Using a Mac Mini for DSP

Hello!
I am wondering how many users are there out there using a Mac Mini for DSP to allow for more processing power.
wondering what types of experiences people have had out there/how well the machines work together. and if you would or would not recommend doing so
i would assume that it would help out with all of the processing and makes things sound better in the end?

I don't do it on a regular basis, but I tested out using an intel mini as a node on a G5, and it worked fine. Probably added about an additional 25% of what the quad could do (so if the quad did 100 of a plugin, the mini added 25 more).

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put it in a (still well ventilated) far away spot in the house, connect all your externals, and admin it via screen sharing from the new mini.
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Yes, and target disk mode, or firewire over IP or setting it up as a file server are all possibilities. But given there are faster more capacious hard drives for less, I would get that instead unless there is some feature of the Mac Mini that a simple hard drive can't do that you need. I.e. Front Row, Media Central or other software can be used to see your data on a TV. An external hard drive attached to your desktop Mac together with an AppleTV can do the same thing but the media formats are more limited.

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Hi all,
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I just finished my setup, and I'm quite satisfied. I bought a Mac Mini to use as the media center and bought the Elgato EyeTV 250+ to get digital television over the antenna, which also allows you to use your mac as a DVR. I send the video to a Sony projector via DVI to HDMI cable, and the audio goes to my old surround sound receiver via the headphone jack to RCA. If you don't have a receiver yet, I'd get one that has optical audio input since the headphone jack on the mini also has optical out. I also use a firewire external hard drive to store video.
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For the keyboard and mouse, I got the logitech dinovo mini keyboard because it has a trackpad integrated in the keyboard. While some of the buttons lack functionality, I will probably use ControllerMate to program them as well as difficult keyboard shortcuts. The other nice thing is if you have a "learning" programable remote because you can program it with the apple remote signal as well as the EyeTV remote and reduce the amount of clutter on the couch.

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sorry, I'd like to butt in here:
I would like to do the same thing, so I am curious about this forum and rather than starting a new one, can I get some advice on this possibility:
Mac Mini
1.83GHz Intel Core Duo
2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB
80GB Serial ATA drive
Glyph External HD 250 Gig
Mackie Onyx 1620 w/Firewire
Logic Pro 7.2
thoughts?
The most number of tracks I could see at once would be 16.
Here is something I am most curious about...
Firewire Hard drive
Firewire Interface/mixer
Firewire camera for FCP
to much firewire?
Please let me know if you have other thoughts aswell...
Shuke
thanks guys, this forum is fantastic!

I want to use a mac mini as a server supporting storage. Can I pair my macair to it for when I need to perform updates and maintenance ?

I want to use a mac mini as a server supporting storage. I have other devices such as an iMac and iPad that will access information from the server. I do not want to purchase a monitor and keyboard as the unit will sit in a cupboard out of sight. Can I pair my macair to it for when I need to perform updates and maintenance ?

I have a 2010 Mac Mini running Yosemite and Server which I use
as a headless home server.
I have is set up to allow screen sharing and can connect to it and
control it with my iMac, Macbook Pro, iPhone, and a 2011 Mini Server
that I use as an HTPC.
You can check this out for all the Yosemite Server capabilities:
https://help.apple.com/advancedserveradmin/mac/4.0/
I have iTunes Home Sharing set up on it and have my entire iTunes
library on it. I can then use any of my Macs to play Movies or Songs
from it and only keep locally a select subset of that on my individual
devices.
Rather than and update server, I utilize Server's Caching Service. The caching
server will duplicate any update download (system or MacApp Store purchases)
any time a device that is connected to my network down loads one. The update will
then be stored locally and all other devices will download the update from it which
can be faster than from Apple directly. This has the advantage of only having to download
once with limited bandwidth internet connections. There is also an Update Server service
available, but it is some what more involved in setting up. However, it will download
and store all available updates.
There is another thing as well if you do not care for syncing things like Contacts, Calendar, etc.
to iCloud, you can set Server up to sync these items across devices locally.

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I want to install win7 via bootcamp and I'm using my mac mini (october 2009) as an external optical drive. These are my steps:
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2.connect it to the macbook with a firewire 800 to firewire 400 cable
3.Power up and hold the "alt" on the macbook
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5.Then I get a blank screen and a few seconds later the "missing operating system" message appears.
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PS2:I've upgraded the hard disk drive of the macbook with a seagate momentus 500GB hard disk. Don't think this is the problem, thought I should mentioned it.

Hi Mike,
For reference it is called "IP over Firewire".
Connect the two computers with a fire wire cable. System Preferences > Network > Configure IPv4: > Manually > IP address: 192.168.3.1 (and .2 on other) > Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0. Leave the other fields blank. Do this on both computers on the computer you want to allow access to or both for two way access go to System Preference > Sharing > Select a service to change its settings. Turn remote Login on.
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Sweet Polly

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The question pretty much says it all.
I have a Mac Mini with an attached 3TB Hard Drive used for Time Machine Backups.
I have an Airport Extreme base station which services that machine plus several others.
I would like to backup my new iMac and a MacBook Pro to the Mac Mini.
What do I need to do on the mini to export that hard drive so that it can be used as a Time Machine target from the other systems?
All systems are running 10.6.8.

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First, is your AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBS) a 802.11n, 802.11g, or 802.11b model? Second, what is your primary goal for using this base station? Finally, is the AEBS the only router in your current network configuration?

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Please excuse the length of this question, but theres a lot of info that may be relevant.
I have a Widescreen HDTV, Panasonic CRT 30 inch Model CT-30WC14J, and have been using it connected to my iMac for a while to watch TV shows etc. For Christmas I decided to get a Mac Mini for this TV so we didn't need to constantly bother whoever was using the iMac to watch TV or whatnot. Anyway, I hooked the Mini up using the same cable I've been using for the iMac and although it is the same TV, OS (Leopard), and HDMI cable, the Mac Mini only offers 3 resolutions. 640x480 720X480 and 1920x1080. The first two being way too small the last being an insanely high resolution. The on the iMac I had it running in 1280x720 (and had the choice of a few dozen other resolutions if I'd wished it) . However I can't get the Mini to show any but those 3 resolutions. I found a program (SwitchResX) that can change the Mac to a resolution that is not normally selectable but any of the resolutions I need are not default. When I try to use it's custom resolution I'm way in over my head because I need timing parameters for my TV. I decided to install the program on my iMac and see if it could show the correct parameters for the resolution when the TV is hooked up to the iMac but that does not seem to work when I use those numbers on the Mac Mini, so that was a dead end.
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Thanks for looking.

Here is one thing I recommend trying since it has worked for other people under Leopard. Go into Displays preferences and click on the "Show displays in menu bar" checkbox. Go to the menu bar and click on the display icon. In the resulting drop down menu, scroll to "Number of recent items" and select 5 (or possibly try 10 if 5 doesn't work) and then restart the Mac. Hopefully this will expand the list of choices and you will see the 1280 x 720 timing that shows up on your iMac.

Using a Mac Mini for DSP

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