# Mac Mini or MacBook Pro for portable rig?



## danwool (Oct 26, 2019)

I'm considering having the company I'm working for buy either a 2018 Mac Mini or 2019 MacBook Pro as a portable rig for projects I do outside of my studio for them. I'll need something that can handle largeish MIDI projects on par with my current 12-core 3.33ghz cMP with 96GB RAM running DP. The 2019 MBP exceeds my cMP's 6541 Geekbench score, but can only take 32GB RAM. The Mini's GB score is below my cMP at 5756, but goes to 64GB RAM. The VI template I use currently uses up 70GB of of my 96GB of RAM...though was working okay when I had only 64GB somehow (that's for another thread).

I know a Mini owner that is getting the kind of performance I need, but don't know any 2018 or 2019 MBP users doing this kind of work. The company will go with whatever I say, but I'm not sure which of these machines would be best. 

The rig needs to be as compact and easily portable as possible. It will need to be set up and broken down every day so an iMac isn't really practical.


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## gdoubleyou (Oct 31, 2019)

I have a mini, but portable it's not.

I have seen examples of a mini mounted in a flight case with a small monitor.

The only advantage of the Mini is that you can install more RAM.

Sonnet does have a rackmount kits. https://www.sonnettech.com/product/rackmacmini.html


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## José Herring (Oct 31, 2019)

Ditto what gdoubleyou said. It would take quite some doing to get a mac mini portable. At least with the imac you can pick it up and go. The Mac mini you'd need to bring every computer component with you.

Personally I'd get the laptop.


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## danwool (Oct 31, 2019)

Thanks!

Hey, that Sonnet rack looks pretty cool, but yeah. I’m arriving at the same conclusion you two have. Among other reasons, the idea of setting up the entire rig just check something or make small changes to the project would be a pain. Plus I’ll be in locations with questionable power sources. The MBP negates the need for a UPS.

The MBP’s low RAM is its only real drawback, but I’ve heard from people that have pretty large templates that are happy with their 2019 MBP’s. It’s hard to imagine working with only 32GB of RAM on my cMP, but I guess all the other newness of a modern Mac makes up for it.


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## givemenoughrope (Oct 31, 2019)

How about both? (Or a laptop, a few minis and a small router) You could just screen share for the mini. Very portable if you don’t need an extra monitor/keyboard/mouse for the mini.


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## danwool (Oct 31, 2019)

This is a good idea. The project’s are mainly about mixing and playback of rendered audio tracks. It remains to be seen how much on-location composing I’ll be doing. Adding a slaved Mini via VE Pro would be an easy way to ramp up if I need to. Thx!

...and not that I need the real estate, but I wonder if the new 16inch MBPs will cram some more RAM into that extra inch.


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## colony nofi (Oct 31, 2019)

So I have been in your world a while - needing powerful rigs on the road.
Back in 2011 I had 2 (and then another 2) mac mini's running VEP each with 16GB ram, and a macbook pro as the workstation. It worked fine - but took a LOT of work to get to a stage of being easy to use / create with. The new mac mini's are great with being able to have 64GB ram - and just having one VEP slave will solve a lot of the issues I had.

when the trash cans came out I quickly grabbed one and realised that they were great for using on the road. It takes around 10 mins for me to setup, but I have the mac, keyboard, mouse, a thunderbolt hub, babyface pro, mini keyboard, trackball, faders, 24" 4K monitor, headphones, external SSD for samples (and occasionally genelec 8010 speakers) all packed in a single case which adds up to about 25KG. It means I can work on ANYTHING that is currently going on no matter where I am. The mac pro goes in its own case within the case - and I've never had an issue with carrying it around this way.

The 10 mins setup / pack down does get a bit frustrating but to me it is worth the time. You get very quick in learning how to set everything up / knowing exactly what cables you need. Getting cables that are close to the exact size you need is REALLY helpful (they are heavier than you think) and having a good checklist works wonders early on when getting used to it all. 

Having said all that... I also have a 2018 macbook pro, which really can do a tonne of work that even 5 years ago I would have never expected a laptop to be able to do. 32GB of ram can go a long way if you build into your workflows "low ram" alternative pathways. Funny thing with a laptop though - it doesn't cut down on a tonne of cables / gear. And for whatever reason, I find I still work slower on the laptop due to the screen size / resolution (and how that effects moving around sessions etc!) . How much this effects you comes down to your own personal workflows. Some people find the experience almost transparent.

Fingers crossed the 16" macbook pro is imminent. There's been whispers of 64GB memory being at least theoretically possible although I've also read that there's no platform suitable for the thermals of the macbook pro's that will allow that much ram... so who knows. We're all just reading tea leaves, and that's not a great way to plan your life right?


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## danwool (Oct 31, 2019)

Thanks for this thorough report! 

I'm planning on having 2 22inch displays and a full size keyboard available, so composing should be close to the 3 screen workflow I have in my home studio. My templates are pretty haphazard. With a minimal amount of forethought I think I could create a "low ram" VI template that does the job. 

I did a project similar to what I'm buying this stuff for in 2016 on a 2014 MBP (except no MIDI in that rig), and yeah there was a lot of cabling, hubbing etc considerations. This was before USB-C was introduced, so I haven't even started contemplating the myriad of configs I'll need to navigate that.

Creating this rig can wait a bit to see if the 16inch has more RAM. Should be any day now.

Thanks again


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## colony nofi (Oct 31, 2019)

No worries. 
In the past I've also used the ASUS 15" USB-C lcd's if you need to cut down on weight. They're not 4K, but two of them work quite well together. 
For a while it looked like ASUS was going to make an OLED 4k portable 21" monitor, but it became vapourware before it was released (sounds like it was just going to be too expensive to make it marketable!)


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## danwool (Nov 1, 2019)

Yes, there's some good 15" portable options, but I'll need 21"s or bigger. I've never had the need for 4k really. I think my bad eye sight would make Finder items etc. too small and a lot of plugins are not scalable.

I just read that the the new 16" MBP will only run Catalina, so that takes it off the table for me.


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## Shad0wLandsUK (Nov 1, 2019)

I am absolutely planning to use my 2018 Mac mini 6-Core for recording Orchestra live
Along with my Waves DigiGrid D and Beyer Dynamic DT 880 Pros and a 25" Dell U2515H or my Samsung 24" SA24DW Display

I think the mini makes for an awesome rig and up till now we have used a 2012 Mac mini, X32, M32 Live and a Presonus Mixer which have been fantastic :D


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## colony nofi (Nov 1, 2019)

A useful heads up - most dell monitors have stands that are "quick release" - the stand separates from the monitor.
I use a gaming monitor case - and take off the stand. then the stand fits into the case separately - freeing up a tonne of space.








Tusko Widescreen Gaming Monitor Bag by ROCCAT®


The Tusko gaming monitor bag champions gear protection with its advanced, all-round safety mechanisms and has enough space for a 20-24




en.roccat.org




(The pics have the stand still attached, but it works great without! Lies flat inside a hardshell medium sized checkin case perfectly! Never broken a monitor that way. But I *have* broken another 24" monitor when it wasn't in a bag like this...
The whole bag in a bag thing works damn well carrying around things like audio equipment on flights. I even have soft cases that perfectly fit mac minis. I think waterfield made them maybe? They definitely made the case I use for the mac pro trashcan.


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## colony nofi (Nov 1, 2019)

danwool said:


> Yes, there's some good 15" portable options, but I'll need 21"s or bigger. I've never had the need for 4k really. I think my bad eye sight would make Finder items etc. too small and a lot of plugins are not scalable.
> 
> I just read that the the new 16" MBP will only run Catalina, so that takes it off the table for me.


Yes, all the new macs only run Catalina. I'd say we are about 3 months out being able to run catalina for most audio applications. The new mac pros will kick things along quite quickly I think!


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## colony nofi (Nov 1, 2019)

16" mac also looks delayed until next year....


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## danwool (Nov 1, 2019)

colony nofi said:


> A useful heads up - most dell monitors have stands that are "quick release" - the stand separates from the monitor.
> I use a gaming monitor case - and take off the stand. then the stand fits into the case separately - freeing up a tonne of space.
> 
> 
> ...


These look very cool! I'm hoping to get the client to provide the monitors (as well as studio monitors and MIDI keyboard) in the places where I'll be working so I don't need to bring any with me at all, but if they don't these would be perfect.

I'm focusing on the Mac hardware and peripherals (storage, hubs cabling etc) as "the rig" and getting it set up and stable before I go. For DAW work any compatible display should be fine.

Re storage. I'd love to hear thoughts. The project requires playback of a lot of audio tracks. 200 to 300 or so. The last time I did a project like this I rented a ThunderBay 4 mini and striped SSDs RAID 0. It's super compact and it didn't blink at the track count. Unfortunately they don't make hose anymore, so I'm considering the full size ThunderBay 4 or, more likely an OWC ThunderBlade. Either seems more than adequate. Thx!

..this thing https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB3TBV4T02/


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## jononotbono (Nov 1, 2019)

If you want a portable system I would say get a Mac Book Pro and take a Mac Mini and connect it via VEPro. Fuck it, use 2 Mac Minis and have 128gb of ram between them. They are also small and portable.

Also, Buy an Apollo Twin for your interface, and enjoy the UAD plugins that run of the Apollo dsp sharc chips so they won’t tax your Mac Book Pro in the slightest. Throw in a small Native instruments M32 keyboard to play some basic stuff in, an SSD in an enclosure, a pair of decent headphones and lastly one of those shitty Korg NanoKontrol 2 fader units and you’d be good to go with a rather naughty portable set up. Oh and a USB/TB hub for all the other shit that needs to be plugged in.


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## danwool (Nov 2, 2019)

Yes, the answer to the OP seems to be: both!

A MADI I/O will be supplied by the sound system vendor for the project, but I will need a separate composing I/O. Since I/Os are largely DAW agnostic that too I'm planning on having the client procure. However, I do use UA plugins and Apollos are tiny. It might make sense to have that configured on my end. A NanoKontroler is an excellent idea. It could be quite handy. Thx!


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 2, 2019)

RAM is more important than Geekbench scores, which probably mean next to nothing.


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## danwool (Nov 2, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> RAM is more important than Geekbench scores, which probably mean next to nothing.


Oh. Does it? But better than just looking at just the CPU speed ain't it?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 2, 2019)

I guess, but it's sort of like looking at a person's IQ score to decide whether he or she is a good composer.

Okay, that's a ridiculous analogy and I should be ashamed of myself for coming up with it. But the thing to look at, in my opinion, is whether the machine can do what you need it to do without fainting.

And my assumption is that both machines you're considering will (as will any modern computer). But if you can't load everything you want to load, the whole thing is moot anyway - which is why I say that RAM makes more difference than the CPU tests.


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