Best Mac For Recording Music 2015
Im switching to a mac but am not sure which is the best value between the 13 inch macbook air or 13 inch pro, and then whether a refurb i7 would be better or the new i5. I will be running bootcamp and tons of music software (massive, nexus, komplete 8, reason, etc). Much like Music Maker Jam, Stagelight comes in the form of an Android app for music creation 10 Android Apps for Musicians to Record, Tune, and More 10 Android Apps for Musicians to Record, Tune, and More If you're a musician, you need these apps on your Android device. They help you record, remix, tune, and more. Reviews, best-of guides, and comparisons on music and recording equipment, video cameras, gaming gear and more.
We know we’ve gotten scrutiny for listing it first, and everybody is entitled to their opinions. However, we feel this is the best digital audio workstation for most of our readers. Here’s why (and just a few reasons, considering it would take days to explain the power of this) — you’ve got the standard multi-track recording (an unlimited number of audio/MIDI tracks for songs) and cut/paste/splice features, but what’s especially great about this software is the seamless MIDI sequencing software and hardware. We’ve had so many fusses with our MIDI controllers getting mapped to our sounds through the DAW (back when we used Acid Pro in 2005-2010), but ever since the switch to Ableton it’s been extremely headache-free.
Let me know if you have other questions. Hi, Great article. I chose the 13inch for portability and have just brought it home. I am planning on purchasing an interface in the near future, but am keen to hook up my electric guitar right now to play around with garage band. The limitation of the 13inch is the single audio/mic, in/out. How can I play the guitar and hear at the same time without the need for an interface?? Is there a way to feed the output audio through the computer inbuilt speaker so I can plug the electric in the input??
For those with home studios, I recommend this approach. With a little more generous budget you can get a PC computer that will be perfect for both music production and other media applications or even for video games. A powerful PC desktop can become the center of your musical production but also can be your center of entertainment.
In contrast to metal-bodied laptops with poorer ventilation such as the macbook pro (which I have also owned, and can cause first degree burns if you aren’t careful – not to mention this laptop has comparable if not superior specs to the late 2011 MBP I bought for $1800 when it was new). I still use a 2x quad-core xeon mac pro tower for production, but ever since some serious problems with apple’s customer service effectively stealing from me (logicboard replaced under applecare with an inferior model whose serial # matched the defective logicboard which had been removed from an older laptop I had brought in a year and a half earlier, RAM upgrade I paid for and installed myself was removed) I have been shying away from apple products in general.
Download: ($40). An entertaining but limited music production app. While there are certainly plenty of musicians who use GarageBand as a tool, many users enjoy the software as a fun way to play around with music. If you’re more interested in that sort of experience rather than full-on music production, Music Maker Jam will have you creating no time. Unlike the other software covered here, Music Maker Jam is an app that you can download from the Windows App Store. It is also available for Android and iOS, joining an ever increasing list of Need a music maker app for your iPhone? These iOS music production apps let you create tunes anywhere.
Out of all of the few laptops that Apple offers, the Pro model is the most powerful. While it is not as thin as the Air, it is still a lot more portable then most other laptops in the market. Just like the iMac, there are both Retina and non-Retina versions.
Lastly, what do you think of this list? What laptop are you using currently to record and produce music? Comment below. Best Laptops For Music Production From 2017 We’ve kept some of the best laptops from last year here below. Feel free to reference them from the list below! 1. Acer Aspire VX 15 The is an affordable gaming laptop with a starting price from only $800.
It is a flexible and powerful tool that will get you up and running in no time at all. All at the bargain price of free. LMMS sports a good variety of software instruments. Samples and effects are pre-loaded, which allows you to get up and running straight away. The interface could be clearer. Even then, it’s easy to use the instruments and make beats by experimenting. Synthesizers are played via musical typing, mapping the computer keyboard to notes on the instrument.
If you don’t have any — if all of your music-making happens inside a Mac — then this won’t be a concern, and in theory any Mac might do. But if you’ve a pile of audio interfaces, USB instruments, headphones, monitors, and other vital hardware, trying to get by with the new MacBook’s single USB-C port will drive you to despair. (We wouldn’t recommend the new MacBook for music anyway — it’s too underpowered; but you get the general point.) Processing power for making music on a Mac High-end audio work can be extremely processor intensive, especially when using professional plug-ins and effects. If your demands are great, you’re going to need a Mac with fairly serious processing power. Ergo, whichever Mac you decide to buy, avoid low-end models that seem to lurk in the line-up to enable Apple to say ‘from’ and use a lower price-tag in marketing material. There’s also the question of the GPU.
Apple computers are well known for their stability, ease of use and good performance. Today you have a wide choice of Apple models.
This laptop has many ports and if you’re a MIDI controller person, you’ll be happy to know there’s enough. Storage on this guy is not that great but you’ll be relieved to know that they are PCIe SSD storage.
I might need to use some bits from Native Instruments. I realize that I will need an external drive for more storage, that I will buy.
Same thing goes for CPU cores and RAM. The more, the better. In almost all the music studios I've recorded in, the majority have been powered by Mac Pros. There simply isn't a better machine out there for heavy music production work. Click to expand. The MacPro is the absolute best. But if you are trying to figure out a laptop solution.
It has the 8th generation Quad Core i7-8550U that will deal with all your DAW & plugins processing. It comes with 16GB of RAM which sadly isn’t upgradable but should definitely do the trick for a In addition, it also has an NVIDIA® GeForce GTX 106, which will be an extra help for your RAM usage when producing music, as it’ll help with some plugin processing. A nice feature is the touchscreen display, so you could in fact, use the touchscreen to tweak your audio plugins & draw automation. The standard SSD storage that comes with it, is a 256GB SSD, but you can upgrade it to 512GB. The 1TB version will cost you quite a bit more, and I foresee most music producers using an external hard disk with the Razer Blade. However, a quick workaround is to use the USB-C port, where you can use an external SSD or HDD to load any of your projects, plugins or virtual instruments with ease.
They help you record, remix, tune, and more. Alongside Mac and Windows programs. Stagelight takes a slightly different approach to digital music production than other similar packages, with a focus on the interface typically known as a live mode. It’s a way of testing out different loops and audio clips together to see what meshes well, used by some electronic artists in their live performances. The free version has the same unlimited tracks as the upgraded “Unlock” versions and some limitations.
Visit their website or the purchase link we provide for more information. We also tried to throw in the free trials and a few video overviews. We hope this guide has helped continue your music creation journey — keep the questions and comments coming at the end of the guide, we’ve really enjoyed the discussions throughout the years. If you’re looking for some smart device DAWs instead (some, but not many, home studio artists are starting to go with this route due to convenience, although we still don’t recommend it right now), check out our article since we made a separate guide altogether for that subcategory. Recommended level: All levels Operating system: Mac or Windows Full versions ( ) Since it’s introduction in 1999, has been steadily growing as a very popular DAW and for good reason.
Otherwise, you’ll of course need to invest in a powerful enough rig to support the DAW that you end up choosing after reading this article, which will always entail you choose your operating system afterwards. If you want our opinion — it doesn’t matter. We’re more if Windows types of people, whereas our friend we just worked with a few weeks ago says Mac only. This is entirely subjective.
Synergy free version. However that is not to say you can’t build your PC yourself. Here are some guidelines to keep in mind when building your PC for music production. Silent PC Casing.
They are still an amazing performer in the studio and have quite impressive specs for their price. The cheapest one you could get is $500. If this is all you are willing to spend, by all means go for it, but I would recommend the next option up. The next option up is $700, BUT has twice the ram, a 1 terabyte hard drive, and a much faster 2.5GHz processor. The Mac Mini has 4 usb 3.0 ports, 2 thunderbolt 2 ports, and also an hdmi connector if you prefer hdmi over thunderbolt. $700 is an incredibly low entry barrier to get a Mac. Of course you also need a monitor.
For the average producer, this is more than enough power. Even if you need more power down the road, the iMac is upgradable to 32GB of RAM. To save some money, you can buy the non-Retina version for only $1099. It still has plenty of power from its 8GB of ram, 500GB hard drive, and 1.4GHz processor. • • • Mac Mini Mac Minis have gone down in price a lot over the years.
While the M.2 SSD 256GB SSD might seem small, it can be upgraded up to 1TB. Design for the traveler in mind, there’s also a USB-C port on the Samsung Notebook 9 that you can use to charge the laptop with a standard phone charger. Samsung claims that a 20-min charge would give enough battery juice for the laptop to last for 2.1 hours. For us as music producers, there are also plenty of connectivity with USB 3.0 ports, HDMI and strangely a microSD port instead of a standard sized SD port on the laptop. Pros • Extremely portable and ideal for the travelling music producer • Nice display and screen real estate • Upgradable SSD to 1TB a win!
Just be mindful the RAM maxes out at 16 GB (which on the 13-inch model must be upgraded during purchase), and you’ll almost certainly need to factor in the costs of an additional display for when you’re back in the studio and don’t fancy squinting at and scrolling on your notebook. Apple Mac music accessories If you’re going to make music on a Mac you’ll need to think of ways to connect your recording instruments to the machine. Best Mic to go with your Mac If you’re thinking of doing any decent audio recording then you’ll need a Mic. Some of the best ones we know are made by Blue, and if you’re really going to town you could consider the Blue Microphones Blueberry. If that price seems somewhat overkill then the Blue Microphones Yeti or Spark Digital are popular choices for voice recording.
Avoid the M-Audio eKeys models, which are not velocity sensitive. I’d also avoid Behringer, based on my experience – horrible non-progressive velocity sensitivity – suddenly loud. Best to bring your MacBook Air into a music store and try different keyboards in store. Hope this helps!
Hey Tasman, I just returned a Mac Book Pro with SSD because they didn’t have a firewire port or a DVD slot. They do have Thunderbolt, but to load software you have to buy an external drive. And to use Firewire, you need adapters. Now I’m totally confused. I mainly wanted it for Ableton Live, but thought it would be nice if I had the option to run my Digital Performer files. Am I asking the impossible?
I’m thinking of making the “jump” and have just recently started with some music making. Since I’ve just started I’ve decided to start with using reason as my main program and I was wondering what your take on the new macbook pro retina is. I’m thinking of getting the “cheapest” option that is the one with the 8 gb of ram etc.
Best Mac For Recording Music 2015 Wopindandom
There are also dual drives built into the laptop, with an SSD as its main drive, so DAW will feel snappy on this laptop. While the laptop comes with a big 15″ display, giving you plenty of real estate for working in your DAW, the display is somewhat not as vibrant as compared to many other laptops. This will be slightly discouraging if you plan on making videos with it as well as the colors are not exactly accurate. However, if producing music is your main focus and nothing else, then Dell Inspiron 15 7000 is worth a consideration – without spending too much! Pros • Long battery life – up to 11 hours.
I use it with a ALBA karaoke machine haha and i plug my guitar into a big good amp ive got using a jack lead? Im wanting to make my sound quality a lot better but dont know where to start, i also use garageband to put it all together.
The faster sound card supports the music production very well. Also, it comes with FL Studio 12 producer edition on it to cater to the music editing requirement on a Windows laptop. So there you have it, a small review of 10 best laptops for music production and recording in 2018 ranging from Windows 7 to Mac OS X. Though you can find plenty of laptops on Amazon with high specification and the latest hardware, they are definitely going to cost more. We have combined and selected all range of models for all kind of budget you are looking. Making this list involved reading the reviews on the internet, personalized user experiences and also some knowledge about the exclusive features available on each laptop. So, go ahead and pick one for yourself.
Today we’re looking for the best computer for music production and recording. So you have the; keyboards, speakers, microphones, and most importantly, the ideas storming around in your brain. But what about the actual computer to act as the backbone of your entire digital music production setup? When it comes to a music making computer, we want to settle some anxiety you may have right off the bat: it isn’t too big of deal which one you get.
The Mac Pro is the most used in a professional studio environment. For home studio applications, an iMac or MacBook Pro are more than enough. There is also a wide range of dedicated audio interfaces,, and music making software like Logic Pro that makes Apple computer a serious candidate for your music studio. Apple is perceived as expensive compared with the PC. Well, this is true, they don’t offer a low-end product. Apple computers are more expensive but offer a different perspective, it is just like a premium car, you get extra safety, comfort, quality materials, and exclusivity. In the field of music production, Apple does have a big drawback. You’ll find far fewer free music software and audio plugins for MAC than for PC. Below you have the Apple’s 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display specs: iMAC Item Price CPU 3.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 Memory 8GB (two 4GB) memory Storage 1TB Fusion Drive Video AMD Radeon R9 M390 with 2GB video memory Display Retina 5K 5120-by-2880 P3 display Peripherals Magic Mouse 2 Magic Keyboard Accessory Kit Total $1.999 You can get LogicPro software already pre-installed on your iMac for $ 199.
If you take your audio interface into a Mac store, you can just plug it in and check Apple menu > System Preferences > Sound to see if the interface shows up in the list. John, for quality music work, we typically don’t use the built-in audio jack. We use an external audio interface for lower noise, better fidelity, TRS and XLR inputs, higher sample rates and bit depth (e.g. 96kHz 24 bit), multiple channels and, if we’re lucky, perhaps more warmth. Both the 13 inch and 15 inch MacBook Pro have both USB and Firewire 800 ports, so you’d have no problems connecting an audio interface to either. Since your pieces are heavily orchestrated, I would go for the 15 inch MacBook Pro with a quad core processor.