Does anyone make music with a Macbook Pro?

Hello! I’m thinking to buy a Macbook Pro because I need something portable. But before buying it I have some doubts.

How do you load all audio libraries? Do you work with external hard drive? Do you have the more used libraries in the internal disk? In my current PC I use an external sound card. Does the macbook processes audio well without external sound card, or have to carry it? What minimum requirements do you recommend?

Thank you.

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If you look old software, it can be very bad PC.

I work a lot “on the go” with my MBP (Mid 2014, retina, 15", i7 2,5gHz, 500GB SSD). I use Ableton Live, Kontakt (with a couple of third party libraries) and a few VSTs. Works well. I don’t use an external drive or sound card when I’m out of the house. I connect my MBP to my sound card and monitors when I get back home and check my mixes with the studio setup. But most of the time I’m satisfied with the outcome.

For instance, right now I’m at a café working on a new track using nothing but my laptop and a set of Sennheiser headphones.

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I work on a old MBP 2011 13", i7 2.7ghz, 16Gb ram, 500 gb ssd. I use both an external audio interface(Rme Babyface) and 4x500gb external ssds in a Blackmagic Design Multidock via thunderbolt.
I could probably work without the interface and external drives if I were mixing on headphones and didnt need the extra space for my libraries.
Edit: pushed reply a little early…

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Of course, when working from home/studio, I have two external drives for libraries and such. But I don’t use them “on the go” when I’m out of the house. Do you carry all that with you when you use your laptop “on the go”?

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I only use it for composing at home, so no. But as you said, theres no problem using it stand-alone if you have room on your internal drive. Especially when your using a SSD.
I cant produce anything without a midi keyboard so I would have to bring that too…:slight_smile:

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About the minimum requirements I would recommend a SSD drive, as much ram as you can afford and a i7 prossessor for multi-threading.
The old non-retina 13" MBP are the last model the user can upgrade themself. You can get a much better machine much cheaper if you upgrade the harddrive and ram yourself. Apple charges A LOT for extra ram and diskspace.

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Thanks a lot guys! I was not sure if it will work well without external sound card and if it’s possible to load libraries from external drives without lag when I come home, but with your answers I see I will not have problem. Thank you very much for your help and your advices!

Great advice :slight_smile: