Base 2019 15" or 13" i5/16gb/512gb for Music Production

[hunkuschunkus]

Hey all,

I just bought a new 2019 15" i9/16gb/512gb MacBook Pro and I'm really enjoying it. I bought it before they refreshed the 13" MacBook Pros with cheaper storage and quad core processors. I'm still in my return window and I'm wondering if it would make sense to save around $950 by returning it and getting the 13". I do enjoy the screen size of the 15" however I have a nice 4k external monitor to hook either up to so that's not too much of an issue.

I'm wondering if performance wise the 15" is going to make a very noticeable difference or not. I'm using this computer for mainly music production.

Any opinions on if the 13" would be a better choice?

Thanks

 

[bsmr]

I had the 15“ for several years.

Next one will be an 13“ because 15“ is too bulky for me.

 

[Howard2k]

If you have the 15" already I would spend some time in Activity Monitor and see how hard you're pushing it. Almost certainly the 13" would do the trick, but if your 15" is struggling then the 13" will struggle too.

 

[Fishrrman]

For music production, I'd want a 27" iMac...

 

[SBruv]

The 15” makes a massive, massive difference to plugin counts. I had the 13” quad core and I couldn’t be happier to have stepped up to the 8-core 15”.

Night and day for music production.

 

[xb2003]

What are you doing exactly? Because a 2011 MacBook Pro 13 with an i5 and 8GB will record 32 channels just fine at 24/48k (Probably more, but I never tried). It will run MainStage to use as a guitar or keyboard rig (as long as you don't go too overboard with plugins or layers) just fine. Audio really isn't THAT taxing until you are running fairly large projects with lots of plugins.