What's the easiest way to strip down a Mac MIni and OS Snow Leopard to be just a music server?

[Mike Gillespie]

Hi, just wondering if anybody has a list or a link to alist of what to take off the MAC OS and Mac Mini (re hardware drivers I don't need etc.) so I can just use the Mac Mini for running Itunes plus Pure Music or Amarra and nothing else. I'll be running an SSD drive and will either put music there as well, or connect for music storage via Firewire to large HD, or via CAT 6 to server HD on fast router. I'm new to Macs (just got the first one - a Mac Mini). Thanks for the help.

 

[wgscott]

cf: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/MAC-MINI-Operating-System-Optimisation has some suggestions.

 

I wrote a shell script to do some of these which is posted in that thread i think.

 

There is also a company that you can pay to do it for you.

 

OS X 10.6 however really doesn't need to be optimized. Turning off spotlight and hourly time machine backups might help, but in general the sytem is already optimal.

 

I personally would advise against disabling filesystem journaling.

 

[RobGoodison]

Here's a few 'optimisations' I employ:

 

1. Clean install with the base OS only.

 

2. Apply the latest combi OS upgrade (10.6.6 at time of writing - around 1GB download).

 

3. Turn off spotlight - easiest way is to go into System Preference > Spotlight. Deselect all categories in the 'Search Results' pane. In the 'Privacy' pane, drag the start-up disc and any attached discs.

 

4. Turn off Energy Saving measures - System Preferences > Energy Saver. Drag all options to 'Never'. Untick the 'Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible'.

 

5. If you do not use Bluetooth devices - System Preferences > Bluetooth. Untick the 'On' box.

 

6. Turn Time Machine off. System Preferences > Time Machine.

 

7. Disable Automatic Software Updates. System Preferences > Software Update.

Deselect the 'Check for Updates:' option.

 

8. If you do not have an Apple Time Capsule or Airport Base Station...Applications > Utilities > Airport Utility > Preferences. Untick all three options.

 

9. Turn off Dashboard. Open up the Terminal application and type:

 

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean true

 

Press return. Type:

 

killall Dock

 

Press return. Close Terminal.

 

10. Turn off Spaces. Open Terminal and type:

 

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces -bool false

 

Press return. Type:

 

killall Dock.

 

Press return. Close Terminal.

 

11. Delete the Mac App Store Application.

 

12. Install Rogue Amoeba's SoundSource Application (http://www.rogueamoeba.com/freebies/). It's an Application that allows rapid switching of Sound sources, and access to Audio MIDI settings.

 

You might want to check out a couple of utilities that enable easier access to some of the 'hidden' features of Mac OS X Snow Leopard and iTunes:

 

Deeper: http://www.titanium.free.fr/

TinkerTools: http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

[wgscott]

Here is a shell script, from that other thread, I made (on request) to do many of the above-listed things and a few others:

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/files/audiophool.zsh_.zip

 

 

 

[wgscott]

Did you know with 10.6.X, if you option-click on the little speaker menu bar icon thingie you can choose between output sources?

 

Also, a command-line version of this functionality, useful for scripting, can be had from here: https://github.com/deweller/switchaudio-osx

 

 

 

[RobGoodison]

Did you know with 10.6.X, if you option-click on the little speaker menu bar icon thingie you can choose between output sources?

 

I did, but Soundsource has a little more functionality...and has a cooler icon ;-).

 

It's rather moot now...I'm up/over sampling all my audio files to 24/96, so once set, I shouldn't have to touch it again. Slow process though, even with Sound Manager, it's taken the best part of two days to convert...(Mr. Dylan and Mr. Young...why do you have to be so prolific...)

 

 

 

 

 

[wgscott]

Shakey wants us to listen on blu-ray at 24/192

 

Good luck with the upsampling. Is this really better than having your DAC do it?

 

[RobGoodison]

Shakey wants us to listen on blu-ray at 24/192

 

One of the compromises of married life. I can't clutter up the living room with speakers to do it justice, but have converted one of the spare bedrooms into a headphone listening den.

 

Good luck with the upsampling. Is this really better than having your DAC do it?

 

On my system, there is a marked difference.

 

Mac mini (2010) > Apogee Duet > Denon AH-D7000 headphones.

 

Core Audio upsampling wasn't that great; Pure Music's realtime upsampling was better, but didn't sound entirely convincing. Using Sample Manager to upsample the files to 24/96 made a noticeable difference.

 

The headphones are closed, and have a slight emphasis on bass - the upsampling has injected some treble detail and a little more spaciousness which was lacking.

 

 

[dmccombs]

There are a lot of things that you can do to optimize OSX, and the better your system is, the more obvious these optimizations will be sound-wise. Rob's list is an excellent start. Great post Rob...

 

[VT Skier]

Rob, can you provide a little more detail about how you're upsampling inside the computer rather than through the DAC?

 

[RobGoodison]

Rob, can you provide a little more detail about how you're upsampling inside the computer rather than through the DAC?

 

EDIT: JPEG attached to show Sample Manager workflow...busy chugging through Neil Young's 55 albums...

 

EDIT2: I backed-up all the 16/44 files before upsampling them, which is why I opted to overwrite the files...Sample Manager gives the option of creating copies of the files before it modifies them.

 

Firstly - apologies to the thread starter ( Sorry Mike) ;-)

 

This is what I'm doing:

 

1. Importing CDs into iTunes - ripping to AIFF, error correction on.

2. Adjusting metadata to taste.

3. Removing tracks/albums from iTunes, but not deleting the files.

 

(The above might not suit other peoples workflow, but I find iTunes so much easier when it comes to editing metadata).

 

4. Move the files from the iTunes Music to my desktop.

5. Open up Audiofile Engineering's Sample Manager application (http://www.audiofile-engineering.com/samplemanager/).

6. I have the following Actions defined as the workflow within Sample Manager:

 

a. Convert Bit Range (Range = 24bit; Dither = None; Destination Options = In place).

b. Convert Sample Rate (Rate = 96000; Resample = Yes (tick); Converter = iZotope Resampler; Quality = High; Destination Otions = In place).

 

7. Drag audio files from the Desktop into Sample Manager's File pane.

8. Wait until the program analyses the waveforms (can be disabled from the programs Preferences, if required).

9. Select the files in the pane, then click the green Run button in the toolbar.

 

What happens next is a two-stage conversion to the files - firstly converting the files from 16 to 24 bits, then converting the sample rate from 44.1kHz to 96kHz.

 

(A word of warning - make sure you have plenty of hard-drive space available. Deselect the 'Enable Undo' option in Sample Manager preferences will save space too).

 

10. Once converted, add the converted files back to the iTunes Library.

 

(My Audio MIDI settings are set to Apogee Duet 24/96 - I'm using vanilla iTunes at the moment).

 

11. Listen, and in my case, a substantial improvement in sound quality.

 

YMMV - it sounds better in my system, but may not with anyone else.

 

(Btw - Sample Manager has a 15 day/10 tracks at a time demo version available. (The 10 tracks is limited when you click the Run button...no restrictions on how many times you click on the Run button - just select a different 10 tracks each time, or try on albums with 10 tracks or less to start off with)).

 

Hope that helps.

 

Rob.

 

[VT Skier]

Yow. How long does this take you, per song or per album?

 

[RobGoodison]

Yow. How long does this take you, per song or per album?

 

Less than a minute per track...but when you have around 10,000 tracks...it takes a while ;-)

 

 

[blueixus]

On the upsampling theme there has been another thread running about the value of this.

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Sound-better-uncompressed-downloaded-files

 

I've always been sceptical but I gave it another try and with broadly positive results.

 

Software wise I am using Korg's Audiogate which gets a nod from Studio types, It is 'free' but for some reason you have to send a 'tweet' every time you create a new file...

 

Also while I am here a big thank you to RobGoodison for the tip on 'Deeper' it worked for me, I am not going near terminal so being able to turn off some of the Macs functions using this was great.

 

[Bob Stern]

Audiofile Engineering makes a similar product called Wave Editor.

 

The downside of Wave Editor compared with Sample Manager is that it lacks batch processing and AppleScript support, but it should be possible to overcome that with GUI scripting.

 

The intriguing feature of Wave Editor is that the low-pass filter used for sample rate conversion is much more configurable than in Sample Manager. You can adjust cutoff frequency, steepness, and ratio of pre-ringing to post-ringing. I think it would be interesting to try reducing the ringing by choosing a lower cutoff freq, low steepness, and zero pre-ringing. This would be similar to the custom filter in the Ayre QB-9.

 

[Bob Stern]

This upsampling discussion is so far afield from the original topic that I think it would be helpful to move it to a new thread.

 

My suggestion is that Rob Goodison should start a new thread by copying and pasting his very helpful extensive explanation. I'd be happy to then move my comment to that thread.

 

[RobGoodison]

My suggestion is that Rob Goodison should start a new thread

 

Will do.

 

[wgscott]

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