New Mac Book Pro - Digital DJ Tips

This topic has 18 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 13 years, 5 months ago by T-Dub.

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June 12, 2012 at 4:13 am #1006035

Alvin
Member

I actually work for them, Apple. Industrial designer by day, DJ by night lol. Anyways, solid state drivers are better than legacy hard drives with spindles for many reasons (1) they are faster (2) they are more reliable, no moving parts, no bad sectors (3) they weigh less… downside is that you pay for a premium.

With the 13″ and 15″ deal, if you are working with Traktor, then the interface will be very tight, you may have to turn some interface off. With the 15″, you see everything.. Your favorites, hotcues, full track view, etc. 15″ works especially when you are using 4 decks, and samplers.

As a DJ, and not as an employee. I would personally pick a Pro anytime than the Air. It gives me more flexibility. But if you are going for a 13″ then go take the Air over the Pro. CDs are rarely used anyways, unless you are rocking with a CDJ.

June 12, 2012 at 8:38 pm #21858

D-Jam
Participant

I’d also tell any one of you to go with a laptop that can PHYSICALLY take punishment. You’re hauling it around and such after all.

Would you want to show up at a club with your super-thin notebook and find it cracked somehow?

And this is NOT a shot at the Mac Air. I’m sending this one out on all the super-thin laptops being made.

June 12, 2012 at 9:23 pm #1006076

Steelo
Participant

The new Macs are really nice. Expensive though. I know that MBP’s aren’t exactly cheap any way but damn! I cant wait until solid state hard drives go down in price.

June 13, 2012 at 6:55 am #1006097

backtothefront
Participant

Will the new MacBooks have USB2.0 capability, if not it’s a killer for most NI hardware?

June 13, 2012 at 9:46 am #1006107

Terry_42
Keymaster

All new Macbooks have USB 3.0 on all ports.

D-JAM: I have a 13” Air and a 15” Macbook Pro (Air is previous Version but same casing and MBP is older).
The Aluminium Unibody Construction of those laptops can handle more abuse than any “normal” laptop I have seen. The only real competition for this kind of construction, you would have to opt for ToughBooks. My Air dropped out of my Rucksack once when I was picking it up and did not see that it was still unzipped and though it had a pretty harsh scratch on the casing, it had ZERO problems and still runs like a charm (prolly due to the SSD).
My MBP is what I mainly use for DJing due to the 15” screen real estate, it is old, it looks dirty, it gets slammed into flight cases. It has stickers on it. It gets impregnated with foam, bubbles and smoke, sometime it is hard to clean it off and the keys on the keyboard have scratches etc. It still works flawlessly.

Do not underestimate the thin construction. Thin does not mean it cannot take a punch. This thing is contructed from the same aluminium quality and the same unibody design as modern jets. It can take A LOT of abuse.

June 13, 2012 at 9:23 pm #1006140

Steelo
Participant

backtothefront, post: 22014, member: 1433 wrote: Will the new MacBooks have USB2.0 capability, if not it’s a killer for most NI hardware?

USB ports are backwards compatible so everything will still work. Only 2 USB ports though. I’m curious about these thunderbolt ports. The tech sounds good but they could end up like firewire which has basically disappeared now.

June 13, 2012 at 10:24 pm #1006145

djsubculture@gmail.com
Participant

Went from a 15″ dell to a 13″ MBP. Yes the screen is smaller, no it wasn’t the problem I thought it might have been. Plus the 13″ MBP is a bit more portable than the 15″ MBP. I don’t think you’ll regret switching.

June 29, 2012 at 6:32 am #1006885

DJ Rated G
Member

I have a 2-month old Macbook pro running OSX Lion, and as of yet, I’m not sure if Virtual DJ, and or Traktor, or even itch are supporting? i have a Vestax Spin, but it is acting funny, … and not Haha funny 🙁

DJ Rated G

June 29, 2012 at 9:03 am #1006894

Terry_42
Keymaster

All 3 run perfectly on the latest Mac HW and Lion, I have no idea what your problem is until you tell us what the problem is…

October 16, 2012 at 3:40 am #1013705

DJ Rated G
Member

hi all, love this website/forum/world of gadgets! … I was looking to see if anyone is having problems playing back wav files on their macbook laptops?

October 16, 2012 at 3:00 pm #1013767

Terry_42
Keymaster

No problems whatsoever…

October 17, 2012 at 8:32 am #1013826

Rob Francis
Member

I’m another MBP 15″ user (early 2011 model) and love it to bits. I use an original Apple hard disk but am considering a switch to SSD.

October 17, 2012 at 2:43 pm #1013857

BoomBox
Participant

The new 13″ Macbook Air actually has higher resolution than the new 13″ Macbook Pro and the same resolution as the 15″ Macbook Pro – 1440×900 vs 1280×800 on 13″ MBP.
The upside on the 15″ MBP is that you can actually upgrade the display, for an extra £80 to 1680×1050.

You can always go for the 15″ retina display if your budget allows it and at 2880×1800 you can have everything turned on, on any software, and still have plenty of empty desktop space. Not exactly the budget laptop though…

October 17, 2012 at 8:25 pm #1013874

Charles Sue-Wah-Sing
Participant

Because of my work as a designer I love MACs. But when it came to buying a laptop for DJing I didn’t have the coin to buy the MBP I wanted (the 15″). And a PC was looking favourable – though I really didn’t want to do that. What I did was buy a refurbished 13″ MBP from their online store. Saved me $300 off the original price. Runs perfectly. Yes it’s not the retina display model. But that doesn’t matter when you’re playing tracks. If I was designing on it that would be different. All of my software works fine.

October 17, 2012 at 8:38 pm #1013877

Anonymous
Inactive

13″ are much easier to transport around. If someone needs more display space when on a desk, it’s super-easy to add an external monitor.
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