What kind of Macbook for Ableton live 10

[Joland]

Hi, I just purchased AL 9 with free upgrade, and I'm Windows user, and want to switch to Macbook.
I know that Apple seller will tell me just buy the newest, but I want not newest, but just to enough to music production.
Which models will be enough for me?

[Echolalia]

I use a MBP from 2010; i5 with 4mb ram. It works fine for my needs but I don't run many plugins, esp big processor hungry ones, and my music is really minimal with rarely more that 8-10 tracks. With 4mb ram, I also run the 32 bit version. I'm not sure if it wold be enough if I started to make bigger productions.
Bear in mind how many ports you will need too. Consider a reconditioned MBP. I've heard that the ones from 2015 are good ones to get, but I'm no expert

[Stromkraft]

Hi, I just purchased AL 9 with free upgrade, and I'm Windows user, and want to switch to Macbook.
I know that Apple seller will tell me just buy the newest, but I want not newest, but just to enough to music production.
Which models will be enough for me?

Any quadcore i7 MBP. That's the 15" machines, not 13". I'd suggest to contemplate avoiding models with discreet graphics. Go for machines with "IG" (Internal Graphics). Typically these still work fine for Live graphics. Don't expect these to drive an external 4k display though.

I suggest 2012 models or later, and the difference is not very great comparing 2012 to 2015 models. 2016 models improves performance, but you need to embrace Thunderbolt 3 ports only. Note that even one of these USB-C type ports can drive multiple items, also displays. You just need to chain them up and handle the cables.

2013 models and later have for some stupid reason fixed RAM sizes, so make sure you get what you need from the start. 16 GB is pretty much minimum, but one can make do for Live usage with 8GB, unless you need large sample libraries in memory.

The SSD can be easily replaced up until 2012, with some more work with 2013 to 2015 models, so that's not as critical. You need to be really careful getting a compatible replacement drive and it's some work doing the replacement in 2013 models and later. I haven't investigated 2016 and later models.

[dysanfel]

My 2012 rMBP is still a work horse. With a bit of planning it can handle anything I do on stage.