MacBook Pro (2015) & Digi002

[somefinn]

Hi all, reading some other threads but they have conflicting reports.
I'm hoping for a simple solution to recording and have wanted a Macbook for some time.

I already have a Digi002 Rack and am considering purchasing a Macbook Pro.

Should I go with a New Macbook or for an older model?
I hear that newer models have connectivity issues with Firewire devices.

also when it comes to the Digi002,

is it easier to look at an alternative?
I was planning to use Pro Tools and am hoping for a bug free, glitch free, issue free experience.

any thoughts, recommendations?

[Darryl Ramm]

Yes a MacBook Pro, not a (very underpowered and Firewire-less) Macbook. You want i7 and max out the internal SSD since it is so fast and can usually be be used for boot/system, samples and audio/session files.

Any issues are *NOT* a Firewire the problem (just use the Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter) the issue is OS X version that run on a new MBP retina... which is the latest El Capitan only, and no you cannot install older OS X releases on those computers. The question is does your version of Pro Tools run on El Capitan? Can you get a 002 driver that runs on El Capitan?

Driver info here.

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...02-003-Drivers

System requirements here.

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...m-Requirements

There are still graphics performance bugs with Pro Tools and El Capitan that are affecting some users.

Apple will eventually release new MBP Retina models with Skylake processors, and those hopefully will have Thunderbolt 3, and then we get to see how compatible all that is with current Thunderbolt. I'd at least hold off until Apple's upcoming March 21st (iPad/iPhone focused) press event and see what is announced/changes then.

[somefinn]

great advice, yes i was going to wait until March 21st, if they release something new i may get that instead.

[VRW]

If you want to stay with your 002 why not consider an older, used yet i7 Quad Core MBP like one of these?
They still got FW ports which never is a bad idea with those FW interfaces like 002+003 although I know they
basically do work with the adapters but...

It´s just an idea/suggestion. You could get a nicely working system for about €1000-1200.-, let me show it
to you:

Get one of these for example (I hope I read it correctly, it´s Dundalk/Ireland, right?).
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Apple-MacBook...YAAOSwv9hW4HGb

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/APPLE-MACBOOK...oAAOSwyjBW3W5Y

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Apple-Macbook...8AAOSwuAVW0aEf

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Apple-MacBook...kAAOSwqrtWnXmL

Replace the OS drive with this one.
http://www.flexxmemory.co.uk/solid-s...b-mz-7ke256bw/
Replace the Ram with this one.
http://www.flexxmemory.co.uk/laptop-...memory-module/
Replace the optical drive with this combination.
http://www.flexxmemory.co.uk/accesso...cket-solution/
http://www.flexxmemory.co.uk/hard-dr...d-drive-black/

...and you will be good to go.
The replacement stuff will be around €350.- all together, delivery will be free to Ireland they write.

Those MacBooks Pro are all i7 Quad Core machines which will work with PT nicely, the Samsung 850 Pro for
the OS drive and the WD Black 7200rpm 750GB for the Pro Tools drive should be fine for any recording applications.

Well, you know, if you can/want to afford it, a 2nd Samsung 850 Pro 500GB for the Pro Tools drive would be sweet indeed .
Btw you want those good quality 16GB Ram for Pro Tools finally.

Another good thing with these older MacBooks Pro is that you can run any Mac OS X from Snow Leopard upwards
you will want to. You just can choose the best working for your system (mind that the 002 may not really love all the
latest versions of OS X).

I´m aware of that it´s still a certain amount of money for quite old computers. If you want to stay with the 002 it may
be a reasonable and cost effective solution though.
And, don´t forget to use a new and really high quality Firewire cable for the 002. This could be crucial for a trouble free
performance as well.

Just as food for thought.
If you rather prefer a new Macbook Pro you might consider to replace the 002 with a more recent audio interface if you
really want it glitch free, bug free and issue free imo .

Whatever route you decide to go, the best of success to you,

VRW

[somefinn]

Wow, thank you for that.

I went and purchased a Macbook last week and cancelled the order due to a lack of knowledge.

Im currently running a pc with TLA M4 as my tracking desk, Its a good "studio" set up, but troublesome because of the noisy computer running cubase SX 3.

I figured macbook and digi 002 would be a nice intimate recording solution, due to the quiet of the macbook, or maybe macbook with an alternative hardware. Im still surmising.

Will wait for Apple's Conference on March 21st, see if there is a macbook revision....

Originally Posted by VRW

If you want to stay with your 002 why not consider an older, used yet i7 Quad Core MBP like one of these?
They still got FW ports which never is a bad idea with those FW interfaces like 002+003 although I know they
basically do work with the adapters but...

It´s just an idea/suggestion. You could get a nicely working system for about €1000-1200.-, let me show it
to you:

Get one of these for example (I hope I read it correctly, it´s Dundalk/Ireland, right?).
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Apple-MacBook...YAAOSwv9hW4HGb

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/APPLE-MACBOOK...oAAOSwyjBW3W5Y

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Apple-Macbook...8AAOSwuAVW0aEf

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Apple-MacBook...kAAOSwqrtWnXmL

Replace the OS drive with this one.
http://www.flexxmemory.co.uk/solid-s...b-mz-7ke256bw/
Replace the Ram with this one.
http://www.flexxmemory.co.uk/laptop-...memory-module/
Replace the optical drive with this combination.
http://www.flexxmemory.co.uk/accesso...cket-solution/
http://www.flexxmemory.co.uk/hard-dr...d-drive-black/

...and you will be good to go.
The replacement stuff will be around €350.- all together, delivery will be free to Ireland they write.

Those MacBooks Pro are all i7 Quad Core machines which will work with PT nicely, the Samsung 850 Pro for
the OS drive and the WD Black 7200rpm 750GB for the Pro Tools drive should be fine for any recording applications.

Well, you know, if you can/want to afford it, a 2nd Samsung 850 Pro 500GB for the Pro Tools drive would be sweet indeed .
Btw you want those good quality 16GB Ram for Pro Tools finally.

Another good thing with these older MacBooks Pro is that you can run any Mac OS X from Snow Leopard upwards
you will want to. You just can choose the best working for your system (mind that the 002 may not really love all the
latest versions of OS X).

I´m aware of that it´s still a certain amount of money for quite old computers. If you want to stay with the 002 it may
be a reasonable and cost effective solution though.
And, don´t forget to use a new and really high quality Firewire cable for the 002. This could be crucial for a trouble free
performance as well.

Just as food for thought.
If you rather prefer a new Macbook Pro you might consider to replace the 002 with a more recent audio interface if you
really want it glitch free, bug free and issue free imo .

Whatever route you decide to go, the best of success to you,

VRW

[somefinn]

Decided to come back with an update and possibly some questions, as im a new mac user........

i got a late 2013 Apple mac pro with retina display.

thunderbolt to firewire connection and connected to my rack Digi 002.

i installed 002_and_003_Family_Drivers_v90_r3_73509.dmg
first of all, but the digi 002 didnt connect,

so then i installed

003_Family_Driver_11_1_3_Mac_83630.dmg
and my digi 002 was recognised within garageband...

When trying to record a single mic input, there is glitching and an error appears in garage band

"error while trying to synchronize audio and midi"
"Sample Rate 33,305 recognized.
Check conflict between GarageBand and external device."

sample rate is showing 44,000 everywhere i can see it. so im not sure if the issue is with the 002 itself or the drivers..

I'm really hoping for a simple solution.... i seem to just end up throwing money at something only for it give me further errors....


I'm not settling on garageband btw, just using it to test.

any thoughts?

[VRW]

Originally Posted by somefinn

Decided to come back with an update and possibly some questions, as im a new mac user........

i got a late 2013 Apple mac pro with retina display.

thunderbolt to firewire connection and connected to my rack Digi 002.

i installed 002_and_003_Family_Drivers_v90_r3_73509.dmg
first of all, but the digi 002 didnt connect,

so then i installed

003_Family_Driver_11_1_3_Mac_83630.dmg
and my digi 002 was recognised within garageband...

When trying to record a single mic input, there is glitching and an error appears in garage band

"error while trying to synchronize audio and midi"
"Sample Rate 33,305 recognized.
Check conflict between GarageBand and external device."

sample rate is showing 44,000 everywhere i can see it. so im not sure if the issue is with the 002 itself or the drivers..

I'm really hoping for a simple solution.... i seem to just end up throwing money at something only for it give me further errors....


I'm not settling on garageband btw, just using it to test.

any thoughts?

Hey, sorry for you having a difficult start in the mac world.

However there is a bunch of things to mind.

First of all, please, leave all data of your Macbook here!
Which processor type, how much Ram and which drive inside?
You can check it out when you go to the Apple menu in the upper left corner and click on -About this Mac-. Write down what you read there and go back to the menu. Now press the Option key and click on -System Information- and on the right part of the screen you can read further informations about your processor, the model ID of your Macbook etc.
With this information you may go to this site, scroll down and find your specific model. Click on it which will lead you to a site where you can find every detail about your Macbook.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/appl...acbookpro.html

It is important to know which exact model of Macbook you have to understand it's specifications.

Secondly which version of Mac OSX are you running currently? If it's the latest one OSX El Capitan, you have to understand that the 002 isn't supported with it anymore.

Next thing is that there have been reports about issues using the Thunderbolt-to-Firewire-Adapter with those old Digidesign interfaces. Some people had been able to get their 003s to work this way properly, others did not succeed. And the 002 is even older than the 003. That's why I suggested a Macbook which still had a Firewire 800 port.

Anyway.

Another thing is that the 002/003 Core Audio driver has not been working very well for years. That's why I sold my 003 6 years ago. So you better may try it with Pro Tools itself instead of using it with Garageband via the Core Audio driver (every other application on the system except Pro Tools will use the Core Audio driver on using the 002/003 as the audio engine for it).

After all let me strongly recommend to rather sell the 002 as long as you may get a few bucks on Ebay for it. You won't get happy with it using it with current systems.
The only way to make it work would have been to buy an older for example 2011 i7 Quad Core Macbook Pro on which you could have installed older versions of Mac OSX and run older versions of Pro Tools with it finally.
The 002 simply has become legacy for the use with current systems.

It is really important to use the fitting components (model of Macbook, version of Mac OSX, audio interface, the right hard drives etc) to get a well working music recording system. In general Pro Tools uses to work much more trouble free on Mac systems than with Windows/PC but you still have to use all the fitting stuff together.

Again, please, give us the exact infos about your Macbook itself and which OSX you are using etc!
If you want to use more current versions of OSX you definitely should replace your 002 with a more current audio interface.
If you should replace it, avoid any Digidesign/Avid audio interfaces for the use with the latest version of OSX and Pro Tools.
You seriously may rather look at other brands like Focusrite, Universal Audio, RME, Apogee etc.


The best of success to you.

[somefinn]

hi thank you for the reply.


yes of course, here is the MAC Info

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 8 GB
Boot ROM Version: MBP112.0138.B16
SMC Version (system): 2.18f15



I shut down the Mac and reconnected digi002 and found that the error hasn't appeared all day,

how ever

i have noticed very small artefacts or glitches every 5 minutes or so...

slightly off topic, but what is the recommended buffer size for tracking live mics.

and where is the buffer setting for the digi002?

thank you again.

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by somefinn

i have noticed very small artefacts or glitches every 5 minutes or so...

I've heard this issue before with 002's and PT 11/12. This and not being able to change the sampling rate.

But I have heard from one person here that his 002 setup works fine, but I am sure that depends on your Mac OS as much as anything else


You never said which Mac OS your running, the older the better.....

Originally Posted by somefinn

slightly off topic, but what is the recommended buffer size for tracking live mics.



and where is the buffer setting for the digi002?.

Best setup is always the lowest possible, that you can run without crashing PT.
buffer settings are in the playback Engine setup in PT.

[somefinn]

my bad.

OS x El Capitan - 10.11.3

what is Avid offering in terms of audio interfaces, 4 or 8 I/O is really the most i'd need......

something comparable to the digi 002 but nice and stable with today's Mac's.

i realise my 002 is like 10 years old.......