Sibob Posted February 24, 2009 Share Posted February 24, 2009 I'm wanting to upgrade the recording system i'm using, and think that this would be a great way to go. I like Logic and the idea of working on ideas on the fly! I'm thinking just the base macbook model is fine for what I want to do, although apparently the new aluminium ones are a lot sturdier than the older plastic ones...stands to reason! Anyone have any advice? Cheers Si Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~tl Posted February 24, 2009 Share Posted February 24, 2009 The plastic MacBook has Firewire, while the new Aluminium one doesn't – Firewire would be an advantage as a lot of the prosumer level audio interfaces use it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmesa Posted February 24, 2009 Share Posted February 24, 2009 (edited) I bought a sealed copy of Logic Pro the other day for £180+delivery off an ebay store called Apple Peels. Good price.. will confirm authenticity later this week! I also had a Black Macbook and took it back as the plastic was coming off the display, and i found the built in graphics to be a bit rubbish (it couldnt even keep up with a moving waveform in Traktor). The new ones seem to have a better chip though. EDIT - Got a sealed copy of Logic Pro this morning - £180. nice!!!! Edited February 25, 2009 by jmesa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
escholl Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 we've done a lot of recording on one of the older black ones running logic 8 and a motu 8pre, and never had any issues. in fact, i'd highly recommend it. as someone else has mentioned, i'd recommend having a firewire port on there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seb_C Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 +1 on Firewire, if only for the Apogee Duet (which is awesome). Best bet for a good deal? Find somebody who is a student to order you it from the Apple education store via. their Uni network (must be a proper .ac.uk). Logic Studio (the full thing) is £116 at education pricing! The Macbook itself will be discounted, but not as heavily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sibob Posted February 25, 2009 Author Share Posted February 25, 2009 Ok so I think i've had a mate source me Logic Studio for free (she's "in the industry"), so thats cool! But yeah, Firewire.....hmmmm...I can see why it's kinda necessary for recording use, but i'm still a little bit anxious about the plastic macs being a bit 'flimsy'?! Si Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~tl Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 [quote name='Sibob' post='419478' date='Feb 25 2009, 06:24 PM']Ok so I think i've had a mate source me Logic Studio for free (she's "in the industry"), so thats cool! But yeah, Firewire.....hmmmm...I can see why it's kinda necessary for recording use, but i'm still a little bit anxious about the plastic macs being a bit 'flimsy'?! Si[/quote] They're not [i]that[/i] flimsy. Sure, the aluminium one does feel significantly more solid, but the plastic one feels no worse than your average PC laptop. Oh, and Firewire is also a [b]must[/b] for an external hard disk. You'll want one of them for recording on to, since you tend get better disk performance by not writing to the boot disk – and better disk performance means higher track/plug-in counts. USB 2 is much slower than Firewire because it's a more CPU intensive connection, so by using an external FW drive you should be able to maximise your recording performance. Look for an external drive with an Oxford chipset, since they tend to play more nicely than others do – though it can be difficult to find out what chipset is used in the drives you buy off the shelf. There's plenty of information about good drives on the many recording forums, so a quick Google should give you an idea of whether a drive will work or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonwarriors Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 can vouch for the aluminium ones. Dropped mine loads of times, loads of dents and still works solid. If you check ebay you can also find clear heavy duty plastic outer cases. Not personally noticed a lot of difference between usb 2 and firewire ports when using external storage but would have to agree with ~tl on the interface point and on using external HDs... dam unstable if using internal for audio tracks although stable enough if just using midi in my experience. also worth keeping an eye on this site which gives hints and advice on mac release dates i.e. if certain models may be near end of production...nothing worse than buying one and 2 weeks later an updated version comes out ! [url="http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/"]http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/[/url] cheers stuart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sibob Posted February 25, 2009 Author Share Posted February 25, 2009 Ok cool! Cheers for the input guys! I guess the plastic macbooks will be a bit cheaper now that they've been superceded! Si Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonwarriors Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 oops also worth keeping in mind that you can get student discounts if purchasing from apple...about 10% if memory serves. cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~tl Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 [quote name='moonwarriors' post='419597' date='Feb 25 2009, 08:40 PM']oops also worth keeping in mind that you can get student discounts if purchasing from apple...about 10% if memory serves. cheers[/quote] Closer to 15% actually – the plastic MacBook is £618 with the student discount and £719 normally. Also, another point on buying from Apple, they seriously overcharge you for RAM upgrades! They currently charge you £90 to upgrade from the standard 2GB in a white MacBook to the max of 4GB. You can buy the same 4GB of memory from [url="http://crucial.com/uk/"]Crucial[/url] for £40 odd, fit it yourself (it's as easy as removing a screw in the battery bay and popping the new modules in) and then sell the 2GB that came in the machine! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonwarriors Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 agreed ~tl, crucial rock...lucky enough to live close to them also in my case. [quote name='~tl' post='419608' date='Feb 25 2009, 08:48 PM']Closer to 15% actually – the plastic MacBook is £618 with the student discount and £719 normally. Also, another point on buying from Apple, they seriously overcharge you for RAM upgrades! They currently charge you £90 to upgrade from the standard 2GB in a white MacBook to the max of 4GB. You can buy the same 4GB of memory from [url="http://crucial.com/uk/"]Crucial[/url] for £40 odd, fit it yourself (it's as easy as removing a screw in the battery bay and popping the new modules in) and then sell the 2GB that came in the machine![/quote] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BTGAndy Posted February 27, 2009 Share Posted February 27, 2009 Definitely get firewire, my recording set up is based round a white macbook 2.16ghz dual core with 2gb ram. I've never found it to be flimsy, it's survived being crushed by cymbal stands and being dropped a few times too! If you want a good deal on a macbook its worth calling the sales team in Ireland, they knocked loads of money off for me and I ended up getting Logic studio for £101. One thing to remember about the RAM upgrades is that whilst Apple overcharge you, putting more in will void your applecare so don't let them persuade you to get it with the mac if you're going to change the RAM, one of my friends fell foul of this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~tl Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 [quote name='BTGAndy' post='421431' date='Feb 27 2009, 11:51 PM']One thing to remember about the RAM upgrades is that whilst Apple overcharge you, putting more in will void your applecare so don't let them persuade you to get it with the mac if you're going to change the RAM, one of my friends fell foul of this.[/quote] RAM is considered a user serviceable part by Apple on the majority of their machines (there are some exceptions, such as the MacBook Air and the Mac mini). Apple list the user serviceable parts in the manual that came with the machine, it's usually just the RAM, but the hard disks on the latest laptops are too. So, upgrading the RAM yourself shouldn't void your AppleCare. Of course, if you damage the machine installing the new RAM modules (which is pretty difficult to do) they may refuse to repair it and if it's a problem with a 3rd party module failing, they'll likely refuse service on the grounds that it's not an Apple part. However, if you've installed a RAM module in to a machine and at some point later your screen/hard disk/etc fails, then you shouldn't have a problem getting it repaired. Either your friend was misinformed (hey, it happens) or it was the RAM itself that was causing the problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BTGAndy Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Well, now I know...and knowing is half the battle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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