MOTUnation.com

The main differences between MacBook and MacBook Pro:

* you cannot order 7200rpm HD from Apple. Who cares? Do it yourself cheaper. Soon there are probably SATA enclosures for 2,5'' HDs available so you could use old disk as travel/backup HD.

* no fast card slot on MacBook. No external SATA drives. Soon probably some audio interfaces will use that slot too but there is always FW/USB2.

* Pro has WAY better video card. I dont know if you will ever notice this with audio work. Maybe with 2nd display attached and loads of redrawing project windows open you will. Cannot compare. Anyway, there is a big gap between video speed of MacBook and MacBook Pro.

* Backlit keyboard... hehehe. Actually in dark it IS handy.

* Display size. But then again MacBook is smaller.

giles117 wrote: I sat in LAX on Sunday for 1.5 hours with the laptop in my lap while watching movies. Heat didnt bother me at all. I had on Jogging pants (Shorts) AS I have also stated, I sat with this thing in my lap (system on my bare leg) and it didnt BURN me. Actually, it felt good on my leg.

You should seriously be careful with putting your laptop on bare legs. I did this for six months and now I have nerve damage in both my thighs. They are numb to light touch, painful to hard touch, and when I stand for a long time, they burn like crazy. Yes it was warm, not uncomfortably hot, and it was winter, so it felt good... don't be tempted.

R.

Thanks for the report. I've just this week gotten a 17" MacBook Pro and am looking at how to best work it into my studio. First things first - anyone know if the PCI/Express34 is on the same bus as the firewire ports? I plan on tracking to an external hard drive, and possibly reading from a separate hard drive, so if the PCI/Express34 is on a different bus it would be helpful to attach my audio interface via the PCI instead of having it on the same bus as the hard drives.

Also, anyone know of any plans for MOTU (preferably) or anyone else to put out a card for the Express34 slot?

Giles have you tried any VI's on the Macbook yet? I'm curious if Mach5 wil work? Thanks. Karl

I've been holding off of DP5 until the UB comes out.
I've run 4.61 on the Macbook Pro with 2G RAM but it will always eventually crash. And Reason running under Rosetta is strained. Isn't it a better idea to wait?
Been running Logic but I miss my old plug-ins. Not to mention DP...

mon wrote:I've been holding off of DP5 until the UB comes out.
I've run 4.61 on the Macbook Pro with 2G RAM but it will always eventually crash. And Reason running under Rosetta is strained. Isn't it a better idea to wait?
Been running Logic but I miss my old plug-ins. Not to mention DP...

reason is UB now

Just a bit of info on the new Macbook. I have been through 3 already! I do love this machine and it is very fast and relibale. I just had a rough start. The first one had all of the problems mentioned in posts on Apple's support site. The noisy whistling processor and chainsaw power brick, intermittent trackpad failure, "mooing" sound from the fan. The second seemed to have none of those problems, but the trackpad button did not click when you pushed it. So now! The third time was a charm and this one is great! I think they fixed most of the initial problems in this latest round of production.

As giles said, DP5 works pretty well with Rosetta. Although the VI performance in DP5 and in Reason is about the same as with my old Powerbook G4 1.5. There are still pops and crackles at lower buffer rates. I thought this would be at least a little better on the new one. Maybe the UB will fix that some.

what VI's are you using? Are you using your mbox2 with DP?

thanks for the info - I need a new laptop but don't know if I should find a powerbook or jump into these new ones

KarlSutton wrote:don't know if I should find a powerbook or jump into these new ones

Do not think of PowerBook. G4 architecture is very much outdated. Getting one now is not a smart decision, especially when there is a month or two to wait for major apps to go universal.
With G4 you will get
••• slow processor
••• slow RAM
••• slow motherboard (buses)

I would go with papa on this one for sure. buying a G4 now is a major step down compared to the market for the past few years and especially now.

Don't get me wrong about my earlier post, my new macbook is definitely noticably faster than the G4's. When using a non UB version of Reason with my MBOX2, it runs quite a bit faster than the G4. Though I haven't really thoroughly tested it. The only thing I was hoping for was better performance at lower buffer rates. As with the G4, the Macbook only really works well at a 512 buffer without any artifacts. I tried the new VI's in DP5 with the same result.

As soon as the new UB DP5 comes out, it should be much better.

Okay, so after using reason more extensively, I found that after playing whatever open instruments for a minute or so, the artifacts disappeared amazingly. That was at a 512 buffer which had only a few pops. Then I turned it down to a 256 buffer and... no artifacts again. So i;m assuming the artifacts are produced when the ram is being initially accessed. Once it gets comfortable, and perhaps once Rosetta is comfortable, it works amazingly well! It most definitely blows away the G4.

jgest wrote:

mon wrote:I've been holding off of DP5 until the UB comes out.
I've run 4.61 on the Macbook Pro with 2G RAM but it will always eventually crash. And Reason running under Rosetta is strained. Isn't it a better idea to wait?
Been running Logic but I miss my old plug-ins. Not to mention DP...

reason is UB now

Thanks, jgest.

Plug-ins and rewires have to all be on the same page. All UB or not.

To run Reason with DP 4.61 in Rewire mode you must run it through Rosetta. To run with another Universal App (Ableton 5.2, Logic 7.2) on a macintel it will run in UB "Intel" mode. Switch in properties.

The nastiest part is eveytime you need to switch between running Reason natively UB or through Rosetta you need to open up Reason in stand-alone mode first and then do a re-authorization. Every time!

I hope DP5 will be UB soon.

mon wrote:

jgest wrote:

mon wrote:I've been holding off of DP5 until the UB comes out.
I've run 4.61 on the Macbook Pro with 2G RAM but it will always eventually crash. And Reason running under Rosetta is strained. Isn't it a better idea to wait?
Been running Logic but I miss my old plug-ins. Not to mention DP...

reason is UB now

Thanks, jgest.

Plug-ins and rewires have to all be on the same page. All UB or not.

To run Reason with DP 4.61 in Rewire mode you must run it through Rosetta. To run with another Universal App (Ableton 5.2, Logic 7.2) on a macintel it will run in UB "Intel" mode. Switch in properties.

The nastiest part is eveytime you need to switch between running Reason natively UB or through Rosetta you need to open up Reason in stand-alone mode first and then do a re-authorization. Every time!

I hope DP5 will be UB soon.

I was not aware that you had to have everything running on the same page. I thought you could mix universal apps and non via rosetta. I have been on the sidelines waiting to jump in to mackbook/pro........leaning more toward the macbook but trying to see if I can wait to gen 2. If dp is not ready, it may be time to buckle down and make Live my primary sequencer until DP is ready............I'll miss my powercore plugs though.

Me either, I found out the hard way. But I had to get a new computer; I was running the very first G4 PB - still have to for a lot of stuff.

Don't get me wrong, though. MBP is blazing fast and a real nice computer, and I'm sure I will enjoy it a lot more when the software catches up to it.

Also, DP 4.61 and Cubase SX3 run better on it than they did on the old G4 PB. It's only with Reason running rewired through Rosetta where things start to get sticky. Processor intensive plugins from Izotope also slow things down. Increasing the buffer does help some.

The main thing to remember is to keep like Apps and plugins together:
UB's or not UB's

i just got one, actually, to move my non-music stuff somewhere...the old g4 will get updated to a macbook pro later when the dp ub comes out.
no moo, but i do hear a slight high pitched whine when it's running...no dealbreaker.
it does seem to get about as warm as my g4, if not a little more so, but i just use a chillhub. a few more usb ports (for dongle, mouse, etc), and it vents the hot air out of the back...not down onto your legs
it fits just about perfectly under a macbook, and works well with my 15" pb as well...

kell