Macbook Air

[Flow Of Time]

Do you think a Macbook Air could be used for ae?

 

[egan.]

Sure, but it's a matter how much you're going to ask of it. Power wise it's comparable to those of using machines that were fast 3 years ago. The big concern IMO is the ports (or lack there of). One thunderbolt port and one usb isn't much to work with. It's true you can theoretically get a thunderbolt hub that breaks it out to usb and FW, but in practice the only hub that gets good reviews is the one in the $1k (and 4 year old) Thunderbolt Display.

 

[JeffTD]

Sure, but it's a matter how much you're going to ask of it. Power wise it's comparable to those of using machines that were fast 3 years ago. The big concern IMO is the ports (or lack there of). One thunderbolt port and one usb isn't much to work with. It's true you can theoretically get a thunderbolt hub that breaks it out to usb and FW, but in practice the only hub that gets good reviews is the one in the $1k (and 4 year old) Thunderbolt Display.

It's worth mentioning that the 13" Air has 2x USB3 ports, so using the Thunderbolt->FW adapter for either a drive or interface and then one USB for dongles/mouse/kb/etc and the other for either a drive or interface, it's pretty capable.

Egan's right fundamentally, though - it's not going to be a mixing powerhouse but it's certainly capable of handling writing/tracking.

 

[Flow Of Time]

Okay, so it's probably not what I'm looking for..

I thought about replacing my main machine with the air. It's a Hackintosh, that "theoretically" kicks every iMacs ass. But there are minor bugs I can't seem to fix, and they're fucking annoying.

But according to your posts it will probably not have enough power for my needs :/

Let's hope the rumors about a new mac mini are true..

 

[LeSedna]

I would say it's a good mobile rig if used with the good interface. Theoretically in a near future the thunderport will solve all issue, and for basic mixing, recording or editing it is more than enough.
As a main rig though, I would second the fact it lacks ports and a few ghz.

That said, I have the exact same ports configuration on a MacBook Pro 15 and I don't see why it would limit me. A dongle, an interface, and the coreaudio engine is fast enough to be usable in an editing scenario (latency is good enough to not use an interface). I am myself waiting for a new apple display. They have to release a 4k thunderport display in a good price range.

I would advise to rely on an other main rig, any other mac computer would do, a powerful Mac mini is a cool solution nowadays.

 

[JeffTD]

FTR my Hackintosh has been great, so it's definitely an issue of PICNIC (or what you put in the computer) here.

I went from the 13" Air to the 15" Retina MBP w/ quad i7 and 16GB RAM and it benchmarks at 85% the power of my Hackintosh with the same specs (albeit a desktop processor and 6 internal drives) - THAT is a laptop capable of being a main workstation, for sure.

 

[Studdy]

A touch off topic but might be useful. I have used a mac mini with an Ipad as a screen. Or use a small monitor or something. Those mac minis are little beasts.

 

[egan.]

Just an observation: a lot of the speed questions are a matter of bang for your buck and what you ask of a machine. I have a 2011 macbook pro that's my main machine for everything including mixing, remote recording, and video post. Before that I had a 2007 MBP doing the same thing. My experience is that most of the time when non-film music guys claim these insane needs (particularly home studios) it's because they're generating most of their sounds ITB and/or because they refuse to commit a decision to file.
Obviously power can make things easier and big stuff possible but it's tough for me to view it as an absolute necessity since we (dating myself) were mixing natively at the turn of the century.

 

[Line666]

I went from the 13" Air to the 15" Retina MBP w/ quad i7 and 16GB RAM and it benchmarks at 85% the power of my Hackintosh with the same specs (albeit a desktop processor and 6 internal drives) - THAT is a laptop capable of being a main workstation, for sure.

I have the same but with 8gigs instead and its certainly not lacking horsepower.

Unfortunately I've found these days that the DAW is more likely to bug the fuck out than run out of juice over larger sessions.

And yes, speccing out properly is nearly all the battle for a hackintosh.

 

[Flow Of Time]

The parts I have in my Hackintosh are certainly not optimal. I decided to switch to OSX after I bought the PC. I think I might wait for the new mac mini to come out

 

[LeSedna]

Same here, MBP 15in with 16GB of ram, and 512 SSD in PCIe. Pricey, but a beast. I always buy refurbished though and sell my previous computer so it's actually a relatively little investment every 2 or 3 years.

It is a fully capable ITB solution, despite being a laptop, and fits in a backpack because it is very slim for its power.

 

[ATLA]

just a heads up best buy is selling a bunch of 2014 mac books pro's on clearance(1699 instead of 1899) to make room for the new models they just released. I ended up getting a 2014 15" i7 retina mbp with 8 gigs of ram(plan on upgrading to 16). If you can see if they have any unboxed floor models there trying to get rid of. I picked one up and with my school discount/clearence/refurb i only ended up paying 1450$!

 

[Line666]

I ended up getting a 2014 15" i7 retina mbp with 8 gigs of ram(plan on upgrading to 16).

Good luck with that considering the ram is soldered to the motherboard

 

[ATLA]

Ahh we'll that sucks! My current windows PC is running i7 with 8 gigs and having zero issues with the audio work I'm doing. So hopefully the Mbp will hold up similarly.