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What do you guys do with your Macbooks?
- Thread starter Natsu
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Aperture 2.1 has really addressed the lag one experienced with 1.5, Apple really did do well in making serious improvements to Aperture, an arguably already good program. I'm using a first REV. MacBook with 2GB RAM and it handles Aperture 2.0 without complaint.
Audio software on the other hand is a different ballpark, depending on what exactly your doing. If your channeling in different instruments or mainly doing audio editing and mix downs, then standard MacBook will handle it. However, if you intend on running multiple VSTs, reverbs, compressors and the like, you would really need to have a decent external sound card, preferably firewire. I suppose if you knew a lot about audio you wouldn't be asking this right?
Main advice would be to buy a firewire external soundcard, something from M-audio or the like, throw in as much RAM as possible and you should be fine. I mean everyone talks about specifications these days, but some of the greatest electronic albums were produced on computers over a decade ago, Lunatic Harness by U-Ziq was produced on a Amiga, for example.
Basically MacBooks are fast, but going desktop is probably better for intensive audio applications or video editing etc.
Audio software on the other hand is a different ballpark, depending on what exactly your doing. If your channeling in different instruments or mainly doing audio editing and mix downs, then standard MacBook will handle it. However, if you intend on running multiple VSTs, reverbs, compressors and the like, you would really need to have a decent external sound card, preferably firewire. I suppose if you knew a lot about audio you wouldn't be asking this right?
Main advice would be to buy a firewire external soundcard, something from M-audio or the like, throw in as much RAM as possible and you should be fine. I mean everyone talks about specifications these days, but some of the greatest electronic albums were produced on computers over a decade ago, Lunatic Harness by U-Ziq was produced on a Amiga, for example.
Basically MacBooks are fast, but going desktop is probably better for intensive audio applications or video editing etc.
Think of it this way, if I have 5 or 6 tracks in GarageBand and if the song is about 6-7 minutes long, it complains about "a portion could not be played....." and stops playing and I have to close stuff up. Basically all I can have open is GarageBand.
I have a rev 1 MacBook 2.0 w/2G RAM. Also, I downloaded the Nine Inch Nails GarageBand files from nin.com and the machine sometimes has problems playing a whole track all the way through, never mind authoring something like it. Imagine trying to run Logic? I don't think you could get a lot done with it.
As far as Aperture goes, I don't know. I don't use it. My iPhoto library is 30 gigs and it sometimes chugs trying to scroll through my 300 events. I can only image the diffuculty Aperture would have considering it uses that much more memory.
You need a Pro machine to take full advantage of Pro apps. Sure, you'd save a few hundred bucks, but at the expense of productivity?
I have a rev 1 MacBook 2.0 w/2G RAM. Also, I downloaded the Nine Inch Nails GarageBand files from nin.com and the machine sometimes has problems playing a whole track all the way through, never mind authoring something like it. Imagine trying to run Logic? I don't think you could get a lot done with it.
As far as Aperture goes, I don't know. I don't use it. My iPhoto library is 30 gigs and it sometimes chugs trying to scroll through my 300 events. I can only image the diffuculty Aperture would have considering it uses that much more memory.
You need a Pro machine to take full advantage of Pro apps. Sure, you'd save a few hundred bucks, but at the expense of productivity?
Actually Logics very good on a MacBook when running the built in VSTs, they're quite CPU efficient, unlike NI stuff. I doubt there is much difference between a MacBook and a MBP for Audioware so long as you put a 7200RPM internal disk in, and run samples from that or a fast external.
i use my macbook mostly for media (movies, music, photos), keeping them organized, surfing the web, chatting on ichat, screwing around with photo booth 
, typing papers for school
nothing too intensive.. which i have a gaming rig for haha.
, typing papers for schoolnothing too intensive.. which i have a gaming rig for haha.
think about the differences between the desktop imacs, the macbook pros and the macbooks. There really isn't very much - dedicated graphics on the high end imacs and the macbook pros which is useful for games, but processor speeds are similar so a good spec macbook should be capable of most of what an imac or MBP can do.
HDD is a little slow, but you can plug in a firewire drive or upgrade to a 7200rpm internal drive, and max out the ram.
I'm selling my imac24" as I figure I only use it because it has a big screen for photo editing. So I'll sell it and buy a 24" monitor which gives me some money back.
HDD is a little slow, but you can plug in a firewire drive or upgrade to a 7200rpm internal drive, and max out the ram.
I'm selling my imac24" as I figure I only use it because it has a big screen for photo editing. So I'll sell it and buy a 24" monitor which gives me some money back.
Hum, interesting. So you think that a new 2.4G MacBook with 4G of RAM would rock Logic Studio? Or would I be better off with a MBP? I know, as far as the CPU goes, we're only talking about 100MHz and real-estate aside, would the pro apps benefit from the dedicated graphics card? I assume Aperture would. I don't know about Logic though.
The onboard graphics will not affect audio pro-app performance whatsoever. You only have to worry about 3D games and a few video pro apps (Motion for example)
If there is no difference in the way a MacBook or a MacBook Pro utilize the 4GB of RAM, then I really see little difference between the two power wise sparing the fancy GPU in the MBP. I remember when Apple first implemented the intel processors and MacBooks were actually out performing the Pros in certain departments, though I can't produce any links for this. Of course, MacBook Pros offer more screen real estate, but beyond that for audio apps, I think the differences between Macbook and the 'Pro' are marginal, especially in view of the price difference. Main things in audio are a powerful external soundcard, a very fast hard drive and a decent amount of RAM. In anycase, I'd be doing all my production on my Mac Pro and using the MacBook for messing around when your away from your desk or for doing live audio DJing stuff with Ableton LIVE.
This is not strictly true, some VSTs opt for very complicated UIs, thus pushing some of the demand for the MacBook GPU. Is it not a case that once the GPU is overloaded it starts taking power from the RAM?
In Boot Camp on a 2.0ghz, 1GB RAM, GMA950 machine, I can run Homeworld 2, the most epic game ever.
It was 4 constant hours of Homeworld 2 that made half of the bottom case of my macbook crack and turn yellow from heat. I'm talking 9 square inches of cracks, not just one or two piddly lines.
Moral of the story? The Macbook cannot withstand manufacturer's intended use.
It was 4 constant hours of Homeworld 2 that made half of the bottom case of my macbook crack and turn yellow from heat. I'm talking 9 square inches of cracks, not just one or two piddly lines.
Moral of the story? The Macbook cannot withstand manufacturer's intended use.
I use mine for everything now, its replaced my desktop which was a pretty fast machine for what I did but I prefer OSX so I use the MacBook in clamshell mode.
I use it for.... Web browsing, downloading, adium, itunes, photoshop, dreamweaver, flash, firework, pages and VMware fusion which runs XP and I use powerpoint and excel in unity mode.
Macbook is very good for all this, I just need an external drive. But I plan on buying a Mac Mini if a new one is released any time soon.
I use it for.... Web browsing, downloading, adium, itunes, photoshop, dreamweaver, flash, firework, pages and VMware fusion which runs XP and I use powerpoint and excel in unity mode.
Macbook is very good for all this, I just need an external drive. But I plan on buying a Mac Mini if a new one is released any time soon.
I use mine for school. I go to technical school and I use Parallels and VMware for my Windows Server 2003 configurations, Windows XP and Linux administration. Work pretty well I use it when I travel to off load pictures from my Rebel. I run Final Cut Express, Aperture 2.0, Lightroom, and Adobe CS3. With a 100GB 7200rpm Hard drive with 16mb cache and 2gb of Ram Its a a Core Duo. It handles fine for me
You can run aperture 2 on a macbook? I've heard that its impossible to run aperture cuz of the dedicated graphic card.
