Ableton Forum

okay, i've been waiting patiently for the new macbook pro to come out and here it is. and it's cheaper! and i'm getting one. but i have a couple questions about audio recording that involves having live on the internal hdd and the project on an external hdd.

1. is it even recommended/necessary to record onto and run the project on an external hdd?

and 2. since the expresscard is out, can i chain a firewire external hdd through my audio interface then into the mbp? or will a usb hdd suffice?

rapidix wrote:1. is it even recommended/necessary to record onto and run the project on an external hdd?

and 2. since the expresscard is out, can i chain a firewire external hdd through my audio interface then into the mbp? or will a usb hdd suffice?

1. nope

2. yes, but you may have some bus/bottleneck issues. and the usb drive, not sure but i'm guessing you're better off on the internal drive.

not sure about upgrade-ability of the aluminum macbooks, but a 7200 internal should suffice for most normal use. i went for three years on a white macbook with a 7200 and never ran into problems. iirc when i first got it i pushed it up to something like 40 stereo tracks with no dropouts, but my "real" sessions rarely have that many tracks.

i lucked out and grabbed a black macbook refurb just last week, but the new 13" macbook is good news as it means fw audio/video people have a few more years before their gear is obsolete.

mixed feelings on this one...

after Apple pushed everyone to ExpressCard they just drop it? and worse for an SD slot? so what about compact flash, memory stick, etc.? seems odd to go with something like that. ExpressCard had a lot of use in pro apps- esp video and audio on the go- ESPECIALLY since they dropped the extra FW port

also, Blue Ray is obviously the physical format of the near and medium future- like it or not it is replacing DVD- this decision by Apple is really all about the iTunes store and not about what consumers want

pro machine should really have two FW ports also

agree on the matte screen as well

finally an internal 3G modem would have been a killer (even a lot of cheap netbooks have this) - even the MBA doesn't have this???

at least make these things options in the 15" - I get the sense Apple thinks people don't like to have features and flexibility

weird

but i'll probably be getting one all the same as an upgrade from my aluminum MBP

oblique strategies wrote:I fear that the term 'Pro' is increasingly just a marketing ploy. As was the term 'PowerBook' -clever name for a laptop that was underpowered when compared to many others at that time. But at least it had firewire 800, which is a pro feature.

By removing the express card & replacing it with a lousy SD card slot (huh??) in the current machines, Apple clearly targets it's market: consumers. Oh Apple, so sad...

18 months ago some of my friends and colleagues saw me buy Mac for music and ridiculed my decision. I'm heading to the Apple Store today and 2 of them are going with me to check out the new MacBooks (or MacBook Pros as they are now known) with a view to purchase in the near future.

We should face it - these machines are firmly being aimed at the consumer these days. For high-end users there are still high-end options available. But for every musician who wants to buy a lower-end MBP with an ExpressCard slot, there are probably a number of consumers who couldn't care less about EC and just want to be able to stick their SD cards into the machine. Apple would be foolish to ignore those users. I for one am both happy and sad about it. Consumer cash will fund development of future high-end machines which benefits high-end users. The drawback is that as the platform attracts more mainstream users, there is a danger of the platform becoming less useful to high-end users.

With regard to the term "Pro" - I think anyone who buys a product based on the name containing the word "Pro" is foolish - now and in the past. Pro is subjective anyway - what is Pro to an audio user is not necessarily Pro to a video user. For me, my MacBook Pro is Pro because of the EC slot, FW400 and FW800 ports, and the Matte screen.

the built in battery is fail

I mean wasn't there a shit load of fail problems with Apple batteries in the past. Now the shit is built in.
You can't just swap that shit. You have to have it sent in or open the fucker up yourself(voids some major shit I'm sure..) not to mention I bought two extra batteries for my lil black MB and when I take a 15 hour flight home to the USA I don't give two fucks about it holding a charge for 7 hours. btw that cord you buy for long flights maybe works on 10% of planes

Someone buy the new 3 ghz mbp and do a performance test already. I must know.

aqua_tek wrote:http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/08/appl ... wwdc-2009/

# $1,699: 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 250GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard
# $1,999: 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics, 320GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard
# $2,299: 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics, 500GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard

Big fail

the Expresscard on MBP is a big fail in itself. I bought a E-SATA II with Jmicron chipset (the one that was supposed to be able to boot on external hard drive): it doesn't boot, and keeps crashing, corrupting the drive or doing kernel panics. apple just can't handle expresscard on MBP at all, so they gave it up… this and the 13" unibody going from "macbook" to "macbook pro" make apple look really amateurish to me… what's happening to them?
(oh and what about the "black screens of death" on MBP with the crappy nvidia 9600GT, and the fact that the laptop with burn itself up to 100°C+ if i don't use a third party app like fan control…)

My eSata ExpressCard is just working fine with two hard drive at once (on the first MBP).
Just got a few kernel panic in two years when removing / inserting the card with drives unmounted of course.
It's kicking firewire out as well in term of transfer rate.

candy warlos wrote:

aqua_tek wrote:http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/08/appl ... wwdc-2009/

# $1,699: 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 250GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard
# $1,999: 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics, 320GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard
# $2,299: 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics, 500GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard

Big fail

the Expresscard on MBP is a big fail in itself. I bought a E-SATA II with Jmicron chipset (the one that was supposed to be able to boot on external hard drive): it doesn't boot, and keeps crashing, corrupting the drive or doing kernel panics. apple just can't handle expresscard on MBP at all, so they gave it up… this and the 13" unibody going from "macbook" to "macbook pro" make apple look really amateurish to me… what's happening to them?
(oh and what about the "black screens of death" on MBP with the crappy nvidia 9600GT, and the fact that the laptop with burn itself up to 100°C+ if i don't use a third party app like fan control…)

Don't know about ESATA cards... BUT... I have a StarTech dual FW800 Expresscard through which I run my Fireface 800 and my external drive simultaneously. It's never given me any trouble. Works like a charm on my 2006 MBP

ok... besides the express card slot...

do people reckon the 6MB shared L2 cache. of the 2.8Ghz 15" model is worth the extra dosh?

I'm EXTREMELY pissed off because of this, I just bought the last macbook with no backlight and no firewire, great, now I'm stuck with this, apple definitly screwed over those who bought the recent macbooks, makes me not even want to buy apple any more. ARGGG!!!

hitechsoul15 wrote:I'm EXTREMELY pissed off because of this, I just bought the last macbook with no backlight and no firewire, great, now I'm stuck with this, apple definitly screwed over those who bought the recent macbooks, makes me not even want to buy apple any more. ARGGG!!!

Yeah that's actually not Apple's fault, TBH. People should always be aware of the caveat that a new model may be a year, a couple months, a couple weeks, a couple days away from release. That's the way it always works.

Next time, I suggest checking out macrumors.com's buyer's guide. They let you know when it's good to buy or not, depending on upcoming updates. Usually pretty on-point.

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

aqua_tek wrote:

hitechsoul15 wrote:I'm EXTREMELY pissed off because of this, I just bought the last macbook with no backlight and no firewire, great, now I'm stuck with this, apple definitly screwed over those who bought the recent macbooks, makes me not even want to buy apple any more. ARGGG!!!

Yeah that's actually not Apple's fault, TBH. People should always be aware of the caveat that a new model may be a year, a couple months, a couple weeks, a couple days away from release. That's the way it always works.

I'd say it is actually Apple's fault. Unlike many manufacturers (in many industries) Apple are extremely secretive about product updates, and so you can never be 100% sure that something new isn't just around the corner. Yeah, if you follow the MacRumors buyers guide you'll have a fair idea, but you still need to know it even exists - okay for us savvy people, but no so much for newcomers.

mkelly wrote:

aqua_tek wrote:

hitechsoul15 wrote:I'm EXTREMELY pissed off because of this, I just bought the last macbook with no backlight and no firewire, great, now I'm stuck with this, apple definitly screwed over those who bought the recent macbooks, makes me not even want to buy apple any more. ARGGG!!!

Yeah that's actually not Apple's fault, TBH. People should always be aware of the caveat that a new model may be a year, a couple months, a couple weeks, a couple days away from release. That's the way it always works.

I'd say it is actually Apple's fault. Unlike many manufacturers (in many industries) Apple are extremely secretive about product updates, and so you can never be 100% sure that something new isn't just around the corner. Yeah, if you follow the MacRumors buyers guide you'll have a fair idea, but you still need to know it even exists - okay for us savvy people, but no so much for newcomers.

fair enough. good point.

I know the feeling of frustration though. Just after I bought mine back in '06, a newer model came out. I wasn't aware of the buyer's guides and any of that jazz back then. I was pissed for like, a day or two, but then got over it. It still was a great laptop.

can we all just agree that Macs are overpriced pieces of shit?

I'm a PC!!!