Logic Pro on a Macbook air 11''

Hi Fred,

Theoretically Logic will run on a Macbook Air but there are a number of reasons why this is probably not a good idea. First of all an 11" screen gives you very little real estate on which to do your work. Secondly at 1.4 this is actually a pretty slow machine for a new Mac. Third because it only has usb ports you're limited to usb audio interfaces and external hard drives. Forth I'm not sure I'd be willing to trust flash drives for my work and these are pretty limited size wise, your options being 64 or 128gb. I certainly would try putting the Logic Pro content on one of these. Express has a good deal less content but still has the core Logic program and this will tax a Macbook Air. I'm not sure I would go beyond Garageband if I were using a MacBook Air.

I was just curious if anyone has or is planning to try this and, if so, their thoughts. My main concern is it's relatively slow CPU and max of 4 Gigs of RAM, since I'd at least want to be able to load Trilian bass, Ivory II piano, and a decent virtual drum like EZDrummer. It's lack of Firewire is also somewhat problematic, since I'd otherwise plan to use my Apogee Duet (meaning I'd probably end up buying a cheap audio interface - perhaps the ART USB Dual Pre 2 Channel Preamp? - when I need to infrequently do stereo recording, and perhaps eventually the Apogee One for other uses).

I should add that I have a more "serious" setup at home (32 Gig MacPro with full orchestral template, etc.), so the Air would serve double duty as "road laptop" (which is why I'm even considering it over the Macbook Pro's - it's lightness is extremely appealing), and occasional DAW. I'm also curious if it's flash-based storage makes up for it's relatively slow CPU somewhat....

Thanks for any thoughts!
- robjohn

I honestly can't see one of these being able to handle Ivory, Trillian and EZDrummer.

pancenter-

What makes you say that? (just curious!) I actually wasn't too concerned about the CPU being able to handle it, since it's faster than the first gen MacBook Pro I've "retired". My main concern was actually RAM, since the max is 4 Gigs, and I wasn't sure if this was enough for these RAM-heavy plug-ins (though I think it might be)...
- robjohn

I should add: I also wasn't too concerned about speed because of it's solid state drive, which a lot of people have suggested makes up for the slower CPU...
- robjohn

The 4 gigs RAM is going to be a problem, +depending on what patches you use+ - CPU is also gonna struggle, with the same condition. Especially if you use those three "mastodonts" simultaneously.

i'm trying to decide about this now myself, what did you do in the end?

I bought the 13" air maxed out. Did not install logic yet, but have been testing Garageband and Ableton Live 8. Works great for me. Only missing the gigabit ethernet to cluster my mac pro using vienna ensemble pro.

REMEMBER to get an SD card to record your midi productions and/or an external drive to record your audio. You do not want to write audio to your Apple SSD/Flash or you will have serious problems in the longrun, costing you a new SSD to regain performance. Do your research on the write lifecycle of SSDs

I wondered the same thing. . . So I actually took the plunge and got the top of the line 11" mac book air today. I do realize it may have screen resolution and size issues, but I plan to probably install logic express anyways, maybe reason, and the Komplete 7 players (with a limited library).

The truth is I would only do small music production on it strictkly on the road. Anywhere else I would use a full macbook pro 15" or my iMac.

I will give it a try. If it doesnt work out I will report it back here and take it back to apple.


alvaromuir@gmail.com

Hi Everyone

I recently purchased a maxed out 13" MacBook Air and very successfully running Logic 9 on it. I posted my summary on Gearslutz a little while ago, but I'll copy it here for your information:

Just thought I would give a short report of my experience using Logic Pro 9.1.3 on a MacBook Air (late 2010). It is the 13.3” 2.13GHz, 4Gb memory, 256Gb SSD model.

First of all, I am not intending to use it for any kind of audio recording. I’m not saying that the MBA couldn’t handle the task; it’s just that I have no need of it. I want to be able to sketch out ideas in a hotel room with minimal equipment (in other words, a laptop, a two octave keyboard, a pair of headphones and me).

First of all, I tried the Logic Pro Multicore Benchmarktest several times. It gives a solid 17 tracks, which I am very happy about. My previous laptop, a MacBook Pro 15” (mid 2009) 2.66GHz 4Gb, could only get 20/21. So doing the maths, I was only expecting about 16 from the MBA anyway.

Secondly, I tried several instances of Omnisphere (my main sketching VI). I used three instances, each running the “Astral Visions 1” patch, another three instances, each running the “Bandpass Trancer” patch and finally another three instances, each running the “Brazillian Bandpass Thipper” patch. That’s 9 separate instances of Omnisphere and there was still processor to spare.

So feeling brave I tried adding some MULTI instances of Omnisphere. I managed to add 4 (“Fandrum Club Groove”, “Techno Land”, “Balaphonic Dance” and “Vox Continental Arpeggiations”) and although the processor bars were both peaking into the red, the project never once stopped (I left it running silently for an hour). Activity Monitor showed an average of 135% CPU being used with over 1Gb of memory still free. The fan does come on and there is a slight noise but nothing very noticeable.

Logic looks good on the 1440 x 900 screen and even though the pixel density is much higher than on the 15” MacBook Pro screen, everything was still easy to read and use.

So to summarise, I am a very happy MacBook Air owner. Obviously it’s nowhere near being a desktop replacement, but that’s not I was looking for. I wanted a lightweight machine that could run several VIs easily and that’s exactly what I have. If I sound a little bit smug, it’s because I am!