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Author Topic: Macbook for music production  (Read 2189 times)

rimybeats

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Macbook for music production
« on: August 23, 2022, 05:15:35 pm »
Hi,
I’ve been thinking about switching to MAC since all of my artists using Mac, I thought it would me handy for me to switch, but there is a lot of issues that I want to grt rid of before (named them issues but maybe you guys will make them clear for me).

1. Storage - My vst atm weight over 600GB, I would buy a external SSD drive for it but is it possible to instal VST on it and run it from external drive? (I would buy a 256gb macbook since I think like it is not worth it to go for 500)
2. I heard many vst do not work with newest updates of macOS (I do not use pirated versions), is it still a thing?
3. Ram, I do not know if 8gb of ram would be enough? I’m producing simple trap/rnb tracks, not sampling much

If there is any thing that I should consider please text it in comments, thanks everyone!

MajorFubar

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Re: Macbook for music production
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2022, 11:46:13 am »
To answer your questions in order:

1 - It kinda varies. It's possible to browse through this forum alone (let alone forums from other mfrs) and find mixed reports from those who have successfully and unsuccessfully managed to host their VST libraries on an external drive. It seems to vary wildly depending on what DAW you are using and the VSTs. To me, hosting on external drives is a whole heap of trouble I'd rather live without, and considering you're using the phrase 'my artists' I'm assuming you're at least semi-pro, so I'd recommend going for the solution likely to give the least pain, because time spent f'king about try to get things working is time not earning money. TLDR = put your hand in your pocket and just buy a big internal drive, it makes sense.

2 - Again, it varies. Old 32-bit VSTs are a complete no-no for definite, but 64-bit x86 plugins which are still waiting to be re-coded for Apple Mx chips will usually work 'ok-ish' via Rosetta 2. But again it's by far a more harmonious process if you have assurance that the VSTs you need to use the most are already native for Apple Mx chips.

3 - I'd go with 16GB if you can stretch to that. The SSD's on the new Mx Macbooks are lightning fast providing you avoid the 256GB M2 Air and M2 13" no-so-Pro (which have SSDs slower than their M1 predecessors), but you still want to be avoiding swap as much as you can, especially if you opt for the 256GB SSD models, so more memory is good.
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