Resolved Urgent: Is 8GB 13'' MBP enough for Logic Pro X?

[mbenji]

Hi @evec, no, I would like to use 3 vocals + 3 tracks of the best quality VSTs there are, I only know kontakt but I guess there are better ones out there.

To sum up, everyone thinks that the 13 inch might (or would) be enough except for @keysofanxiety that explains very persuasively that it won't be enough.
Hence I am waiting for someone (or for @keysofanxiety ) that can reassure that the base 13 MBPTB will be enough (or not enough).

 

[Dave245]

Both, the 13 AND the 15 should be future-proof and will deliver enough RAM and CPU power for the tasks you're asking for. These are no heavy tasks and if you can live wiith 50% more processing time to render your podcasts (shouldn't be that long) you will be fine even in a few years, or a lot with some tweaking... (based on what a friend of mine is still doing with his 2011 13" )
The video editing is another thing, but also depending on quality, software and how patient you are.

Edit: @mbenji
I just talked about this with a friend and he just ran 3 tracks with 3x3, so after all 9 ACTIVE Kontakt FX vsts' in Ableton just to have a rough overview of the capabilities of his 13" early 2011 MBP and it was definitely running on it's limits.
But his MBP is just a mess with all kinds of stuff running in the background and no SSD...
I think you will be fine either way...

Thank you for the reply, that's very helpful I'm currrently using a 2011 15" MacBook Pro, it's been a great machine, however I am thinking about upgrading this year and I've liked the look (from what I've seen online) of the 13" MacBook Pro with Touchbar, especially for portability.

As for the video editing I mentioned, it would be within Final Cut Pro X, possibly 4K but it wouldn't be running multiple windows or streams at the same time, only ever editing one video/timeline at a time. The main bulk of editing done on it would be for the podcasts, which can be done within GarageBand. I was just a little concerned that 8GB Ram (which the base model 13" comes with) wouldn't be enough.

 

[keysofanxiety]

13" would be fine for your usage.

 

[Pugly]

I have a 2015 11inch i7 with 8GB of ram, which is very close performance wise to a base i5 13inch MBP.

I use this computer for music production using Logic, and my projects usually have 20+ instrument plugins. I use NI products and others. Usually have 6-10 instances of Kontakt with average size libraries. No super large orchestral stuff, but libraries about 200-500MB... sometimes a library in the 1 GB range. I use lots of plugins and effects, and do a mix without converting my tracks to audio or freezing tracks.

I have never run into any issues with regard to ram. My biggest projects usually used about 50% of my cpu...

Which is to say a 13inch MBP is more than enough to do the kind of projects you want.

Just for fun I wanted to see what would bring my systems 8GB of ram to it's knees... So I started loading up all the Kontakt libraries I have.

I was able to load:
Scarbee Jay-Bass
Session Strings
Session Horns
Studio Drummer
Strummed Acoustic
The Maverick (Piano)
The Gentleman (Piano)
Una Corda
Drumlab
... and a couple of others.

It eventually bogged down to being unusable as I approached the RAM limit. But some of these are some beefy samples... Session Horns was in at 1.32GB.

When I crossed the RAM threshold... the computer became unusable... but I have never seen that happen in my normal productions.

 

[David58117]

Hi

My question in short:
Will base MBP TB 13 8GB will be enough for Logic Pro X 3 vocal tracks and 3 Kontakt sampled VSTs?
EDIT: Everyone but @keysofanxiety believes it might/would be enough but @keysofanxiety explained very persuasively that it wouldn't be enough, I still urgently need someone to help.

Details
I have a small window opportunity to purchase a base 8GB 13'' MBP with touch bar for a good price.
I can also wait for a good price for a 16GB version but it might not happen and everything here is way too overpriced (way more than the regular US price).

My needs are:
Vocals: 3 tracks. (vocals, guitar L, guitar R)
VI: 3 sampled tracks as folllows: Sampled Drums, Sampled Piano, Sampled [something else].
I will most probably will want to use Kontakt, I might be willing to use something else, I might be willing to drop one or maybe maybe two sampled tracks in favor of a regular VI.

Thanks a lot!

Are you nuts?

lol YES the 8GB will be more than enough for your 3 tracks/3 VSTis.

I use mostly just VSTis for small orchestrations, but I've had no problem with the non-TB base config. and Komplete 10 Ultimate.

Hell, for the hell of it I even installed everything on the 12" 2015 rMB. I only tested 6 or so Kontakt VSTis, but it performed more than fine. I then ran through the "Helena Beat" demo track (80 or so tracks?) without issues (CPU about 40% idle at the lowest, if I remember correctly).

Personally, I think the days of needing the fastest/most RAM for most audio recording are over, on Macs at least (and using Logic). Back in the 90s/early 2000s I remember having to focus more on builds just to get things running, but now - there are youtube videos of ProTools running on an 11" MacBook Air.

You'll be fine.

 

[mbenji]

Issue solved.
Thanks all of you for the kind help!!!

Just out of curiosity, how many extremely demanding stereo VST tracks can I use with the 13'' while live playing another extremely demanding VST track (and having 3 vocal tracks)?

 

[Pugly]

It really depends on the VSTs, but it should have no problem playing just 3 VST tracks. I can run many instances of Alchemy easily, and that's fairly demanding.

I've tested my system with the demo of u-he Diva, which is the most demanding synth I can think of. And even with that I was able to get about 12 notes of polyphony without issue.

There's a Logic benchmark out there that I've run, and the my current DUAL core MBA is as good as the QUAD cores from 5 years ago.. Computers that people were producing whole professional albums on, you can have that amount of performance in an extremely portable computer now.

There's nothing THAT demanding in the audio world that a current computer can't handle... if you push 100 tracks or so and making tracks for a Hollywood movie.. then yeah you'll need more power... but that's at the extreme end.

And of course you can always freeze tracks and bounce down to audio, if somehow you run out of performance.

 

[PhilMacbook]

I have a 2015 11inch i7 with 8GB of ram, which is very close performance wise to a base i5 13inch MBP.

I use this computer for music production using Logic, and my projects usually have 20+ instrument plugins. I use NI products and others. Usually have 6-10 instances of Kontakt with average size libraries. No super large orchestral stuff, but libraries about 200-500MB... sometimes a library in the 1 GB range. I use lots of plugins and effects, and do a mix without converting my tracks to audio or freezing tracks.

I have never run into any issues with regard to ram. My biggest projects usually used about 50% of my cpu...

Which is to say a 13inch MBP is more than enough to do the kind of projects you want.

Just for fun I wanted to see what would bring my systems 8GB of ram to it's knees... So I started loading up all the Kontakt libraries I have.

I was able to load:
Scarbee Jay-Bass
Session Strings
Session Horns
Studio Drummer
Strummed Acoustic
The Maverick (Piano)
The Gentleman (Piano)
Una Corda
Drumlab
... and a couple of others.

It eventually bogged down to being unusable as I approached the RAM limit. But some of these are some beefy samples... Session Horns was in at 1.32GB.

When I crossed the RAM threshold... the computer became unusable... but I have never seen that happen in my normal productions.

Thank you for this. I know it was posted over a year ago but it has helped me today. I am currently thinking of buying an 8GB 2018 13" MBP to run Logic on. I did want a 16GB machine but it is a build to order item and takes 2 weeks to deliver whereas I can go and get an 8GB machine anytime from any Apple store.

Doing some reading on the net this morning it seems like 8GB should be fine for my needs which revolves more around writing music than heavier effects based production work.

As people say I can always bounce to audio if needed. As long as I don't find I have to shut other programs down to work in Logic or have other compromises such as loud fan noise or beach ball delays then an 8GB machine should be fine.