MBP 15inch for home recording

[Mix]

I wanted to comment on this since no one had addressed the MBP's digital audio out. Using an audio interface into which to hook the monitor speakers is much preferred, but the MBPs have for a long time had dual-purpose headphone jacks. You can use it like a standard headphone output, or plug in a toslink mini-plug digital audio cable to hook up to 5.1 speakers or a receiver.

Wow I didnt know that. You never stop learning.

 

[al2o3cr]

While I cannot answer that question.

When recording audio, one shouldnt be recording audio to the OS drive full stop - No matter what sort of drive.

Get a FW external drive for all your audio needs.

This had some relevance with mechanical drives, but I *seriously* doubt it's an issue with SSDs. The problem was that seeking to get an OS file while playing back existing tracks could cause a significant (8-10ms) lag as the heads moved back into the correct spot.

Not only that, but even FW800 is now a significant bottleneck relative to the internal SATAII connectors; with a modern SSD it's easily possible to get write speeds of 200MB+, about 2.5x the theoretical max for FW800.

As to the performance issue, I suspect the i5 is already massive overkill; I used to record 12-16 tracks at once on an old G5 iMac without issues in Logic. Just make sure you're not doing ridiculously inefficient stuff (like dropping a separate convolution reverb on each channel) and you'll be fine.

 

[panayotist]

1. What if I get a hybrid-SSD drive like this one? It comes at 500GB and it's pretty cheap!

2. Well, I'll get started with Logic and if that's not good enough for me (which I doubt it) then I'll move to Pro Tools 9. But if I am to get an interface, do you recommend a Firewire or USB one? Between these two, which one is better? M-Audio FireWire Solo or Fast Track Pro?

3. I'm not sure I can test the monitors, as I live in Greece and I'm not aware of any stores that have good-quality monitors :S Are these any good?

4. I'm not sure about the final cost, i guess that will be 4000€ max, including the MacBookPro (yes I'm only interested in the 2011 model) and possibly a good midi keyboard...

 

[ganzeinfach]

Hi everybody, do you have any ideas or experience considering the amount of fan noise while using logic in the following setup?
- 15" 2.0 quad macbook pro
- external display connected
- firewire audio interface connected
- maybe around 10-15 tracks with not many plugins
Thanks!

Hey, I got my 15" 2.0 and its great! Heres a review !

 

[matins]

Hey, I got my 15" 2.0 and its great! Heres a review !

interesting review,
I just ordered the low end 15" hi-res screen (glossy), I found the 2.2 1gb vram not worth the 400 euros (in italy) more...and I made the same speculation you did about the noise, so I am glad to read that you were right!

 

[spacepower7]

The whole idea of recording to external (other) drive was because when Protools was developed, hard drives were slow but also limited by the SCSI-1 bus. This meant that in old NuBus based Macs, internal hard drives were limited to 5-10 MB/s.

The original Protools setups included a Disk i/o card which was basically Protools own SCSI card running an external bus that was meant to be used with Protools but was accessible to the Mac OS as long as the Protools drivers were loaded.

Drive access speeds were also important and another reason the practice gained ground. Depending on your session it may or may not be an issue today. If I was charging money (with the clients in the room AND charging by the hour), I'd use an external but for my own work, it's a non issue.


Ahhh the good old days of running Protools 3.x on Mac OS 7.5.x on a Nubus Mac with 16MB of RAM, 250MB internal drive and some "humongous" 1 GB external SCSI drives.

I'd definitely go with Logic, stay away from Protools till you absolutely need it.

Logic has tons more plug-ins and virtual instruments included.

From the things I've seen on Logic stress tests on audio forums, the 2011 2.0 MBP is getting around the same number of "stress" tracks as the 2010 i7 iMac and even more than some of the 2008 and 2009 8-core Mac Pros.
Also these test were not affected by the hard drives regardless of 5400, 7200, or SSD

Test File
http://www.evan.se/logicprobenchmark/Logic_Multicore_Benchmark_Test.html

Discussion

http://www.gearspace.com/board/music-computers/371545-logic-pro-multicore-benchmarktest.html


Enjoy your hotrod.