#314

I wouldn’t buy a new Mac Mini—current model is long in tooth. Buy used or refurb?

#315

God I wish laptop hackintoshes were more stable, it would be the best of both worlds.

#316

I’ve just got a late 2011 i7 15" MBP, Ableton surprisingly works for my needs even with 4gb of ram and HDD. Going to update to SSD and 16gb of ram and that should be enough for a couple more years, other than battery.
Hopefully that will help someone on a lower budget

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#317

beware this model (8,2) has a defect dGPU who will stop working after a while.

more info and a workaround here:

1 Like
#318

My experience with making music with Apple products for almost 15 years now:

  • Apple’s laptops are not suitable for music production anymore (the golden Steve Jobs era is gone for a long time now)
  • The most stable high perfomance computer is the iMac. 10 years of music production with not a single issue. Be careful with OS updates. Stay always 2 updates behind is my rule. Check every piece of hardware you have for each update.
  • check which hardware companies are good in supporting their products for a long long time. Tip: Roland is not one of them.
  • If you really need a portable computer floor playing live or recording on location, get an older and cheaper laptop. There’s nothing in the market that would compare with an iMac. Apple makes laptops for general use, not for specialized users.
3 Likes
#319

Looks like a stable setup for you, and I agree - no laptop beats a desktop, but i’d be mindful of runaway generalisations. The T2 stuff seems to be a combo of hardware engineering and software configuration. Beyond that, and macOS having good and poor versions, there’s nothing to suggest that new hardware is worse than the old. dGPU issues have been around since 2007 if not before - the 16" model seems to be the first recently to go in the opposite design direction - thicker body, larger cooling.

CPUs, iGPUs, and memory are all faster today, Thunderbolt is more than a decent wire for audio. The T2 timing issue may affect your hardware or not - that is key, not just the computer. If you’d like rock-solid stability, look for an interface with custom drivers - RME is a good example - robust hardware, decent code.

I think we’re past the point where there was something special about audio (for example in the past it required faster graphics, disk access, stable timing chipset inside). With some limitations, macbook pros are a reasonable choice for main production machine. Keeping creatives in mind seems to come and go at Apple - there was similar sentiment before Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro X were introduced. Also knowing what hardware is inside the new Mac Pro, I wouldn’t rush declaring the iMac to be their most stable high performance computer…

3 Likes
#320

I can recommend this USB-C Hub for people wanting to avoid buying a million dongles:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QQ11BP6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I haven’t had any issues connecting my MBP to an ultrawide monitor using an HDMI cable. Additionally, it has 100W of power delivery, so you can connect your charging block to it and only connect a single cable to your Macbook. Also, I’ve been switching it back and forth between my MBP and Windows laptop without issue.

But yes, it’s still a bit annoying buying a $50 accessory for a $3k computer just to use standard ports…

2 Likes
#321

I thought we’d all agreed to keep this thread focused on helping answer the question in the subject and not harping on about why some of us seem to hate the Mac in disregard of all the people currently doing just fine making all kinds of good music happily with them.

4 Likes
#322

I’m curious if the benefits of the new MBP and any efforts to reduce the overheating issues are good enough to be better than just getting a top of the line mac from a couple years ago. Power and performance are definitely key for me and being able to run many many things at once without dropouts is important. ~~~

#324

the older one will probably have more RAM but i would not get any macbook that has a butterfly keyboard. my partner has a '17 (i think) and we both thought the issue was probably overhyped. it isn’t. the keyboard hasn’t failed completely yet but the keys don’t always work, and the spacebar was out of action for like a week. it might be worth taking into consideration that resale values on these '16-'19 macbooks may take a hit in resale value too. just bad news all around. personally i would not risk it just to get a bit more processing power.

2 Likes
#325

the 16in having the new keyboard is definitely a big factor for me, i have an Air right now and my u and e key get stuck fairly regularly because of the butterfly keyboard

#326

As a late 2019 15" owner, I’d say absolutely go for a 2020 16". Any model between 2016 and 2019 uses their flawed / unreliable butterfly keyboard design, which might just fail at some point out of warranty and cost you hundreds of dollars to repair, and anything older than that is completely incomparable to even the base spec 2020 MBP (dual core vs hexa core CPU, faster and larger storage, etc.). I wish I could have waited for the 2020 revision but that wasn’t an option for me unfortunately, it feels like I purchased a very expensive future paperweight. However the performance of this machine absolutely shreds my 2012 MacBook Air.

1 Like
#327

Yeah, my wife has an Air with the butterfly keyboard and I loathe that thing. I have a 16" and it’s great. I put some thoughts in another thread, but essentially the huge drawback with the 16" is that it has Catalina pre-installed. Other than that, I love it.

#328

Also, you should be able to get your Air repaired free of charge: https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-notebooks

#329

I’ve been using Catalina for work and studio tasks since late last year and had zero problems or even quibbles with it. I don’t consider it a drawback whatsoever. If anything, multithreaded audio works slightly smoother than it did before, in Ableton at least.

1 Like
#330

I’m running Catalina as well on both my work and personal Macs. Both are MacBook Pro, 15".

My work computer is either 2017 or 2018. It has the butterfly keyboard, which I genuinely dislike using, and the Touch Bar, which I also genuinely dislike but haven’t given it a fair shot, either. The first thing I did was to turn the Touch Bar back into function keys. Well, a “function bar”, I suppose is what it is now.

I do love the monitor, and it’s really thin and lite machine, and overall it is a very nice computer.

My personal computer is a 2015 MacBook Pro. It’s bulkier and heavier, but the keyboard is a joy to type on. When at a desk I usually tether to a dock and use an external monitor & keyboard, so that does relieve me from the butterfly keyboard.

I, personally, wouldn’t recommend the butterfly keyboard models, if it can at all be avoided.

1 Like
#331

i recently upgraded from my late 2013 macbook pro to the new 16" and wow what a difference. i’m glad i was able to skip the butterfly keyboard.

thermals seem great. so far no issues with catalina on ableton 10 & adobe apps.

1 Like
#332

rumor is there’s a new 13" MBP coming at the end of the month with the same improved keyboard, though with supply chain issues in China who knows.

I don’t think my beloved 2014 MBP has much more life left in it. I know it’s ridiculous to be attached but it’s been my favorite computer I’ve ever owned - a reliable workhorse that’s gone all over the world with me. But it’s starting to really choke on certain sessions and plugins.

I am SO reluctant to switch over to the shudder dongle lifestyle, to the point where I explored switching to Windows laptops. but after predominantly using Macs for the last 15 years that’s pretty unappealing too. sigh…

1 Like
#333

I’m with you on the 13"
I bought a 2018 15" version and it was diabolical. 3 trips to the genius bar to address popping speakers (twice + replaced motherboard) and finally the keys all within a 6 weeks of having the machine… I returned it and got a full refund for my troubles.

#334

I, too, love my 2014 13" MBP. Fortunately I haven’t had any issues yet with it not being oomph enough, but I tend to run very lightweight plugins (Valhalla and Softube stuff mostly). If I want to get heavier, I’m considering adding a UAD external of some kind (Satellite or Arrow).

I also have a 2019 15" and would happily trade it for a 16" - for how powerful they are, they’re still remarkably portable. I’m with the group of haters on the butterfly keyboard. Still, I manage to bang out a LOT of C code per day on the craptastic one on the 15", so it’s not impossible to use. Just frustrating from time to time. Don’t get me started on the touchbar, though…

2 Likes