Results of my MacBook test

[TimOz]

Just upgraded my trusty 12" 1.5g Powerbook to a 2g MacBook with 2g ram and ran a little test that may be of interest.
Using my old Mbox 1
Hardware Buffer set at 512 samples
RTAS 2 Processors
CPU 85%
DAE level 2 Default

I created a stereo audio track and imported the song I am doing a cover of as a guide. I made a Stereo Instrument track, inserted Strike and programmed up my drums.
Then another stereo instrument track with Xpand and programmed a bass part
After that I just wanted to see what I could throw at this machine so here's the list

2x Stereo instrument tracks
1x Stereo Audio track
18x Mono Audio tracks
8x Stereo Aux
1x Master fader

Plugins
1x Strike
1x Xpand
1x Autotune 5
18x EQ3 4band
18x Dyn3 Compressor
18x BF76
4x TL Space Reverb Stereo
2x Digirack Med Delay Stereo
2x Dverb Stereo
1x Smack Compressor Stereo
1x Maxim Stereo

I thought this was pretty impressive so just for kicks I recorded another 8 mono audio tracks and got another 3 Dyn3 compressors running, 4 and I got the running out of cpu message.

This was running on the internal drive of my MacBook.
Hope this is helpful.

Tim

[Blank Frank]

Best piece of machinery I've ever owned!

[rangermark]

TimOZ and BlankFrank:

I am completely new to PTLE and have been trying to understand all the terms.

I have an M box2 and a seagate FW400 HD. I want to record only vocals and acoustic instruments, 10-15 tracks maximum.

I'm trying to decide between a Macbook and a Macbook pro. I've been leaning more to the Macbook to save cash.

So, are your results really good? Will a Macbook do what I want without hassles or should I go with a MB pro?

Thanks in adavnce!

PS What is a "deverb" anyway?

[The Dougfather]

Rangermark, i can do what you require with my iBook G4 1.33, just imagine what a macbook would do? I think the MBP is aimed more at pro video and a macbook would be more than enough.

Cheers

[rangermark]

Thanks DougFather.

Do you think a bigger screen would be an advantage?

[rabs]

Wow....I have a Macbook 2ghz 2Gig RAM aswell....I'm not sure I could get this much running. I will give it a test later...if I can't any ideas why I can't run as much (yep I have done all the things suggested by DIGI and I am running to a external FW Drive). Anyways, I will report back wiht my findings.

[rabs]

I stand corrected, I was so concerned that my system wasn't running as good I done a quick test and yes got even more things running (prob because using an external Hard Drive). I have been running on 1 RTAS processor (as I believe Celemony recommend this for Melodyne), I put my system to 2 RTAS and the difference was amazing...so much more power. Any other views on 1 vs 2 RTAS processors....

[lwilliam]

As a side note, Celemony released a free upgrade to Melodyne which allows you to use both processors. It's on their website. It makes a big difference.

[rabs]

ah...thanks, just checked but it only seems to be an update for Melodyne Plugin that allows you to use 2 RTAS processors on LE 7.3 - I am stiill running 7.1 so not sure if it would help.

[Blank Frank]

Howdy Ranger!
I may be wrong, but I don.t think the audio performance would be that much more for a Macbook Pro, however the pro has a bigger screen which could be handy, but for the extra money I couldn't justify it. You could get a second monitor for a lot less and I think 2 monitors is better than 1 large screen for Pro tools. A D-verb is the reverb you get with Protools. I don't regret saving the money!
That's my 2 cents worth.
Enjoy!