Is a dual Mac Mini system powerful enough to pull off large-scale recording and the intense workload associated with it? 

LA studio owner and post mixer, Jamey Scott of Dramatic Post, decided to put it to the test. Originally an owner of 8 core Mac Pro 6.1 Trash Can, Jamey decided to test the new Mac mini as a replacement. However, the results have been mixed. He has been kind enough to share his story with the community… over to you Jamey….

The Set-Up

I’m using two of the latest 6-core i7 minis (64GB/1TB/10GbE);

• One for my main Pro Tools DAW (w/HDX3 in a Sonnet Chassis)

• Another with the exact same specs as my RMU system (housed in a Sonnet xMacMini chassis with a Focusrite Rednet 128ch Dante PCIe card).

Performance - February 2020

I’m getting the performance that can easily handle pretty-much anything I throw at it with tons of CPU headroom on both systems.

I just created an .atmos printmaster on my RMU running from a monster session on my main DAW (600+ optimized tracks DX/MX/FX/StemRec which was originally built up on my 8-core trashcan). I’m sending 3 (DME) 7.1.2 beds and 60 objects over the Dante network of the MTRX to the RMU. The RMU system laughed at all of it, processing it with ease while simultaneously sending video to my projector (via VideoSlave into a Blackmagic 4K card). CPU measurement hovered around 15% while recording/punching. This unit’s session was pushing the limits of my previous 8-core trashcan to the point where I had to optimize plugin usage. This was mainly because all of the HDX3 DSP was taken up by mixers, so I just switched my DSP plugins over to Native and that made things run smoothly. Obviously, the DSP scenario is the same with the mini as it was with the Trash Can, but with most of my EQs and stuff loaded on the Native CPU, things run much smoother and snappier then they did with the Trash Can.

I like that they’re so compact, more energy-efficient, and I can easily pack up my entire rig in a 6U rack when I need to work on a bigger stage.

The Big Bang Theory - The Mac Mini Died - June 2020

I only had one warning shot before the mini completely blew and that was a shut down the day prior. I came in from lunch and my system was off which is an odd feeling to walk into. It ran fine for the rest of the day and the following day. On the night it blew, I was just working and it shut down and never powered up again.

The repair facility I took it to is an independent but Apple authorized service center since all of the Apple stores in my area are still closed due to Covid-19. The tech that I talked to just made very brief statements about what he thought the problem was since he hadn't looked at it yet but he surmised that it was most likely a logic board failure because he had taken in a bunch of the minis and many of them had similar failures, so it appears that my scenario was not an outlier. I'm sure I'll know more once the repair is complete and I can chat with the guy about it. 

Was Cooling A Factor?

In regard to your question about cooling, I have a small machine room in my facility with an AC vent directly overhead of my 8' gear rack. Even though it's a shared AC system with my mixing room, It normally stays very cool in there as I generally keep the AC flowing throughout the day.

The mini was set up in a Sonnet Mac Rack (the newly 2018 mini modified version with the larger vent holes in the front) which was basically just a shelf for turning on the computer from the front of the rack without having to reach behind and flip the power button on the back of the mini. I had just installed the mini in that piece about a month before it blew and noticed that it was getting pretty hot on the top but no hotter than the mini when it was not enclosed in the Mac Rack.

My initial thought was that putting it in that enclosure caused the meltdown, but the more I've thought about it, I think a far bigger contributor was over-taxing the USB IO. I had connected 2 Atom Raid drives, the Sonnet Echo III PCIe enclosure for my HDX cards, and an OWC Thunderbolt dock to the USB-C ports, as well as 2 powered hubs to the USB3 ports, both with a variety of USB2 and USB3 peripherals attached to that, so every hole was filled and usually churning at capacity.

Recommendation?

I've known all along that I'm asking a lot of it by throwing an intense professional-level workload at a basically consumer-level machine. The 6-core i7 version that I've been banging on has great specs/ speed and has felt generally snappier than my previous 8-core Trash Can Mac from the get-go but as I've discovered, at the end of the day it's not the kind of machine that should be used by a power user like me, who pre-dubs and mixes very large Atmos ProTools sessions day in and day out.

That said, I think it's a perfectly capable system for dialog editing, foley editing, or even light FX editing but once it goes past the editorial stage and into dubbing or pre-dubbing, my results have proven that you're asking for trouble. 

UPDATE: Swapped To 2019 Mac Pro - Late June 2020

I thought I'd update my little Mac Mini saga for anyone who's interested:

I took the mini to an "Apple Authorized" repair shop (Unitek in Sherman Oaks) and the dude kept it for 3 weeks and told me it was a problem with the power supply and that he fixed it with a new attachment cable. I brought it home and it wasn't fixed so I'm scheduled to take it to an actual Apple Genius next week.

So I made the executive decision to kick it to the curb and buy a new Mac Pro 12-core. It was kind of expensive and I didn't want to spend that money, particularly because I'm staring down the barrel of a very extended employment hiatus, but I've got work to do now and I had to do something so I just sucked it up and went for it.

After working on it for a few days now, I have to say it is nothing short of an exceptional machine. Barring a few Catalina related issues, it is a very satisfying working experience right such a robust horse like this.

But here's the coolest thing that will interest you folks (and I must give credit to Michael Phillips Keeley who gave me the idea) and that is that I can now run my big mix sessions and the Atmos Renderer on the same system WITH the ability to use my HDX cards (as opposed to forsaking them to use the Dolby Bridge). I just took the RedNet PCIe card out of my render server and put it in one of the slots in the new Mac Pro, re-routed all of the Dante from the MTRX to go right back into the same machine and walla... it all works! I've got a pretty sizeable HT session running in the pic below w/ 3x 7.1.2 DME beds and 22 objects and if you can see the meters, the machine is running around 27% at full tilt, all tracks playing, and the renderer rendering. I think this is all the machine I'm going to need for a little while.

And that brings to an end my particular "can the Mac Mini handle big Atmos projects?" saga. My answer is, yes, of course, it can... but I'd rather do it this way.

Jamey Scott

What Are Your Experiences?

Thanks, Jamey for that excellent summary of your experience, most helpful.

We know many Mac mini users who swear by the machines, many top post mixers are using them including Alan Meyerson. So did Jamie get a dud or is your experience of the Mac mini the same? Let’s keep sharing our stories to stay as informed as we can about the pros and cons of the options available.