Live 12 + MacBook Air?

[Laura R]

I accidentally wrecked my MacBook Pro, and I’m wondering what people think about running Live 12 on a brand new MacBook Air M4 chip/ 16GB? My MacBook Pro M3 was very efficient and Live 12 CPU usage was never more than about 15%. Any advice would be helpful. I use a lot of plug ins but my sessions aren’t super dense. It would be great to buy something more affordable now and upgrade to MacBook Pro again later.

[dontfret]

Sorry to hear you wrecked your old machine.

I use ableton 12 on an m3 macbook air that I purchased refurbished specifically because it has no fan and was within my limited budget. I use multiple heavy cpu modeled instruments with low latency with no issues. My old 2016 macbook pro sounded like a plane taking off...

I wish I got a bigger hard drive. If you're worried max out the ram. There is also a return policy

[elijahlucian]

I am using a 24gb M3 refurbished air (I splurged on ram because I develop web, and do lots of other stuff),

I've used this for live looping gigs running lots of effects and instruments, Works fine! These air's are way more powerful than most people realize!

you should be fine with 16gb.

[Laura R]

Thank you so much! Do you have to use a USB hub, and if so what’s working for you? They are pricey. I think I only need one with three usb c inputs.

[elijahlucian]

Thank you so much! Do you have to use a USB hub, and if so what’s working for you? They are pricey. I think I only need one with three usb c inputs.

I've been cycling through different hubs... For my C devices I use C to "regular" cables, and the hub I currently got going on is intpw powered hub. I wanted to get it for the hdmi, etc, but ended up just using it as a hub for my free standing setup. It's gotten me thru some shows, so I trust it (as much as a usb hub can be trusted).

[dsu]

Thank you so much! Do you have to use a USB hub, and if so what’s working for you? They are pricey. I think I only need one with three usb c inputs.

USB hubs have got sort of complicated, I have 4 of the now. Unfortunately, USB-C only tells you what the connector looks like.

Key factors to consider are:

1. What protocol will the hub use when talking to the MBAir, thunderbolt or USB ??? There is more versatility using thunderbolt to connect to the Mac. Generally more bandwidth and the possibility of expanding the thunderbolt bus with another hub in the future. Some of the cheaper hubs will connect to the Mac using USB-3.0 or 3.1 which limits the functionality of the Mac.

2. How many and what types of devices do you want to connect to your Mac? What protocols do they use, thunderbolt, USB ???, SD Cards etc. Also what type of connector, usually either USB-A or USB-C. (I have a lot of USB-A connectors lying around that connect to a variety of USB-B, micro and mini devices in the studio)

[dontfret]

This one has done the trick for a while:
https://sabrent.com/products/hb-3a4c?sr ... LFZsjA38Kq

Tried a lot and they were all weird or didn't startup...

Never hurts to have extra ports when you have usb instruments. I wish the air had more ports. Need to keep one of the two ports free for a monitor so you can see all your tracks.