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  #11  
Old 05-15-2011, 08:29 AM
bonestonne bonestonne is offline
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Default Re: Which Macbook Pro to buy?

I just got the 15" i7 2.2GHz. If anything, upgrade the RAM yourself. 8gb of DDR3 is not worth $200. I spent $80, and my laptop is great.

The graphics are powerful enough, whether it's intel or AMD in terms of rendering performance for Pro Tools GUI. Having the AMD will not give any benefit over Intel.

To get an idea of whether you should get the 13" or the 15", is just to figure out how much screen you need. I have the 15" Hi-res matte finish screen, because it's so much better in low light conditions, and not having the brightness at 100% ever helps battery life A LOT.

My problems with the laptop come down to how close the ports are to each other. If you've got somewhat fat USB plugs, you might not be able to get two devices plugged in at the same time, and I also don't like the FW800 port, or at least the fact that it doesn't come with any adapters. For such an expensive laptop, you'd think they'd include the displayport or FW adapters, but that's apple...put on a port that not many people use, and then charge an arm and a leg for a little adapter that people will inevitably need.

Also, I know a million people will damn near crucify me for saying this, but I've done multi-track sessions (recently) with the 5400RPM drive in Pro Tools 9.0.2, without a second recording drive, and it's worked just fine for me. I have some more driver testing to do today, so I'll be at it again, but I feel like 7200RPM drives in a laptop are a bad idea, in terms of heat, power consumption, and lifespan because of the faster moving parts. Not even mentioning the fact that MacBooks and MacBook Pros are not well ventilated or well cooled for that matter. I work at a computer shop, so I've got dead ones, live ones, and they all have cooling issues, and are hella tough to work on (not so much with unibody models, but earlier ones are a real PITA).

I find 13" screens to be unbearable for my own work, they're just too small, and it drives me nuts. The hi-res 15" screens I feel, are worth every cent, because I don't need an external monitor to use it even for audio work, but again, budget is just as big a factor as personal choice.
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  #12  
Old 05-16-2011, 05:18 AM
patwoltenholme patwoltenholme is offline
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Default Re: Which Macbook Pro to buy?

I tell everyone this:

Get a 13" (cheaper)

And then get a HUGE LCD (LED sucks ass) monitor to work off. Then use your MBP screen as a second screen for mix window, instruments, plugins etc. Monster workflow and WAY cheaper. Plus a 13" is awesome to carry around. I want to do this too. I have an old MBP 15" but I still want this setup.
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  #13  
Old 05-16-2011, 07:36 AM
CME CME is offline
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Default Re: Which Macbook Pro to buy?

I've not kept up the exact differences in models, but IMO look at CPUs first. From what you said in the description you are looking at 2 dual-core and one quad-core model? If you can swing the quad-core get it and thank me later. You can always add more ram, swap HDs, or add an external monitor. Swapping CPUs is next to impossible. And more RAM is better to a point. With pro tools on a Mac you probably won't notice much increase in performance past 5-6GB unless you're using VIs that utilize a memory server or rewire them through something like reaper.
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  #14  
Old 08-15-2011, 09:02 PM
zman1771 zman1771 is offline
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Default Re: Which Macbook Pro to buy?

I have been trying to get a new MBP 15" running Pro Tools 9.x to work with a ProFire 2626 and various FireWire hard drives for several weeks and have concluded that the FireWire Recording Interface should have its own port.

That means no FireWire port available on the 15" MBP for hard drives. As of a couple of days ago the cheapest Thunderport Drive available was $1000 and nobody has even announced a Thunderport to Firewire Adapter.

So, I somehow have to get a 17" MBP to get the ExpressCard slot for a FireWire or eSATA adapter.

GET THE MACBOOK PRO 17 INCH - EXPRESSCARD PORT IS INDISPENSABLE!!

SAVE YOURSELF A LOT OF TROUBLE.
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  #15  
Old 08-16-2011, 06:30 AM
coolbass coolbass is offline
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Default Re: Which Macbook Pro to buy?

Quote:
Originally Posted by zman1771 View Post
I have been trying to get a new MBP 15" running Pro Tools 9.x to work with a ProFire 2626 and various FireWire hard drives for several weeks and have concluded that the FireWire Recording Interface should have its own port.

That means no FireWire port available on the 15" MBP for hard drives. As of a couple of days ago the cheapest Thunderport Drive available was $1000 and nobody has even announced a Thunderport to Firewire Adapter.

So, I somehow have to get a 17" MBP to get the ExpressCard slot for a FireWire or eSATA adapter.

GET THE MACBOOK PRO 17 INCH - EXPRESSCARD PORT IS INDISPENSABLE!!

SAVE YOURSELF A LOT OF TROUBLE.

This is blatantly untrue.
I am happily using an 2011 iMac and a 2010 13" mpb without any problems by daisy chaining audio interface and firewire hd's.
And save your caps for someplace else, please.
And please do not triple-post.
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  #16  
Old 08-16-2011, 10:44 AM
Dism Dism is offline
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Default Re: Which Macbook Pro to buy?

Quote:
Originally Posted by zman1771 View Post
I have been trying to get a new MBP 15" running Pro Tools 9.x to work with a ProFire 2626 and various FireWire hard drives for several weeks and have concluded that the FireWire Recording Interface should have its own port.

That means no FireWire port available on the 15" MBP for hard drives. As of a couple of days ago the cheapest Thunderport Drive available was $1000 and nobody has even announced a Thunderport to Firewire Adapter.

So, I somehow have to get a 17" MBP to get the ExpressCard slot for a FireWire or eSATA adapter.

GET THE MACBOOK PRO 17 INCH - EXPRESSCARD PORT IS INDISPENSABLE!!

SAVE YOURSELF A LOT OF TROUBLE.
I agree completely.

While some devices work fine with daisychaining... Those of us who have VI heavy sessions and drive dedicated to sample libraries... bandwidth does become an issue for load times.

There are also plenty of interfaces reported to not handle daisychaining so well. Particularly those with high I/O counts and DSP. Then there's the chipset requirements to worry about, too.

ExpressCard34 with eSATA is the best way to connect drives to a Macbook, hands down.
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  #17  
Old 08-16-2011, 01:43 PM
bad jitter bad jitter is offline
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Default Re: Which Macbook Pro to buy?

Quote:
Originally Posted by patwoltenholme View Post
And then get a HUGE LCD (LED sucks ass) monitor to work off.
And don't forget to get Apple Keyboard with numeric keypad, too! Or some other brand real keyboard.
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  #18  
Old 08-16-2011, 02:30 PM
adam.whalley adam.whalley is offline
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Default Re: Which Macbook Pro to buy?

I've got an early 2011 13' i5 MBP, and it is a really fantastic machine.
Ive been mixing Brighton Rock by queen and I've got up to around 30/40 tracks on my mixer and when yo get used to the gestures its really easy to get around it all. I also bought a mini display port adapter for my tv so i can split the screen and that only cost a fiver.
All works great and I'm literally running so many plugins I've lost count, and everything handles it.
Go for it!
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  #19  
Old 03-27-2012, 09:22 PM
mixxmann34 mixxmann34 is offline
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Default Re: Which Macbook Pro to buy?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm View Post

Others have pointed out that the core Intel graphics may not perform so well and having the AMD graphics will help offload stuff from the CPU. Although with these new MBP and the core graphics imprvements I'm kinda suspecting it might cut it.





Darryl
What performance issues are related to the Intel HD graphics on the macbook pro laptops?
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  #20  
Old 03-28-2012, 12:13 PM
huzzam huzzam is offline
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Default Re: Which Macbook Pro to buy?

mixxmann34 wrote:

> What performance issues are related to the Intel HD graphics on the macbook pro laptops?

None whatsoever. There was a response earlier in this thread that the high end graphics card was necessary for the Pro Tools GUI. That's bollocks; dedicated graphics are only important for rendering 3d objects (such as you find in games). The PT interface is extremely simple for a graphics card to handle, and there is absolutely no point in considering what graphics card you have.

I have a 15" mbp with both Intel integrated & AMD Radeon 6750M, and I leave it set to Intel all the time (via gfxCardStatus) — saves battery & keeps the fans from coming on so much. I have never had a problem with the display refresh interfering with a session.

~peter in oakland
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