Which Macbooks works best in noisy and vibrating environments for DJs and live performers?

[vikharb]

Hello, I am a Macbook Pro Mid 2012 non-Retina display owner. I have owned this machine for almost 2.5 years. I use it for my profession which is a professional international club DJ.



As you may already know, lots of professional well-known DJs around the world confidently use Apple products for their work. However, my machine has had issues with faulty hard drive cables, which I've replaced and resolved countless times. I am now considering to purchase a new Macbook pro. Before doing so, I would really like to know how the newer models are designed to work in very loud and vibrating environments. For instance, I DJ on a desk which has strong vibrations for 5 hours straight. Are the new Macbooks designed to cope with this? Would I have issues of hard drive cables or other internals surrounding the motherboard to become defective or loose? I know SSD is a big win, but are the new Macbooks designed to work safely in such environments?



Any advice or information related to Macbooks working in vibrating and noisy environments would be very helpful to me before purchasing a new computer. I would be looking to purchase top of the range with 16GB RAM and 1TB, hence one of the most expensive models, so I want to be confident that it will work safely for my job before spending over $2.5k on a new computer.



Thank you for your time and look forward to all replies.

 

[augustya]

I have seen a lot of DJ's also use a stand to place, keep their Mac on a stand while mixing. Why not also invest on a MacBook Stand like twelve south or something. Coming back to your question I have never owned a Mac planning to buy one now, but can imagine what you are saying should not be a problem what has noise got to do with your machine vibrations hmmm....Really ? Can it be a problem ?? Nah ! I don't think so !!

 

[vikharb]

I use my Macbook in nightclubs where alot of the Bass low-end sounds bring vibrations to the environment where my computer is located. Sometimes a Bass speaker is just underneath my computer. Hence, the computer vibrates a lot.
Laptop stands do help, but sometimes its not always practical to fit them in

 

[Clint_Barton]

pretty much anything with a solid state drive

 

[Howard2k]

I wouldn't hesitate since it's SSD.

 

[Cvx5832]

SSD with no cables to speak of (soldered-in storage chips). I think you're good as far as this particular issue is concerned

 

[augustya]

He is equally concerned about the Vibrations and Noise that happens on a DJ desk where his Mac is placed in a club.

 

[robotica]

You would probably want to cushion it on a stand with rubber pads that don't block the fans.

 

[DanDilla]

My early 2011 15" 2,3 still does his duty, without any problems, a few gigs a week for like 3 of his 5 1/2 years.

SSD is a good idea, but even my HDD in the drives' slot didn't have any problems.

I'm switching for portability to a 13" TB now. Most of the time I needed a HUB, so that won't change, only need to buy a few new cables.

If you just play 2 decks tc or something like that maybe a 12' rMB would be enough and a better travelmate since it got no fans and theres a ton of stuff you don't want in your macbook floating around at clubs.

I'm carrying a roost stand since they came out at kickstarter, there's no smaller and better one around.
I tried like everything what could possibly happen on stage, in case of vibration etc - it definetly won't fall off.

Your biggest enemys - beer bottles at a small, packed location - won't bother your macbook an that stand!

But if you play a lot in areas with a lot of humidity and dirt - like most of the good clubs are - open your MacBook at least every 2 month to vaccuum a load of dust and whatever gets sucked in out of it's fans.

you could skip this with a 12" rMB - if you can stick with the power.
For 2 decks traktor it worked well, 4 should also work, I for my part need ableton to addition to 2 decks. that's where the 12' started to get more load than i would want to have in a live enviroment.

 

[augustya]

Again a stand recommended !

 

[vikharb]

Thanks guys. I think SSD on motherboard is good option. Also good point about opening up and checking for dirt/dust.

 

[Dr. Zenon]

All MacBook Pro's (and last version of PowerBook G4) with a mechanical hard drive may be impacted by bass vibrations triggering the Sudden Motion Sensor (accelerometer) to send an emergency park request to the hard drive. You may not want this happening while you are performing a read or write to the hard drive in a production environment. For the most part, the user will experience a 3-5 second pause in all hard drive I/O when the Sudden Motion Sensor is activated.

I suggest to deactivate the Sudden Motion Sensor (SMS) if you are going to use the computer in an environment with deep bass or other powerful sonic energy.

The SMS acts like "an airbag for your hard drive" as it is designed to protect the drive heads from hitting the platter by detecting negative Z-axis (or fall to ground) prior to laptop impact with the floor and sends an emergency park request to the hard drive to place the armature in a "safe zone" so the heads will not impact the platter when the laptop hits the ground. Just like a airbag deploying before you face hits the steering wheel.

See Apple support article HT-201666

-ex Apple HW Engineer who worked on this feature

 

[vikharb]

Thank

All MacBook Pro's (and last version of PowerBook G4) with a mechanical hard drive may be impacted by deep bass vibrations triggering the Sudden Motion Sensor (accelerometer) to send an emergency park request to the hard drive. You do not want this happening while you are performing a read or write to the hard drive in a production environment. For the most part, the user will experience a 3-5 second pause in hard drive I/O when the Sudden Motion Sensor is activated.

It is suggested to deactivate the Sudden Motion Sensor (SMS) if you are going to use the computer in an environment with deep bass or other sonic energy.

The SMS acts like "an airbag for your hard drive" as it is designed to protect the drive heads from hitting the platter by detecting negative Z-axis (or fall to ground) prior to laptop impact with the floor and sends an emergency park request to the hard drive to place the armature in a "safe zone" so the heads will not impact the platter when the laptop hits the ground.

See Apple support article HT-201666

-ex Apple Engineer who worked on this

Thanks, yes I've already disabled SMS on my SSD. I've narrowed the issues I'm having to the logic board. It randomly freezes when I plug in certain USB devices i.e complete computer freeze. Think its due to the logic board or GPU being sparked on something.

 

[Nik]

Finally, Apple soldering the chips in and making them non-replaceable is an upside for somebody.