KVR Audio

skipkent · Post by **skipkent** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 2:44 pm

...I'm loving it!

Still have my basement PC / Reaper rig and that's not going anywhere, but this little 13" MBP is the schniz for doodling, guitar jamming and more upstairs or on the go.

I have various USB interfaces, but I've been using the Apogee JAM that I got for the iPad and it's great. NO PROBLEM getting real time latencies with Guitar Rig and that sort of thing.

Having fun learning Logic and I must say it's been a blast. Once you get some basic screen sets set up (Arrange, Mixer and piano roll), the 13" screen does not limit you in any way that I can see. It WILL feel cramped if you try to do everything on a single screen.

Is it a PC laptop killer and I'm never going back? No, but I really like it for what it is and what I'm using it for. It's nice using something that's geared a little more towards the expressive side and doesn't feel like such an International Business Machine. Of course, once you're in the application of your choice on a PC, all that melts away, so that can be a moot point.

Just wanted to put this out there for others considering the same. I've wanted to explore Logic for a long time but was worried about using it on the lower resolution 13" MBP screen. Two thumbs up from me for what it's worth.

penguinfromdeep · Post by **penguinfromdeep** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 2:53 pm

GOod choice! Usually it's true what they say, those Apple laptops just work and you can just literally plug and make some noise!

debra1rlo · Post by **debra1rlo** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 2:55 pm

cool skip

before i got my mac pro recently i had a macbook(regular not pro) for 6 years and was able to get used to the 13" screen. yeah there was definitely enough power to run logic back then with that...

would have probably made sense to get the tower then as I was really home based for the most part, only really did a couple of sessions recording my friend's band... now i'm back in a band and gigging again and i have this huge tower instead of my small lappie

congrats and enjoy

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 2:58 pm

jjmcjj · Post by **jjmcjj** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 3:07 pm

I switched from PC to mac, then back again.

I don't like the Tim Cook era Apple: Mountain Lion, Siri, Glued in batteries...

After using a mac for a few years, it feels INCREDIBLE to install a hard drive, or ram, without any need for a "spudger".

AVOID THIS!

Trahast · Post by **Trahast** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 3:29 pm

skipkent wrote:...I'm loving it!

Hi, just a quick heads-up that the SoundCloud link in your sig is wrong. I managed to find you anyway using your name -- you've got some nice tunes going on there.

Cheers,
Trahast

penguinfromdeep · Post by **penguinfromdeep** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 3:37 pm

ghettosynth wrote:
I've posted before on this, but, they have not proven to be reliable for me, my better half, and several of my coworkers.

Too bad, I'm sorry for you. That's why I said usually, of course there's bound to be problems sometimes. But I'm happy my better half is happy and several of my coworkers too

Jace-BeOS · Post by **Jace-BeOS** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 5:31 pm

Aside from heat, I love my older unibody 13". Lion makes it even more cozy since I really have become very strongly attached to my iPhone as a general purpose computing device. Weird, I know. And no, I don't like or use launch board in Lion; it's the scrolling, dictionary, full screen mode & gestures, especially in Safari. Still needs refinement in the pinch zooming in Safari though. Clumsy as hell and not at all like iOS (but double two finger tap on paragraphs of text is usually great, depending on the formatting). The machine is great for writing and, when I can tolerate a bit of heat, great as an actual LAPTOP.

Haven't actually used it for audio much yet since my older (and obscenely hotter) MacBook Pro has all the software installed. 13" is a bit small for Reason.

sockofgold · Post by **sockofgold** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 5:47 pm

jjmcjj wrote:I switched from PC to mac, then back again.

I don't like the Tim Cook era Apple: Mountain Lion, Siri, Glued in batteries...

I have to agree--I have a previous-gen MBP, and don't me wrong here, I love it. But it will probably be the last Apple PC I ever buy, just because I despise the way Apple is going. They used to be focused on making great PCs for people in "creative" fields that need lots of power without any non-sense (audio production, graphic design, video production, etc.).

But since the outlandish success of the iPhone, it seems they realize that they are going to be more profitable catering to yuppie consumers, and the MBP line is slowly being dumbed down, right along with OSX. I thought the updates to Lion were bad, but like you said, Mountain Lion looks disgraceful--integrating Facebook into the OS... Why, just why?

Oh well, I much prefer just building my own Windows PC for audio work--it just sucks because 95% of the Windows laptop market is just cheap plastic garbage.

Jace-BeOS · Post by **Jace-BeOS** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 5:58 pm

Heh heh, polar opposite opinion

(well, Facebook/twitter integration, yeah, big MEH from me)

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 5:59 pm

skipkent · Post by **skipkent** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 6:38 pm

I don't like the Tim Cook era Apple: Mountain Lion, Siri, Glued in batteries...

I have my reservations about this aspect of Apple as well, which is part of why I went with the MBP instead of one of the airs. We also are lucky to have the Computer Loft here in Boston, which has a long history of servicing Macs, both in and out of warranty, and a lot of customer satisfaction, so (short of it being stolen or something) I'm pretty positive about the life span of this purchase.

Point taken, though. I'm no greenie, by a longshot, but I abhor wasteful design for the sake limiting a user's options down the road and steering them towards more future purchases, which seems to be a large part of the modern Apple strategy.

That said, "it is what it is" and right now I feel I've got my money's worth.

skipkent · Post by **skipkent** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 6:39 pm

Trahast wrote:
skipkent wrote:...I'm loving it!
Hi, just a quick heads-up that the SoundCloud link in your sig is wrong. I managed to find you anyway using your name -- you've got some nice tunes going on there.

Cheers,
Trahast

THANKS for the info and the kind words!

-SKent

polaris20 · Post by **polaris20** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 10:39 pm

ghettosynth wrote:
penguinfromdeep wrote:
ghettosynth wrote:
I've posted before on this, but, they have not proven to be reliable for me, my better half, and several of my coworkers.
Too bad, I'm sorry for you. That's why I said usually, of course there's bound to be problems sometimes. But I'm happy my better half is happy and several of my coworkers too
Mac fans always seem to want to underrate my experience with this. To be clear, I'm talking about significant problems with more than half of 15 to 20 macs spread across different time zones, different environments, several years of purchase, and different usage patterns, all within two years of purchase, some within one year.

I have never had such a run of bad luck with PCs in my life. I've never had a PC exploding battery, got a picture of a Mac one of those, want to see it? I've never had the factory supplied laptop PC power supply kill a motherboard, happened three times with the macs.

I'm a fan of OS/X and much prefer it to windows, I now work in linux, but not for music. But I stopped buying mac hardware after switching to macs during the "switcher" campaign and switched back several years ago. My computers have now gone back to their normal cycle of getting too slow to use before I'm ready to get rid of them.

I've noticed that people love to polarize these discussions, truly, I'm agnostic to hardware modulo reliability and if Macs were as much more reliable as they are more expensive, I'd still be using them. I certainly prefer mac keyboards and have them on all of my PCs. In other words, I'm neither a Mac, nor a Windows (PC) fanboi. Hardware is hardware, it's the software that matters to me. Although I think that mac software is generally more refined than a lot of windows software, I also think that it's simply not true that macs are "more reliable." At best they are perhaps no less reliable, in my experience, they are absolutely less reliable and I wouldn't consider buying one without getting the AppleCare warranty.

Your anecdotal evidence is just that; anecdotal. 15-20 Macs? I've got experience with far, far more than that in personal and business use, and all but 2 have been fine. However, this is still anecdotal.

Everyone has a sob story over a computer brand or something that they've had a bad experience with. If you were to ask me, I'd tell you to never buy a Dell, based on the hundreds I've worked on, or HP for that matter. But there's always someone else with opposite experiences.

Dewaine · Post by **Dewaine** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 11:52 pm

Congrats!

I have been very please since my switch. I really like Win 7, but the Mac's just seem to fit me better.

I always say use what works for you, the brand has nothing to do with it.

New Mac, and I just gotta say...