Making Images, Music, and More with AI on a Mac Mini: One Idea, Many Uses

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tutorialaicomfyuimacimage-generationvideo-generationmusicollama

If you’ve wondered how AI image or music generation actually works—or whether you can run it on a Mac Mini—this is a short, plain-language guide. The main idea: the same pattern applies whether you’re making an image, a track, or a clip. You pick a “model” (a large file trained to create that kind of output), describe what you want, let it run through many small steps, and get a result. I’ll outline that pattern, then walk through running ComfyUI for images on a Mac Mini.

One idea for images, music, and video

Choose a model — a big file trained on lots of data to make that type of output. Describe what you want — e.g. “a cat on a sofa” or “upbeat piano, rainy day.” Run it — the model refines things step by step (more steps = often better, but slower; on a Mini, a few minutes per image or track is normal). Use the result — image, audio, or video file. Different tools, same idea. I use ComfyUI for images and the same flow for music: pick model, describe, run, get output.

Why run it yourself?

You choose the model (no lock-in to one website). No usage caps. Your prompts and outputs can stay on your machine. The tradeoff: some setup time, and on a Mac Mini each image or clip can take a few minutes instead of seconds.

What you need

Mac Mini with Apple Silicon (M1–M4). Plan for at least 10–15GB free (app + one image model). ComfyUI Desktop for Mac only runs on Apple Silicon.

Install and first run

  1. Download the Apple Silicon build from the ComfyUI Desktop – MacOS guide (ARM64 DMG).
  2. Install — open the DMG and drag ComfyUI into Applications. The guide has a screenshot of this step.
  3. First launch — open ComfyUI from Applications or Spotlight. When asked how to use your Mac’s graphics, choose MPS (correct for Apple Silicon). Pick a folder with several GB free for its files. Let it finish; it may download Python and other bits (can take a while). If something fails, the MacOS guide has troubleshooting and log locations.
  4. You’ll see a canvas with boxes and lines (nodes). You don’t build from scratch—you load a ready-made “workflow” and type your prompt. The Getting Started with AI Image Generation guide has a screenshot of the interface.

Load a workflow and generate an image

  1. In the app: Workflows → Browse example workflows (or the folder icon), then select the default Image Generation workflow. Use Fit View if it doesn’t fit the screen.
  2. The workflow needs an image model. The first generation guide suggests one and shows what to do if it’s missing (often a Download button; the file can be several GB). If you add a model from elsewhere, put it in ComfyUI’s “checkpoints” folder, then select it in the “load model” node.
  3. In the text box (e.g. “CLIP Text Encode”), type what you want—e.g. “a cat on a sofa”—and optionally what to avoid. Click Queue.
  4. ComfyUI runs left to right. The “drawing” step takes most of the time on a Mini (one to several minutes). When it’s done, the image appears in the “save image” node; right-click to save.

Why it’s slow: The model refines a noisy starting point step by step until it matches your words. More “steps” (often 20–30) = better quality, more time. On a Mini, use smaller sizes (512×512 or 768×768) and fewer steps (15–20) while learning. One image at a time keeps things stable.

Music, video, and text: same pattern

Music: ComfyUI now supports audio generation natively with ACE-Step 1.5. Go to Workflows → Browse Templates → Audio and load the ACE-Step workflow. Type a style (“upbeat piano, rainy day”) and optional lyrics, hit Queue, and get an audio file. Full songs generate in seconds on a decent GPU.

Video: Wan 2.1/2.2/2.6 models run natively in ComfyUI—go to Workflows → Browse Templates → Video for ready-made text-to-video and image-to-video workflows. Bigger files, longer runs than images, but the same “model + prompt + run = result” idea.

Text: For text generation (chatbots, writing), Ollama lets you run models like Llama, Gemma, and DeepSeek locally. Install it, run ollama run llama3.2 in Terminal, and chat. Apple Silicon’s unified memory makes Mac Mini surprisingly capable here.

Once the pattern clicks, you can switch between images, music, video, and text without relearning.

Going further

For more depth and troubleshooting: ComfyUI official docs, Stable Diffusion Art – ComfyUI, and ComfyUI on GitHub.

Video tutorials — image, video, audio, and text generation:

Image generation — Sebastian Kamph’s complete ComfyUI beginner’s guide (install, nodes, workflows, and first image):

Video generation (Wan 2.6 in ComfyUI) — latest Wan video model with reference-to-video, by Sebastian Kamph:

Video generation (Wan 2.2 in ComfyUI) — character animation, lip-sync, and video workflows:

Audio/music generation — ComfyUI now supports ACE-Step 1.5, an open-source music model that generates full songs in seconds on consumer hardware. In ComfyUI, go to Workflows → Browse Templates → Audio → “ACE-Step 1.5 Music Generation AIO”, set a style tag (e.g. “upbeat piano, rainy day”) and optional lyrics, then click Queue. Same pattern: pick model, describe, run, get output.

Text generation — NetworkChuck’s walkthrough on running LLMs locally with Ollama and Open WebUI: