any future for MacBooks in music production ?

[TS-12]

With every new generation of macbookPro there’s less and less ports and less options to manually configure hardware.
And with the latest generation of MacBooks it’s scary to think what apple will do in the future.

The last MacBook Pro that was suitable for music production was like mid 2015 ?

Is apple making new laptops specifically for consumer tasks and with main focus: THINNER, that’s it.

For music / audio production on a Mac only Mac Pro will be the only option and PC ?

[sqigls]

i don't like the glarey retina bullshit personally, i'm gonna find another mid 2012 2.7ghz machine.
trouble is, even the refurbished machines are like $2,000 !!!
same price as 5 years ago!!

[jancivil]

Meh. My new machine is fantastic, it's fast and I get large projects up and running with no breakups and I can enter notes on time with these large templates. The display is gorgeous.

I don't expect to tamper with it, I knew that coming in. I hope the definition of 'suitable for music production' isn't supposed to be 'you can get inside the machine and swap things', since that's not a definition of that notion, that's two different notions.

But this is much more machine than my old MacPro, albeit that's nearly 10 yrs ago. That was an 8-core, I had 24GB RAM in it and four internal HDDs.

This has 3 ports besides the power. My oldest one had 2. I don't remember MBPs having more than 3. This is the fifth one I've owned.

I can't recommend the display monitor they're selling separately. I got the 4K. It looks good but the build? POS.

[sqigls]

which exact model is that?

i need to get a new machine, i'll need to sell a kidney to afford it though.

[BONES]

Is apple making new laptops specifically for consumer tasks and with main focus: THINNER, that’s it.

Apple have only ever made laptops for the consumer market, their choices of components should have made that clear 15 years ago.

For music / audio production on a Mac only Mac Pro will be the only option and PC ?

If MacPro is the only option, Dog help you. The MacPro I work on 8 hours a day is a pile of krap, no faster than the Core i5 2-in-1 I use for music production at home.

[TS-12]

For me #1 factor is large internal ssd, 3 to 4TB. Older ones support only up to 2TB, and latest ones are rediculously expensive with 3 to 4TB internal ssd.

I guess the only option is to have external ssd plugged in ?

Or stream samples from cloud or something, I don’t know... I don’t know..

But really dont wanna go back to PC.

Maybe hackintosh laptop ?
But I will always be anxious while making music worrying about hackingptosh stability.

(Had hackintosh desktop few years ago, after few months it threw a fit, spent about 4 days fixing it, than after awhile again something happened , kernel panic or something,
and than I just gave up)

[SJ_Digriz]

if you are questioning the computer you aren't worried about music production. The computer is just a tool to receive info. People managed with no computers. People managed with unbelievably primitive PC's compared to what we have today in the 80's and 90's. It should be the least of your concerns.

[jancivil]

which exact model is that?

i need to get a new machine, i'll need to sell a kidney to afford it though.

MacBook Pro 15.1

2.9GHz 6-core i9 processor
Turbo Boost up to 4.8GHz
Radeon Pro 560X with 4GB of GDDR5 memory
32GB 2400MHz DDR4 memory
1TB SSD storage
Retina display with True Tone
Touch Bar and Touch ID
Four Thunderbolt 3 ports

$3899 before tax

[sqigls]

f**k me that's a tad pricey

must be a pretty sweet ride though.

[lnikj]

I had the same machine as jancivil except it had the Vega 20 graphics. It went back because it was faulty. It had audio clicks and pops and the Vega 20 chip caused the screen to flicker on resumption of sleep if it was not on the preferred resolution.

Both these problems are known faults, the Apple tech admitted this and advised me to return it, but it seems that not all machines have them.

I have declined to replace it for the following reasons:

1. It ran too hot for me. It is ok under light and intermittent loads but if it is given a sustained load that hits one or more the cores heavily the CPU is instantly in the 90s. Games would fit that description, though I don't play them, but for me it was VCV Rack. To be absolutely fair to it, it seems very happy to run at high cpu and temperatures - it would stay at 4GHz for half an hour and not throttle down at all, but the fans would be going at 4-6k. I could push it to 4.2GHz and 98 degrees, just under 6k fan speeds, but I felt unhappy doing so. Longevity at those temperatures concerned me. So, it may suit your usage fine, but it did not mine.

2. Since July last year there is what appears to be a software, rather than a hardware problem, with the T2 chip and audio. You will find long threads online about speakers crackling but this is something different and completely reproducible. Every minute a process polls the batteries, the AppleSmartBatteryManager, and this causes a CPU spike on the first core. If that first core is in heavy use for audio (>50%) - Logic and VCV Rack use that core for their audio thread) then it causes a coreaudio dropout. You hear a click and you can see the dropout in the console logs. The only way to avoid this appears to be to use a Thunderbolt (not USB) interface - it occurs on the internal audio too. Again, this may not affect your usage, and one certainly hopes Apple will fix it, even if they have not done so after 6 months.

See this GS thread for details: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-c ... d-bug.html

3. Whilst the 2016 and 2017 have 4 year replacement programs for the butterfly keyboard, which seems doomed to fail, none is in place yet for the 2018. Hopefully Apple will institute one if the current model (which has a new silicon membrane) starts failing too. Since returning it, however, I have also become concerned about this: https://ifixit.org/blog/12903/flexgate/ (and now on several other sites). Again, one would hope that if this becomes a problem, then Apple will be forced to do something about it.

I've been an Apple user since 2003 and still am but I now feel wary of their 2016-18 notebooks. Everything is soldered down and they will not be economically repairable if they develop a fault after Applecare has run out. My (entirely subjective) feeling is that I will not get the 7-10 years usage out of the current crop of MBPs that I have enjoyed in the past. YMMV.

[Cinebient]

The one thing i really hate and cannot like is the butterfly keyboard. I also heard that people still have trouble with sticking keys and so on with the latest generation.
If they just would go back to the perfect keyboard (like i have on my 2013 model) i would consider a new macbook pro. But of course it will not happen.
I´m not sure if macOS has a bright future anyway. I even consider to replace my mac one day with an iPad pro.
95% of the tools are now there for much less and Apple will put much more energy in iOS anyway.
Otherwise if you need a desktop or notebook windows might be the better option for the future.
But in general these days even an old smartphone (at least with iOS) can give me almost all the tools i might need to produce tracks with the same quality i could do with a macbook pro but with much better performance tools without the need to use external controllers.
It is just a matter of workflow and specific tools you might need.
Also i would need to spend about €4000 for a new macbook pro with the configuration of my choice.....this is a bit over the top now. I think i wait and see what they have to offer this year about their macbook line but i doubt there will be something innovative to see and the prices will rise up further. Apple is mainly a mobile consumer device and content (app store, i-tunes etc.) seller. Also i think desktops and notebooks are like dinosaurs and new generations will not use them anymore.
But i still hate windows so much that i stay with Apple. Not sure how long that will last.

[nix808]

I'd like a new iMac at some stage,
any experience with the current gen peeps?

[jancivil]

I absolutely love the keyboard, now that I'm used to it. At first I was giving it too much muscle used to the old one, which I preferred. But with this barely touching it it'll last forever I think.

One amazing thing for me is I'm maxing out the storage with no performance hit on anything, I've got it almost 97% full right now. That's new.

[jancivil]

I never heard of 'butterfly keyboard' before. The most recent build I had was 2011.

"Apple will service eligible MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards, free of charge,"
The 2018 looks like it is not that keyboard.




Another unbelievable thing is how fast video renders on this thing. I saw their claims on it, it's optimized for FCPX and for Da Vinci Resolve, and they ain't lyin'. Shit that took 45 minutes takes one_minute now.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Come on over to Windows 2-in-1 land people. It’s glorious here. I used MacBook pros for almost 15 years, called PowerBooks back then, and then went through about 5 of them. Never had problems, liked them a lot. But now with the touch screen windows, I’m into it. I actually prefer how windows works now anyways.

Though I will say that I really miss the three finger drag in Mac. That made things very fast. If anyone knows a windows alternative that would make me happy.