Macbook for music

[spiral]

Hi,
I have a 12" powerbook and I'm not that happy with it, so I was thinking of getting the new macbook mid level model. I'm a little woried about the intel chips, lots of instruments i use haven't specifically been adapted for the intel macs (but my main sequencer: Ableton Live) has. Will this machine actually be faster than my current powerbook? Any pieces of advise from other laptop composers?
Thanks!

 

[Legacy]

Hi,
I have a 12" powerbook and I'm not that happy with it, so I was thinking of getting the new macbook mid level model. I'm a little woried about the intel chips, lots of instruments i use haven't specifically been adapted for the intel macs (but my main sequencer: Ableton Live) has. Will this machine actually be faster than my current powerbook? Any pieces of advise from other laptop composers?
Thanks!

Which PowerBook do you have? I'd say a Core Duo 2.0 is probably about a 1.2Ghz G4 emulating, and 1.83 is 1Ghz..maybe more or less but not much more...

 

[williamh]

Hi,
I have a 12" powerbook and I'm not that happy with it, so I was thinking of getting the new macbook mid level model. I'm a little woried about the intel chips, lots of instruments i use haven't specifically been adapted for the intel macs (but my main sequencer: Ableton Live) has. Will this machine actually be faster than my current powerbook? Any pieces of advise from other laptop composers?
Thanks!

Woohoo~ music composer rules!!

Logic Pro runs perfectly on Macbook (the guy from the local dealer showed me).

However, I have no idea about other universal binary programs tho. I'd love to know too!

 

[spiral]

My powerbook is the 1.33 GhZ version.
Did the guy in the store talk about third party instruments in logic... this is my main question. Will running something like NI FM7 or Gforce's Oddity slow down my entire machine, or will the fact that they are running as plugin's in Ableton Live save me?

 

[Mr. DG]

Its well known that the G4s are underpowered for ableton. Im on a mac mini core solo and the new ableton 5.2 runs beautifully on it. A 1.83 macbook will fly. And it'll fly even more in a few months when ableton release Live 6 which has dual core support.

However - there are very few Universal effects or instruments available yet, so you'll more than likely be without some either for a while, or worst case, they won't be ported at all. Any VST written for PPC will NOT work with ableton Live 5.2. Older versions of Live are unusable (caveat: maybe real old versions like 1.5 or something might work) on Intel Macs under Rosetta - the CPU use is always over 100% in the Live meter.

If you're happy with just Audio Units and a few VSTs then upgrade. If not, wait or buy a cheap(er) powermac in a few months.

go here:
for fx
and here:
for instruments

all universal.

 

[spiral]

So you're saying that Audio Units work fine in Live regardless of weather the developer has updated them (I'm thinking specifically of Korg Legacy, GForce Oddity and IMPoscar, And ReFX Vanguard and QuadraSID), but VSTs don't?

 

[Stampyhead]

You might want to check with the manufacturers of the particular instrument libraries and see what their requirements are.

 

[Mr. DG]

sorry, i should have said that only the Apple audio units that come with osx work fine, because they're universal. Others will need to be updated.

 

[spiral]

Oh shoot! So that means that if I were to open a non-UB Audio Unit Rosetta would kick in and the computer would end up even slower than my current powerbook?

 

[spiral]

So the final verdict is do not buy a macbook for music production. I did a bit more research and it seems that if the plugin's haven't been rebuilt in UB, then they will slow down your whole computer if they work at all. It's going to take quite awhile 'till most software will work properly on the intel-macs. Dang! Guess I'll have to stick with the ol' powerbook for now, maybe I can find a 15"er on ebay for not to expensive, and ditch my 12"er

 

[MRU]

We have a recording studio and have for a month or two been running ProTools 7.1 LE off a MacBookPro with an Mbox..

All audio obviously recorded to external drive. Works perfectly. tRacks, Antares AutoTune, Sampletank etc... all work great and had very few problems at all.

It provides the same power as the Dual 1.8 Powermac overall.

Perfect, powerful portable recording studio....

The macbook is essentially the same, albeit with integrated graphics that count for nothing with pro-tools, so Im confident the MacBook would make a great portable for audio recording....

 

[Nar1117]

Woot! Ableton Rules. Plain and simple, i love it. Just finished a project using Ableton recently, it rocked

Im glad to hear that Pro Tools runs well under rosetta, we have a recording studio that uses a 3.0Ghz P4 with a 10k HDD and like 2gb of ram, and it slows down when we Bounce a large PT file, as does it when we render using Ableton.

Macrumoruser: Was it difficult to set Pro Tools up on the mac? Ive never set the software up in conjunction with a sound board, we had a guy come in at the beginning of the semester and do it for us, while my professor helped out.

 

[MRU]

Macrumoruser: Was it difficult to set Pro Tools up on the mac? Ive never set the software up in conjunction with a sound board, we had a guy come in at the beginning of the semester and do it for us, while my professor helped out.

On a macbook we use DigiRack connected via Firewire as the input device and that acts as the soundboard.

Its very simple, almost plug and play. Even our Korg Triton Extreme is now recognisable in midi setup....

Only thing that remains a pain is authorising all the plugins.....

 

[Nar1117]

NO PRO-TOOLS 7 & LE 7 IS UNIVERSAL!!! On a macbook we use DigiRack connected via Firewire as the input device and that acts as the soundboard.

Its very simple, almost plug and play. Even our Korg Triton Extreme is now recognisable in midi setup....

Only thing that remains a pain is authorising all the plugins.....

Haha yes i know its not universal, its just my teacher made it sound like a huge ordeal 'setting up the system'. Then again we are using a PC.

We also use a Digi002 via firewire to the PC, with a voltage meter and a... i dont remember the name of the board, but we bought it from Sweetwater.