Advice needed for MBA-based setup

Macintosh software/hardware discussion and troubleshooting

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cgs
Posts: 19
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2013 6:08 am
Primary DAW OS: MacOS

Advice needed for MBA-based setup

Post by cgs »

I have a 2013 MacBook Air (1.7 GHz i7, 8 GB RAM, SSD) that I'd like to use for a modest studio. From what I've read, I should be able to easily get the track count and performance I need for a few VI's from this setup. The problem is that I think I may be a port or two short for what I was thinking of doing (this MBA has 1 TB, 2 USB3 ports). I have an existing flatscreen monitor I was hoping to use to give me a little more screen real estate to work with. The internal SSD will be used for system/boot + some VI samples. These are the two possible setups I can imagine:

Code: Select all

1. 
Thunderbolt    --> external monitor
USB #1         --> USB2 audio interface (microbook/vsl44/scarlett/etc.)
USB #2         --> USB3 audio drive

2.
Thunderbolt    --> FW audio interface (saffire pro/etc. via FW/TB adapter)
USB #1         --> USB3 audio drive
USB #2         --> USB eLicenser dongle
Problem with option #1 is no port for the eLicensor dongle (Arturia). With option #2, no external monitor. Wondering if hubs are an option for either the TB or USB ports, but not sure that introducing a hub in the chain would be wise. The TB port can handle multiple devices, but the devices I'd be using don't include passthroughs to allow other TB devices...

Hoping there's something I'm not thinking of, otherwise I'll have to sacrifice something.
Mac Pro1.1 8-Core 2.66 GHz, 8 GB RAM, OS 10.6.8, DP 8.06, Arturia Laboratory, Yamaha i88x (long live mLAN), Korg OASYS-PCI (long live OASYS-PCI), lots of old Ensoniq gear (long live Ensoniq)

Wow I really need to update my sig...
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