MacBook Air 2020 & burning cds/watching movies?

[CFWestslope]

I am a newish MacBook Pro user and helping a friend purchase a MB Pro or Air. The functions he wants are dated, but important to him. He wants to be able to play and burn music cds, watch movies and edit music. He has minimal needs (emailing, googling, photo storage, word processing). Can both the Pro and Air do this? With an external drive, I'm assuming. Would that be the Apple USB Superdrive? Please advise.

 

[deeddawg]

Both should be able to do that fine - just for kicks I dug out my old Rosewill external USB DVD burner and had no trouble playing a music CD from it on my MBA.

While an Apple Superdrive will surely work and would be supported by Apple, you can probably do just fine with another brand if you wished.

 

[0128672]

When you say "edit music," what is it he wants to do exactly? I'm assuming if he's a low-key user, this might mean creating playlists in iTunes or Spotify, or maybe playing with GarageBand, all of which can be easily done on the Air.

 

[CFWestslope]

When you say "edit music," what is it he wants to do exactly? I'm assuming if he's a low-key user, this might mean creating playlists in iTunes or Spotify, or maybe playing with GarageBand, all of which can be easily done on the Air.

He is a musician (guitarist, not his day job) and writes, records and edits music for personal use.

 

[0128672]

He is a musician (guitarist, not his day job) and writes, records and edits music for personal use.

Nice! What software does he use to do this?

 

[CFWestslope]

Just learned he plans to start editing his music. So no software yet. Thanks so much. Sure appreciate the help!

 

[0128672]

Just learned he plans to start editing his music. So no software yet. Thanks so much. Sure appreciate the help!

If there's a chance he might be considering Logic Pro X, he might want to read some of the threads in the Digital Audio Forum here about recommended hardware specs for the types of music projects he anticipates working on. There's members creating simpler instrument and voice tracks, and there are those doing large orchestral projects, so naturally the hardware requirements for processor/RAM/storage/external storage/screen size would be different.

 

[CFWestslope]

If there's a chance he might be considering Logic Pro X, he might want to read some of the threads in the Digital Audio Forum here about recommended hardware specs for the types of music projects he anticipates working on. There's members creating simpler instrument and voice tracks, and there are those doing large orchestral projects, so naturally the hardware requirements for processor/RAM/storage/external storage/screen size would be different.

I will send him to the Digital Audio Forum. Thanks so much!