Old MacBook Pro. Upgrade from live 8 to 9 ?

[mickmike]

I am running osx 10.6.8 snow leopard on an old MBP. I cannot upgrade the osx due to the age of the machine. Possibly can go to Lion, but not Mountain Lion and beyond. Toying with the idea of upgrading from live 8 to live 9, mainly for clip automation. Is this possible with my current set up, or will it cause problems. Can't find definite answer. Answers/advice appreciated. Thanks

[Piplodocus]

Define "old".

[Piplodocus]

On 2nd thoughts, is Live compatible with the latest version of OS X you can put on it.

If not: No.
If yes: Download the trial, load up a set and see how it goes...

[[jur]]

Live 9 and 9.1 will work, but 9.2 dropped compatibility for SL. It might work but without any guarantee.
But imho you'd better keep SL which is a really good os. Live runs much better on it than on Lion or ML.

[Stromkraft]

Live 9 and 9.1 will work, but 9.2 dropped compatibility for SL. It might work but without any guarantee.
But imho you'd better keep SL which is a really good os. Live runs much better on it than on Lion or ML.

That said OS X 10.9 Mavericks works great now with Live 9, at least with a good audio interface.

[Stromkraft]

I am running osx 10.6.8 snow leopard on an old MBP. I cannot upgrade the osx due to the age of the machine. Possibly can go to Lion, but not Mountain Lion and beyond. Toying with the idea of upgrading from live 8 to live 9, mainly for clip automation. Is this possible with my current set up, or will it cause problems. Can't find definite answer. Answers/advice appreciated.

I would strongly advise not to upgrade to Live 9 on a machine so old that it can't run a purely 64bit OS. It's better to get a cheap second machine that can instead.

There's also the case with drivers for the audio interface. If it's old and has no 64-bit kernel drivers then OS X 10.7 Lion in 32bit mode is the absolute latest supported. Better stay on OSX10.6 SL then IMO.

[Pitch Black]

Live 9.2 will not boot up or run AT ALL on Snow Leopard.

(from a guy whose jumped from Snow Leopard to Yosemite in recent months for this very reason)

Because I have a early 2010 MPB, I've been going between using Live 8 for gigs (because I know it works and my machine is proven to handle it) and using Live 9 in the studio for production (both on Snow leopard). IMHO There are many great benefits to Live 9 from the much better sounding EQ8 to little things like hitting the 0 key to disable clips.

I put an SSD into my MBP and made the jump to Yosemite and I don't feel there's been any discernible performance penalty with Live.
I'm still using Live 8 for gigs, because if it ain't broke don't fix it, and I'm professionally paranoid) but I feel happy that I'll move to Live 9 for gigs when I have a compelling reason to.

Could I suggest: clone your SL hard drive > update the clone to Lion (or whatever the max. OS is on your machine) > install Live 9 demo > see what happens?

I cloned my internal MacHD Snow Leopard drive to an external HD, updated the external HD to Yosemite, and then installed that Yosemite drive into my MBP to try everything out before I committed to the move.

I do believe an SSD is almost necessary nowadays when running a brand-new OS on old hardware. I feel my system performance has stayed the same. However, I have no direct experience with Lion, so YMMV.

[Stromkraft]

However, I have no direct experience with Lion, so YMMV.

In short OS X 10.7 Lion sucks. It's the worst most bug-ridden example of any major OS X release.

[mickmike]

Great advice. Thanks. I guess I'll stay on sl then. Question now is....is live 9 ( or 9.1, as that would be my limit ), much of an improvement over 8. Hear all these comments from people who went back to 8. But clip automation..

[Stromkraft]

Great advice. Thanks. I guess I'll stay on sl then. Question now is....is live 9 ( or 9.1, as that would be my limit ), much of an improvement over 8. Hear all these comments from people who went back to 8. But clip automation..

Yes, Live 9 is fabulous, but for Live Performance I'd consider using 8.

The biggest upsides with Live 9 to me is

• improved overall sound in effects and warped tracks
• improved automation features
• Live 9.2 automation delay compensation
• Audio to MIDI when I need it
• Push
• Improved browser IMHO. Not that it's great by any stretch.
• 2 monitor support
• proper full screen
• Convolution Reverb

[Pitch Black]

Get Live 9. In 9.2 all you're really currently missing is the Tuner plugin... plus of course what Abes does next.

All the things Stromkraft said, though I might disagree on the browser L9 is a slick and smooth refinement of 8, with no major performance hit under Snow Leopard, L9 compared to L8.

Do you have Max for Live? It's worth looking at 9 Suite to get M4L, I'm finding some things in that indispensable now, such as the LFO.

[mickmike]

Live 9 and 9.1 will work, but 9.2 dropped compatibility for SL. It might work but without any guarantee.
But imho you'd better keep SL which is a really good os. Live runs much better on it than on Lion or ML.

Does that include upto 9.1.8 or just 9.1?

[Pitch Black]

I forget which version of 9 I used until switching to Yosemite but all versions of 9.1.x will work on SL.