macbook for DAW?

tiger vomitt · Post by **tiger vomitt** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 5:59 pm

im thinking of getting a macbook (either the 2.0 ghz or 2.16) to use at home for rough ideas, leaving my larger desktop at a studio for "real" work.

my regular desktop system is an older dual gig G4, it's enough power for what i do. especially with 2 UAD cards, which are completely useless with the laptop...

i dont know any reason why it wouldnt be great at running stuff like DP, peak, maybe garageband...can someone point out some reasons it would suck? (besides the UAD thing) i havent used a laptop to do music on a regular basis, it's always been desktops

thanks!

dubh dubh dubh · Post by **dubh dubh dubh** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 12:22 pm

hey yo!
I've just ordered a refurb macbook 2.16 and mbox2pro, all reports are good for this combo, and I'll def. reply back when it's been put through its paces. I think you'd be well served by using a macbook for hot daw action. I went this route for portability etc., and should be fun as the 1st record I'm editing on it will be final mixed at jackpot! end of this month. Yum.

palinilap · Post by **palinilap** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 12:54 pm

tiger vomitt wrote:can someone point out some reasons it would suck? (besides the UAD thing) i havent used a laptop to do music on a regular basis, it's always been desktops

thanks!

You'll definitely need an external drive for running sessions. The 5400 RPM drive really doesn't cut it for running sessions or streaming samples.

tiger vomitt · Post by **tiger vomitt** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 1:18 pm

cool cool
i was looking to use it with one of my firewire drives, i think that should be ok..

Jess Ashes · Post by **Jess Ashes** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 1:29 pm

hey.

i'm have an ibook G4 1.2GHz running OS 10.4.1 and M-powered with a USB device.I also have a Lacie FW external drive. I initially had troubles tracking (it would stop and give an error after a couple minutes) but it came down to OS/PT incompatibilites. So it really should work - my machine is pushing 4 years old now and haven't had issues since the ones I mentioned. Use it all the time - though mostly for ixing on the fly and not tracking but it handles it well.

also - can't you choose to upgrade the HD's in the macbooks when you buy as well as choose glossy or flat screen?

tiger vomitt · Post by **tiger vomitt** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 3:26 pm

theyre all 5400 rpm, but there's prob no restriction against using a 7200 rpm +

musikman316 · Post by **musikman316** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:29 pm

A few months back an engineer buddy of mine was using a first gen Mac Book Pro (15.4", 2.0Ghz Core Due, 2GB Ram) and was editing a project with over 30 tracks, at least 3 plug-ins per track and literally hundereds of edits and didn't have any problems at all. He did have to start freezing a few tracks toward the end, but that session stands out because I was so impressed by what the laptop could do.

This was using Logic Pro 7.2 and a firewire Lacie drive.

So, for what it's worth, I think that the new MacBook or MacBook Pro would be a great addition to any studio, whether as the main tracking device or as a portable tool.

Josh

xonlocust · Post by **xonlocust** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 12:48 am

i use a macbook, one of the 1st generation intel ones, 2ghz intel core duo w 2gb ram w/DP, had no problem with 30ish tracks mixing recently. it'd slow a little if adding a bunch of plugins but it's fantastic for what i use it for. (sketch ideas mostly, sync additional tracks to tape machine, the occasional "full" session).

it's fantastic for bringing to a practice space for rough ideas and as a fancy (more than) 4 track. and even has handled bigger duties as well.

jc_terrones · Post by **jc_terrones** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 6:08 am

I have been able to record my band's rehearsals on my Macbook Pro, to the internal drive, with absolutely no hiccups. We're doing 14 tracks of simultaneous inputs too.

When I don't want to take my drives with me to a place I shouldn't be mixing at, I can easily copy projects around 30 tracks thick to the internal drive, using many, many instances of URS Classic Console Strips and other plugs.

I prefer using external drives for portability/safety, yet you should still be able to record to these internal drives, no problem.

I use Cubase 4.

tiger vomitt · Post by **tiger vomitt** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 9:15 am

the speeds of the macbook vs macbook pro dont seem that much different. i wonder how much different the track count on a macbook would be

touched1 · Post by **touched1** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 6:52 pm

I feel I should chime in here and point out that I had to add a FW800 express 3/4 card to my 2nd gen MacBook Pro to get optimal performance out of it.

I run the soundcard on the FW400 bus from the logic board, and an external drive on the fw800 express 3/4 bus.

Chaining devices on the built in FW bus did not yield good results for me using Ableton LIve 6 and a Metric Halo 2882 +DSP with a 5400 rpm drive piggybacked on it.

Putting a 7200 RPM drive on the fw800 express 3/4 bus eliminated pops, clicks and hiccups my system was having.

Admittedly, it was a heavy Live set, a few hundred high quality clips with tons of plug ins, but the issue I had was FW bandwidth, not drive, ram, or processor performance.

jc_terrones · Post by **jc_terrones** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:57 am

You were having that many problems using the FW800 on the Macbook Pro that you had to buy another Firewire card? Hmm, I wonder what I am doing different.

My setup is as follows:

Macbook Pro (most recent)
2 GB RAM
Cubase 4
MOTU 828 MKII into the FW400 port.
2x 200GB LaCie drives chained and hooked into the FW800 port.

Projects usually end up in the 24 track range with heavy URS/Vintage Warmer plugin usage.

Flight Feathers · Post by **Flight Feathers** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:03 pm

i've been using my Macbook Pro (2ghz, 2gb ram) for that last year with Logic as my primary DAW. it's been very smooth so far. i'm using an external LaCie hard drive connected through the Firepod firewire jack. i haven't done any songs with crazy track counts, but so far so good. i have noticed that Logic process seem to run much faster on the Macbook than on a G5 tower.

thieves · Post by **thieves** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 1:23 pm

I've been using a 2.0 gHz macbook with ableton 6 for the past year or so and couldn't be happier. i keep telling myself that i'll run out and get the external 7200 and/or another gig of RAM the minute i need it, but i haven't gotten to that point yet. My sessions usually top 24 tracks (not loops, either, full 3-5 minute takes), with tons of effects, but haven't felt the need to upgrade yet. it's a wonderful little machine, and it's a whole lot easier to take my macbook/firepod setup to record remotely than it was to take my old g5 tower. i recently had to record pianos for about 5 songs in a span of a few hours at someone's house and had no problems getting up and running right away, and using three mics on the piano, the end result sounds great.

DryCounty · Post by **DryCounty** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 5:25 pm

jc_terrones wrote:You were having that many problems using the FW800 on the Macbook Pro that you had to buy another Firewire card? Hmm, I wonder what I am doing different.

My setup is as follows:
e FW800 port.

Projects usually end up in the 24 track range with heavy URS/Vintage Warmer plugin usage.

All macsbooks (pro and non) have a single Firewire bus that 400 and 800 run on, so regardless of whether you daisy chain or run one off 400 and another off of 800 you'll hit the same xfer limitations, thus it's wise to get an expresscard to use as that's a completely different bus.

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