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Considering move from Win to Mac for my home studio - questions

pfschim

pfschim

Just a Skeleton with a Jazz bass
Supporting Member
Apr 26, 2006
9,355
10,956
SF Bay Area
#1
Well, really, this is more about practice than recording, but this seemed like the right place for my question.

I currently use a Win 11 laptop (Dell XPS 15, i7, 16gb RAM, 512GB SSD) as the basis for my home recording and practice setup. It works fine but is kind of aging and it has started to glitch from time to time when I'm tracking or even just practicing. It could be some recent OS updates are causing me some interrupt issues.

I recently got a 13" M1 Macbook Air and have been messing with it for multiple things, but not as my main processor box. Performance seems good, the screen is kind of small but I can address that with an external monitor. Ports are a bit of an issue, but a port expander will likely work fine ... although we'll see how clogged it might get with HDMI and USB-C running at the same time.

Here's my primary question. Right now, I use an old drum machine app from iZotope called iDrum. Very basic, but pretty solid sounds and very easy to program. For practice stuff, particularly time/groove training, I just plug my pedalboard into my Interface (Focusrite 18i8 v3), put the headphones on, click on the iDrum app and go. I don't use a DAW for this and I'd like to keep it that way. iZotope iDrum has been discontinued for a while. There is a DMG file out on the web, but it is not compatible with Mac silicon or the lates MacOS.

Is there a decent drum machine app that has non EDM/rap/electronic drum type sounds that is simple to use and will work pretty much as I describe above. I know I can use Garage Band or even Logic, but I really don't want to start up a DAW just to practice.

thoughts, guidance ??
 
#3
seamonkey said:
Instead of firing up a DAW, I often use Kushview Element
Element
Any plugin drum can be used on a Mac or PC

For Drums, lately I like IK Modo Drum
MODO DRUM
It has a standalone mode, but also works in Element
Click to expand...
thanks. a little pricey for my uses, but the demo's sounded solid

not sure I really get what Element is for or how I would use it in my situation though
 
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#5
silky smoove said:
Sounds like you could just about get by with a Beat Buddy. Obviously that wouldn’t help for the recording side of things but it seems like your drum accompaniment needs are quite modest.

If you do go the Mac route, both Logic and GarageBand have drum loops that fit the styles you’re describing.
Click to expand...
Yes, I think my needs are pretty simple and I'm definitely trying to keep things simple.

I really have no need for drums while I'm doing any of the remote tracking I get hired to do. If the client wants drums, they will be on the guide track they send me. In practice, I only ever have drums in live/in-person sessions.

I thought about the Beat Buddy pedal, but am not sure it really matches how I do it today on the Win laptop. I use headphones out of the Focusrite for silent practice. I'm pretty much using the iDrum app as a metronome using one of it's several acoustic drum samples (actually pretty decent sounding). I do straight ahead practice with the drum machine for time keeping and groove, and I do a version of the Ed Friedland "groove/time keeping test" where you set a simple drum groove and play over it for X (4 or 8) bars then drop it out for X (2 or 4) bars then work on keeping time/pulse going until the loop comes back. iDrum makes this very easy.

Admittedly it would be easy enough to do all of this in a DAW like Logic or Garage Band (although I find Garage Band to be surprisingly non-intuitive), but that's not how I do it today. I can, or course, learn new tricks, but I'm trying to keep this stuff simple with the fewest tools needed.
 
#8
seamonkey said:
It lets you load VST (plugins) when you just want to jam.
No DAW. No tracks.

Here's and example video showing how to use Element and load in NAM


There is many other vids
Click to expand...

ok, I think I got it. But Element is another app to start in order to run the VST ... like a drum machine. I'm sure that's pretty cool, but what I'm doing today is just running the stand alone iDrum app in Windows, no DAW or other app needed, and playing along with it thru my interface. This is what I'd like to do on a Mac and I'm trying to figure out a decent iDrum replacement standalone app for Mac (M1 Mac silicon).

There appear to be many, but I'm definitely looking for an electronic/synth type drum thing, more of a sampled/real drum loop app that I can manipulate pretty easily. I am also having some challenges trying to listen/audition some of the Mac drum apps ... a few I've found that look promising don't appear to display a way for me to hear some samples. is this not a thing these days ?

thanks

on edit: I'm starting to find some that I can hear/try before I buy. ... but they all seem to be VST/AU not stand alone. Hmmm
 
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#10
after looking around a bit, I'm afraid you are probably right. Seems odd that stand alone drum machine apps are not a thing now.

So, I guess I just need to think about how much I want to change what I have working now. Its possible that a recent Win update is causing the occaisonal glitch in my current system. I also suspect that my 8GB M1 Macbook Air may be a bit on the light side for the recording stuff I do.
hmmm

thanks for the input
 
#11
My guess is that the XPS 15 is the problem. I have Win 10 version and it performs terribly. The problems are well documented on the Dell fora, the same problems existing in every generation.

My solution was to build my own tower computer. There is no way a notebook can achieve the performance possible in a tower; it does not have the space. My performance requirements are much greater than only music. I am a photographer and some of my image files are 10gb.
 
#14
pfschim said:
Ports are a bit of an issue, but a port expander will likely work fine ... although we'll see how clogged it might get with HDMI and USB-C running at the same time.
Click to expand...

you want a Thunderbolt 3/4 dock (not a USB hub, careful), so you plug a monitor, audio interface, etc. into it and plug only one cable to your laptop. IME stuff from CalDigit and Elgato works great (I still use two TS3+ docks with M1 and M2 machines), I've also had bad luck with a ThinkPad dock.

as for your main question. well, Mac is great. but usually you cannot run years old software on it. a new MacOS is released and you'll need a new version of your tools. I can run a 10+ years old Photoshop on latest Windows, but that's totally not possible on Macs. it's always been like this and you should be aware of this.
 
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#15
Aloe said:
you want a Thunderbolt 3/4 dock (not a USB hub, careful), so you plug a monitor, audio interface, etc. into it and plug only one cable to your laptop. IME stuff from CalDigit and Elgato works great (I still use two TS3+ docks with M1 and M2 machines), I've also had bad luck with a ThinkPad dock.

as for your main question. well, Mac is great. but usually you cannot run years old software on it. a new MacOS is released and you'll need a new version of your tools. I can run a 10+ years old Photoshop on latest Windows, but that's totally not possible on Macs. it's always been like this and you should be aware of this.
Click to expand...
yes. I discovered a dowloadable DMG file for iZotope iDrum but it would not install on the M1 Macbook Air running Sonoma 14.4.1. Oh well.
 
#16
Krisfield said:
You could make some custom drum tracks in Logic and bounce them to a WAV/MP3 file.
Click to expand...
yes, I could, but that would be a pretty static version of what I do today. I can dynamically change all kinds of things on iDrum.

I feel like I will have to just accept that there are no reasonably priced stand alone drum machine apps and just get used to running a DAW session .... if I decide to convert to the Mac. Easy enough, but definitely more complex than what I do today.
 
#17
djmay said:
My guess is that the XPS 15 is the problem. I have Win 10 version and it performs terribly. The problems are well documented on the Dell fora, the same problems existing in every generation.

My solution was to build my own tower computer. There is no way a notebook can achieve the performance possible in a tower; it does not have the space. My performance requirements are much greater than only music. I am a photographer and some of my image files are 10gb.
Click to expand...
well, the XPS 15 has been a workhorse for me for several years. I cleaned it up and tuned it for real time performance (using Project Lasso) and it was fine for quite a while. It has been only recently that it's started to hiccup/glitch on me when doing audio work.

I don't really want to get into a discussion of platforms, but there are any number of custom builders who will make a Win laptop optimized for music production. I don't have tons of experience with photo/video so I can't comment on that, but Win based laptops (maybe no Dells though) can make perfectly good audio workstations.
 
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