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Get Macbook pro now? I'm so mad!

L

Lallo

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 8, 2012
11
0
I've been using a macbook pro 13 early 2011 since the release for making music in logic. It worked in the beginning but since maybe 8 months ago my projects started to get really problematic and these days I can't even play my projects...
I cant even play them most of the times, I have to shut down half the plugins and freeze so many channels etc... I cant export them because the wav file get glitch sounds because of the cpu overload when I export..

I was expecting the new macbook pros to come in july, but no they didnt 😡

and now people "think" the new ones will come in october, but nobody knows and they might even wipe the none-retina out and I'm not glad to pay extra just for a fancy screen and then pay even extra for apple to put in ram and extra hdd space (which costs a fortune because apparently apple does this with gloves made of diamonds or something I dont know)

What should I do? Why are the apple laptops so weak and expensive? When I was using PC I could get a massive computer for the price I get a "ok" macbook pro today... or like even the "low-end" macbook pro
 
FWIW, I use a 27" Imac for creation in Logic X, then I use my 3GHZ 8GB RAM rMBP for edits. No freezes, no issues. If you want a work tool that won't beachball or freeze and you can't wait for Haswell, then I'd say grab one now.
 
Ram upgrade to 8GB is recommended and not very expensive.

Generally Logic should not need very much Ram, except for sampled software instruments. Unless they fit in memory they need to be fetched from the slower (all is relative) hard disc. If the machine has too small memory it is necessary with a lot of swapping. With enough memory things speed up.

If you are not using software instruments taking up RAM memory, there might be totally different explanations, but regardless, upgrade to 8 GB is a good idea.

// Gunnar
 
Lallo said:
Why are the apple laptops so weak and expensive? When I was using PC I could get a massive computer for the price I get a "ok" macbook pro today... or like even the "low-end" macbook pro
Click to expand...

Bottom line - use the tool that best fits your needs. If you a MacBook Pro is considered weak and too expensive for you, then perhaps another solution, i.e., PC would be a better fit.
 
You have a 2 year old machine that has been acting up for 8 months and instead of taking it in, you simply bitch about it not working? Have you done any troubleshooting?

You can never, never ever, anticipate the release of an Apple product. If you do, you'll drive yourself crazy. You can't be mad that rumors do not work out to be true, that is just plain silly. If you need a machine today and you do not want to bother with your 2011, then buy what you can today. Do you honestly believe that the performance is so lacking that a new machine released in October (maybe) will be better? I doubt it. I bet if you had whatever was available today, you would be happy.

Fact is, you're trying to chase technology while complaining about how it doesn't arrive on your schedule. It just doesn't work that way.

Get the 2011 looked at. Why would you not have that issue resolved? Unless you just have cash flowing out of your pockets like tiny rainbows or some **** like that.
 
Lallo said:
I have 13" and without ssd and 4gb ram. Maybe thats the problem?
Click to expand...

Winner! Upgrading the RAM only takes a matter of minutes with a #0 phillips screwdriver and $50 or less worth of Crucial RAM. Don't buy cheap RAM. I picked up some no-name Centon ram at Microcenter and it caused my MBP to have periodic app crashes and kernel panics. I went back and got better RAM and haven't had one since.

As for SSD, again I say don't go cheap. Stay away from the Samsung 840 series or OCZ Agility series. Go for the Samsung 840 Pro series or OCZ Vertex series.

As for getting a PC because you are mad at your Macbook, I can't imagine how any version of Windows could allow you to be more productive than OSX. But by all means do what makes you happy and buy what works best for you. If money is a big issue right now, go for the RAM and wait until you can afford the right machine. I would go Lenovo over anything HP or Dell sells and I would stick with higher end PC laptops rather than bottom feeders or you will wish you had that MBP back again.

Basically these companies are selling us time. If your time is cheap, by all means grab some low end machine that will have you spending hours figuring out why this or that driver is crashing or a machine with some huge bottleneck in the chipset that has your apps taking all day long to do things. If you value your time, save your money and buy the right machine up front.

MBP is Apple's low to middle end machine. I recommend it because unlike the lower end MBA or the higher end retinaMBP, upgrading it is easy and there are plenty of ports and a 78 rpm, ahem I mean optical drive for those of us who are nostalgic. A common unofficial "upgrade" is to put in a small inexpensive SSD for the OS, remove the optical drive and move the existing HDD to where the optical drive used to be. It's a poor man's fusion drive. It requires an optibay kit which is readily available online.

One more hint. If you are considering upgrading your HDD, keep your hands off the case. Pick up a $19 USB to SATA adapter and get the new HDD or SSD working as an external drive. Make sure you have it fully working with no problems before you open your case and put it in. This saves a huge amount of potential heartache.

Don't be distracted by Apple's schedule. You are in a situation where you don't need a new machine right now because you haven't even taken rudimentary steps to make your machine work well. You should be able to get 3 or more years out of your existing machine if you spend an hour or two taking care of it. BTW, a visit to the Genius bar would be the FIRST thing to do as they will ask you to put your Apple RAM back in if you take it there and are still having problems. Get the OS figured out first and then do the updates and your existing 13 in MBP has years of beachball-free useful life yet to give.
 
Why is it not working? Figure that out and solve it. Disable background processes. Run onyx. Check the console to see what's going on. Check activity monitor. Troubleshoot the problem. I don't get this blaming apple for your own inability to troubleshoot a computer problem. apple computers are subject to all the same laws of the universe as every other computer! Do you believe pc's never have problems? Funny. Buying a new machine is a dumb way to troubleshoot problems. Learn. Investigate. Blaming is a waste of time.
 
chrono1081 said:
This.

I can use Logic just fine on my Macbook Air from 2010. I also use Modo, Maya, ZBrush, Unity and Photoshop on it.

Something is definitely wrong with your laptop.
Click to expand...

Thnx all for the answers!

I used PC all my life (and I'm quite into computers overall) until about 2 years ago when I started using Logic (switched from FL).

If I could run Logic on a PC, trust me I would. I like the macbooks, they are the best laptops I know, mostly because of the overall design including the trackpad, other laptops fail miserably in that point.
But they are hell of expensive. I talked to a friend who is making music at my level and he bought a retina and it sure runs well... but it also costs 3600 (!!!) dollars in my country (at least the model he is using, which might be the only one running everything smooth enough with all the cpu power logic takes).

To be honest, I CAN afford one of these, but it would be all my money that I saved for years and I wouldn't be left with too much. Also, it is a LOT to spend on a computer. Before I came into the mac world, I thought that 1500 dollars was money for a GREAT computer (and it was, I could buy a really good PC for that money) but now that is not even close.

I've been thinking about upgrading ram (ram is very cheap I know) and to an SSD drive. But I don't know how much that would help, since all I know so far is that the CPU meter is banging the roof all the time in Logic, would faster ram and hdd fix that?

I don't have much installed on my macbook, basically just logic, skype, chrome, itunes, VLC, utorrent. Not so much more really. And I always turn off all other programs when running Logic and also "free memory" with apps like that before starting the program.

Sometimes I even have problems with only 4 sounds playing at once (if a sound has lot of processing, since logic is not really optimized for multi cores and cannot spread 1 audio channel over several cores). But most of the time I only use like a EQ and compressor, and that is not even "fancy ones" I always use the most CPU efficient ones.

I have no problem in upgrading ram and SSD if it helps me, but it would be a bit of waste if it will not and then I will go buy a retina anyway.

It also scares me that apple might have only the retina when the upgrade comes and then I cannot buy a "standard" macbook pro and upgrade to SSD and ram (which was my plan before rumors came up about apple taking away the standard macbook pro in favour of the retina...

Somehow I managed these months anyway, and I am prepared to spend money on my computer since I work very hard with my music. Maybe I'm just not pleased with the fact that I might have to buy a 3600 computer, but who would be?

thank you for all the advice and please keep them coming, anyone who use logic here and have similiar problems?

I don't know if it matters, but I make electronic music and often have about 50 audio channels in a project, and I never have more sounds or channels that I don't need to, so I'm not wasting any CPU.

EDIT: I also rarely use "large sampled instrument libraries" like samples for KONTAKT, since they take up CPU, but I would like to use them ofc if I could.
 
Hold up...

You mean professional quality, extremely portable, powerful laptop computers are expensive?

No way!
 
I feel your pain

I've been so aggravated with the Apple schedule and unknowns that I haven't made a purchase either. Last November, ready to buy the new 27" iMac that wasn't available then.

I want to use for Lightroom and since I don't watch cable tv, netflicks, etc. Any comments out there on doing away with having a television set?

Anyway, thanks for this string. I may just go ahead this summer
 
Johnnyjhi said:
I've been so aggravated with the Apple schedule and unknowns that I haven't made a purchase either. Last November, ready to buy the new 27" iMac that wasn't available then.
Click to expand...

As opposed to all of the other computer companies that issue public road maps of future release schedules?
 
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