What is the cheapest MacBook for Live 9?

[guitar346]

I typically use a maxed out Macbook Pro 2017. I don't want to travel with it. Will a bottom end MacBook or Macbook Air be sufficient for Live 9? Basic stuff like editing.

[Tarekith]

Defintely, any Mac from the lasty 6-7 years is probably fine for basic stuff.

[Stromkraft]

Going just by the number of cores & clock (avg. of normal and boost), the MacBook i5 should give you 1/3 of maxed out MBP '17 and MacBook m5 should be around 1/4, which are easily translatable into number of tracks, plugins, etc.

I really think 4 cores should always be minimum with Live. I can see that a duocore i5 may be good enough for mixing audio tracks, depending on what one puts on these, but for software instrumentation I really think you need a minimum of 4 cores for a full track. And I'm a minimalist in many ways.

[wascal]

I can vouch for a Macbook Pro mid 2012 handling Live and multiple instances of UHe Dive etc easily.

[Stromkraft]

I can vouch for a Macbook Pro mid 2012 handling Live and multiple instances of UHe Dive etc easily.

That's not being specific. A 13" with a duocore CPU and a 15" with a quadcore are two totally different machines from a performance perspective.

I think the OP has to realize that one cannot overgeneralize these things. It all comes down to the actual projects and their makeup.

[wascal]

I can vouch for a Macbook Pro mid 2012 handling Live and multiple instances of UHe Dive etc easily.

That's not being specific. A 13" with a duocore CPU and a 15" with a quadcore are two totally different machines from a performance perspective.

I think the OP has to realize that one cannot overgeneralize these things. It all comes down to the actual projects and their makeup.

True - Its a Quadcore i7 with 16gb in it + an SSD instead of the standard drive, which is now installed as a 2nd HDD instead of the CD Drive. Had a quick check on Gumtree and you're looking at about £650-800 for that kind of spec 2nd hand.