stillcrazy Posted May 31, 2007 Share Posted May 31, 2007 I have been told that the Pro 7 will work well with a Macbook, the macbooks runs at 5400rpm, so what am I missing here as I have been told to work with nothing less that 7200rpm. I am very new to Mac's as I have never had one. So wouldn't a 7200rpm work better?? Thanks for your help and patience.!! Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SubFunk Posted May 31, 2007 Share Posted May 31, 2007 i use a new MBP with the standard 5400rpm drive and an external firefire HD with 7200rpm for audio / recording. the latest generation of 5400rpm drives are a completely different beast. i am not a computer expert at all, just a pure user, but i have been told that it has something to do with higher buss speeds in new comps. whatever, fact is that i often only use the internal drive for making / recording tracks in my MBP and i don't have any drive issues, like it's being to slow. and for really, really 'big' track counts i use the external firewire 7200rpm drive anyway. i guess you will anyhow end up getting a nice and fast firewire drive extra, due to the fact that even a big internal drive is only up to 200gb from what i know, and that is not much for audio, samples, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stillcrazy Posted May 31, 2007 Author Share Posted May 31, 2007 Thanks for the info, that does help. I think that if I need to I would just get a external HD as you did.. Another concern I have with the macbook is that it only has one usb port, doesn't that cause a headache? or is there a way around that? Thanks again.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SubFunk Posted May 31, 2007 Share Posted May 31, 2007 hmmm... i don't know, i have a macbook pro, it has 2 usb ports. but what i also did is that i bought a logitech v270 bluetooth mouse [higly recommended if you are not into using the trackpad only] to 'save' one usb port. and also i bought a belkin 7x usb POWERED hub, for the studio setup, there is all my usb stuff, like midi box, external apple computer keyboard, controllers, etc connected. so if i work in the studio i just have one plug for all usb devices and one firewire for the soundcard and another firewire for the external drive to plug into the maschine. [using a firewire 800 to 400 cable for the soundcard] cause the MBP has one firewire 400 and one firewire 800 port. 3 plugs in totall, which makes the 'setup' easy. i just recently changed from desktop to laptop. permanently installed is still a little older G5. if you run logic pro, you might have a slight problem, but i only use pro in the G5 and express in the laptop. main reason i hate this dongle crap for a laptop, i was soooo.... revealed that bias finally dropped this stupid dongle business for peak. damn you apple! get rid of this dongle business, it's so out of time. [i started to hate it since i have a laptop, i have also pro installed on it, but hardly use it on the MBP, only if i really need to, replaced the missing exp24 with kontakt2, which i now like much more then the exp24 and started to use it within pro as well] cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevecowley Posted May 31, 2007 Share Posted May 31, 2007 Thanks for the info, that does help. I think that if I need to I would just get a external HD as you did.. Another concern I have with the macbook is that it only has one usb port, doesn't that cause a headache? or is there a way around that? Thanks again.. I'm using Logic Pro 7.2 on a MacBook, so maybe I can be of some help... The MacBook has 2 USB ports and 1 firewire port. So I've got an external firewire 7200rpm drive for all my audio (samples for the EXS24 are ok on the internal 5400rpm drive because it loads them into memory, rather than streaming them from the hard drive, so the speed of the drive isn't an issue). Even if I had a faster internal drive, I'd still use an external one for audio because I don't fancy wearing my internal drive out and losing everything! Like Subfunk, I use a powered USB hub so I can plug in a mouse, a MIDI interface, and the Logic dongle. If you want to use an external audio interface then I guess you either have to daisy-chain a firewire one from the hard drive, or get a USB one. I don't know about performance of the drive or audio interface if you do link them together in a chain - perhaps someone else could advise on this? I just use the MacBook without any external soundcard and it works pretty well. There's an occasional hiccup but generally it copes ok. Hope that helps! Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Threlly Posted May 31, 2007 Share Posted May 31, 2007 I'm eyeing the Macbook Pro at the moment, I do have a powered hub, a Belkin one. I've always found it to be a bit skittish, is there a hub that works rock-solid with the Macbook ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stillcrazy Posted May 31, 2007 Author Share Posted May 31, 2007 Hey Steve and Subfunk. Thanks for the info it really helps..!!! I am going to do what you have done.. Now the powered USB hub is that something I can get through Apple as well...?? Also which Macbook and interface do you use?? Thanks a bunch Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sound609 Posted May 31, 2007 Share Posted May 31, 2007 I've had a MacBook Pro (2.13 c2d) for about 2 months now and it's my first Mac. I can say that it's easily my favorite computer that I've ever owned. And apart from a couple relatively minor issues with Logic it's been an excellent music making computer so far. Also, I upgraded the stock 5400rpm drive with a 7200rpm drive. I definitely noticed an increase in performance but I think you could easily get by with the stock drive, assuming you aren't running loads of audio tracks. Definitely get a mininum of 2GB RAM. A second hard drive is also a good idea... make it a firewire 7200RPM, as recommended by the others. I've been using a cheap $12 powered USB hub from Staples for over a month and it works great. The power is a must, as I've had issues with the laptops USB ports not providing enough power on their own for some devices, like HDDs. Go with firewire over USB for an audio device. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevecowley Posted May 31, 2007 Share Posted May 31, 2007 Hey Steve and Subfunk. Thanks for the info it really helps..!!! I am going to do what you have done.. Now the powered USB hub is that something I can get through Apple as well...?? Also which Macbook and interface do you use?? Thanks a bunch Jack My MacBook has a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and only the standard 1GB RAM. I know I should get more but at the moment I'm just closing all other programs when I use Logic and just about getting by! I'd certainly recommend that you get 2GB RAM installed. My powered USB hub is made by Belkin and seems pretty reliable. Sometimes my MacBook doesn't seem to recognise it, but that's always solved by unplugging it and plugging it back in. In response to sound609's post, I would definitely recommend an external drive for audio, as I mentioned in my last post. If you follow that advice, then you just need to find out what audio interface is going to work best for you - a firewire one, in series with the external drive, or a USB one. Unfortunately I can't be any help on that matter so I shall leave it to someone else to chip in with some advice! Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stillcrazy Posted May 31, 2007 Author Share Posted May 31, 2007 Ya, that's what I am going to do for sure.. I am looking at this interface M Audio Firewire 1814 Audio Interface, seems like it is a nice one that will do the job.. Have a good day all.. Thanks Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dante310 Posted May 31, 2007 Share Posted May 31, 2007 i'd wait on buying a new mbp, there are a lot of rumors saying an update is right around the corner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevgray Posted May 31, 2007 Share Posted May 31, 2007 After talking with a computer technician, here is one more suggestion about hard drives: look for one with a larger buffer. An 8 mb buffer is fairly standard, but it may be beneficial to find a 7200 rpm hard drive with a 16 mb buffer. This may be more important as you are recording a larger number of tracks simultaneously with higher sampling rates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stillcrazy Posted May 31, 2007 Author Share Posted May 31, 2007 wouldn't it just be easier to get a Mac pro with these type of specs? Two 2GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5100 processors 4MB shared L2 cache per processor 1.33GHz dual independent frontside buses 2GB memory (667MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC) NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics with 256MB memory 250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive 16x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD +/- RW/CD-RW) Mighty Mouse Apple Keyboard Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger Thanks Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarekith Posted June 1, 2007 Share Posted June 1, 2007 I use the 5400RPM drive in my MBP with no issues in any of my audio apps, and I used to use 4200RPM drive in my last laptop the same way. Even the 4200 rpm drive would play back dozens of stereo 24bit tracks with no issues at all. Personally I think people put too much into HD Speeds these days, if you really NEED a 7200 rpm drive for your audio work, you likely shouldn't be using a laptop anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SubFunk Posted June 6, 2007 Share Posted June 6, 2007 I'm eyeing the Macbook Pro at the moment, I do have a powered hub, a Belkin one.I've always found it to be a bit skittish, is there a hub that works rock-solid with the Macbook ? i personally don't have any issues with belkin, but if you look into something else i heard very good things about D-Link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SubFunk Posted June 6, 2007 Share Posted June 6, 2007 Hey Steve and Subfunk. Thanks for the info it really helps..!!! I am going to do what you have done.. Now the powered USB hub is that something I can get through Apple as well...?? Also which Macbook and interface do you use?? Thanks a bunch Jack i run a macbook pro C2D, 2.16ghz, 2gb ram i suggest, depending on your budget, presonus, motu, rme definetely go firewire, NOT usb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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