pro tools on a macbook or Imac

[queenstonmusic]

I'm running PT's 7.1., 002, on a Mac G5 ppc, but I would like to put together a 2nd system using either a Macbook laptop, or one of the Imac desktops, with one of the Mboxes. Aside from the Macbook Pro's, and one of the high end Imac's, neither the macbook, the Imac desktop, or the Mac mini, have firewire 800, only 400. So my question is this; is anyone using a Macbook, an Imac, or a Mac mini succesfully, and how have you got you're system configured and enabled so that you can access an external Hard drive? Thanks, and I look forward to anyone sharing their experience and/or their knowledge

[Robert Martin]

I have a 002 that I use with my Macbook Pro 2.33 with an external firewire drive. You can daisychain the drive to the 002 or the 002 to the firewire drive. Works great. I have been a PC guy for years and recently bought a MAC. I love my Mac....

[Robert Martin]

I have a 002 that I use with my Macbook Pro 2.33 with an external firewire drive. You can daisychain the drive to the 002 or the 002 to the firewire drive. Works great. I have been a PC guy for years and recently bought a MAC. I love my Mac....

[avamark]

I have my secondary system at home consisting of a macbook 2.0ghz with 1gig of ram and an mbox2 mini. Im running pro tools 7.3 and mac osx 10.4.9. with no issues at all. At first I was having issues but it turned out to be a plugin that was causing issues... ever since I fixed that, everything is smooth as butter! Im running sessions with 20+ tracks with heavy usage of plugins...no problem. Im using a LaCie d2 external drive going fw400 into the mac..works great!

[JPeters86]

I've been using Pro Tools 7.3 on a MacBook for quite a while, works great. You should add plenty of RAM in it though, probably about 2 GB. I've chained my external HD between my 002 and my MacBook, works great! No latency or drop-outs at all.

[queenstonmusic]

Thanks so much for the information. I was disappointed @ 1st when I realized that macbooks don't have FW 800, and I thought that, perhaps,paying the big $$$ for the Macbook Pro was one of the only ways to go, but your system is exactly what I was looking to put together for myself. Thanks for the help.

[queenstonmusic]

Thanks so much for the information. I was disappointed @ 1st when I realized that macbooks don't have FW 800, and I thought that, perhaps, paying the big $$$ for the Macbook Pro was one of the only ways to go, but your system is exactly what I was looking to put together for myself. Thanks for the help.

[The Dougfather]

It's a big Pro Tools no no to try and run a firewire 800 drive witha firewire interface as it causes buffer underrun errors, so you'l need an Mbox or a Mac Pro with separate firewire bus to run a FW800 drive properly with Pro Tools.

I have both the Macbook and the iMac and as much as i love my Macbook i find it impractical for large Pro Tools sessions. This is mainly down to the lack of USB ports on macs. 2 on the MB and three on the iMac, it makes a lot of difference especially if you have a USB interface, HUI and iLok as i do.

However, in terms of overall performance the two are virtually indentical so it depends on what peripherals you intend to add to your setup as to how it would affect you.

Cheers

[queenstonmusic]

Thanks for the heads up. I was thinking of a similar system to avamark, a Macbook running PT 7.3, with an Mbox mini and a FW 400. This way I would have one usb for the mini, one for the ILok, and the FW 400 port for the external. This way there are no Fw 800's involved.