I've been looking to acquire an older MacBook or MacBook Pro (2007-2008 ones)to do location recordings with ProTools 9. I will not be using this to do any mixing with or anything intensive like running amp sims and whatnot. I'd like to be able to run maybe a couple of Slate Trigger plugin's for snare and kick and some stock ProTools plugins but that's about it.
The reason i'm looking at older ones is because i don't have much funds for this right now and would like to find something around 500-600$ tops, and i don't trust cheaper laptop PC's with firewire. I've seen some Core 2 Duo macbooks for sale for about that price and have been wondering if they will be fine to track up to 16 simultaneous tracks without glitch and then be able to pop in a few stock plugins and trigger for a quick rough mix and listen. I know people are going to tell me you get what you pay for and i'll probably want to replace it in a year or two but my current financial situation isn't going to let me go any higher than that. I just need this laptop so i don't have to drag my computer tower every time i do location recordings (which is what i've been doing and it's getting REALLY old) and then will be transferring the sessions onto my PC for mixing.
My question is, some of those older ones don't have a dedicated graphics card, come with only 2GB of Ram and only support up to 3GB of Ram, how will that affect the performance of the machine on a DAW like ProTools? Can i get away with using one of those INTEL® GRAPHICS MEDIA ACCELERATOR X3100 or do i absolutely need to get one with a ATI or nVidia card in it? I've always ran ProTools on at least 4GB of ram, would 2-3 be enough for this purpose? I've never used those older mac books so i have no idea how well they perform, any input would be appreciated.
The reason i'm looking at older ones is because i don't have much funds for this right now and would like to find something around 500-600$ tops, and i don't trust cheaper laptop PC's with firewire. I've seen some Core 2 Duo macbooks for sale for about that price and have been wondering if they will be fine to track up to 16 simultaneous tracks without glitch and then be able to pop in a few stock plugins and trigger for a quick rough mix and listen. I know people are going to tell me you get what you pay for and i'll probably want to replace it in a year or two but my current financial situation isn't going to let me go any higher than that. I just need this laptop so i don't have to drag my computer tower every time i do location recordings (which is what i've been doing and it's getting REALLY old) and then will be transferring the sessions onto my PC for mixing.
My question is, some of those older ones don't have a dedicated graphics card, come with only 2GB of Ram and only support up to 3GB of Ram, how will that affect the performance of the machine on a DAW like ProTools? Can i get away with using one of those INTEL® GRAPHICS MEDIA ACCELERATOR X3100 or do i absolutely need to get one with a ATI or nVidia card in it? I've always ran ProTools on at least 4GB of ram, would 2-3 be enough for this purpose? I've never used those older mac books so i have no idea how well they perform, any input would be appreciated.
