Ideal Mobile Machine for Logic

[teknikal90]

Hi guys,

I'm thinking to buy my girlfriend a new macbook. She's starting music school soon.

The school says they use Logic, Ni Komplete and Sibelius. Firewire isn't widely used.

I'm thinking of getting her a refurbished 2011 i7 MBA.

She lives far away from her school and so the weight reduction would be great.

What about the power though? Anyone have any experience using Logic with the Komplete patch on a MBA?

Obviously, as a music student, she wouldnt be recording highly complex 100 track recordings... And so I fugured the MBA would probably be sufficiently powerful for her, close enough that the performance advantage of a 13" MBP would be outweighed by the benefits of lighter weight and higher res screen. Am I wrong in my thinking?

Thanks a lot guys

 

[fastlanephil]

I would think the school has a lab with the music hardware and software for the students to use.

You should find out what she really needs for her studies before buying anything.

 

[Crysis 3]

I would think the school has a lab with the music hardware and software for the students to use.

You should find out what she really needs for her studies before buying anything.

that's a good point, because in music production, every person have his own way of working, if she work in an intensive way on the CPU, with plugins and high end softwares so it's better to give more attention to the CPU.

but if she is a minimalistic artist, and like to keep her tracks clean, may be your choice was better.

another point is, if she is going to mix and edit on that computer or is she going to give her project to an external engineer and work on his computer, if she does, it doesn't matter so much about the CPU, but more for converters and soundcard.

 

[Boyd01]

I use Logic 9 on a 2011 i5 MBA and it runs great. I get very low latency - the SSD is a big plus for this. I would suggest going for 4GB RAM and 256GB SSD however.

 

[teknikal90]

Boyd, do you find that the CPU is limiting in any way?

Thanks guys

 

[Boyd01]

Absolutely not. The little CPU indicator at the bottom of the window never goes very high. The disk activity indicator never registers anything at all. The 2011 MBA is not a cheap netbook, it's a very fast computer. CPU is almost twice as fast as my 2008 c2d 2.4ghz that it replaced. I don't know what "Komplete patch" is though, or how that might affect anything.

I posted some CPU stats on Apple's forum here, not sure if they really tell you much though: https://discussions.apple.com/message/18700596#18700596

 

[teknikal90]

Absolutely not. The little CPU indicator at the bottom of the window never goes very high. The disk activity indicator never registers anything at all. The 2011 MBA is not a cheap netbook, it's a very fast computer. CPU is almost twice as fast as my 2008 c2d 2.4ghz that it replaced. I don't know what "Komplete patch" is though, or how that might affect anything.

I posted some CPU stats on Apple's forum here, not sure if they really tell you much though: https://discussions.apple.com/message/18700596#18700596

Thanks a lot! Answers all my questions.
Komplete is a Native Instrument virtual instrument Library - sort of what Apple inclides with its Logic Pro suite - except massive

Thank you again, appreciate it!