#1
hi all
i wanted to report to you guys about my experience running logic on my macbook air 11"
i bought the machine to do on the go work on my tracks...i thought it useful for sketching ideas and doing some prep work, etc...
SO...after using it for a few weeks i can tell you that i am totally blown away by this machine and it's performance with my track
i got the
Macbook Air 11" | 1.6Ghz | 4GB Ram | 128GB SSD
i got a sleeve for it and it fits snug in my "man bag" and doesn't add too much weight
logic starts incredibly quick and songs load quickly too - playback from internal drive is obviously not at all a problem
so stacking on the plugins and building the track up on my 2006 Mac Pro 1,1, CPU shows just under half usage on 4 cores. opening the song on the Air, it plays!!! somtimes the cpu spikes into the red and it just hangs there for a while but carries on playing...it seems to be able to handle the spikes whereas on mac pro it would instantly pop up core audio overload message
i think this has something to do with the SSD cos disk read and write also affects cpu
as i continued to build the track up, i did have to start freezing a few tracks and then it had loads more juice again! i think you could do a hell of a lot on this machine and get very close to complete - but it's all relative!
btw, setting it up on train and packing away takes seconds - with SSD you open the lid and it's instant on, close the lid, put in sleeve and in bag and you're off...can't do that with my 2010 Macbook Pro i7
on a side note, for monitoring, i'm using my Etymotic ER6 and the sound is amazing. i'm using just the build in soundcard and i'm able to get so much mixing done i couldn't believe it. take it home and it sounds incredible on my big system. what i love is that it's so easy to tailor the entire freq range with these headphones.
battery life is actually very good. apple must have spent a lot of time on this because when CPU is lightly used, the battery can last maybe just over 4 hours. using logic though with CPU flying high it goes down to 2 hours on a full charge. working on logic, editing a bit, etc... i got 3 hours work off a single charge
it's very very sensitive to CPU usage - i don't have flash installed
you would also wonder if the screen was too small?? well it's actually not...
i had the 2006 white Macbook and that was 1280x800 this feels quite a bit bigger at 1366x768
there is one issue with the machine though and that is that when opening the lid it sometimes opens to a black screen and then i have to close it and reopen to get the login screen...i've done all updates of which one was supposed to resolve this...not a show stopper
other than that, i do miss a firewire port as all my devices are firewire but i'm debating the Apogee One for this baby! then i also miss the ethernet port but you can get a USB one - i didn't...i'm rather sorting out my home wireless to be 300Mbps wireless
as for graphics, they're awesome and definitely enough for me to work on my music video on the go in the summer. i trialled Maya and a complex model and it's not incredible but if you turn off some of the full quality display options performance is a lot better and this is for a reasonably complex model...
i think these airs are the future; i don't even touch my MBPro i7...it's just this baby and my mac pro.
if the next revision is more powerful than this and 4 threaded, it's going to be a beast and likely as powerful as my Mac Pro 2006
could this baby be a main machine only with an extended monitor?
for songwriting, editing and mixing of semi complex tracks to completion; i do think so! logic is very efficient in the CPU area!
for complex, loads of plugins and bussing all over the place (can't freeze busses), you will want a main machine to work on without having to freeze, unfreeze, etc...
hope this was useful to some
cheers, grant
i wanted to report to you guys about my experience running logic on my macbook air 11"
i bought the machine to do on the go work on my tracks...i thought it useful for sketching ideas and doing some prep work, etc...
SO...after using it for a few weeks i can tell you that i am totally blown away by this machine and it's performance with my track
i got the
Macbook Air 11" | 1.6Ghz | 4GB Ram | 128GB SSD
i got a sleeve for it and it fits snug in my "man bag" and doesn't add too much weight
logic starts incredibly quick and songs load quickly too - playback from internal drive is obviously not at all a problem
so stacking on the plugins and building the track up on my 2006 Mac Pro 1,1, CPU shows just under half usage on 4 cores. opening the song on the Air, it plays!!! somtimes the cpu spikes into the red and it just hangs there for a while but carries on playing...it seems to be able to handle the spikes whereas on mac pro it would instantly pop up core audio overload message
i think this has something to do with the SSD cos disk read and write also affects cpu
as i continued to build the track up, i did have to start freezing a few tracks and then it had loads more juice again! i think you could do a hell of a lot on this machine and get very close to complete - but it's all relative!
btw, setting it up on train and packing away takes seconds - with SSD you open the lid and it's instant on, close the lid, put in sleeve and in bag and you're off...can't do that with my 2010 Macbook Pro i7
on a side note, for monitoring, i'm using my Etymotic ER6 and the sound is amazing. i'm using just the build in soundcard and i'm able to get so much mixing done i couldn't believe it. take it home and it sounds incredible on my big system. what i love is that it's so easy to tailor the entire freq range with these headphones.
battery life is actually very good. apple must have spent a lot of time on this because when CPU is lightly used, the battery can last maybe just over 4 hours. using logic though with CPU flying high it goes down to 2 hours on a full charge. working on logic, editing a bit, etc... i got 3 hours work off a single charge
it's very very sensitive to CPU usage - i don't have flash installed
you would also wonder if the screen was too small?? well it's actually not...
i had the 2006 white Macbook and that was 1280x800 this feels quite a bit bigger at 1366x768
there is one issue with the machine though and that is that when opening the lid it sometimes opens to a black screen and then i have to close it and reopen to get the login screen...i've done all updates of which one was supposed to resolve this...not a show stopper
other than that, i do miss a firewire port as all my devices are firewire but i'm debating the Apogee One for this baby! then i also miss the ethernet port but you can get a USB one - i didn't...i'm rather sorting out my home wireless to be 300Mbps wireless
as for graphics, they're awesome and definitely enough for me to work on my music video on the go in the summer. i trialled Maya and a complex model and it's not incredible but if you turn off some of the full quality display options performance is a lot better and this is for a reasonably complex model...
i think these airs are the future; i don't even touch my MBPro i7...it's just this baby and my mac pro.
if the next revision is more powerful than this and 4 threaded, it's going to be a beast and likely as powerful as my Mac Pro 2006
could this baby be a main machine only with an extended monitor?
for songwriting, editing and mixing of semi complex tracks to completion; i do think so! logic is very efficient in the CPU area!
for complex, loads of plugins and bussing all over the place (can't freeze busses), you will want a main machine to work on without having to freeze, unfreeze, etc...
hope this was useful to some
cheers, grant








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