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Buying a second hand Mac, advice needed as I’m a windows guy.

chrisoldroyd

chrisoldroyd

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 5, 2016
18
3
So, I want my first Mac, but I dont have the budget for a new one, I’m looking at around £600 or $750 max. I was thinking of picking up a second hand Mac Mini or iMac as a cost saving alternative. What specs should I look at to run GarageBand really well and maybe even Logic in the future? That’s all I really want it for as I’m a musician and want to go Mac as I hear it’s so much better.

i have no idea what ram I should look for and if a particular model is upgradeable either. An SSD, again happy to fit one myself if it’s saves me a lot and is easy enough.

any advice would be hugely helpful.

cheers
Chris
 
You didn't indicate how many instruments/samples you'll be needing, but I had worked with many low budget musicians and they are fine with most low end macs. When I was working with a non-profit computer recycling facility, musicians who work as buskers would use older macs. Some older PowerPC laptops and some use older Core 2 Duo laptop macs and some 2nd and 3rd gen Intel CPU macs like the Mini 2011 and 2012, because musicians in general aren't super wealthy and rich. So most older Macs will do just fine. I still use my PowerMac G5 and Mac Mini 2011 to make music. Sound Studio with my G5 and Protools/Garageband on my Mini. Also, what is your instruments connectivity like; are they Firewire based or are they USB/Thunderbolt based? And which copy of Garageband and Logic are you planning to run? The latest or some older versions? Again, it's hard to recommend any used Mac without knowing what you are planning to use the Mac to make music on.

To give you an example; a ex-colleague of mine who worked with me at the non-profit computer recycling facility is a professional musician and recording artist. His computer is an AMD Ryzen with 12 cores, about 2x faster than my Mac Pro which is already really fast and he uses it for professional recording with indie artists and he needs all that power due to his use of extensive library of instruments and samples and his computer is at the right horsepower. And yet, he had recommended other musicians working as buskers use older Mac laptops. There was one lady that he recommended who works as a busker and she uses an old Powerbook Mac to run her musical systems and it cost like $30 to her. She uses an older version of Garageband and that worked out great for her. So you see; there's no right or wrong rule which is the right mac for the job; though I would recommend that you stay with Intel Macs based on your budget.
 
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My brother is a musician (weekend) and does all the recording and post production into CD and uses a pair of 27" 5K iMac with tons of multi track & synthesizer gear.

Look at the Apple refurbished store for an iMac 4K or 5K - do NOT get the fusion or HDD version.
Look for the SSD only iMac otherwise all that money spent will be wasted on an excruciating slow HDD.

Awhile back, I had to install a pair of Thunderbolt LaCie SSD drives in order to get his iMacs to perform fast enough......
 
If you get a Mini, get AT LEAST the 2012 model, which has USB3.
Anything earlier than 2012 (2011, etc.) has only USB2.

BE AWARE that the 2014 Minis have SOLDERED IN RAM that cannot be upgraded.
DO NOT BUY a 2014 Mini with 4gb of RAM. 8gb at the absolute minimum.
 
As for the hardware : apart from the advices in previous posts , I'd recommend as much RAM as possible.*
If you're working with Garageband or Logic Pro, you'll need at least a SSD or better: a NVMe blade.

As for the software: Garageband (used to be) for free and can be seen as the little brother of Logic Pro.
So you could work a while with it to get comfortable , and later on buy Logic Pro , it's definitely worth the investment.

Logic (and Garageband) is developed by Apple and I've never had any issues with it, it just works flawlessly together with the OS.

EDIT: * = 16GB minimum, preferably e.g. 32GB
 
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A few thoughts on the Mini... as was posted, be wary of the 2014 Mini, the RAM cannot be upgraded (although you can add a SSD pretty easily). The base 2014 1.4ghz Mini really should be avoided entirely, the 2014 2.8ghz i5 and 3.0ghz i7 might be suitable, but it could be hard to find these with 16gb RAM.

The 2012 quad-core Mini's are worth looking for, there was a 2.3ghz and 2.6ghz version that are pretty close in terms of speed. RAM was designed to be user-upgradeable and is very simple. SSD can be added/upgraded but it gets into relatively complicated surgery. They can only accept a maximum of 16gb of RAM, but CPU performance is about the same as the entry-level i3 2018 Mini. These 2012 quads are actually about 50% faster than the top-spec 2014 Mini. The 2018 has a number of other advantages however.

For your budget, it sounds like you could afford a used 2018 Mini, which would arguably be the best choice in terms of support and compatibility with new software. RAM was not intended to be user-upgradeable, but it is possible and many people get the base 8gb model and do their own upgrades (up to 64gb max). But be aware of what you are buying, Apple's official policy is that user-upgraded RAM voids the warranty (although they may or may not enforce this).

I have seen several enthusiastic reviews of the 2018 Mini from people involved in music production. Some even suggested they were the perfect target for the 2018 Mini, since the main complaint has been the graphics chip, which doesn't matter with audio software.

I have been running Logic Pro going back to my 2011 MacBook Air which only had 4gb RAM and a 256gb SSD. It actually worked fine for my own needs. It runs even better on my 2013 MacBook Air with 8gb RAM - but much better still on my 2012 quad Mini with 16gb. My needs are pretty basic though, live recording with 8 tracks and some basic plug-ins like reverb & EQ. Looking forward to trying it on my new 2018 Mini, but I'm still in the process of setting that up.

For your budget you might also afford a refurbished 2018 Mini (not quite sure of the pricing in your country), which has the same warranty as new. Just got a 2018 refurb myself, and nobody would be able to tell it isn't brand new. You need to check the refurb store frequently, there are lots available but they sell very quickly and then there are none for days. Be prepared to buy immediately if you find one that you like. Took me a little over a month of constant checking to score the exact model I was looking for. :)

www.apple.com

Refurbished Mac Deals - Apple

Save up to 15% on a refurbished Mac. Tested and certified by Apple including a 1-year warranty. Free delivery and returns.
www.apple.com
 
chrisoldroyd said:
I am looking at a late 2014 i7 with SSD and 16GB of ram. I can get one within my budget.
Click to expand...

If you can purchase from a seller who has a warranty/return policy do so. I vaguely remember a post sometime back where a purchaser scraped together enough money to buy a used system (probably not a mini). It failed, repair costs were way beyond what he/she had paid, so he/she lost the money. Tragic.
 
My daughter is an amateur singer and musician and has increasingly used her equipment for Physio tutorial videos. She uses Logic Pro extensively. Mac 21 inch circa 2014 if I remember correctly and a quite badly abused Mac Pro 2013. Neither have more than 8GB of RAM and I don't think the Mac has an SSD. Still she keeps on rocking with no issues at all. Obviously get the best hardware you can but don't get hung up over it.
 
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