New MBP's and the death of desktops for us studio nerds?

[ARDJ]

I still use a desktop almost exclusively for serious music production (I use a laptop for music "sketching"). I enjoy having multiple hard drives (keep your samples on a separate drive DOES improve performance) and I like to be able to upgrade my computer. I prefer having a keyboard separate from the screen, as I usually sit a little bit away from my screen with my various MIDI controllers and hardware (though you COULD still do this with a laptop).

nothing here that can't be done w/ a laptop, keep your desktop monitors, keep your keyboards, keep everything just run it off one machine... that's all i'm sayin

[3phase]

havent used a desktop since 99.. only to trasfer data ther is an old windows oc in the studio

[Piplodocus]

I've got last years top spec i7 17" with 2 drives in. That replaced a desktop, and I'm finally free after never having a laptop before. My wife just got the new bottom of the range 13" this weekend that's supposed to be just about as fast!

I never get near max drive access with library on one and projects on the other, an I don't tax the processor that much. I'm currently considering that the glitches I get must be down to me not pushin it hard enough and either intel speedstepping, hyperthreading, or something is too slow (not enough aceess to keep the drives spinning full time?) that it glitches when I hit it with moderate stress after barely any!

I made a big super size set to try to prove this but ableton crashed cuz I used too much ram.

Ram seems my most limiting factor as far as I can tell. Might put 8GB in (for £75 rather than the £150 apple charges!).

[3phase]

i think its easier to accept that a laptop is slower than the top desktop machine when you have payed multiple times in your live 10K sums for the fastest computer around just to realize that its the slowest thing around 3 years later.. fast computers was never so cheap as today..ram was never so cheap..software was never so cheap.. rent was never so high :-/..

however.. even my slow mac book is much faster than my 1999 titanium with 500 mhz takt... and that 500 mhz thing was enough to run 24 platinum verbs on a latency of 6 ms... so defently enough to produce music... and the os 9 versions of life was ok in rewire allready..
so it was possible to run logic with live in rewire on a 500 mhz machine... tight..but worked...
at least better than L8 over the last year...

so the new again 2 as fast versions are not really necessary.. but a good choice of laptops still.. they have all actual ports..
usb 2.0.. firewire 800 and theese new bla monitor port version..


and as history shows.. the moment apple decides for a port it will be a major one in the near future.. while firewire will be abandoned very soon to give an usb 3.0 option instead...

so your last chance to have a firewire port on an apple laptop..and its not a winter apple..

producers rule number 83

never buy a winter apple

[gtodd876]

@Piplodocus - I also get the glitches you speak of with last years MBP i7! I noticing lots of others across the forums. What is your audio interface? Does it sound different than the typical pop, crackle from too small of a buffer? More like a quick screech/synth/bit reduction type sound then everything goes back to normal? My hunch is that I think it is some background process that is ruining the day.

When you have the glitch open up the Console application and search for "IOAudioStream" to see if you have an error message like this:

2/28/11 8:20:53 AM kernel IOAudioStream[0x94a6100]::clipIfNecessary() - Error: attempting to clip to a position more than one buffer ahead of last clip position (1d7,6e8)->(1d9,678).
2/28/11 8:20:53 AM kernel IOAudioStream[0x94a6100]::clipIfNecessary() - adjusting clipped position to (1d8,6e8)

I have gotten the glitches not only in Ableton but also Logic&Mainstage. So that rules out a specific program. Now I need to find out if it's the computer or the Fireface UC that it cause the glitches.

[3phase]

I still use a desktop almost exclusively for serious music production (I use a laptop for music "sketching"). I enjoy having multiple hard drives (keep your samples on a separate drive DOES improve performance) and I like to be able to upgrade my computer. I prefer having a keyboard separate from the screen, as I usually sit a little bit away from my screen with my various MIDI controllers and hardware (though you COULD still do this with a laptop).

nothing here that can't be done w/ a laptop, keep your desktop monitors, keep your keyboards, keep everything just run it off one machine... that's all i'm sayin

True, to an extent. Though you can't really replace motherboards, graphics cards, etc... in laptops? Or install multiple hard drives?

who needs to replace motherboards? and with machines with pci card slots or the new thunder bla port you can connect as many drives as the system allows.. in practize you have an external drive for your laptop or a few for backup and data storrage and live quite well with your 500 giga on board..

what you get is that you can do everything everywhere.. really nice for your tortured back to do it from time to time horizontaly.. and safes so much money over the years.. just the energy theese desktops eat over the course of 3 years pays the laptop

[3phase]

And as far as energy - not really true, at least not in my case (I can't speak for every desktop, obviously). There's pros and cons to both ways, for sure.

And replacing motherboards/processors is cheaper than getting a new computer. Also, it's definitely better, perfomance-wise, to have your samples on a separate drive.

how much watts your desktop eats inklusive monitor? 300-500? my laptop chews 60 the hour.. now calculate with your electrcity price..

my computer runs at least 16 hours the day. 16x60x365x3 = 1051 KWH its 36 pence per kwh in my location because its industrial...
so 378.- for electricity just for my laptop in 3 years..

a 500 watts desktop would eat 3153.- in the same time... so 2775.- euros safed ..

ok my electricity is expensiv.. but my laptop just had cost me 1200.-...

so even the cheapest electricity rate in germany would have payed my laptop within 3 years just by the energy safings in comparison with a desktop..

isnt that amazing?

[3phase]

That's not really how computer power supplies work though...

sure shukibotschi..whatever you say... desktop powersupplys are just different animals than laptop ones..sure...

[Forge.]

Jebus, I haven't used a desktop in years for anything.

i'm on a 2core 2.5ghz, 4gigs of RAM on my MBP and unfortunately most of my projects won't run on it. i'm usually about 10-12 midi tracks, 30-40 audio tracks + returns, etc.

not at all trying to criticise your workflow, but it really surprises me when I hear people say this. I can't understand for a start how you can really need that much going on at once. Some of my best tracks have about 5 or 6 tracks going at once (I guess that's not strictly accurate as some of those would be drum racks, so technically each drum is a track of its own, but even there I don't usually have all sounds playing at the same time.)

I'm still on a 2009 white macbook and I very rarely reach the limit, and if I do I increase the buffer size just while I am working on that song (assuming that by the time I have got to that point I don't need to worry too much about latency any more)

I guess I just got into a habit of being more frugal as well because I've been doing this since computers couldn't so anything but MIDI. I used to work in a studio where we had to back up to JAZZ drive every day because the hard drive filled up just working at 44.1/16bit - in fact sometimes even 8k/8bit when working on phone formats.... just blows my mind to hear of people running out of juice on the machines we have these days....

[LeifonMars]

Jebus, I haven't used a desktop in years for anything.

i'm on a 2core 2.5ghz, 4gigs of RAM on my MBP and unfortunately most of my projects won't run on it. i'm usually about 10-12 midi tracks, 30-40 audio tracks + returns, etc.

not at all trying to criticise your workflow, but it really surprises me when I hear people say this. I can't understand for a start how you can really need that much going on at once. Some of my best tracks have about 5 or 6 tracks going at once (I guess that's not strictly accurate as some of those would be drum racks, so technically each drum is a track of its own, but even there I don't usually have all sounds playing at the same time.).

+1

My 2009 2,66 gHz core 2 Duo can handle 90% of my projects just fine, but then again, I don't pile up track count to heavens and all of my synths are hardware synths. I won't be upgrading before this one dies.

[IP]

New MBP's seems to be fast enough for most applications but this wont bring the death of desktops (for everybody), no way.

Each one has different needs and his own reasons to stay on desk or not

My next desktop will be an 8 core / 16G of ram with usb3 / sata3 with 2 SSDs and without bios.
Ill pay for it no more than a grand in 2 years from now (for top materials).

Except the price the most serious reasons for me to stay desktop is the support and the easy to fix.

Apple in Greece SUCKS for ppl who are located away from capital.

If something goes wrong with my MBP ill stay without it for about 7-10 days (for the simplest damage) and ill pay couriers and shit. (you all know that is not possible to stay without your WORKstation for so long time)

If something goes wrong with my desktop even on Sunday afternoon, ill walk to a kiosk, buy the part and my machine will be up and running in 20 minutes (for most serious hardware damage).

If i buy a toshiba laptop ill be having next working day replacement with a new one for 3 years. The same for DELL but for 2 years.

for me a plastic box with excellent guarantee is way better (except build quality) than an aluminum box with the worst support and the half guarantee.

What i want to say (always in my opinion)
is that my desktop is irreplaceable. But if i had to replace with a laptop it wouldn't be a MAC!

[Tarekith]

One thing to keep in mind with the new MBPs is that while they are true quad core, they are also slower than last year's i7 per core. When you think about how Live and most other DAWs allocated each track to a single core, it's possible you might get LESS performance out of a newer MBP compared to the last ones. IE, if you had a softsynth on a track with a bunch of plug ins on a 2.66 i7 and it starts to stutter, well a 2.2 CPU is going to start stuttering even earlier since you have less processing power per track. Though of course you can likely run more tracks on the flip side. Just one thing to keep in mind if you have a newer MBP and are thinking of upgrading already.

Also, +1 to having used laptops for years for my music. Like Abletontrainer, I never understand why people need to run 60+ tracks to make music. GUess it's just a personal workflow thing.

[cids]

@ Tarekith; I don't think that your assumption is correct, because of the fact that these i7 processors are a new generation they could be more powerful per Ghz then the ones that were introduced last year. A Pentium 2.8Ghz will be beaten by any i3, i5 or i7 processor on any clockspeed...

[Khazul]

First perf test results posted looked very promising and alot better than I remember seeing from earlier MBPs.

Time will tell - should have mine in a few days when apple store eventually gets around to building and shipping it.

[commuter]

@ Tarekith; I don't think that your assumption is correct, because of the fact that these i7 processors are a new generation they could be more powerful per Ghz then the ones that were introduced last year. A Pentium 2.8Ghz will be beaten by any i3, i5 or i7 processor on any clockspeed...

+1

and

The 2010 I7 2,66 can overclok/turbo boost his frequency to 3,33 ghz if needed and the newest 2,2 quad can also raise his speed to 3,33...so Tarekith theory is not valid here