Converting to Apple From PC. Need DAW recommendations.

[Kaneda]

Also gives you MainStage which is a good live performance program.

Mainstage is a separate purchase, although it's not expensive at all (around 39 euros, I believe)...

 

[happyrat1]

What's available in the way of affordable video editing software as well?

And what other "must have" software should I be looking into?

 

[Kaneda]

What's available in the way of affordable video editing software as well?

And what other "must have" software should I be looking into?

What Logic Pro is to Garageband, Final Cut Pro is to iMovie. If you like both Garageband and iMovie, you’re bound to like their respective ‘Pro’ versions…
Both Garageband and iMovie are free and come pre-installed on your Mac, but you already knew that…

Also, check out DaVinci Resolve, there’s a free and a pro version. Otherwise, you have Adobe Premiere Pro, subscription based.

I wouldn’t bother with any of the rest…

As for other must-have software, that’s difficult to say, depends on your needs. So, your mileage may vary…

 

[Biggles]

We have Final Cut Pro and as a very long time user (30 years) of Adobe Premiere its not a patch on Premiere.

As Kaneda suggests, Da Vinci Resolve is the one to go for, the Mac and PC version is free so give it a try. The pro version is called Studio and it includes extra features especially the ability to handle Professional Camcorder footage like that which Broadcast Quality Camcorders produce.

The free version handles lesser resolution footage, HD and 4k and the outputs are limited compared to the Studio version but they do include HD, Youtube, etc

Plenty of video tutorials on the Black Magic Design webpage, they are the producers.

DaVinci Resolve 19 – Training | Blackmagic Design

Professional video editing, color correction, visual effects and audio post production all in a single application. Free and paid versions for Mac, Windows and Linux.

www.blackmagicdesign.com

If you watch some of the tutorials then you you may see that Resolve is a lot like a combined Premiere & After Effects.

EDIT
Resolve has state of the art colour correction features, used in many Hollywood blockbusters to colour grade post production, many years ago BMD specialised in colour correction plug ins for editing programmes, they then started to make their own with the latest iteration being 18.

MUST HAVE SOFTWARE.
Depends if you use word processors and are into images if so then:-
Pages, word processor
Numbers, spreadsheet
Keynote, presentation
iMovie, video editing
Garage Band

All the above are free, download from Apples App Store

For Images then Affinity Photo 2, is my suggestion, it is similar to Photoshop but a one off cost. I have their suite of three Photo, Publisher & Designer

The only software we have bought for the iMac is, Final Cut Pro, and Reunion (genealogy family tree app). The Affinity suite included PC, Mac & iPad versions for a one off low price of £89.

 

[happyrat1]

I just ordered a 152 page user guide to the mac mini m2.

Before anything comes out of its box I'm definitely going to learn what's what by RTFMing the hell out of it

(Anyone want to buy 100 lbs of obsolete PC programming and repair books? )

Forewarned is forearmed.

Once again unto the breech!

Tally ho!!! The game's afoot...

Gary

 

[Biggles]

Read the section on Backing Up using Time Machine.

We have two usb hard drives attached, one just for Time Machine, the other for storage of Documents, Video, Image, Files etc

Out of the box it may well want you to use the subscription based iCloud.

 

[happyrat1]

This thing has 2 thunderbolt ports.

Should I attach a second 500 gig thundertbolt SSD drive to double it's swap capacity or would USB 3.0 be good enough?

Everything that works for Apple costs triple the price of the same functionality on an Intel machine.

Gary

 

[SeaGtGruff]

Everything that works for Apple costs triple the price of the same functionality on an Intel machine.

Welcome to Apple World. And don't expect to be able to simply swap out a dead battery for a new one, unless the EU got them to change their ways about that sort of thing.

 

[happyrat1]

I gave due consideration to either a tablet or a macbook, but I've always been more adept with a desktop. The mini offers a modular approach for a bearable entry price.

And I managed to get 6 years use out of the linux machine.

It retires with honors.

As for batteries? The only one in there should be a CMOS battery good for about a decade.

All in all a small price to pay to join in the real world of media production

Gary

 

[Biggles]

My Wife’s Mac is coming up to being ten years old, zero issues, zero crashes.

The two Drive we have attached are each 2 TB WD mains powered, USB 2.

1 Tb of the external USB store drive is filled with the Camera backups of her SD cards.

I used Free File Sync to make an exact copy of her User folder on the Mac HD, further use is just to sync the files which are not encrypted, it behaves like the old DOS command xcopy.

 

[Kaneda]

This thing has 2 thunderbolt ports.

Should I attach a second 500 gig thundertbolt SSD drive to double it's swap capacity or would USB 3.0 be good enough?

Everything that works for Apple costs triple the price of the same functionality on an Intel machine.

Gary

I assume you're talking about that machine with 8Gb of RAM ? Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. As far as I know, only the internal SSD is used by the OS for memory swapping.
I guess you could do it but it would involve lots of tinkering with the Terminal, and then you'd be right back in Linux (well, UNIX) land...

If you want to use an external drive as a 'scratch' disk, you'd better go for the fastest one you can get. USB3 is good for backups, Thunderbolt will be a lot better, but still far from the blistering speed of the internal SSD...

 

[Biggles]

Better to spend cash on as large an internal SSD as you can.

 

[happyrat1]

Apple seems to think 1 TB is good enough for the Pro Model.

The one I bought is the one in the middle with 512 GB.

The difference in price was almost double.

Hopefully Apple optimizes the software for the current hardware.

I'll run it for a few months and if it can't keep up, I'll trade it in on an upgrade at the Apple store.

Received a 2 TB USB-C Samsung SSD from Amazon today.

Everything is sitting in boxes until a couple more essential bits of hardware show up.

They should be in by next week at the latest.

Gary

 

[happyrat1]

Last item, 16 port USB 3.0 powered hub should be here by next Tuesday.

Meanwhile I've picked up a copy of Logic Pro X for dummies to speed up the learning curve.

By the time I have it up and running I should be familiar with the basics.

Gary

 

[happyrat1]

Have assembled and fired up the M2 today, currently waiting for all the bells and whistles to download with Logic Pro.

I have 2 hours to kill...

 

[Kaneda]

Have assembled and fired up the M2 today, currently waiting for all the bells and whistles to download with Logic Pro.

I have 2 hours to kill...

2 hours just to download all Logic Pro’s 70gb content ??

 

[happyrat1]

2 hours just to download all Logic Pro’s 70gb content ??

It's actually closer to 90 gigs.

That's the equivalent of over 20 DVDs.

We don't all have gigabit Internet.

Gary

 

[happyrat1]

Apple is nickel and diming me to death.

Logic was over $300 CDN, then I needed antivirus, vpn, uninstaller, and even a laughably simple document converter has a price tag

By the time I have a working system I'll have dropped another grand on this pig.

Gary

 

[Kaneda]

Only the sun comes up for nothing… or something like that

 

[Biggles]

My Wife’s 27” 5k screen iMac cost me £2400 add to that the cost of 2 USB hard drives (one for Backup of the OS and the other for none encrypted backups of her User Folder) plus software ie Final Cut Pro and Reunion (just spent $50 updating this to the latest version).

As near as damit £3k spent on it and as it is 11 years old it equates to c£270 a year so no ownership of any Mac does not come cheap.

You have done the best Apple option of not buying an all in one.

If you want your eyes to water configure a Mac Pro