11.6" MacBook Air and VSTi's... Bad idea?

[cemk]

Hey guys,

I am thinking of purchasing a MIDI keyboard and using the new 11.6" MacBook Air for VST's to play outside of the house.

I have a 27" iMac with 2.93GHz i7 processor, and I'll do most of the goofing around on that, and I just want to play really simple piano with the Air, such as Steinberg's The Grand 3 or Imperfect Samples' Braunschweig Upright. I was recommended an NI Audio Kontrol 1 audio interface to go with that, and I'm willing to part with some cash if it'll help me get latency-less sound from an Air.

However, I was also told that throttling feature could make me cringe in tears if it ever set in.

Note that I'm not a musician and I'm not buying the Air because of that. I'm a web developer/UX designer and since I bought the iMac a few weeks ago, I don't want to carry around my aluminum MacBook when I go outside. The only reason I ever bought a MacBook was because I was also using it as a desktop replacement before, and outside of the house, I really don't need all that power. (Except for this thing I want to do, with VST's, which will be at most once-or-twice a month.)

So, what do you guys think? Would the 11.6" Air with 1.6GHz/128GB/4GB upgrade work for this?

 

[happle]

if all your using is 1 vst it should be fine. then again i dont really use vst's becuase i use reason 5 which doesnt need or support vst's and is very very cpu friendly. i know vst's arent very cpu friendly but thats usually when theres multiple loaded up within a daw. 1 vst should be no problem.

or instead of asking just try it out yourself...

download menumeters so it will show your cpu percents in the top bar. then download smc fan control so it tells you your fan speed and cpu temp. and then u can set the fans to a higher speed if needed or you can download fan control which gradually increases the fan speed as the temp of ur cpu goes up. i use all 3 of these. but like i said use menumeters and smc to check your cpu %'s and temps first. and if they remain at acceptable % and temp then theres your answer.

 

[Cycom]

Non sample based software synths are number crunchers, meaning that they depend on the processor. The MBA's is clocked pretty low. You do the math.