figure out external enclosures, using thunderbolt all the way, etc.. and the 6,1 deprecation could also be just around the corner...so you'd be changing over all that stuff only to find it deprecated in the not too distant future.

A 5,1 would be less of a leap, but still quite a bit leap up in performance over what you have now....and wait it out a few more years...

Otherwise, obviously the newer offerings are newer and if you get them you will have to figure out all the same stuff you would have to figure out with the 6,1, external enclosures, et, etc.. and if you're not using PCI and if you're not in love with your current monitor...then it could be fine, not withstanding some reported thermal issues..but personally I think that in a couple years Apple is going to bring out a better alternatives for us in MacPro land...and then MacPros will also decrease in value on the used market, etc..and we'll have more options to get a real Mac Pro with drive bays and PCI slots again...


----------



## jcrosby (Sep 28, 2019)

gsilbers said:


> for wha it worth i tried doing a hackintosh twice and failed. the most recent one is mainly for compatibility issues since i had other components. but got to learn a lot. if you get the right components you can do it. its not easy but also not too hard. but after reading hundreds of threads i got to the point of understanding thats a commitment which defies the whole apple concept of stuff just working as it should and not having to tinkle with crap after crap and update after update or like in windows where there is a million ways to do one thing if you go all around different apps, code, random windows etc etc. and just like some windows users, there are hackingtosh users who love the customization and challenges. yes, there is a way to do hackingtosh with some simple apps for pre and post installation but every update is a crapshoot you wont be able to use something. or it can be the audio interface or as simple as the wi fi or having the computer go to sleep mode. there is always something. and yes, some folks are clever and figure it out, can find stuff online and different version of stuff etc etc but if you are not that into hackingtosh and want just a computer for music then you are screwed. no support. and hours of frustration. plus you wont know if in the next OS release mac decides to end the lax support it has given hackingtosh lately. if u are in a big city and know someone who sells built hackintoshes or does the installation and support then i say maybe. use mojave, install everything you use and try not to change anything for 5 years. than Thats a good deal.



That's why all of the treads and resources say it's important to start by reading the guides and glossaries. (Which I'm sure you did...) It's just that the whole point of a golden build is that everything works... Shut down, sleep, BT/wifi/ethernet, app store, face time, imessage, etc... So far even the most common bugs, sleep and shut down, are working on this build. 

There are two quirks, but these are the same quirks all hackintoshes have... Only one of the 2 ethernet ports is supported, (not an issue for me since a network switch takes care of any issues. A compatible PCIe card could also be added if someone needed more.), And as is pretty much standard, the internal bluetooth needs to be removed and replaced with an actual mac bluetooth module on a PCIe card if you want air drop, handoff, or Wifi. This is expected though... And it's the longterm way to do it as the card itself is actually supported by the OS.

Yes there is the possibility that something changes in the future, but it's not like you _need_ to be on the most current OS, and many of us typically stay a few OS's behind... (By which time the community has worked out all kinks and fixes are available...)

Also, the dual drive method I posted above guarantees not having to deal with that in a work scenario... (Which this machine absolutely is for me...) If an update is incompatible you just boot into your clone and work from that... Spend the odd few hours on the weekends getting the newer OS working in your spare time, and move to it when it's finally fully working...

No a hackintosh is definitely not for everyone, but again, as seeing firsthand that Apple can do just as much damage to a legit mac with an OS update, depending on the model you own, macOS has become messy in either scenario...

Maybe I lucked out and landed on a good setup choice the first time around, but I found it no more confusing than setting up a VEP slave my first time...


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 28, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> If you are not comfortable using the terminal, for example, then it probably says something about your general computer technical aptitude that should be taken into consideration before taking on the self-responsibility of building and maintaining an unsupported hardware platform.



There's typing commands into the Terminal that you copy from a Hackintosh site and there's knowing what they mean.

I'm amazingly comfortable with the former, but I'm amazingly ignorant about the latter.


----------



## kgdrum (Sep 28, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> There's typing commands into the Terminal that you copy from a Hackintosh site and there's knowing what they mean.
> 
> I'm amazingly comfortable with the former, but I'm amazingly ignorant about the latter.



What often intimidates me with terminal is noticing the spacing.Is it a bad approach to cut and paste the commands?


----------



## jcrosby (Sep 28, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> There's typing commands into the Terminal that you copy from a Hackintosh site and there's knowing what they mean.
> 
> I'm amazingly comfortable with the former, but I'm amazingly ignorant about the latter.



As most of us are  This has always been my go to terminal resource.. Since I'm still on 10.13 it's a great site... https://www.defaults-write.com/


----------



## kgdrum (Sep 28, 2019)

jcrosby said:


> As most of us are  This has always been my go to terminal resource.. Since I'm still on 10.13 it's a great site... https://www.defaults-write.com/



Wow! This is a great resource,I have never seen this site.
Thanks


----------



## jcrosby (Sep 28, 2019)

kgdrum said:


> What often intimidates me with terminal is noticing the spacing.Is it a bad approach to cut and paste the commands?



Yeah that's fine. If it can't find the command it will just return _command not found_. The only thing to be careful of are sudo commands, even then I've personally never had an issue using a sudo command, and people tend to be very clear about why you might avoid the command if its warranted.


----------



## jcrosby (Sep 28, 2019)

kgdrum said:


> Wow! This is a great resource,I have never seen this site.
> Thanks


The great thing about these is they're just plist preference files. These won't damage your machine in any way, and they all have a command to undo them if you don't like the change... I really do run these on all machines as part of the setup. I find macOS is a lot snappier with all of the cruft like this turned off.

If you're on 10.13:




__





10.13 | defaults-write.com







www.defaults-write.com





My favorites are adding quit to finder, showing the user library by default, immediately show the dock, and disabling gatekeeper, (which can be re-enabled at any time.) I also use the 'speed up macos' commands below... Animations drive me nuts now  because finder is so much snappier like this...








10 terminal commands to speed up macOS High Sierra on your Mac


Most improvements in macOS High Sierra are not immediately visible to the ordinary macOS user. Especially under the hood many improvements have been made in the area of performance and safety. Some…




www.defaults-write.com


----------



## NYC Composer (Sep 28, 2019)

If Terminal didn’t exist, that would be fine with me.

I’ve been my own Mac tech since ‘89 and I can do a fair amount, but to quote Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry: “A man’s GOT to know his limitations.”


----------



## dzilizzi (Sep 28, 2019)

kgdrum said:


> What often intimidates me with terminal is noticing the spacing.Is it a bad approach to cut and paste the commands?


I would assume if you can copy and paste, you should. Less chance for errors that way.


----------



## jonnybutter (Sep 29, 2019)

I'd say going ahead with a hack or not is really about what's happening in your *career*, not how hard it is or isn't. Price isn't an issue because you are paying so much less for the hack. If you get only 3 or so years out of the hack - Apple does does something to make it non-upgradable - so what? I built my hack with an i7 and lots of RAM for USD $900 (in 2013).

- If you have paying work and deadlines, and you have a day job, just get a regular mac - you don't have time to worry about troubleshooting a hack, which you are more likely to have to do.

- If you are full time composer and are doing work with ridiculous deadlines, probably a regular mac is a better bet, even though a hack can be pretty reliable. I met deadlines (although not tv-tight) on my hack for a few years. But if you're working with very tight deadlines, you can well afford the real mac anyway, so - one less thing to worry about.

- If you are full time composer with no partners or help, and not doing work with ridiculous deadlines (i.e. tv) a hack is something to seriously consider. You should always be able to get your hack up and running in a reasonable amount of time if you are prepared, which you should be on a regular mac as well.

- If you are a hobbyist who does occasional paying work (or not), a hack is really something to consider seriously. 

I appreciate Dewdman's warnings, but: a.) things have changed a lot in the hackintosh world since 2007 (12-13 years is a long time!), b.) building the hack will itself make you much more comfortable with tech stuff, much less intimidated. That's at least half the battle. There really isn't much or any true 'hacking' for the end user anymore. And you aren't going to brick anything.

Also, you presumably have the machine you're working on now, so you can transition only when you're ready.

I am a composer with zero technical training and I'm not any kind of hard scientist. If you can follow instructions carefully and pay attention to detail, you can do it.


----------



## seclusion3 (Sep 30, 2019)

Some lower prices on iMac Pros at Apple refurbs...


----------



## jcrosby (Oct 1, 2019)

jonnybutter said:


> - If you are full time composer with no partners or help, and not doing work with ridiculous deadlines (i.e. tv) a hack is something to seriously consider. You should always be able to get your hack up and running in a reasonable amount of time if you are prepared, which you should be on a regular mac as well.



Ironically I fall squarely in that deadline category. My past year dealing with issues on two legitimate macs was so ludicrous that in each scenario I knew more about the OS, the T2 chip's role than all "Sr. Advisors" and Customer Relations Agent I spoke with. (I realize this sounds conflated, arrogant, etc... That's fine, I know what my experience was...) Apple really has become incapable of supporting its own hardware... Worse, its most expensive and highest end hardware. All I know is it ended in no solution whatsoever. Truly...

At this point I've decided taking matters into my own wouldn't suck any more time away form work, or yield worse results than Apple already sucked away from my life over the past year... I would definitely not encourage anyone to take my own advice per se.... But so far the theory's born out surprisingly well, and I'd say at the very least remain skeptical about Apple's ability to support its higher end cutting edge models...

I genuinely hate being the guy who posts a youtube video to make a point. In this case however my experience really has been uncomfortably similar, if not almost identical to the video linked below....


----------



## jonnybutter (Oct 1, 2019)

jcrosby said:


> I genuinely hate being the guy who posts a youtube video to make a point. In this case however my experience really has been uncomfortably similar, if not almost identical to the video linked below....





Ugh, how horrible jcrosby. I've heard stories like this over the years, and consider myself lucky to not have experienced it.


----------



## Lilainjil (Oct 1, 2019)

Just wanted to chime in to say thank you all. Probably the most clear-headed, well-written discussion of this tangled subject I’ve yet encountered. I’m still doing daily deadline TV work on my 5,1 but will be coming back to this thread when the time comes. Cheers.


----------



## dzilizzi (Oct 1, 2019)

This is one of the reasons I am not a big Apple fan. They used to make products worth the higher price. But since the iPhone and iPad came out, I've really questioned this. My husband had similar issues with the first iPad. The wifi never properly worked. Except in the Apple store. Which was 2 hours away. He had to use the data connection to do anything. And data connections don't work well in our house. His Iphones don't last half as long as my Samsungs. And I drop mine all the time. 

Though the complaint about an external mount that they sell but don't make? Not sure how fair that is. I'm still wondering why the guy didn't go to the hardware or electronics store and just buy real screws. Take one of the good ones and match it up. (And this is where I miss the old Radio Shacks)


----------



## Dewdman42 (Oct 1, 2019)

I also had a hardware problem with my MacBookPro which showed up exactly at the time AppleCare was running out, so Apple did nothing about it and could not really do anything about it, they never figured it out. There was a whole following of people on the internet having exactly the same issues and nobody knew what to do, including Apple. Its a long story but suffice it to say that some independent electronic engineer finally figured out that the problem was a cheap capacitor that Apple used on the logic board related to the Nvidia display adapter. Replace that capacitor with a better $5 one instead of the $1 one they used, and problem be gone. If you're handy with a soldering iron, which I am not.

Or another workaround is a KEXT hack that basically disables the Nvidia and disables CPU stepping I believe, keeps it locked at a certain level. That's what I ended up using because I didn't want to spend the $300 or so it would take to send the MBP to someone that could replace the capacitor, its a 2010 model and not worth spending money on. The downside of the KEXT hack is that nVidia GPU is not being utilized and it can't use an external monitor. And every time I update OSX I have to re run the KEXT hack, if I forget, it will kernel panic within an hour after updating OSX. 

To this day Apple has never acknowledged or done anything about this problem for owners of this 2010 MBP. And googling around you can find all kinds of people with 2011, 2012, 2015 and other models from Apple that have similar unsolvable problems.. They have this beautiful piece of unibody hardware designer's masterpiece, but it has some kind of unsolvable problem that there is no solution for. 

This is definitely one problem with using Apple computers AT ALL. Granted, my 5,1 MacPro might be the best desktop computer ever made..its a work of art and beauty and is still running strong now almost a decade later. It is incredible. But I think during the past decade they have tried to make all these "little" devices...iMacs, mac Minis, iPhones, iPads, etc.. Everything inside is proprietary and basically unfixable unless Apple does it. And my experience has been that Apple does not acknowledge or even figure out how to fix anything. By year two or three they've moved on to some totally new model they want you to buy instead.

So its true what you say really... For running OSX, an actual Apple Mac will be supported and most likely to run OSX problem free...but on the other hand...with some of the smaller and integrated devices, which includes pretty much all of them now except for maybe the new MacPro; you are rolling the dice as to whether that little all-in-one work of wonder will end up having some weird problem that can't be solved and Apple will not try very hard to do so either.

In light of all that...a hackintosh does look increasingly compelling as a hardware platform for OSX.


----------



## ridgero (Oct 1, 2019)

I would love to own an iMac Pro 8 Core with 128 GB RAM. I think I could use it for at least 5 years.


----------



## Geoff Grace (Oct 1, 2019)

It's worth considering that Apple is expected to start transitioning to ARM processors next year. This isn't a great time to invest in a new Mac (or build a hackintosh, for that matter) unless you want to hold on to an Intel build as long as possible. It seems somewhat akin to buying a G5 on the eve of Apple's migration to Intel.

My own experience of having owned a G5 and a 2008 Mac Pro has left me not wanting to buy into the last model of an old platform nor the first of a new platform. I know of no one who was able to use a G5 for a decade; and while you can still get some use out of a first generation 2008 Intel Mac Pro, the second generation 2009 cheese grater has proved to be much more powerful in the long run.

If I were to buy today, I'd invest in a Mac that I only expected to use for three or four years. I might wait for the new Mac Pro to arrive, so I'd be more likely to get a deal on a used trash can Mac Pro. If I were to buy new, I'd probably buy a high-end iMac, load it with third-party RAM, and use its monitor as a video screen, while sticking with my widescreen for DAW work. A high-end Mac mini or MacBook Pro would probably do as well.

Best,

Geoff


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 1, 2019)

The Cupertino-based company is *quietly* transitioning. That's what they write on every Mac site every time - Apple *quietly* xxxxxed whatever it is.

Yeah I'm very irritable, but that ridiculous BS annoys the hell out of me. 

Anyway, who knows if and when they're really going to switch to their own processors. I thought the long development time before the Mac Pro was because of that, but apparently not.

Aside from ARM, it's exactly *because* computers are now several-year investments that the choice is more complicated. Now that there's third-party RAM for the Mini, that's probably what I'd do.


----------



## Monkey Man (Oct 1, 2019)

I thought ARM was only going to be used where small-and-efficient is concerned, so not in desktop towers, for instance.


----------



## Dewdman42 (Oct 1, 2019)

Well in any case Apple has recently released computers with Intel, including the new expensive MacPro, so I think we're pretty safe to say that OSX will continue to run fine on Intel for quite a while in the future, regardless of what happens with ARM.

I think T2 has more potential to mess with hackintosh users in the not too distant future.


----------



## Sarah Mancuso (Oct 1, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> Well in any case Apple has recently released computers with Intel, including the new expensive MacPro, so I think we're pretty safe to say that OSX will continue to run fine on Intel for quite a while in the future, regardless of what happens with ARM.
> 
> I think T2 has more potential to mess with hackintosh users in the not too distant future.


Apple also sells current models that don't have T2 chips, so we should be safe there.


----------



## Dewdman42 (Oct 1, 2019)

That is good to hear, I haven't been following it that closely. Which mac models have and don't have T2?


----------



## Symfoniq (Oct 1, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> That is good to hear, I haven't been following it that closely. Which mac models have and don't have T2?



The iMac (non-Pro) doesn’t have T2.


----------



## jcrosby (Oct 2, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> This is one of the reasons I am not a big Apple fan. They used to make products worth the higher price. But since the iPhone and iPad came out, I've really questioned this. My husband had similar issues with the first iPad. The wifi never properly worked. Except in the Apple store. Which was 2 hours away. He had to use the data connection to do anything. And data connections don't work well in our house. His Iphones don't last half as long as my Samsungs. And I drop mine all the time.
> 
> Though the complaint about an external mount that they sell but don't make? Not sure how fair that is. I'm still wondering why the guy didn't go to the hardware or electronics store and just buy real screws. Take one of the good ones and match it up. (And this is where I miss the old Radio Shacks)



The main point is that Apple charged $80 for a mount whose screws broke off inside the imac's screw holes. Not to mention Apple sold it as an "Apple" product, but then failed to warranty it because it's not manufactured by them, (but sold, packaged, and eve listed the product support number as if it was). Think about that... Not to mention that in relation to a machine that starts at 5k...

Apple can be really ruthless when it comes to repairs. In a situation like this the only way to ensure Apple will service it would be to bring it in to an Apple store or ASP. If you alter the machine yourself and it's visible Apple can and will deny you service.

Finally look at how badly they butchered his machine in the end of the video. Someone might as well have taken a crowbar to thing...


My saga begins with a security update for the 2018 MBP introducing system-wide audio glitcing. (The thing worked flawlessly for 3 months, 10 mins after installing the update the problem began, and got worse over the next day. I could even boot from a clone I made before the update and the problem would go away, confirming the issue was introduced by the update. Replicated it several times for support as well.)

I sent all of this documentation in and Apple would not fess up to the issue despite it becoming infamous already, with thousands of posts about it already on MR alone... And many many independent threads about it on Apple's own forum at the time... Apple's official position: We can't authenticate any claims made on our forum, etc etc..

The saga ends with the glitches blowing the left speaker on the MacBook. Logic hiccuped during one of the glitches and sound completely disappeared so I restarted the machine. Only to be greeted by a blown left speaker.

Finally, not a single person at Apple's phone support had access to the same machine despite it being Apple's highest end MacBook Pro at the time. They didn't even have access to any T2 model. 

Apple's become completely incapable of supporting their most expensive products. The ones where the user tends to rely on it for work, not leisure...

So personally I've decided taking things into my own hands via building a hackintosh will yield me no more heartache, (and a fuller bank account), than relying on Apple's inability to support its own devices. Nary an audio glitch or hiccup so far... I keep automatic updates off and plan on leaving it in its current state for a good 6 months before messing with Mojave. (Which as I mentioned I can install on a spare clone without botching my current drive...)


----------



## ridgero (Oct 2, 2019)

Geoff Grace said:


> It's worth considering that Apple is expected to start transitioning to ARM processors next year. This isn't a great time to invest in a new Mac (or build a hackintosh, for that matter) unless you want to hold on to an Intel build as long as possible. It seems somewhat akin to buying a G5 on the eve of Apple's migration to Intel.
> 
> My own experience of having owned a G5 and a 2008 Mac Pro has left me not wanting to buy into the last model of an old platform nor the first of a new platform. I know of no one who was able to use a G5 for a decade; and while you can still get some use out of a first generation 2008 Intel Mac Pro, the second generation 2009 cheese grater has proved to be much more powerful in the long run.
> 
> ...



I don't think so at all, it wouldn't make any sense.

You can't compare it with the G5 to Intel migration, because their first Mac Pro 1,1 (2006) was already based on the Intel platform. The Mac Pro 1,1 was their flagship computer and the foundation for Apple's Intel future.

Apple is releasing their new top of the line Intel based Mac Pro laters this year. Among those customers are many big big big big studios, which will invest several millions in Apple. This Mac Pro will still exist in (minimum) 10 years from now.


----------



## jcrosby (Oct 2, 2019)

Geoff Grace said:


> It's worth considering that Apple is expected to start transitioning to ARM processors next year. This isn't a great time to invest in a new Mac (or build a hackintosh, for that matter) unless you want to hold on to an Intel build as long as possible. It seems somewhat akin to buying a G5 on the eve of Apple's migration to Intel.
> 
> My own experience of having owned a G5 and a 2008 Mac Pro has left me not wanting to buy into the last model of an old platform nor the first of a new platform. I know of no one who was able to use a G5 for a decade; and while you can still get some use out of a first generation 2008 Intel Mac Pro, the second generation 2009 cheese grater has proved to be much more powerful in the long run.
> 
> ...



Apple can't legally phase out intel support for a minimum of 5 years after whatever the last Intel mac model they release is; per their own "Vintage and Obsolete Devices" terms...





__





Obtaining service for your Apple product after an expired warranty


Learn about your options for getting service and parts for Apple devices that are past their warranty period.



support.apple.com





The consensus also seems to be ARM isn't currently capable of running the types of computations needed for heavy duty stuff like video editing, real time audio processing, etc... Basically the more powerful machines will probably still have intel chips for a few more years at least...

I personally think the Air will be the first model to go completely ARM. And it'll stay that way for a couple years while they work out the kinks...

I'm also not one to be on the bleeding edge when it comes to my OS. Much more a fan of leaving it in a stable state for as long as possible... As long as my instruments, plugins and hardware work I'm fine being a few OS's behind... (That's another thing to mention... Both my interfaces aren't feature-limited by requiring their software mixer to access specific features... That actually played a big role in me deciding to do this...)

Anyway, either way they will have to support any intel-based machine for a minimum of 5 years after manufacture (via the OS)... That said the eventual move to ARM was and still is part of my consideration for sure... Definitely not unaware that relying on a hac has the potential for drawbacks... But as I said, my experience over the past year was so miserable that it left me with the impression that Apple has some serious drawbacks of their own... Cheers..


----------



## macmac (Oct 2, 2019)

My first Mac was an SE30, along with a laserwriter II which I later upgraded to an IIf. Along the way I had a Mac II, then down the road upgraded the board to a IIfx. Later got an 8500 (for which I paid $4500 and later upgraded the board), then a G4 mirrored. All new. Then I switched mentality and got a pre-owned G5, then a pre-owned 2008 Mac Pro. I got pretty good longevity from all of them.

Now as much as I'd like to get years and years from one like before, I don't think that's as possible with Apple anymore for several reasons (unless you just stay put with one and use it until it dies). I'm more inclined now to buy for the time being, and not go so top of the line. Now I've been using a 2014 2.6 mini that I bought new (I don't do large orchestral templates), which was initially supposed to be a quick interim computer when my Mac Pro died, but it did better than I expected for the last couple years so I kept it. I now have coming a 2012 Quad 2.6 mini just to buy some time and give me more cores.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 2, 2019)

ridgero said:


> Among those customers are many big big big big studios, which will invest several millions in Apple. This Mac Pro will still exist in (minimum) 10 years from now.



My armchair take is that this machine is the proverbial "statement" product - the penis car model that very few people buy but that qualifies the company as Purveyor of Computers to Her Majesty The Queen. Apple uses $ several millions as cooking paper to bake fish in - it's nothing to them.

But sure that machine will exist in ten years. So will any computer you buy today.


----------



## synthetic (Oct 2, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> What is Terminal the equivalent of in PC speak?




Command prompt.


----------



## seclusion3 (Oct 2, 2019)

Even if they did go all in Arm, I would want to be on an intel machine a few years until all the plugin companies made the shift. That sounds like a nightmare to me. Maybe they’d have an emulator of some sort, but likely AU's wouldn’t just run outa the box. There slight speculation they may go arm, not definitive. If u need a machine now, no sense in waiting, build it or buy it.


----------



## Symfoniq (Oct 2, 2019)

synthetic said:


> Command prompt.



As well as the new beta app “Windows Terminal,” which supports multiple tabs, and even bash shells if you have Windows Subsystem for Linux installed.


----------



## jcrosby (Oct 2, 2019)

seclusion3 said:


> Even if they did go all in Arm, I would want to be on an intel machine a few years until all the plugin companies made the shift. That sounds like a nightmare to me. Maybe they’d have an emulator of some sort, but likely AU's wouldn’t just run outa the box. There slight speculation they may go arm, not definitive. If u need a machine now, no sense in waiting, build it or buy it.


ARM isn't theoretical, Apple will be all ARM at some point... Whether it's 5 months or 5 years no one knows, however it's a matter of_ when _not _if _they will...


----------



## NYC Composer (Oct 3, 2019)

I’m pretty sure I could get by using an i9 iMac with 128 GB of RAM and a bunch of peripherals... for a good while. Maybe not as long as the 11 years I’ve gotten (so far, it’s still running) out of my 2008 MP or the 7 years from my 2012 Mini (ditto), but I’m well over one hundred years old at this point, so I may crap out before it does. 

Did you know there’s AppleCare for U.S. humans? It’s called “Medicare”. I’m signed up. Goes for longer than three years too, assuming you do. Magnificent!

Speaking of peripherals, there’s apparently no way to stop buying drives unless you quit the biz or croak, and they change the format on you constantly. I’m started with floppies! Now I have a bunch of FireWire and USB 2 drives that need to meet the electronics disposal truck here in NYC.

Oh, btw, I get it, I get it, but give up, willya ? I’m NOT BUILDING A HACKINTOSH. E-VAH. I don’t even like OPENING my MP, which I have done constantly to change drives, RAM, PCI and PCIe cards, clean it, etc. etc., but it makes me sweat. YMMV. GREAT. Thank you.


----------



## ridgero (Oct 3, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> I’m pretty sure I could get by using an i9 iMac with 128 GB of RAM and a bunch of peripherals... for a good while. Maybe not as long as the 11 years I’ve gotten (so far, it’s still running) out of my 2008 MP or the 7 years from my 2012 Mini (ditto), but I’m well over one hundred years old at this point, so I may crap out before it does.
> 
> Did you know there’s AppleCare for U.S. humans? It’s called “Medicare”. I’m signed up. Goes for longer than three years too, assuming you do. Magnificent!
> 
> ...



The only downside of the i9 iMac is the lack of a second TB3 bus. I don't know how this will effect my ability to connect two 4k screens & external SSDs at the same time.


----------



## NYC Composer (Oct 3, 2019)

ridgero said:


> The only downside of the i9 iMac is the lack of a second TB3 bus. I don't know how this will effect my ability to connect two 4k screens & external SSDs at the same time.


A Thunderbolt dock, maybe?


----------



## ridgero (Oct 3, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> A Thunderbolt dock, maybe?



I would immediately connect a power supplied TB 3 dock to the iMac, but my actual question is:

How much can handle one TB3 bus (= 2 ports) at the same time? 2x4k displays, 2 TB3 SSDs, 1 TB3 audio interface?


I don't know if there are any references to the topic.


----------



## NYC Composer (Oct 3, 2019)

Yeah, I really can’t say....except that I think a lot more of the video power needed would be handled by the video card, and it takes a lot of audio to choke TB3 as far as I know.


----------



## Symfoniq (Oct 3, 2019)

ridgero said:


> I would immediately connect a power supplied TB 3 dock to the iMac, but my actual question is:
> 
> How much can handle one TB3 bus (= 2 ports) at the same time? 2x4k displays, 2 TB3 SSDs, 1 TB3 audio interface?
> 
> ...



Here's a good overview of the bandwidth issue: https://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2019/20190128_1352-understanding-Thunderbolt3-bandwidth.html


----------



## dzilizzi (Oct 3, 2019)

ridgero said:


> I would immediately connect a power supplied TB 3 dock to the iMac, but my actual question is:
> 
> How much can handle one TB3 bus (= 2 ports) at the same time? 2x4k displays, 2 TB3 SSDs, 1 TB3 audio interface?
> 
> ...


This has become an issue with my PC Laptop. Even though I have a 10 port powered hub, I get error messages when I fill even 7 slots saying the USB device exceeds the amount the bus can handle. I've been getting away with unplugging the drives I don't need for the project I am on. I may have to consolidate onto less but bigger drives. (there are 4 1TB SSDs and one 500GB SSD along with my 4 TB 7200 RPM drive) I really don't need them all for my laptop, it's just easier to grab them than to figure out which is which. 

I found a refurbished Mac mini for about $200. I think I may play around with it. If nothing else, I can download the OSX from iTunes with it to make my Hackintosh. Should be interesting.


----------



## 5Lives (Oct 3, 2019)

A refurbished iMac Pro seems like a good get right now. Two TB 3 buses for 4 ports feels more future proof and the benchmarks are still near the top.


----------



## synthetic (Oct 3, 2019)

I just wish they would hack the screen off an iMac Pro and make a Mac Mini Pro. That would be their sub-Mac Pro solution.


----------



## dzilizzi (Oct 3, 2019)

5Lives said:


> A refurbished iMac Pro seems like a good get right now. Two TB 3 buses for 4 ports feels more future proof and the benchmarks are still near the top.


How upgradeable are they? iMac make me nervous to upgrade other than the RAM. With my luck, the screen would slip as I was trying to take it off and it would be a very expensive lesson in how not to do it.


----------



## Symfoniq (Oct 3, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> How upgradeable are they? iMac make me nervous to upgrade other than the RAM. With my luck, the screen would slip as I was trying to take it off and it would be a very expensive lesson in how not to do it.



In practice, "not at all." Yes, you can cut the screen adhesive and remove the display to do a RAM upgrade or CPU swap, but the average user isn't meant to be able to do it.

The non-Pro iMac still has user-upgradable RAM, but it's the oldest Mac design. I expect to lose any user-upgradability once Apple updates it.


----------



## dzilizzi (Oct 3, 2019)

Symfoniq said:


> In practice, "not at all." Yes, you can cut the screen adhesive and remove the display to do a RAM upgrade or CPU swap, but the average user isn't meant to be able to do it.
> 
> The non-Pro iMac still has user-upgradable RAM, but it's the oldest Mac design. I expect to lose any user-upgradability once Apple updates it.


Okay, it is back to a Hackintosh. I really like to be able to upgrade the drives as prices drop.


----------



## JamieLang (Oct 3, 2019)

You absolutely CAN'T use big USB3 hubs, IME with OSX. I've never tried with Windows because you know--towers have plenty of IO. 

But, I think my studio nightmare that was running the LPX/Macbook is largely because I had two USB ports--being different root hubs, I put the USB2 stuff on a powered USB2 hub on one port....and the USB3 stuff on the a 7-10 port hub on the other side. I knew a Thunderbolt "dock" was the better technical solution, but they were EXPENSIVE a few years ago--and the whole purpose of my using the Macbook was trying to "get by on what was around".

To clarify: you can USE big hubs...you can't fully use them--meaning packing them full of things that your DAW needs on the regular.


----------



## NYC Composer (Oct 3, 2019)

Symfoniq said:


> Here's a good overview of the bandwidth issue: https://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2019/20190128_1352-understanding-Thunderbolt3-bandwidth.html


Wow, very interesting. So it really is a thing. Does the new Mac Mini, with 4 ports, actually have dual TB3 buses then?


----------



## Symfoniq (Oct 3, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> Wow, very interesting. So it really is a thing. Does the new Mac Mini, with 4 ports, actually have dual TB3 buses then?



The Mini does have two buses, just like the iMac Pro and MacBook Pro.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 3, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> Did you know there’s AppleCare for U.S. humans? It’s called “Medicare”. I’m signed up. Goes for longer than three years too, assuming you do. Magnificent!



Wait... Medicare is now an extended warranty rip-off?!

When did that happen?



NYC Composer said:


> I’m NOT BUILDING A HACKINTOSH



Larry, you really should consider having someone else build it for you. They're fantastic, no trouble at all. I have four of them, three for parts for the first. It's amazing how many whetstone bounds rect disk access frame rates I get with the GTX9000004.133323232 graphics gaming card and refresh single-core performance shooting bad guys with cap on backward.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 3, 2019)

Symfoniq said:


> Here's a good overview of the bandwidth issue: https://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2019/20190128_1352-understanding-Thunderbolt3-bandwidth.html



"Next consider dual 4K displays: that eats up at least 28 Gbps and as much as 32 Gbps, leaving only 8 Gbps to 12 Gbps = 1.0 GB/sec to 1.5 GB/sec for regular data. A single 5K display will eat ~22 Gbps, leaving 18 Gpbs = 2.25 GB/sec."

"These figures are for outbound traffic (e.g., writes) and aside from flow control, inbound traffic (reads) are not so-limited."

Translation into French: je m'en fous.

Like Larry I'm over 100 years old, and I've managed to survive this long without any Thunderbolt at all.


----------



## JamieLang (Oct 3, 2019)

Thunderbolt, it should be stated for the record offers ZERO performance advtange over PCIe from 2004 and nothing but bandwidth on 1998's PCI cards. 

Look--it's what you have to use with a late model Mac. I get that...nothing wrong with that-I'm not "anti TB" or something-t's what I'd want for a new Mac...but, acting like someone with an old MacPro or for that matter a Hack is at a disadvantage not having Thunderbolt ports is misunderstanding the tech involved.


----------



## colony nofi (Oct 3, 2019)

JamieLang said:


> Thunderbolt, it should be stated for the record offers ZERO performance advtange over PCIe from 2004 and nothing but bandwidth on 1998's PCI cards.
> 
> Look--it's what you have to use with a late model Mac. I get that...nothing wrong with that-I'm not "anti TB" or something-t's what I'd want for a new Mac...but, acting like someone with an old MacPro or for that matter a Hack is at a disadvantage not having Thunderbolt ports is misunderstanding the tech involved.



ehhhhh..... so, well - that kind of misrepresents things a little as I understand it - but I also get where you are coming from! 

Thunderbolt IS for all intents and purposes (at first) a PCIe connection to the outside world. Expandability outside of the confines of a computer with much closer access to CPU than USB / Firewire etc etc. (So, its not just quicker than those other protocols for bandwidth, but also via the number of calls that can occur in a space of time, and even some forms of latency (not to be confused with audio latency!) . And its also a bunch of other things, allowing Display Port (sharing same bandwidth but a different protocol) and power to go down the same cable.

So its pretty damn cool in many ways. USB4/TB3 connections are the best of all worlds once they become a thing - although we are going to be in a world of pain for cables (USB-C connections but on cables that can only do certain things because a "can do all" cable is going to be VERY expensive!)

TB is the fastest external IO for a general purpose computer (ie, not specialised) that we have today. PCIe 5.0 is exciting for internal expansion (which are always going to be much much faster than anything external just because there are so many problems with high frequency signals and transport over any sort of distance without going to fibre... and fibre connections for PCIe 5.0 have interestingly been proposed....

So if one is to think of a thunderbolt hub, its really like a bunch of old school PCIe boards offering different IO to your computer, alongside all the requirements to push the IO of the PCIe signal thru a cable back to your computer. For a TB3 hub to offer USB3 for instance, it needs to create that USB connection. Its not native to TB3. But there's no problem doing that either - it just takes a little bit of effort. Ditto Ethernet. Or eSATA connections etc.

Get a good hub, and they really do offer a bunch of really interesting IO very simply to a laptop, which you can later also plug into your desktop. I do it here with a caldigit dock - which uses TB3 for my laptop and through an adaptor, runs very well through TB2 with my Mac Pro (except USB3.1 drives - which can randomly disconnect due to other OS weirdness when using TB2...)

BUT like you said... there really isn't anything wrong with an old MacPro. They had internal PCIe afterall. The disadvantage to not having TB ports is if you have equipment that can take advantage of it. So - very fast NMVe drives for one work much better using TB2 than over USB3.1. External graphics cards are only possible with TB - although still pale compared to internal versions (bandwidth limited!) . Running ethernet, 3 external drives, 2 dongles, controller keyboard, midi faders and soundcard all form a single hub with one cable from a laptop - this is nice too. . And convenient when I can use the same gear on my mac pro very easily. (I happened to like the trash can vibe - but for VERY specific things, including taking it with me to various jobs in cargo)


----------



## 5Lives (Oct 3, 2019)

Mini could be a nice option but when you throw in a good monitor, an external GPU (if you use like photoshop), it gets pretty pricey. And doesn’t have the CPU of the new iMac or iMac Pros


----------



## JamieLang (Oct 3, 2019)

Of course there's advantage over FW and USB. But, what I"m saying is that Apple users make a weird assumption that it's in ANY way superior to internal connectivity. It's not. Since Apple locked us OUT of internal connectivity, it's the best we've got for new machines.


----------



## synthetic (Oct 3, 2019)

5Lives said:


> Mini could be a nice option but when you throw in a good monitor, an external GPU (if you use like photoshop), it gets pretty pricey. And doesn’t have the CPU of the new iMac or iMac Pros



That's why I want the Mac Mini Pro. My 4k 32" monitor cost $700. If there's a better looking monitor then it's only noticeable to people under 40 who can't afford it.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 4, 2019)

It would be noticeable to me, and I'm over 40 and can't afford it!

Seriously, I hope everyone understands that the resolution is only a spec. There are other factors that make a monitor look good or bad. Same with TVs, of course.

And same with film cameras, for those old enough to remember them, and especially those who enjoyed playing in darkrooms. A lens' sharpness was only one factor affecting the feel of the images it produced.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 4, 2019)

And then there's this review from Scott Wilkinson (my predecessor as Editor of Recording magazine):









LG 88Z9 8K OLED TV review: If you’ve got the cash, this stunning TV delivers the goods


This monster-sized 8K OLED (88 inches measured diagonally) comes to market with a price tag much lower than was rumored, but it will still set you back about $30,000.




www.techhive.com


----------



## IFM (Oct 4, 2019)

I ended up just getting a 12 Core 6,1 with 64GB of ram to replace my 5,1 of the same config. That now means I’ll have a perfectly good 5,1 with a metal capable video card and usb3 for sale soon. 

then in a few years I’ll get a used 7,1 most likely.


----------



## NYC Composer (Oct 4, 2019)

IFM said:


> I ended up just getting a 12 Core 6,1 with 64GB of ram to replace my 5,1 of the same config. That now means I’ll have a perfectly good 5,1 with a metal capable video card and usb3 for sale soon.
> 
> then in a few years I’ll get a used 7,1 most likely.


Just out of curiosity, what did you pay?


----------



## IFM (Oct 4, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> Just out of curiosity, what did you pay?


I'll reply privately.


----------



## macmac (Oct 6, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> I use screen sharing between my MacPro and my Mini. Works seamlessly.


Could you tell me more on this? I googled but not sure it’s what you mean.


----------



## NYC Composer (Oct 6, 2019)

I use VEP on a Mac Pro connected to a Mac Mini, with a single monitor. A CAT cord connects the two computers via Ethernet. I enable screen sharing on the Mac Pro and see the Mini in my network. I click on the Mini icon to connect the two, then I have a screen within a screen, in other words the Mini shows up on the same screen and shares the same mouse. I can resize the Mini screen when I need to or hide it.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 7, 2019)

macmac said:


> Could you tell me more on this? I googled but not sure it’s what you mean.



Put two Macs on the same Ethernet network.

Connect to the one without the monitor (Network under the Go menu from the Finder). Select Share Screen, and the remote Mac comes up in a window just like any other program.

(You must have screen sharing enabled in the Sharing preference panel.)

Microsoft Remote Desktop lets you do the same thing with Windows computers - the PC comes up in a window on the Mac.


----------



## NYC Composer (Oct 7, 2019)

How was that different from what I said, Nick? (Other than being more succinct, of course.)


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 7, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> How was that different from what I said, Nick? (Other than being more succinct, of course.)



I missed your reply. Sorry.

But it's worth adding that screen sharing is a lot faster than it used to be, to the point that you - at least I - am not conscious of it being slower than a KVM switch (keyboard, video, mouse).

It's amazing how much computer crap I've bought over the years that's now sitting in a pile of boxes in my garage somewhere.


----------



## NYC Composer (Oct 7, 2019)

I’ve done a fearless inventory of junk and thrown 90% of it into recycling. If you lived in a tiny apt in Manhattan, you would too.

Still got ADB connectors in there?


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Oct 7, 2019)

NYC Composer said:


> I’ve done a fearless inventory of junk and thrown 90% of it into recycling. If you lived in a tiny apt in Manhattan, you would too.
> 
> Still got ADB connectors in there?



Of course.

I have boxes of old connectors buried in there. And that's after filling a trash company's bin + the back of the full-cab pickup track pulling it with clutter from my garage a couple of years ago.

That bin was a good 8' x 15' - not just a trash bin.


----------



## NYC Composer (Oct 7, 2019)

I still have my G4 and G5. None of the connectors. No MIDI interfaces. I need to take them both to electrical recycling and get them crushed,but...well...

They’re heavy.


----------

