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Choosing a macbook pro for music. Retina ?

BigBeatNut

BigBeatNut

Apr 10, 2006
2,257
352
London, UK
#1
I'm looking at replacing my ageing macbook pro with a new one and want to be able to use it for music ... mostly continuing to do personal rehearsal (itunes + headphones), but probably moving towards recording (Garageband and/or whatever DAW is flavour of the moment).

Given it's probably a 15, any thoughts on retina versus standard model ?

I like the lightness of the retina (no hard drive or optical drive) and I suspect the speed of the flash drive will be an advantage. However the relative lack of I/O option is a bit worrying ... looks like I might be tied down to a 'lightning' based Audio interface.

If anyone's found the retina a complete no-no, I definitely want to hear about it.
 
#2
I used to use a Retina Macbook Pro for my recording. The flash storage is really fast and the screen is amazing if you do any video work or photography as well. However, if you use samples, the drive is way too small and not upgradable enough (768GB is kind of small). I ran out of space halfway after loading my sample libraries and had to carry and use my much slower external drive everywhere I recorded. I also had to have an adapter to use my firewire interfaces. All in all, not worth it. The cheaper 15" Macbook Pro I had before was a lot more convenient and just as fast (after adding a SSD). You could use the extra money for a nice interface and DI.
 
#6
Sounds like you don't need all that much storage space so go with the Retina. Not that the space would necessarily be an issue anyway; I have a 512GB SSD in my production machine and about 200GB of that is used by music stuff. I offload old projects on external drives.

You could also use a fast USB thumb drive for additional capacity. E.g. Kingston DataTraveler HyperX USB3.0 goes up to 256GB and speeds up to 200+MB/s read. That's about 3x faster than a traditional hard drive.

And no, you're definitely not limiting your I/O options, quite the opposite actually. Apple makes its own Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter and there are a few of 3rd party TB docks with various different connectors, including FireWire, Ethernet and eSATA.

The non-Retina one has DVD drive if you still need one. I mean, a lot and on the go. You can always get an external one for the Retina. Upgradeable memory and storage, no-go with the Retina. Should be non-issue if you max out the Retina specs right away, at least the RAM.

Also, the Apple WWDC keynote starts in less than 11 hours and the laptops are expected to receive upgrades so that might tip the scale one way or another.
 
#8
my two cents as a long time recording enthusiast and MacBook Pro owner.
The retina models are very powerful and fast, and light. However the regular MBP models are just as fast only heavier. They also have much better expandability.
I have a 15" 2010 MBP that I used to use as my main computer, but whcih now is dedicated to recording.

I wouldnt even try using a 13" for this task. First off the monitor is too small, secondly the 15" has a video card with it's own memory. The 13" uses part of system ram for video. That creates the potential for glitchy audio.

My studio Mac has two hard drives, one for the OS and programs, another for audio.
I used an SSD for the "system" drive. The second drive lives in teh space where the DVD drive resided. I used an OWC Datadoubler. An aluminum bracket which lines up with all the right holes and such to fit theDVD drive space, while providing you with a secure spot to fit your hard drive or SSD.
I went with a 1TB Seagate 7200rpm notebook drive for the second disk.
I can record 18 tracks while playing back up to 20 tracks.
By tracks I am talking about actual physical outputs on my sound card, not virtual tracks mixed down and routed to the same output.
Another consideration is the sound card connection. Retina Macs don't have firewire, plain MacBooks do. But then plenty of decent sound cards work over USB these days, so it is not too hard.
I have not heard of anyone settnig up a rMBP with a firewire dongle and firewire interface. I am not saying it isnt possible, I just have not seen it,and historically firewire is finicky as hell.
 
#10
I use a MacBook Pro retina for professional audio and it can't be beat, usb3 is on board and has excellent transfer rates, paid for some 800 adaptors for my old drives and have had not a single issue.
Went from rme interface and my old MacBook Pro to the universal audio Apollo with thunderbolt card... This is the best digital, mobile rig I've ever used.
Well worth the price of admission.
 
#11
You don't need a MBP. I use a macbook air with Pro Tools. The built-in SSD is fast. I recorded a 3 hour show with 16 tracks directly to local disk with no problem. Yeah, I know PT recommends a separate disk for data, but the SSD handled it no problem.
 
#12
I'm sure it's fine .... but given what I wanted was a non-retina, I now have to pay masses extra for the retina, and masses more to add the things that I would have got automatically with the non-retina ....
  • Optical drive
  • Mini jacks for in and out
  • Extra disk space (SSD is smaller)
 
#13
BigBeatNut said:
I'm sure it's fine .... but given what I wanted was a non-retina, I now have to pay masses extra for the retina, and masses more to add the things that I would have got automatically with the non-retina ....
  • Optical drive
  • Mini jacks for in and out
  • Extra disk space (SSD is smaller)
Click to expand...

Well, June to November is a big time to wait in the world of computer products. ;)

To save money, you can look at getting a "summer" retina model still in stock for like $300 off. Bricks and mortar stores may still have older inventory at lower prices. In computers, you always save money by waiting. Newer stuff come out at the same price, now-older stuff is being sold off at discount. Buy it, when you need it.
 
#14
Your timing is good for purchasing an Apple product, they offer very good discounts world wide in November on black friday. I believe it is November 29 this year. It is never a best time to buy a new computer. Typically new versions of computers come out in February and September.

The MacBook Pro is a very fast computer. The solid state disk drive helps it to fly. It is a slower computer in terms of CPU clock speed than my Mac Pro but programs run much faster on the MacBook Pro. If you can, order the 15" model with maximum memory and the biggest disk available. More memory means less swapping to disk which means faster performance.

As for the retina display, it's amazing. The screen is small but because of the resolution you can see fine details. This means that big screens look good on the screen of the MacBook Pro. Recording programs have a lot of detail in a small footprint and the screen makes it a lot easier. Less eye strain.

Garageband is very good. A new version of the industry standard ProTools (version 11, it's a rewrite from the ground up and is fully 64 bit which is good for speed) has recently been released. A number of the third party plugins are not available yet but are on their way. The older 32 bit plugins are not compatible with the new system.
 

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