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Hello, I just bought a firewire 2626 interface for multiple trach recording for an old slow hp vista computer. I want to buy a MacPro Book.
It has both firwire and usb3 connectors plus thunderbolt. Techs claim USB 3 is faster than firewire. Did I make a mistake in buying firew2626 interface? For aprox 100. Doll more should I get an interface with USB 3. Please explain other options for thunderbolt, is there an adopter for 3USB n Thunderbolt or what interfsce do you recimmend for the MP Book 13.
I Love Mixcraft Pro Studio 6do not want to deviate from it. I see how my brother struggles with vocals n virtual instruments with Garage Bandso I I am very concerned with speed n latency(my old computer) defenetly getting a MPC, so processor speed is a must for me, help! I bought my first ever Mac two months ago, a 11inch Airbook 1.8 Ghz Intel Core i7 4GB to replace a very cheap windows laptop made in Miami Florida assembled in Bogota for export to Latinamerica, this worked great with Sibelius software, Garritan Orchestra, a hi end mini external sound card that fitted seamlessly in the card slot and a Garage Band Keyboard controller that I chose for its compact size and the fact it has nothing but keys.
This has been my travel composer kit for a few years and I have composed music up to 24 simultaneous instruments on the go with no problems. Cip, I’m sorry to hear your having problems making music on your MacBook Air. It will be awhile before all the music software producers catch up to supporting Mac OS X Lion.
I currently use a late-2010 model MacBook Air, that still runs Mac OS X Snow Leopard. The problem may not be your keyboard – it may be Sibelius incompatibilities with OS X Lion. Try your keyboard with the build in piano in GarageBand, and see if that works okay. If your keyboard works properly with GarageBand, the problem is software incompatibilities and you’ll need updated software or to switch to a different software package. If your keyboard still has issues with being quiet and inconsistent loudness when using it with Apple GarageBand, then the issue is most likely the keyboard, so try different keyboards.
I use a: it’s light, it’s plays well, and it’s got good progressive response. It works with my late-2010 Mac Air.
This does not guarantee it will work well with your mid-2011 MacBook Air, as it has a newer motherboard chipset providing USB. It’s a bit big to travel with, so you’d probably want a model with less keys. Avoid the M-Audio eKeys models, which are not velocity sensitive. I’d also avoid Behringer, based on my experience – horrible non-progressive velocity sensitivity – suddenly loud. Best to bring your MacBook Air into a music store and try different keyboards in store. Hope this helps!
Let me know how you go Cip. Thank you so much for your interest, With all due respect for those who love GarageBand software, I have no interest at all in learning how to use it, however I am very interested in trying my keyboard with the build in piano in GarageBand to see if that works okay. I would therefore much appreciate if you could give me simple, fool proof, step by step, short cut instructions for quickly setting up GarageBand to try the piano with the keyboard.
I mean something like (1. Click x to start it, 2. Click y and then z to set up piano) and so on. Mark, Thanks for your question! I agree with Stoney – a new MacBook Pro 13 inch model will have more than enough power for music production – way beyond a basic user. If you were scoring complex music with many sampled or synthesized instruments and lots of processor heavy effects, like convolution reverb, and you were doing this day-in, day-out, you might want a 15 or 17 inch Mac Pro with quad core processors. You’d also want 8GB of RAM and an SSD.
That’s not for a “basic user”. That’s for a pro or a serious enthusiast.
You’ll be fine with a dual core 13″ Mac Pro. A far tips for picking a monitor for making music, there’s a few things to consider, so I’ll write you an article.
I’ll post another comment when the article’s written. Cheers, -Taz. I just rewrote a lot of the article, so there’s lots of new information. I’d check whether Ableton & Protools are working properly on Lion – the updates on the article tell you how to Google to check it.
The MacBook Pro 13″ should be fine for you. You might find the screen a little cramped, so you might want an external monitor when you’re working on complex projects (lots of tracks, virtual instruments and effects). You can also consider the MacBook Air 13″.
It’s smaller, thinner and lighter than the MacBook Pro, if you’re happy to plug in an external DVD drive when you need it, and you don’t need a Firewire port. It also has fast flash storage, instead of a hard disk – it’ll probably be big enough for you unless you have lots & lots of music, sample & instrument libraries, and projects. I’d reread the article, as there’s details to consider.
Like some people are saying the MacBook Air fan comes on too easily. The “safe” option is a MacBook Pro 15 inch. Hope this helps! Let me know if you’ve got more questions. Any of the Macbook Pro models will perform quite well in terms of music production. I have a pro audio studio which is running entirely off a 2011 unibody MBP. Make sure the model you purchase is quad core, with at least 4gb of ram.
8gb optimally, as many of the DAW softwares are both space and processor intense. I recommend going for the 4gb model and having a computer geek friend upgrade to 8 (or you can wander over to youtube and pull up some videos on how to do it yourself). On most of the current MBP models there is L6 cache, which also helps. I have been able to produce 20-30 track songs laden with effects, while only reaching half processor performance. Logic is an AMAZING DAW.
Ableton Live and ProTools are as well, but I’m not sure of their compatibility with OS Lion. I know for a fact that Logic, Reason, Record and Reaper work on Lion, because I use all of them currently. I had difficulty getting ProTools 9 working on Lion, but I know that PT 10 is out now, so maybe they’ve adapted.
Hi, thanks for the article. I’m just about to get myself a new macbook pro 13″ as a portable music production studio.
As I plan to work with an additional monitor I hope the small screen will be OK for being on the road. I’ve noticed that the new macbook pro hasn’t got a firewire input. Wheras most of the current audio interfaces work with firewire. Is that a problem? Should I maybe wait a bit until the audio interface industry catches up with the latest mac technology or can I connect most audio interfaces with the new mac via the USB ports? Thanks in advance.
Thorsten, The tech specs for the current MacBook Pro 13 inch, 15 inch and 17 inch models say they all have a Firewire 800 connector. I have a 15 inch MacBook Pro – the last model – and it has a Firewire 800 port (that’s IEEE 1394b).
The Firewire 800 connector looks completely different from Firewire 400 (or IEEE 1394). FW800 is bigger and rectangular. The Firewire 800 connector uses 9 pins, whereas Firewire 400 uses 6 pins.
Firewire800 is compatible with Firewire400. You just need a Firewire 800 to 400 adaptor or cable. I use an adaptor to go between my MacBook Pro and a FW400 interface, and it’s works great. If you like Thorsten, I can drop by the AppleStore today to physically verify the current MBP models still have a Firewire port. Hope this helps, -Taz.
Hello Taz, I finally got myself a new macbook 15″ today. I love it, but my first impression is that it is quite loud. Even when I don’t do anything. A constant light hum from the HD ( I guess). Someone I know has a 1 year old 13″ MB and that is totally silent in comparison. It’s not VERY loud but even a little noise can be a problem when recording vocals, because it his adding up when using many tracks, you know.
Any suggestions? Should I bring it back or shall I just get used to it? Is it a normal thing with the noise because the machine is pretty powerful, consequently it makes more noise? Kind regards, Thorsten.
Heyyyy i have the 13 inch macbook pro, i play acoustic and electric guitar and sing aswell, when i go to record i simply use the macbook pro microphone and either play guitar and sing together or record each seperately. I use a Goodmans ACC2011 microphone which is pretty old and uses a jack lead ( i think thats the name ) which you cant detach from the microphone and im guessing its just a karaoke one. I use it with a ALBA karaoke machine haha and i plug my guitar into a big good amp ive got using a jack lead?
Im wanting to make my sound quality a lot better but dont know where to start, i also use garageband to put it all together. I was thinking a new microphone, a pop screen thing and a interface? But im not sure which to get and what will be compatible with what ive already got. Im only 16 and the music is only for home use which will be uploaded to souncloud or something so its nothing major. Yet 😛 and as im only young i really seriously need it to be affordable as i have hardly any money haha!
If you helped i would seriously appreciate it as ive been searching the web for ages trying to find help thanks. Hi; I have searched lots on the internet for info to get my son a computer for music production and would like to say this is the best info by far; it is easy to read plain english; lots of others go into so much tech talk that if you actually understood what they are writing you would have enough knowledge that you would not need their help; thanks a lot looks like pro 15 with i5 or i7 4gb; buying secondhand so probably won’t get 4 core.
Only bit more help that would have been useful would have been comments on resolution and glossy screen or not. Thanks for your positive feedback – much appreciated. A used 15 inch MacBook Pro with a dual core i5 or i7 should be great for your son. You’re in luck: I’ve had MacBook Pro’s with both the standard resolution glossy screen (1440 x 900) and the high-resolution anti-glare screen (1680 x 1050), so I can compare them. The anti-glare screen is useful if the Mac will be used where there’s sunlight hitting the screen.
For example using the MacBook Pro outside. Another example is using the Mac Pro in a room with a window with direct sunlight hitting the screen from behind. It’s also useful if you’re working with color, for example you’re a photographer or designer. I sometimes like to work outside, so for me, the anti-glare screen is good. The color range (gamut) of the anti-glare high resolution display is twice that of most other laptops. Would this provide any advantage for music? As for high resolution vs standard resolution, I have a surprising answer.
When I first switched from a MacBook Pro with a standard resolution screen to a MacBook Pro with a high resolution screen, the increase in information I could have on screen was amazing. It has one third more pixels (36%). I’d look at my co-workers Macs with standard resolution screens, and they seemed like children’s toys the text was so big.
Their screens just couldn’t hold the level of detail I’d quickly gotten used to. Months down the track, I’ve noticed that the text is so small, there’s a certain amount of effort just to take in the screen. I have to look hard; well not hard, but it’s not effortless. Yes, in certain apps (e.g. Web browsers) I can make the text bigger, but in many places the software’s interface is fixed in pixels, and so text and buttons just get smaller with the high-res screen. Software developers almost certainly designed the software interface for screens with bigger pixels. The sense of work to read the screen is small by day, but pronounced at night.
My eyes may be tired by this time, after already clocking eight hours on another monitor. If I could take back my choice to go with the high-res screen, I would have gone with the standard resolution screen, just to make everything easily readable. So despite the “more pixels is better for music production” maxim, in general I’d opt for the standard resolution glossy display. That’s the standard screen, which the vast majority of MacBook Pros out there have. If your son has excellent vision, and enjoys small text and high detail, and he’ll typically not be tired when using the Mac (i.e. Not late at night), then the high-resolution screen could be good too. Hope this helps Tom!
Hey Tasman, I’m currently looking at getting a new macbook Air for both university work and music production. Portability and form is important to me.
Currently i’m on a PC with an Edirol UA-25 EX audio interface (USB), using Sonar, but I want to change to Logic pro 9 when I buy the mac. What would your recommendation be, considering I mainly use virtual instruments (Native Instruments Kontakt etc), recording real guitar and bass, and I write mainly progressive rock with 12-24 tracks. Should I wait for the 2012 MBA refresh? Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Hugh, I’ve upgraded from a late-2010 MacBook Air 11-inch with a Core 2 Duo processor to a mid-2011 MacBook Air 11-inch with an i5 processor. My Presonus audio interface is Firewire, so I’m unlikely to do any serious music work on the Mac Air until a Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adapter ships (it’s in the works). I’ve used the Core 2 Duo MacBook Air with a heavy 24-bit sampled piano (Galaxy Steinway) in Kontakt 4, and that’s worked well. The i5 obviously has a lot more CPU power. I have yet to hear the fan go on my i5 model.
My concern would be that with 20 tracks, the fan could run at high speed to cool the processor, and may be audible in your recording. If the guitar is electric, no problem. The 2012 MBA will very likely have cooler-running CPUs, but I suspect will be quite awhile yet. A 15 inch MacBook Air is likely to be released first. Aside from possible fan noise, the other consideration is whether your Edirol UA-25 EX audio interface will work with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. I’ve checked Roland’s website, and they for Leopard (OS X 10.5) and Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6). Perhaps there’s no driver available, or perhaps the driver has been integrated into Lion.
If you take your audio interface into a Mac store, you can just plug it in and check Apple menu System Preferences Sound to see if the interface shows up in the list. John, for quality music work, we typically don’t use the built-in audio jack. We use an external audio interface for lower noise, better fidelity, TRS and XLR inputs, higher sample rates and bit depth (e.g. 96kHz 24 bit), multiple channels and, if we’re lucky, perhaps more warmth. Both the 13 inch and 15 inch MacBook Pro have both USB and Firewire 800 ports, so you’d have no problems connecting an audio interface to either.
Since your pieces are heavily orchestrated, I would go for the 15 inch MacBook Pro with a quad core processor. Having more processor cores will let you load up on tracks, effects, and instruments. The 15 inch screen will also give you more screen real estate for your projects. If you have sharp eyes, I’d consider getting the high resolution screen option, so you can fit more tracks and virtual instruments on screen. If you’ll make heavy use of sampled instruments consider 8GB of RAM. Flash storage makes loading sampled instruments fast, but is expensive, and gives you less storage to work with. Let me know if you have other questions.
Hi, Great article. I chose the 13inch for portability and have just brought it home. I am planning on purchasing an interface in the near future, but am keen to hook up my electric guitar right now to play around with garage band.
The limitation of the 13inch is the single audio/mic, in/out. How can I play the guitar and hear at the same time without the need for an interface?? Is there a way to feed the output audio through the computer inbuilt speaker so I can plug the electric in the input??
Cheers, Ingrid. Tasman, Thanks for all the information. Yours is the most direct, lucid, timely and careful content on the subject I have come across on the internet.
Please keep this up in the name of good karma. It will come around! A couple of questions: I have a MacBook Pro 15″ (Mid 2010) with Intel i5-2.4GHz, 4GB RAM, and 320GB HD.
Will I be terribly constricted if I run Logic Studio 9? At the moment I am rather pinned down on cash, but need to get hold on a bigger project that is coming my way. My goal is to move to Mac Pro as soon as cashflow allows. I shall be recording MIDI with a Yamaha MOX-6; a single channel of audio; will perhaps work with around 20 tracks, and run soft synths/samples/loops through Logic. I might need to use some bits from Native Instruments. I realize that I will need an external drive for more storage, that I will buy.
But as far as workflow is concerned, I have read about “running the samples and plugins from a separate drive”. How does that go? Thanks again for your help. Hi Tasman, Firstly I’d like to thank you for all the effort you have put into this website. Your information has been pivitol in a lot of the decisions I have made over the past month in deciding which way to go. Now to the question.
I have ‘acquired’ a 13 inch air. Core 2 duo processor 1.86GHz 2GB RAM 256GB SSD. From reading your articles this is pre july 2011. If I wish to keep this Air and load my DAW, (ableton, or cubase) and what not, my investment will be $AU1000. I look to purchase monitor speakers and an audio interface in the long run to set up my home studio.
I look to produce electronic music using digital instruments to start, as I am an absolute beginner. (no MIDI) Is this machine suitable for a beginner user such as myself? I have read this article over many times, and had decided to purchase a Macbook Pro 15″, however, I have been offered this 8 month old Air, which has barely been used, at a fraction of the cost. Any advice would be fantastic! Thanks again, Mitch. Hi Tasman, I’d like to echo a lot of the sentiments expressed hereI’m about to make the switch from PC to mac (a brave step – I found it hard enough to switch from Atari!) and so far, this is the most genuinely informative thread I have come across, especially with regard to using an air to produce music.
I have suspected that the people slamming airs as underpowered for music production are talking it up to justify how much they have spent on their systemsor to appear to be talented and important enough to need 50 tracks of direct hard disk sampling with 10 processor intensive effects on each for their next concept album or Hollywood film score. Maybe I’m just cynical! My wishlist: Something that could handle as many as 16 wav (guess that’s.aiff now!) tracks, 16 more midi, with 4 or 5 effects on each though ordinarily I imagine I’d only be using a quarter to half of this. I currently use soundforge and cubase with kontakt on a 4 year old old dell xps1510 and m-audio fw1814. That works OK so I’m pretty sure any new macbook could handle it.
Balanced xlr ins and outs and decent preamps. Ultra portability. I’m thinking a 13″ 128gb air with an apogee duet 2 card using logic. Would this be a suitable setup for my needs? What are good alternatives to Sony Soundforge and Kontakt or Giga on the mac? I’ve not used a solid state drive but am currently happy with sata 7200is it a safe switch?
Any help from anyone appreciated. Hello, English its not my first lenguage so i hope you understand I’ve been searching and searching for days and this article is the best of the best, but there’s something that I don’t get, everybody says that for music the more powerfull your processor is, the better, but with modern processors we’ve got cores, clock speed, cache, hyper thread (and intel offers LOTS of combinations) So what does each one do? More cores mean more tracks and more vst’s right? But what does the clock speed does here?
I mean let’s say for example a quad core can handle 20 tracks (I know it can handle more, just for the example) but if the clock speed per core is 1.2 Ghz it means that when you hit play your project won’t play smoothly or just more time loading each vst you drag to the project or what? So I guess what I want to know is what advantage you get with more cores, or more clock speed or more cache (haven’t found anything about cache in the Internet, but an intel processor that has the same things except 2 extra MB of cache costs 150 extra dollars, so I supposed it means something) I won’t record anything, I pretend to make house music in a professional level (lots of effects and synths) I hope you can help me Thanks a lot.
Geronimo, I haven’t looked at music benchmark comparing processors in years. For many people, it’s become irrelevant – nearly all modern computers have plenty of power for music production. Roughly, every core you have is a worker, and the clock speed is how fast the workers work. Music production is typically easy to run across several cores, because the many tracks naturally allow the work to be run in parallel. The way processors are priced, the base clock speed is usually very affordable, and then adding clock speed costs a lot, without getting a proportional increase in performance.
For music production, I’d tend to go more cores, over screaming fast CPUs – you’ll tend to get more tracks / virtual instruments / effects for your money this way. As for CPU cache, it can help certain programs a lot, e.g. Video encoding.
Whether it helps your particular VSTs significantly is impossible to know without benchmarking. Given the $150 price hike for a big cache, I’d tend to spend your money on more cores or faster processors which will definitely help you, rather than cache. Do not buy a 1.2 GHz processor! That is very slow. A good modern processor should be 2.4 GHz to 3 GHz. I’d get a good modern processor, e.g.
An Intel i5 or i7. I’m not up to speed with AMD’s processor product line at present.
If you want to have many effects & synths, I would go a quad core i5 or i7. AMD’s processors could be great too, I just haven’t had one in years. Hello, I really enjoyed your article, and thank you for sharing with us all your insight,however im not sure if you could help me with an issue im having. I currently upgraded my laptop (HP) to a new one (HP), and there seems to be some technical issue whenever I play a track. The sound of the speakers seems to be cut-off every 2-3 seconds by some sort of “tick-and-click” sound. Now, my older laptop, which was way worse in every spec than my new one, didnt have this kind of issue. Could it be that my new laptop projects this “tick-and-click” sounds due to the software beats by dr.dre installed in the computer?
I;ve tried many computer geeks, and they cant find the solution to my problem. Thanks in advance, Andy. First and foremost, I, like all the others, I’d like to thank you for your very informative article. I’m thinking of making the “jump” and have just recently started with some music making. Since I’ve just started I’ve decided to start with using reason as my main program and I was wondering what your take on the new macbook pro retina is.
I’m thinking of getting the “cheapest” option that is the one with the 8 gb of ram etc. Do you think any particular upgrade on hardware is a good investment or is that standard model fine? And what about the fact that there now is no FireWire port? A lot of questions, hope you find the time to answer them! Kind regards Simon. A very useful article thanks – I’m trying to choose between a dual core 13″ mbp and a quad core 15″. The 15″ will cost 50% more than the 13″ and your info has helped me to weigh up the pros and cons.
As I’ll be mainly using an external screen, the screen size it not a high priority, the most important thing for me is being able to open large projects in Ableton, Pro Tools and Reason. I’m still not quite clear how much difference the number of cores will make. You say “the 13 inch has two CPU cores. The 15 and 17 inch models have four CPU cores. This means that a 15 inch or 17 inch can handle roughly twice as many tracks as the 13 inch” – is it really going to make that much difference? Do the programs really make such efficient use of the multiple cores?
Thanks a lot Paul. Hey Tasman, I just returned a Mac Book Pro with SSD because they didn’t have a firewire port or a DVD slot.
They do have Thunderbolt, but to load software you have to buy an external drive. And to use Firewire, you need adapters.
Now I’m totally confused. I mainly wanted it for Ableton Live, but thought it would be nice if I had the option to run my Digital Performer files. Am I asking the impossible? Am I better off with SSD or 7200 RPM drive? Not sure what the heck to buy at this point. I’m still using an old G4 with Performer and doing fine, but want to upgrade. I’m waiting for the new Mac Towers, but thought a MacBook Pro would be a good interim solution.
I work with Ableton Live and Traktor Pro 2. I am currently using a 13 inch Macbook Air.
As for traktor it gets the job done perfectly. I can’t complain. Its smooth as butter. When it comes down to the production side of things on Ableton Live it can get a little rough.
The CPU spikes a lot especially when your working with MIDI clips. If your looking to be serious about production go with one of the Macbook Pros. I haven’t worked one yet but I’m sure it would do a lot better job then the Macbook Air. But, that being said, if you’re just looking to DJ then a Macbook Air is perfect because of its portability.