Mac Help

[Squidy]

I've been looking at a Macbook Air to carry around and do music. I've been warned against them as they have no CD drive, but I've been told they're incredibly light etc. My audio software is all on a CD, for example I own Reason 4 and would like to use that... but have no way of loading it on.

My use is minimal, just making beats etc etc and browsing the net. However I've been told to spend more and go for the Macbook Pro, even though it's a number of hundred $ more.

Seems like overkill for basic use, and the weight seems to be over double (which is what stops me from carrying my other Dell laptop around). What do you guys recommend?

[johnwayne]

You just need an external DVD Drive to load your programs with You may also need an external hard drive as well because the hard drives aren't very large. They're very light and fast though. Great for just basic recording.

[charlieclouser]

The Apple superdrive is $79 and plugs into a USB port for loading from and burning DVD and CD discs.

[Squidy]

Yeah basic recording is all I'm after really Just beats and maybe guitar ideas etc. Also, if I make an image of my Reason CD then host it on my NAS and download it would that also work? Or would you recommend the external CD route?

It's got a 128gb drive, I've heard Mac OS only takes up 5gb or so?

[Llitsor]

Just as a heads up.. Reason 4 is good up to OS X 10.6.8. A new Mac is going to come with OS X 10.7, which Reason 4 won't run in (I don't know what the exact issue is, but it doesn't boot)
So keep in mind you'd either want to update Reason to v5 or v6, or possibly use a slightly older mac that will run OS X 10.6 (And just incase you were wondering, you can't usually install an older OS onto a new Mac)

[Squidy]

Ahhhh well there you go, there's something I didn't know (first time Mac 'owner'). Thanks for the heads up

Also, inbuilt soundcard... any good? My Dell soundcard sucks a*s but I heard Mac inbuilt cards are great with low latency?

[Llitsor]

The built in sound hardware should be 'ok', and probably quite useable if you are not recording as such. IE, mostly using softsynths etc as a hobby?
But as another headsup, have a look at what input/output ports you get. Some Macs have a single combo IO socket on them, which would be tedious at best if you wanted to record and playback through it.
However, there are boatloads of perfectly good and inexpensive USB audio interfaces about if you decided the built in audio wasn't up to scratch..

[nst7]

The new Macbook Air also has Thunderbolt, and as more products become available with that interface, you'll have more options for drives and interfaces.

[natefrogg]

i love the macbook airs

they are pretty darn fast, and just so lightweight and tiny, i ride a bicycle a lot so my thinking is that it'd be a piece of cake to carry around with me riding here and there and stopping wherever i may please to work on stuff i've recorded into it at home

the lack of optical drive doesn't really matter for me, you can get a non apple external for 40$ or so, i rarely ever find myself needing a cd/dvd, well unless i am burning cds i suppose but that is just fine to do at home

it's a beautiful and fast little notebook computer, if i were to be changing out my computers today i would definitely want to get a macbook air