Korg Forums

[X-Trade]

So I've just upgraded to a new 15" MBP (non-retina, i7, 16GB RAM, 750GB Hybrid SSD).

But it has Mountain Lion on it, on which my now ancient Cubase Studio 4 will not function.

Upgrading to Cubase 7 is £284. Logic on the Mac App Store is only £160 or so.

Or should I stick with Ableton and (shudder) GarrageBand?


I'm also quite keen on Ardour 3.x (or actually Harrison MixBus if they ever update it) but it's not out for OSX yet.
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Current Gear: Kronos 61, RADIAS-R, Volca Bass, ESX-1, microKorg, MS2000B, R3, Kaossilator Pro +, MiniKP, AX3000B, nanoKontrol, nanoPad MK II,
Other Mfgrs: Moog Sub37, Roland Boutique JX03, Novation MiniNova, Akai APC40, MOTU MIDI TimePiece 2, ART Pro VLA, Focusrite Saffire Pro 40.
Past Gear: Korg Karma, TR61, Poly800, EA-1, ER-1, ES-1, Kawai K1, Novation ReMote37SL, Boss GT-6B
Software: NI Komplete 10 Ultimate, Arturia V Collection, Ableton Live 9. Apple OSX El Capitan on 15" MacBook Pro

[Pepperpotty]

[X-Trade]

I had a white macbook since 2008 and it has done me well. I've never looked back from PC. Although I still use PC a lot and work with Windows, Mac, and Linux (redhat and debian) at work, desktops and servers..
The thing I love about that is that Windows is often getting left behind - Mac has enough similar guts to Linux that a lot of stuff I am learning there is portable and useful on my macbook. So from a 'standards' point of view..

Anyway, I had trouble with the price too but in the end I bought it, knowing that it's a well built piece of kit with a top-end processor that should last me at least another 3 years if not 5 years like my last laptop.

The RAM and HDD I upgraded myself out of the box as I could do it cheaper (and faster) than Apple.


There are a lot of good alternatives for software. Most of the big products (e.g. Cubase, Ableton, Korg, etc.) run on both. I use OpenOffice rather than paying for MS rubbish.

Also it will run Windows quite nicely. I may put a bootcamp partition to play a few older PC games I have, except I rarely play them anyway.
The latest Windows oriented stuff is actually quite nice but I've had the blue screens mid-performance, driver problems, performance quirks, it's just too risky for me.

Also when putting together a quote for a similar spec and build laptop the price wasn't far off the Mac.. A lot of manufacturers put good specs on cheap laptops and then skimp on the build quality. And there aren't that many i7 laptops around when I looked!


The 2.9ghz 13" macbook looks quite nice if you're after something a bit cheaper and smaller. I can't recommend the Retina models because there's no firewire, no DVD drive, no ethernet port, and all the components are glued in and thus not changeable without sending off to Apple.
I actually really wanted the 17" that they discontinued last year but that would be a bit ridiculous..
_________________
Current Gear: Kronos 61, RADIAS-R, Volca Bass, ESX-1, microKorg, MS2000B, R3, Kaossilator Pro +, MiniKP, AX3000B, nanoKontrol, nanoPad MK II,
Other Mfgrs: Moog Sub37, Roland Boutique JX03, Novation MiniNova, Akai APC40, MOTU MIDI TimePiece 2, ART Pro VLA, Focusrite Saffire Pro 40.
Past Gear: Korg Karma, TR61, Poly800, EA-1, ER-1, ES-1, Kawai K1, Novation ReMote37SL, Boss GT-6B
Software: NI Komplete 10 Ultimate, Arturia V Collection, Ableton Live 9. Apple OSX El Capitan on 15" MacBook Pro

[Pepperpotty]

Man you're making my decision so much harder! The mac sounds so much more tempting now! I bought a second hand Sony Vaio laptop last year. It was £650 new and I got it at about 6 months old for about £320 I thought it was a bargain at the time but now I see why the guy wanted shot of it.
I'm lucky if I get an hours battery out of it. The left mouse button is slowly dying a death and I'm going to have to take it apart and see of I can fix it but it's doubtful.

That's what makes buying a mac more appealing to me. The fact that I could get a few years out of it and still sell it on for a few quid afterwards.

What sort of graphics do you have on yours? If you partitioned the drive would you be able to play recent games on it? I'm not much of a gamer but recently bought the new Tomb raider and tried it on my laptop and it was like watching a movie being streamed over a dial up connection. I think I probably got about 1 fps! I can play it fine on my pc but would really like to be able to play it on my laptop.
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Current gear: Korg Kronos 61, Voicelive 2, Shure SM58, Alesis M1 Active 520, Focusrite Scarlett 18i6

[cynkh]

I've been using Mac notebooks since the Core Cuo white MacBooks came out and I've now got 3 that I use in the studio. It sounds ridiculous and redundant but I can dedicate one of them to audio recording, sync it to another dedicated to MIDI sequencing and use the last for softsynths (I grew up in the all-MIDI generation so if I can't have all concurrent live tracks I just feel odd ).

I use my 13" MB (1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD) for audio and for automation (mostly audio automation) and some light MIDI (mostly for FX automation, etc.). I use Logic Studio 9 (I've been with Logic since 7). I also have Windows XP installed using Boot Camp and Linux Studio (an Ubuntu variant). My master controller/synth (Kronos 61-key) is connected more or less permanently to this laptop and I use an external keyboard/mouse and secondary monitor setup with it.

I have a 13" MBP (2.8GHz, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD) with Logic Studio 9. I use Korg Legacy Collection, Sylenth1, NI Komplete 8 and Arturia Collection 3 as my soft synths with this laptop. This also has a Boot Camp install (Windows 7). It also travels with me (I have an Akai MPK Mini) for composing/mixing/mastering.

I also have a 12" PowerBook G4 (1.33GHz, 1GB RAM, 80GB HDD) which gets used with my outboard gear. I have 2 M-Audio 4x4 and 1 2x2 USB/MIDI boxes connected which drive the rest of the studio. I have MS Virtual PC running Windows XP SP3 on this laptop. It's got a bluetooth keyboard/mouse and an external monitor setup.

I've preferred using Macs since I can run OS X, Windows and Linux (and anything else I feel like installing ). Also, soft synths just feel more responsive (I've owned IBM/Lenovo, Dell, Sony, Gateway and Toshiba laptops and have built my own desktops for many years, so I definitely have a frame of reference).

I highly recommend a new MBP purchase and starting out with Logic Express 9 (the cost is the same if you purchase Express and then upgrade to Studio versus buying Studio outright). This way you can get a feel. GarageBand is nice for an out-of-the-box recording environment but the lack of MIDI and plug-ins will have you wishing for something like Logic or Ableton immediately. Also, the soft synths that come with Logic Express are absolutely incredible! The library is downright huge and the price is definitely right- especially for a starting point.

Good luck with whatever you choose! Cheers!
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- cynkh -

Hardware:
Kronos 61, microKORG, MoPho, Rogue, Aira System-1, Aira TB-3, Aira TR-8, MC-202, TB-303, (KMS-30), Juno 6, Alpha-Juno 1 (PG-300), SH-201, MC-09, Virus TI Snow, K2000, MPC-1000, X-Station 25, MultiMix-16FW, Ableton Live Push

Software:
Logic Pro 9, Korg Legacy Collection, Komplete 8, vCollection 3, Sylenth1, microTonic

[X-Trade]

I've decided to upgrade to Live 9 and put all of my efforts into using that...

May get Logic at a later date. That does mean still though that I'm abandoning all of my old Cubase project files. Unfortunately I also managed to delete all of my wav masters when transferring the data to the new mac..


Emma,
The mac is really nice and the thing I really love is that the hardware has never let me down on either one so far. That said, it is very different to the PC and if there is software you have invested in, be it for production work or gaming, you may be disappointed if you have to buy new software, find and learn alternatives, etc. I know this is one of the big factors that keeps a lot of people from moving over when they do actually like the mac.

Also, whilst the graphics on the 15" are reasonably good, I have to say that my sister recently bought at 15" toshiba for under £400 and I think it probably had a better dedicated graphics module. However I do know that every other component in my mac is far better.. Most importantly the processor - I haven't seen many i7 laptops worth buying.
The 13" macbook pro and the macbook air don't have a dedicated graphics module at all. They use the Intel Integrated Graphics which is now an on-cpu feature in the i-series processors. It's not bad, but the dedicated graphics are much better for gaming.

I'm going to put Windows Server 2008 or Windows 7 on another partition, probably not for gaming. But I've run some fairly graphics intensive games in OSX (Like X3: Terran Conflict), and they run really well, especially considering that OpenGL is less efficient than DirectX is in Windows.
_________________
Current Gear: Kronos 61, RADIAS-R, Volca Bass, ESX-1, microKorg, MS2000B, R3, Kaossilator Pro +, MiniKP, AX3000B, nanoKontrol, nanoPad MK II,
Other Mfgrs: Moog Sub37, Roland Boutique JX03, Novation MiniNova, Akai APC40, MOTU MIDI TimePiece 2, ART Pro VLA, Focusrite Saffire Pro 40.
Past Gear: Korg Karma, TR61, Poly800, EA-1, ER-1, ES-1, Kawai K1, Novation ReMote37SL, Boss GT-6B
Software: NI Komplete 10 Ultimate, Arturia V Collection, Ableton Live 9. Apple OSX El Capitan on 15" MacBook Pro

[Diego5150]

I just purchased Logic 9 for my 12 core Mac Pro, I figured for $199 how could I go wrong.
Being a newbie to DAW and besides playing with Garageband for a few months I couldn't tell you anything useful but from what I learned so far I am really enjoying Logic a lot.
Just my 2 cents.

[X-Trade]

I have used Logic a lot and it's definitely good value for money, being functionally equlivilent to Cubase and probably with better built-in sounds and plugins (if you use those much)

I also had some problems before with Logic with MIDI clock and latency though.


I'm fairly happy with Live 9 though so far. Hope to sit down some time soon and do a proper recording sesh though.
_________________
Current Gear: Kronos 61, RADIAS-R, Volca Bass, ESX-1, microKorg, MS2000B, R3, Kaossilator Pro +, MiniKP, AX3000B, nanoKontrol, nanoPad MK II,
Other Mfgrs: Moog Sub37, Roland Boutique JX03, Novation MiniNova, Akai APC40, MOTU MIDI TimePiece 2, ART Pro VLA, Focusrite Saffire Pro 40.
Past Gear: Korg Karma, TR61, Poly800, EA-1, ER-1, ES-1, Kawai K1, Novation ReMote37SL, Boss GT-6B
Software: NI Komplete 10 Ultimate, Arturia V Collection, Ableton Live 9. Apple OSX El Capitan on 15" MacBook Pro

[chilly7]

[cynkh]

I find that the built-in soft-synths in Logic are quite usable professionally; but, mainly I use them as "scratch-pad" synths to get the tones I'm after and/or back-up sounds for synths which don't have patch memory. Usually it's an analog synth which makes the final cut over a soft-synth but they are really nice sounding and certainly layer well. Plus, how cool is it to have full automation control over every conceivable parameter!

The only trouble I've run into is when I'm really working the soft-synths and FX into the ground (~100% CPU), other than that it's been rock-solid.

Cheers!