In the process of retiring my 2009 4,1 Mac Pro — just grabbed an M1 Mac Mini on Marketplace yesterday.
The 4,1 is still running perfectly and can handle large and high sample rate Pro Tools sessions no problem at all. I was running into software issues (namely, the inability to update the OS) and doing some remote work on a newer M1 MBP which was a bit of a workflow mess and file management disaster.
(Btw — if anyone has some sort of process or even program to weed out duplicate files across multiple hard drives…let me know.)
Anyway, this isn’t all that relevant to your post; sorry! I think someone here posted (some time ago) that modern computers have essentially eclipsed the needs of pro audio. Hoping that’s true with my new purchase. Good luck!
Will a 2015 iMac still run Garageband OK?
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cpeck
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Larry Mal
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Re: Will a 2015 iMac still run Garageband OK?
Funny, about a year ago I finally gave up my 2010 Mac Pro and moved to an M2 Mini. I use Logic and Apple's bullshit forced obsolescence got me finally after 14 years.
Anyway, your Mini is much more computer than your Pro ever was, but get one or two of these so you can record to an external drive, and if you use a lot of samples you can keep them on yet another drive.
Back in those days, everyone knew that if you were talking about Destiny's Child, you were talking about Beyonce, LaTavia, LeToya, and Larry.
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cpeck
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Re: Will a 2015 iMac still run Garageband OK?
Great tip and great price! I had used some simple/cheap corded USB expanders for the Mac Pro and I’m certain they cooked a few of my drives. This seems like a much better option.Larry Mal wrote: ↑Wed Aug 21, 2024 2:06 pmFunny, about a year ago I finally gave up my 2010 Mac Pro and moved to an M2 Mini. I use Logic and Apple's bullshit forced obsolescence got me finally after 14 years.
Anyway, your Mini is much more computer than your Pro ever was, but get one or two of these so you can record to an external drive, and if you use a lot of samples you can keep them on yet another drive.
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Futuron
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Re: Will a 2015 iMac still run Garageband OK?
You wimps. I still have my 2008 3,1 MacPro in the office for editing 
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MrSparkle
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Re: Will a 2015 iMac still run Garageband OK?
Mine's in the basement at my job. I scrounged it's (Originally-HP branded) RAM for one of our XServes to give it another year of life.
I wouldn't run the 3,1 in production today, but with Nehalem CPU's the 4,1 and 5,1 are still marginal - as long as none of your software needs AVX.
Mind you if you're sane - either your pre-2017 Mac is completely airgapped and you use physical media to transfer data from it to an internet-connected machine; or you run an up to date linux; which is why I would only run a Nehalem box - there were a few key instruction changes in that arch that significantly improve modern OS's. Of course; then you're either virtualising MacOS anyway, or you're more like running Ardour - and if you're running Ardour you'll do a hell of a lot better on an Ivy Bridge or Haswell Xeon Dell machine, for much less cost than upcycling even a 5,1 to be worthwhile.
I'm a great believer in avoiding eWaste, I'm typing this on a 2011 Sandy Bridge laptop which I upgraded the RAM and storage in to ~ 2016 specs. I have a 1080p h265 video playing in another window, Discord, email, and some other stuff open. It's fine.
But you can do music recording on an $80 Pi 5 with two different DAW's open as well as full guitar-amp synthesis running realtime for monitoring. All at the same time. (For the detail, I was using Rosegarden on the left monitor to output midi to an external synth as a backing track, as well as Guitarix with a good amp and cab sim and a couple effects; IR's can be a struggle, but I was doing this on last year's Ubuntu with some very out-of-date kernel stuff for a 5; and had Ardour recording the synth output, the raw guitar, and the "amped" guitar all at the same time. Think I was at 20% total CPU?) Takes a lot to justify running a Mac Pro if you don't already have one spec'd out. Kinda feel the same about buying an intel iMac too.
Need to buy a recording PC, get a 2019 Optiplex x070 with 16GB of RAM for $200 (6core, upgradable to 128GB ram), a couple cheap/freecycle 1080p DP monitors, and install something other than garageband!
I wouldn't run the 3,1 in production today, but with Nehalem CPU's the 4,1 and 5,1 are still marginal - as long as none of your software needs AVX.
Mind you if you're sane - either your pre-2017 Mac is completely airgapped and you use physical media to transfer data from it to an internet-connected machine; or you run an up to date linux; which is why I would only run a Nehalem box - there were a few key instruction changes in that arch that significantly improve modern OS's. Of course; then you're either virtualising MacOS anyway, or you're more like running Ardour - and if you're running Ardour you'll do a hell of a lot better on an Ivy Bridge or Haswell Xeon Dell machine, for much less cost than upcycling even a 5,1 to be worthwhile.
I'm a great believer in avoiding eWaste, I'm typing this on a 2011 Sandy Bridge laptop which I upgraded the RAM and storage in to ~ 2016 specs. I have a 1080p h265 video playing in another window, Discord, email, and some other stuff open. It's fine.
But you can do music recording on an $80 Pi 5 with two different DAW's open as well as full guitar-amp synthesis running realtime for monitoring. All at the same time. (For the detail, I was using Rosegarden on the left monitor to output midi to an external synth as a backing track, as well as Guitarix with a good amp and cab sim and a couple effects; IR's can be a struggle, but I was doing this on last year's Ubuntu with some very out-of-date kernel stuff for a 5; and had Ardour recording the synth output, the raw guitar, and the "amped" guitar all at the same time. Think I was at 20% total CPU?) Takes a lot to justify running a Mac Pro if you don't already have one spec'd out. Kinda feel the same about buying an intel iMac too.
Need to buy a recording PC, get a 2019 Optiplex x070 with 16GB of RAM for $200 (6core, upgradable to 128GB ram), a couple cheap/freecycle 1080p DP monitors, and install something other than garageband!