Pro Tools on a MacBook Air (Mountain Lion)

[RobsDream]

Hey guys, this is my first post on here.

I'm going to be buying a 27 inch iMac for use as my main computer, which I will (hopefully) be installing ProTools 10 on. Will it work? I've seen that the only supported OS for 10 is Lion. Is this true? Will PT 10 work on a brand new iMac running Mountain Lion?

Also, I'm wondering whether I should buy an 11 inch MacBook Air-I'll be using it for work and taking it wherever I need to. As I'm not rolling in money, I can only really afford to spec either an i7 processor (2.0 Ghz, 4GB RAM) or an i5 processor (1.7 Ghz, 8GB RAM). Which would you say was the better option? Both processors are dual core.

Thanks for your time.

Rob

[crizdee]

Originally Posted by RobsDream

Hey guys, this is my first post on here.

I'm going to be buying a 27 inch iMac for use as my main computer, which I will (hopefully) be installing ProTools 10 on. Will it work? I've seen that the only supported OS for 10 is Lion. Is this true? Will PT 10 work on a brand new iMac running Mountain Lion?

Also, I'm wondering whether I should buy an 11 inch MacBook Air-I'll be using it for work and taking it wherever I need to. As I'm not rolling in money, I can only really afford to spec either an i7 processor (2.0 Ghz, 4GB RAM) or an i5 processor (1.7 Ghz, 8GB RAM). Which would you say was the better option? Both processors are dual core.

Thanks for your time.

Rob

Hi,

Mountain Lion has been qualified with pro tools 10.3 (now at 10.3.3)

Chris

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by RobsDream

Hey guys, this is my first post on here.

I'm going to be buying a 27 inch iMac for use as my main computer, which I will (hopefully) be installing ProTools 10 on. Will it work? I've seen that the only supported OS for 10 is Lion. Is this true? Will PT 10 work on a brand new iMac running Mountain Lion?

Also, I'm wondering whether I should buy an 11 inch MacBook Air-I'll be using it for work and taking it wherever I need to. As I'm not rolling in money, I can only really afford to spec either an i7 processor (2.0 Ghz, 4GB RAM) or an i5 processor (1.7 Ghz, 8GB RAM). Which would you say was the better option? Both processors are dual core.

Thanks for your time.

Rob

Without knowing what you are doing with Pro Tools it is hard to make any recommendation that has any value. Simple use of VIs can kill a lower-end computer for example. And what interfaces do you need to connect to?

As a gross generalization you want as much computer power as you can get and its normally well worth going for an i7 (which has hyperthreading, giving two additional virtual cores in this case).

You really want to think about screen size with portable computers, unless you can run an external monitor. I could not enjoy tying to use Pro Tools on an 11 or 13 inch screen.

Not sure why you would rush getting a laptop unless it is really needed. Start using Pro Tools on your iMac and learn what you really need/want in a portable solution.

Darryl

[RobsDream]

Thanks for your replies guys.

I suppose the question I need to ask is if I can transfer my sessions from my iMac over to my MacBook Air, and then take them with me, wherever I go.

In all honesty I'd like to take into my lessons at college, using the Air as a very basic way of showing my Music Tech peers things that I'm doing and for them to help me/work with me. The recording will be done on my 27 inch iMac.

Thanks for your help.

Rob

[MaxV]

A older MacBook Air will not work with ProTools. It lacks a firewire port and you'll need that to run your audio to and from your external hard drive.

You did know that you'll need an external hard drive according to ProTools specs right? Even with the Imac, you'll still need that external hard drive.

Now on the other hand, the newer Macbook Air has a thunderbolt port which with the proper cables can be plugged into an external hard drive then from the hard drive daisy chain it to the firewire port of your Audio Interface. Thats alot of stuff to be carrying around dude. I use a Macbook Pro for protools and also have an older Macbook Air to lug around with but not for ProTools. If I get an idea while on the road with the macbook air, there is always Garage band to record a quick demo till I get back home to my studio to fire up protools.

Attempting to fireup protools on a macbook air and record/edit audio to and from its internal hard drive is, in my opinion, something I would not even think about unless I want to spend more time with headaches than actually working. Avid specifically and highly reccommends the use of an external firewire hard drive according to specs and a qualified audio interface.

[Piers Gibbon]

Well I'll be keeping an eye on this thread. My voiceover studio uses an MBP (as in sig) but for long editing sessions I've been taking the wav into a very old MB with PT 7.4.3 and using that propped up in bed

But I've got an Air 13-inch, Late 2010, 2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo...I can't get PT 7.4.3 running on it (it says the hard drive is not a recordable volume)...so maybe if it works (and if I'm feeling rich one day) I'll get another PT10 licence for the Air...

[smoothbassman]

So has anyone got PT working on a new MacBook Air? I'm looking at getting one next month to run my portable rig.

Currently running a windows machine using an external USB3.0 drive and it works great. Wanted to do something similar with a lighter weight platform.

[TimNielsen]

The SSD in the new MacBook air is so ridiculously fast, I find it complete and utter hogwash that you would need an external drive. I just got a 13" i7 with 8 gigs of ram and 512 of SSD. I'll test it out soon, just got it.

But on my old Core 2 Duo 11" MB Air, I was able to EASILY run a session with 64 live tracks, LOTS of plugins, and even a few VI's.

Put it this way, I just Geekbenched my new Air and it scored high 7000s. My 2008 Mac Pro scores just above 10,000, which means at least theoretically the air is 70% powerful as the Mac Pro.

The new MB Air also has USB 3 for both of it's ports, and USB 3.0 is about 3 times faster than Firewire 800, so you could easily get some USB 3 drives.

Also, with ProTools caching so much improved if you have enough ram, hard drive speed is now fairly meaningless.

The SSD in my MB Air tests like 500 megs a second, about 7 times faster than a Firewire 800 drive could because of the interface bottleneck.

[Hugh-H]

Hello,

Yes, PT10 will run well on a new iMac and MBA with 10.8, one of our users does that. The MBA won't have as much power as the iMac but it will do quite well compared to what you expect from such a small form factor. The MBA's internal SSD is quick for audio use but not as fast as higher-end SSDs. We had a few odd issues with the SSD because the user had a Trim utility running while using PT and had some unexplained errors for a while. ALWAYS disable Spotlight on your PT folders or drives.

With PT it's still preferred to run an external drive instead of the system SSD and the USB3 ports on the MBA work well with a USB2 drive and great with a USB3 drive. The limitation with USB3 will be the drive speed. Apple's Mac USB implementation has been good in recent years unlike in the past when USB gained a bad reputation on the MacOS. In our testing with a USB3 drive we are quite comfortable recording or playing back 96 tracks of 48/24 from an external high-quality USB3 rotating drive using Nuendo. PT is not as reliable doing that but USB3 still performs better in PT than expected.

If you can get the i7 with 8GB or ram you'll be happier. If I'm not mistaken the i7 on the MBA is hyper-threading and the i5 is not. You'll definitely want the 8GB of ram, third-party ram from OWC is not very expensive.

Hugh

[TimNielsen]

Hugh, the SSD in my 13" MB Air tests at about 500 megs a second read speed, making it among the FASTEST SSDs you can buy. 550 is about as high as I've ever seen on any SSD.

In the high 480s to 500 is about as high as you can go without going a PCIe Route.

The 'old' SSD in my 11" air was definitely slower, about 230 megs a second, which is still faster than my fastest 7200 rpm single drive (my current Barracudas are testing about 175 megs a second).

But the current crop of Apple SSDs is among the fastest in the world, since all the 2012 models are using 6gbbs controllers now.