Which audio interfaces work fine with the new MacBook Pro?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Post Reply
AbstractToolkit
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Mar 04, 2008 5:43 pm

Which audio interfaces work fine with the new MacBook Pro?

Post by AbstractToolkit » Wed Jun 26, 2013 10:29 pm

I'm having issues with my old firewire audio interface and Live since i've switched to a new MacBook Pro Retina and decided to update my audio interface as well.
I'm reading lots of horror stories of USB audio interfaces not working fine on the new macbooks, as it comes with USB 3.0 interfaces only or with the thunderbolt-firewire adapter.
Could you report configuration working fine with Live and the new MacBooks?

stoersignal
Posts: 501
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2010 9:43 pm
Location: vienna

Re: Which audio interfaces work fine with the new MacBook Pro?

Post by stoersignal » Thu Jun 27, 2013 6:43 am

what are your needs, beside that it`s working?

Bagatell
Posts: 620
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2005 3:33 pm
Location: Sierra Nevada, Spain

Re: Which audio interfaces work fine with the new MacBook Pro?

Post by Bagatell » Thu Jun 27, 2013 6:55 am

I'm using a Steinberg MR816CSX, which does indeed work (and sound) fine.

Guillermo Barrancos
Posts: 290
Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2013 8:05 am

Re: Which audio interfaces work fine with the new MacBook Pro?

Post by Guillermo Barrancos » Thu Jun 27, 2013 7:41 am

Any USB audio interface should work fine.

I have the Focusrite Scarlet 2i2.

AbstractToolkit
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Mar 04, 2008 5:43 pm

Re: Which audio interfaces work fine with the new MacBook Pro?

Post by AbstractToolkit » Thu Jun 27, 2013 8:10 am

stoersignal wrote:what are your needs, beside that it`s working?
I need it to have a Hi-Z input (guitar/bass), at least 4 analog outs, a couple of line inputs and a couple of mic inputs, spdif-in for my external preamp (2 channels), and headphone out with dedicated volume control.

I have an edirol FA-101 (firewire), and althought works 100% in logic, I experience dropouts when tracking in Live, even with low CPU usage and regardless of how i set the buffer length, so that's not totally true that everything works fine with the new macbooks. Also i've read that many USB audio interfaces don't work fine with the USB 3.0 ports on the MB.

BTW I'm on OSX 10.8.4

Guillermo Barrancos
Posts: 290
Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2013 8:05 am

Re: Which audio interfaces work fine with the new MacBook Pro?

Post by Guillermo Barrancos » Thu Jun 27, 2013 12:18 pm

AbstractToolkit wrote:
stoersignal wrote:what are your needs, beside that it`s working?
I need it to have a Hi-Z input (guitar/bass), at least 4 analog outs, a couple of line inputs and a couple of mic inputs, spdif-in for my external preamp (2 channels), and headphone out with dedicated volume control.

I have an edirol FA-101 (firewire), and althought works 100% in logic, I experience dropouts when tracking in Live, even with low CPU usage and regardless of how i set the buffer length, so that's not totally true that everything works fine with the new macbooks. Also i've read that many USB audio interfaces don't work fine with the USB 3.0 ports on the MB.

BTW I'm on OSX 10.8.4
I have the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB 2.0 and it works flawlessly on my new 15" MacBook Pro Retina.
Just plug in and go in Mac OSX.

My previous 17" Asus gamer laptop, which also had USB 3.0 ports only, there my Focusrite interface worked fine as well in Windows 8 with no problems.

AbstractToolkit
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Mar 04, 2008 5:43 pm

Re: Which audio interfaces work fine with the new MacBook Pro?

Post by AbstractToolkit » Thu Jun 27, 2013 12:42 pm

Guillermo Barrancos wrote:
I have the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB 2.0 and it works flawlessly on my new 15" MacBook Pro Retina.
Just plug in and go in Mac OSX.

My previous 17" Asus gamer laptop, which also had USB 3.0 ports only, there my Focusrite interface worked fine as well in Windows 8 with no problems.
Have you tried recording audio with the CPU at around 40-50%? Does it work fine even then?

Post Reply