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I prefer the old macbooks

I think you can still get an oldstlye one on the apple website.

Or yes Imacs are good. Whatever you get I'd splash out on getting the most RAM you can. 4GBs if poss!

Even if you're just mixing you want to do it through an external interface, not through the macs soundcard!

hope this helps

The new MBPs do have firewire just not the MacBooks. If you are just mixing in ProTools then you won't need a firewire port unless you plan to hook up external mixing hardware. The new macbooks are far superior to the older models. Plus if you are a student you can get a good 20% if you buy direct from Apple.

Hope this helps.

I’d agree with Jords, unless you plan on putting a more sophisticated set up together MB ports should suffice. Sometimes they offer a free iPod with a new macbook purchase.

I use a mbox, I now have a PC with vista… grrr… but used a basic iBook for several years and had no problems at all with pro-tools. If you run out of hard drive space just buy an external, they are quite cheap now.

Pro-tools requires an external interface to run, however that will probably be USB so no problems there... the advice i've been getting from other places is that to mix/edit/record directly to the macs primary hdd is very very bad and that you must use an external firewire drive at all cost... therefore i may just look for an old MBP or new iMac... have to consider the cost of it and how i fit it all on my desk :P

Thanks for your thoughts
Tom

I've got a MBP 17" 2.4Dual Core (it's from the previous range to the current one) - it's got the 7200rpm internal drive rather than the 5400rpm, and I can record 8 tracks and play back another 20 or so simultaneously - so that's not too slow...! If you can afford to get a MBP I'd totally reccommend it, the advantages of having a completely portable studio that I can fit into a laptop case and a 2U rack mount (for the external firewire soundcard) are huge.
And do you have to get ProTools to run with your course or could you use Logic? Much cheaper and just as good IMO.

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Not having used Macs all that much before I've never used Logic however Pro-tools has a lot of advantages over it and is the industry standard for digital recording therefore its the best thing for me to get- Plus doing 3 modules and an external digi-design exam in it so needs to be pro-tools.
Pro-tools i've heard shouldnt write to the primary drive due to the chance of any of the files being interrupted by OS services... having had a look today the 20% student discount makes the new 15" MBP very appealing...

I'm a student at Leeds College of Music studying music production so I work with PT and logic day in day out and I have never had nor heard of anyone having an issue recording to the internal drive. Even if there was an issue you could safeguard by partitioning the internal drive. But I really don't think you'll find it a noticeable problem.

To add to which I've used a first generation macbook pro (2.0 dual and 1GB ram) to record 16 simultaneous tracks and had it recording for 3 hours solid with no drop outs (was multitrack recording a church worship event) so you're gonna be hard pushed to get one of the newer macs that are even better spec than that to have any trouble at all really. I was lucky as I upgraded to a souped up MB (2.4 dual 4GB ram and 250GB HDD) just before the newest macs came out, so i get a firewire port :p

In all seriousness maybe look second hand if you simple must have FW although I would say careful not to go back too far, definitely don't buy anything pre-intel or you'll start finding programs that have dropped power PC support won't work.

Hope that helps

you will need to get an external pro-tools hardware. Pro tools designed like this because back in the day when computers were lacking power, they made pro-tools have their own hardware so the computer can just used it's power for other things, not the high power consumption of pro-tools.

If i was you, I would get the old style Macbook (like me) and get yourself an MBOX by digidesign. You can get them as cheap as £160 for a stereo input.

Pro-tools isn't cheap.

Logic is just as good! kind of... :D ha

Unfortunately this, being the domain of geekdom, is full of people who will tell you that their opinion is fact so make sure you can tell the myth from fact. Along those lines, of people to trust, I've indirectly worked with Matt Osgood before on a recording project (although he doesn't know who I am on this forum) and I highly respect his opinion, so take note of what he said up there^, he knows more than me)
A couple of things I'm aware of (I'm a 2007 model MBP user with firewire interface and cubase)

1. You don't NEED to run direct to External HDD...I dont and I've had no problems, (Although it is generally thought a good practice to seperate the OS drive from the Data Drive in any recording setup)

2. If you do run direct to external HDD be aware that if you get a mac with FW400 and FW800 then they run on the same bus and will create a bottle if you have a HDD in one and audio interface in the other. This can casue crazy problems with certain hardware. So try to spread your hardware between busses - and dont assume a seperat plug on teh side of you laptop will be a seperate buss.

3. You dont NEED Firewire. it is for you audio interface (needed for monitor speakers if only mixing) and remember USB 2.0 is (technically) quicker than FW400, so dont let anyone tell you that a USB interface is second best.

4. "Pro-tools has a lot of advantages over [logic] and is the industry standard for digital recording" That sounds like another geek myth to me, If you're just getting started then it will be a LONG time before you can make something sound "better" on Pro Tools than say Logic or Cusbase.

So before you buy anything make sure you have all the inputs nessecary for you chosen audio interface, Ext HDD (if you want one) and any other USB/FW hardware.
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Worsh-er,
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Hello worsh-er,

Who are you??! :)

I'd just echo that last point - Cubase, Logic, Nuendo, Ableton, PT etc etc - perfectly possible to get fantastic results with any of them. None of them will make you a better composer, or better at mixing. Yes, if you have better plug-ins you will get a marginally better sound, but spending thousands on the top of the range Waves bundle is useless if for example you're not confident at knowing which frequencies to cut or boost with a basic EQ.
Logic, for the money, is unbelievable in what it can do nowadays - to be fair I've never used PT so there may be certain things it does better (or worse), but there is no reason why you can't produce professional results using either program.

There's a guy in my church who is a professional producer/mixing engineer - has mixed projects for Jeff Beck, Daniel Bedingfield, even a live DVD for U2 - and he uses Logic. Even though he's got an 8-core Mac Pro and he's endorsed by Waves so has all their plug-ins, he'll still use Logic EQs and compressors as part of a typical mix.

Having said all that - if you need to transfer projects to and from other PT systems then yes that's obviously what you should get. But if you need to spend less money and have a wider choice of hardward then get Logic.

Hope that helps,

Matt

www.RESOUNDworship.org
Free New Worship Songs