Randy-
Bah.. forget it... Mac.... I know some of my coworkers did buy Macs... but the never used that crazy GUI... they booted into Unix and then loaded X-Term into it... or whatever other presentation manager suited them.
PCs are not bad. The hardware is fine actually. A modern I5 running win10 prp 64 bit should run quite well. Get a Dell MFF... load it afterwards with RAM and add a second M.2 SDD to it. Last year I bought myself a refurbished Dell Optiplex 7090 MFF with a 10th gen i7. I've upped the RAM to 32GB and have a pair of 1TB m.2 SDDs in it. Windows 10 Pro 64 bit. It runs very well. I got a Mediasonic RAID5 box with 4 6TB WD Red HDDs in it, via USB 3.1. It's hardwired to my home LAN via GigE.
For my wife, I bought her a refurbished Dell Optiplex 3080 MFF with an 11th gen i5. Also upped it to 32TB RAM, added a second M.2 1TB SDD and it runs great on her desktop.
So it all comes down to cost.... the Dell outlet is great but they no longer have Win10 machines and usually the cheapest is around $600... if you are going to go lower, look for an Optiplex MFF with at least an 8th gen i5. Or an i7 depending on what you are going to run on it. Make sure to get Win10 Pro 64 and then use your M.2 SDDs in it.
Mind you.... I have not programmed an Intel chip set for quite a while. I've been programming ARM chip sets now for over 12 years. I did do some application support software running on a PC using Ubuntu and CentOS.
The truth today, is that the only difference between Mac and Intel is the use of the Operating systems... and Linux is doing extremely well in the PC hardware world. I have two Ubuntu machines at home. The day Max dropped the PPC architecture was the day they lost their hardware advantage... cheap ba$tard$ really.
Bah.. forget it... Mac.... I know some of my coworkers did buy Macs... but the never used that crazy GUI... they booted into Unix and then loaded X-Term into it... or whatever other presentation manager suited them.
PCs are not bad. The hardware is fine actually. A modern I5 running win10 prp 64 bit should run quite well. Get a Dell MFF... load it afterwards with RAM and add a second M.2 SDD to it. Last year I bought myself a refurbished Dell Optiplex 7090 MFF with a 10th gen i7. I've upped the RAM to 32GB and have a pair of 1TB m.2 SDDs in it. Windows 10 Pro 64 bit. It runs very well. I got a Mediasonic RAID5 box with 4 6TB WD Red HDDs in it, via USB 3.1. It's hardwired to my home LAN via GigE.
For my wife, I bought her a refurbished Dell Optiplex 3080 MFF with an 11th gen i5. Also upped it to 32TB RAM, added a second M.2 1TB SDD and it runs great on her desktop.
So it all comes down to cost.... the Dell outlet is great but they no longer have Win10 machines and usually the cheapest is around $600... if you are going to go lower, look for an Optiplex MFF with at least an 8th gen i5. Or an i7 depending on what you are going to run on it. Make sure to get Win10 Pro 64 and then use your M.2 SDDs in it.
Mind you.... I have not programmed an Intel chip set for quite a while. I've been programming ARM chip sets now for over 12 years. I did do some application support software running on a PC using Ubuntu and CentOS.
The truth today, is that the only difference between Mac and Intel is the use of the Operating systems... and Linux is doing extremely well in the PC hardware world. I have two Ubuntu machines at home. The day Max dropped the PPC architecture was the day they lost their hardware advantage... cheap ba$tard$ really.
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Good unit, that one. It's the simple little things, though, like an aggregate of audio interfaces with macOS vs asio4all on Windows. Super integrated iCloud data and media management. Not many reports of USB problems while performing live, vs Windows USB audio being historically unreliable for live performance
Man, thanks for ongoing assist with info
I should have mentioned that the desk will be mobile. I.e. used for performing DJ, live EDM type dub and so on. It will need to run both the Roland MX-1 and Yamaha MG12UX over USB concurrently, as well as a Roland DJ505 controller. PC, however powerful, does struggle with this, but it's an easy aggregate on macOS. I don't want to get a laptop, Windows or MacBook as I prefer using the 32" screen for mobile use and lots of USB inputs help too with all the midi controllers. I have two iPads as dual input sources for the analog inputs for the DJ controller. In the past I had been reduced to analog only due to USB problems when DJ'ing live. That is really my main reason for eventually migrating to an all Apple platform
I couldn't tell you - I run Linux because it works, and it's FOSS.
I CAN tell you I've never had a crash or other issue spinning a live Mixxx using control vinyl though.
Pipewire has certainly helped in that regard - Pulseaudio is kinda crap.
Not sure what you use to "DJ", but if you pay for DJ'ing software, you should look at Mixxx - It's cross platform.
https://mixxx.org/
It worked well enough on my 2nd gen i7 2600k, but it's butter on my Ryzen 9 3900X 🙂
What PSU do you use on your PC? It is far too often overlooked but it should be the first and foremost component needing attention.
Randy, as you run a lot ( in my view) of usb powered gear what i told about battery hold true: have you done some basic power requirements calcul?
I mean the 5v rail on your psu would be in high activity, if a bit weak it might explain some bugs you encountered.
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My latest pc built seen same as you Kodabmx: psu and case ( 4u rack, short depth 38cm - stack well with my Emu and Kurzweil samplers 😉 ) where the pricey items...
Goal was an air cooled silent pc: psu is an 'old' seasonic semi passive with the best power rails that was availlable atthat time ( around 2015).
Goal was an air cooled silent pc: psu is an 'old' seasonic semi passive with the best power rails that was availlable atthat time ( around 2015).
My setup is using an EVGA Supernova G2 850W and 280mm AIO liquid cooling on a Ryzen 9 X570 system (Gigabyte Aorus Elite). 32GB ram, 5700XT video, Sound Blaster Z PCIe (the only card I found with optical INPUT), 1TB Sabrent NVMe, 2TB Corsair MP600 Pro NVMe, Fractal Designs case (slightly "modified" (butchered) to make the 280MM radiator fit)...
Next upgrade will either be another 32GB ram before DDR4 is rare and expensive, and a new disk to replace the dual 4TB drives that are in "pre-failure" mode.
For a truly silent machine, you can get fanless Seasonic 600W supply now, and a passive cooler: https://pcedged.com/cpu-cooler/best-fanless-cpu-coolers/
Video will be crap since my 5700XT idles at 60°C with the fans blowing - there is no fanless video card that goes gaming.
Next upgrade will either be another 32GB ram before DDR4 is rare and expensive, and a new disk to replace the dual 4TB drives that are in "pre-failure" mode.
For a truly silent machine, you can get fanless Seasonic 600W supply now, and a passive cooler: https://pcedged.com/cpu-cooler/best-fanless-cpu-coolers/
Video will be crap since my 5700XT idles at 60°C with the fans blowing - there is no fanless video card that goes gaming.
It's the fan noise that makes me weary of the little machine I linked to the OP. It's nice on paper but does it sound like a hair dryer?
I had a cooler that used a 60mm blower fan running at 7200 RPM once and it really did sound like a hair dryer.
I once built an AMD Athlon system using the AMD Barton XP-M 2500+ (1866MHz) chip in a desktop. I got it to overclock to 2500MHz by boosting the CPU to 2V (the Vmax of the chip according to the datasheet instead of 1.45V), a 225W Peltier, and a large air cooler. It was faster than anything sold in a store for over 2 years, but that last 100MHz was just stupid! it would run at 2400MHz on 1.8V and no Peltier. Not worth triple the power consumption for an extra 4% boost in speed, but then again some people OC using LN2 🙂 The TDP of the chip was 45W LMAO
I had a cooler that used a 60mm blower fan running at 7200 RPM once and it really did sound like a hair dryer.
I once built an AMD Athlon system using the AMD Barton XP-M 2500+ (1866MHz) chip in a desktop. I got it to overclock to 2500MHz by boosting the CPU to 2V (the Vmax of the chip according to the datasheet instead of 1.45V), a 225W Peltier, and a large air cooler. It was faster than anything sold in a store for over 2 years, but that last 100MHz was just stupid! it would run at 2400MHz on 1.8V and no Peltier. Not worth triple the power consumption for an extra 4% boost in speed, but then again some people OC using LN2 🙂 The TDP of the chip was 45W LMAO
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I had to butcher my Emu E6400 classic case because it was in vaccum cleaner class relative to noise... some holes later a 80mm fan was instaled in place of the 50mm one... inaudible in duty.... was worth the hassle to keep it running ( it still sound as FAT and NAUGHTY as in 'Hardware Renegade' peak area- it should talk to you Koda!) 😉 .
In the pc i talked about i used only 12cm Noctua's fans in the front panel and a 92mm on processor heatsink. All pwm controled with a 'custom' profile:
Silent enough to be located close to artist when they perform takes ( SSD and M1 cards for OS as rom)...
Cable management inside case is not to be overlooked too it lower noise floor and help keep things cool inside. If you can locate the pc close to floor too, it helps to keep thing cooled ( heat goes up...).
In the pc i talked about i used only 12cm Noctua's fans in the front panel and a 92mm on processor heatsink. All pwm controled with a 'custom' profile:
Silent enough to be located close to artist when they perform takes ( SSD and M1 cards for OS as rom)...
Cable management inside case is not to be overlooked too it lower noise floor and help keep things cool inside. If you can locate the pc close to floor too, it helps to keep thing cooled ( heat goes up...).
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My case has several 120mm and a 140mm fan, the AIO coolter has 140mm fans. All PWM and using the stock bios setting for "Silent"...
It's not silent, but I can hear a quartz clock ticking 10 feet from me that's louder... My tinnitus is also louder at the moment 🙁
It's not silent, but I can hear a quartz clock ticking 10 feet from me that's louder... My tinnitus is also louder at the moment 🙁
You know... those SSDs get really hot when you write to them. Our enterprise PCIe NVME SSDs came with huge finned cases and got installed in pizza boxes with fans sourced from a 747 ( because they sound like a 747 ).
We had a fire in our lab, where we did all kinds of crazy IO performance and stress tests... one of the fans in a PC failed, the PC overheated and the overhead sprinklers (radon) went off.... that wasn't too bad, but the sprinklers outside the lab (water) also went off. It was a mess. Thankfully it didn't come into the office areas - or the bathrooms!
So, if you're worried about heat in your PC ( Mac too ) use something like a WDC Green drive: spins slower, uses less power, runs much cooler.
We had a fire in our lab, where we did all kinds of crazy IO performance and stress tests... one of the fans in a PC failed, the PC overheated and the overhead sprinklers (radon) went off.... that wasn't too bad, but the sprinklers outside the lab (water) also went off. It was a mess. Thankfully it didn't come into the office areas - or the bathrooms!
So, if you're worried about heat in your PC ( Mac too ) use something like a WDC Green drive: spins slower, uses less power, runs much cooler.
This may be due to copying many small files at once. There's overhead for the system to process. For example, if you were to copy 2Gb of individual music files versus a 2Gb zip file of same music files, the zipped file would copy faster.
If you're getting 100Mb peaks, that's actually not bad. Have to consider the read/write speed of all the drives and connections.
Krivium
That Windows computer was a Samsung i7 machine, new 10yrs ago. USB audio would tend to drop out frequently regardless of which port. Sometimes it wouldn't drop out all together but dropped in volume and quality. There were a pair of USB 2 ports and a single USB 3, and they seemed to be in some sort of conflict with each other. Had issues with both class compliant and proprietary driver stuff. On the Boss BR-800, Yamaha MG12UX, generic USB soundcards it was all the same. An older laptop was doing the same with my older Bheringer 12fx console, and the USB section of the mixer went into brick mode during the middle of a DJ'ing at the wedding. The Boss BR-800 was the only one that ran on bus power, and I used a powered USB hub to get enough ports for dongles and flash drives needed for the performance. The mixer and recorder always went to the built-in ports
I think it's got more to do with Windows really not liking audio interface aggregates, easily damaged female ports and such. I wish all my USB gear had lighting ports for zero rock and solid connection
I had been thinking about building a machine based around the low wattage AMD chips. Maybe if the Apple mini M2 turns out to be not powerful enough, I could look into building a silent PC. I haven't been able to make a shopping list for a silent PC and top the specs on the mini, though. I expect the Apple to be fairly quiet as it's aimed at the pro audio market
This is where my hand on and staying in touch started tapering off. I made something similar around then too, Barton based AMD Athlon black edition around 2010 maxed out and running in another room due to fan noise! Those were interesting times. I cheered for the underdog AMD, the race to 1ghz was as fascinating as a Bathurst 12hr. Do I remember AMD winning with the Athlon K7 to 1ghz correctly?
Heat is a factor here in QLD, at home the aircon is always on, so the gear is always chilly, but for live performance I am worried. Heat and humidity on days when you can pour air into buckets are also when all the birthdays and things are on!!!
I consider myself a fairly good boat designer and builder. There is a plan of attack for this once I have finished my home renovations. I have the need to keep my feet cool and have been thinking about making a road case out of PVC foam in a carbon fibre composite sandwich and build a small air conditioning system in it that will also blow out through ports under the case and facing ones. Last night, I changed my mind about making my home desk mobile due to this reason. A dedicated DJ desk will be quiet and cool (pune intended)
Cool, relief to hear that
Is this the same problem with browsing those folders and waiting for the thumbnails to update and the green progress bar in the address bar to complete? I have this problem scrolling any folder type where scrolling is needed. I am concerned that I may have some sort of problem, as my much older i7 laptop didn't do this
Hi Randy,
Ok. Could have been windows, a chipset issue on your Samsung ( the ones driving usb busses) or the hub ( not all are really 'transparent' and can sometime bring nasty thing).
Agregate is risky, even more for live acts.
I have a bit of experience about pc and live acts and we had all sorts of issues... from freeze to computer refusing to start.
I must confess we were hard on gear: powered on generators ( not regulated of course!) Used on cold and humid environment ( into woods in february at 5am...). Not at all what the doctor ordered... 🙂
I've got low experience with digital dj gear as i'm old school about this: a pair of SL1200mk2, an analog mixer and a sh.tload of vinyl is how i do it.
Makes the youngers brain explode to see someone synchronise discs by ear/hands ( i'm into techno/house style of mixing but play Drum & Bass). 😉
That said some of my friend use digital and what i've seen working is either 'integrated' solution ( Traktor with dedicated Ablton controllers) or well known brands gear ( the usual suspects Pionneers decks).
About computer, minimac are powerful enough. They works no worries about it. It's all about the gui/os: like Tony i dislike mac os more than windows ( which i do not like this much either but i managed to have something stable and on which i know what and where to do things).
Ok. Could have been windows, a chipset issue on your Samsung ( the ones driving usb busses) or the hub ( not all are really 'transparent' and can sometime bring nasty thing).
Agregate is risky, even more for live acts.
I have a bit of experience about pc and live acts and we had all sorts of issues... from freeze to computer refusing to start.
I must confess we were hard on gear: powered on generators ( not regulated of course!) Used on cold and humid environment ( into woods in february at 5am...). Not at all what the doctor ordered... 🙂
I've got low experience with digital dj gear as i'm old school about this: a pair of SL1200mk2, an analog mixer and a sh.tload of vinyl is how i do it.
Makes the youngers brain explode to see someone synchronise discs by ear/hands ( i'm into techno/house style of mixing but play Drum & Bass). 😉
That said some of my friend use digital and what i've seen working is either 'integrated' solution ( Traktor with dedicated Ablton controllers) or well known brands gear ( the usual suspects Pionneers decks).
About computer, minimac are powerful enough. They works no worries about it. It's all about the gui/os: like Tony i dislike mac os more than windows ( which i do not like this much either but i managed to have something stable and on which i know what and where to do things).
Krivium
I totally see the scene man, I started DJ'ing in the early 90s 🙂
I am only just getting into major digital hardware now. The USB part of the consoles and the Boss BR-800 were the only previous experience
I am setting up now so that I have full hardware playability with the MX-1 as mixer and soon to be added Roland JD-Xi to be the groove box with its 4 parts. One part is a 4 channel TR drum machine that can use many layers on each instrument and tune them deeply. Two digital synth parts with the Zen library of sounds and instruments. One analog part, which is shared with the vocoder (one or the other, not both at the same time). The vocoder has VT features as well as, something very unique to the JD-Xi. This is called autonote, I can play the bass guitar into the instrument input and have a synth sound playing along with it note for note, unlike using a midi keyboard to call the notes. This adds another member to the band! There is a hardware sequencer on board that can sequence all 4 parts
The MX-1 can run the JD-Xi from its Aira link USB port without using a computer or tablet but needs its own power
All my DJ gear is stored in my in-law's storage on a lil island. I need to add a DJ controller. The one that is best for my setup is the DJ-707M, but it is some serious money. The DJ-505 seems too hardware limited for the money and the DJ-202 is looking very attractive but locked to a computer of some sort
I haven't used macOS yet, so cant say about the GUI. I am expecting the programs to have similar GUI to the Windows ones, though
I totally see the scene man, I started DJ'ing in the early 90s 🙂
I am only just getting into major digital hardware now. The USB part of the consoles and the Boss BR-800 were the only previous experience
I am setting up now so that I have full hardware playability with the MX-1 as mixer and soon to be added Roland JD-Xi to be the groove box with its 4 parts. One part is a 4 channel TR drum machine that can use many layers on each instrument and tune them deeply. Two digital synth parts with the Zen library of sounds and instruments. One analog part, which is shared with the vocoder (one or the other, not both at the same time). The vocoder has VT features as well as, something very unique to the JD-Xi. This is called autonote, I can play the bass guitar into the instrument input and have a synth sound playing along with it note for note, unlike using a midi keyboard to call the notes. This adds another member to the band! There is a hardware sequencer on board that can sequence all 4 parts
The MX-1 can run the JD-Xi from its Aira link USB port without using a computer or tablet but needs its own power
All my DJ gear is stored in my in-law's storage on a lil island. I need to add a DJ controller. The one that is best for my setup is the DJ-707M, but it is some serious money. The DJ-505 seems too hardware limited for the money and the DJ-202 is looking very attractive but locked to a computer of some sort
I haven't used macOS yet, so cant say about the GUI. I am expecting the programs to have similar GUI to the Windows ones, though
Funny, when I went "digital" I bought a kludge of hardware that was the cheapest functional solution - Two Behringer UFO202 (but I had to open them up and cut two traces to make it work because the input is wired to the output from the factory so you can't use the input and output independantly out of the box), a Behringer DM4400 mixer, the ability to mix vinyl on one and control vinyl on the other by analog switching instead of using software.
The UFO202 cost like 25$ a piece. The mixer was 404$ on clearance. After 10 years, I still feel no need to upgrade it - that's after switching to a Traktor A6 until I sent 150V into it by a misplaced ground in the phono stage -- oops. I don't miss it, and now I can just use Mixxx instead of Scratch Pro.
The UFO202 cost like 25$ a piece. The mixer was 404$ on clearance. After 10 years, I still feel no need to upgrade it - that's after switching to a Traktor A6 until I sent 150V into it by a misplaced ground in the phono stage -- oops. I don't miss it, and now I can just use Mixxx instead of Scratch Pro.
Randy,
About GUI, mac os i used is kind of 'locked' compared to windows: it's a blessing when everything work as intended kind of nightmare when it doesn't.
Usually it works flawlessly but if not... I worked into an audio engineer school in first half of 2000 and they had partnership with Apple at that time so we had a bunch of G5 to take care of. Very nice case ( all aluminium) and computers when they worked... and with the config implemented it wasn't the case! It disgusted me of mac os as we spent hours and hours to make the thing work as intended.
That said in the studios i worked on after that experience, the same computer with Protools 'serious' hardware implemented were all rocksolid stable.
Same thing happen with win based pc but as you have easy access to almost anything it made troubleshooting easier to me. But you usually have to configure windows to be stable for your intended application... a pick your poison situation to me.
Koda 150v? Tube based preamp? Remind me of some Numark mixer which had tubes preamp. A 'signature' model from an house 'star dj'. Sounded sweet.
About GUI, mac os i used is kind of 'locked' compared to windows: it's a blessing when everything work as intended kind of nightmare when it doesn't.
Usually it works flawlessly but if not... I worked into an audio engineer school in first half of 2000 and they had partnership with Apple at that time so we had a bunch of G5 to take care of. Very nice case ( all aluminium) and computers when they worked... and with the config implemented it wasn't the case! It disgusted me of mac os as we spent hours and hours to make the thing work as intended.
That said in the studios i worked on after that experience, the same computer with Protools 'serious' hardware implemented were all rocksolid stable.
Same thing happen with win based pc but as you have easy access to almost anything it made troubleshooting easier to me. But you usually have to configure windows to be stable for your intended application... a pick your poison situation to me.
Koda 150v? Tube based preamp? Remind me of some Numark mixer which had tubes preamp. A 'signature' model from an house 'star dj'. Sounded sweet.