are the current MacBook air’s or 13" MacBooks better for music than this one?
Here are my specs
MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2019, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports)
2.8 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3
intel Iris Plus Graphics 655 1536 MB
I’m no expert, but an Intel i7 and 16GB RAM should be plenty!
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Performance wise, maybe marginally, but if you’re not having issues at the moment then there’s no real reason to upgrade.
The Apple M1 laptops however may give you trouble as a fair few plugins don’t run on them (yet), plus most programs need to run through Rosetta for the time being for compatibility.
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That’s a powerful computer. It’ll handle a LOT of music tasks just fine. If you look after it, it’ll last many years. My dad still uses a 2008 MacBook (it’s pretty rubbish tho’). My kid uses my 11 year old MacBook Pro but it struggles with 3d games & Zoom. My 2015 MacBook Pro had a Thunderbolt port fail and the Trackpad keeps locking up, but everything else on it is great.
The new M1 Macs are faster and more efficient with heat and power The M1 has been available for developers to build on for about a year. Most of the big apps have released versions which work directly on the new chips. The new Macs also come with software (Rosetta 2) which transparently allows software made for the old chips to work on the new ones. It’s very effective but can’t be perfect. A lot of pre-M1 software will work, but no-one can guarantee it will.
Old plug-ins and utility apps made by small companies, who might not have the resources to update their software (or have closed down), probably will not work on the new Macs.
Apple updated some of their Intel Macs at the same time as releasing some of the new M1 Macs. They’re clearly still supporting Intel themselves. They announced the transition would take them 2 years. They’re quite good at sticking to their own timetables. So, by the middle of next year, we should expect all their range to run only on Apple Silicon (M1, M2 etc…). From that point on, Intel support on Macs will have a limited support window… 3-5 years. Someone else maybe be able to quote a more accurate figure; I don’t recall right now.
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the fan is driving me crazy, if the new MacBooks were more powerful I thought I might sell mine and get one of those.
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If fan noise makes you crazy en mobity is not that of a big concern i would go for a dekstop instead of a laptop
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I would but unfortunately mobility is a definite need
The difference is actually astonishing. My M1 MacBook Air with 16gb ram flies past my 2015 with the same spec.
I’m running 64 sample buffer with all my plugins and get zero CPU dropouts.
Also there’s no fan.
Edit: my 2015 MacBook Pro i7
Edit 2: I used to have to flatten everything all the time on ableton to get it to not glitch, I haven’t managed to make the Air glitch once.
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I didn’t see any MacBook airs with 16gig of ram, which one do you have?
I got it from the apple store in town cus I get educator discount that way
looks like these only have 8 gigs?
ahh I see now, they’re upgradeable
Oui oui. I also got a terabyte HD so it did add up, but totally worth it if you travel and edit videos etc.
I honestly can’t recommend it enough my fan used to piss me off so much
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I’m going for the new Air vs my 2020 MBP13 (i7, 32gb ram) for the fanless operation alone.
Oh, and real function keys (curse the touchbar)
Colleagues at work can compile our Rust codebase at least 4x faster on a new Air than on my work MPB16 (an 8core i9) so yeah, I believe the hype.
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lol I’m at that point where now I just wanna turn it off soon as I hear the fan
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Literally - I’d be listening in the studio with clients and be so embarrassed!
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is it only the Airbooks that are fanless, the 13"m1’s still have fans?
yes, mbp13 still has a fan
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Yeah they still have fans and the upgrade isn’t actually that much. If you can wait they’ll release a new one in the autumn I assume. A pro with more usb C ports would be killer - this generation of M1s can only support one external monitor as well which is annoying
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oh that’s good to know