16 Feb 2015
Hi all,
So I use Reason primarily as the center of my Propellerhead Reason 8.0 based live keyboard rig. I have a couple of 61-key controllers on stage, and a small Motu audio interface, and it has served me really well for years now.
But my laptop is starting to show it's limitations. I have a Toshiba, 2.0Ghz i3, with 4GB of Ram, and a 4800Rpm hard drive.
And it's actually a testiment to the cpu-efficiency of Reason that I am able to do as much with it as I am.
I have basically a bunch of combinators in my rack, for various sounds, or combinations of sounds I use. Some are pretty complex. And I just track back and forth to select a different combi on the fly. And it swaps quickly, and plays back with no noticeable latency at all.
But, the more I start to do, the more I see the CPU meter start to get in the red, and I've even got the "your computer isn't fast enough to play this song" error once or twice, (fortunately it was at practice.)
After much debating with myself over going with a Mac or PC, I finally purchased a used MacBookPro. It is a 2012 model, and has a 2.9Ghz i7 processor, which is of course quad-core. 16Gb of ram. A 7200rpm 1Tb hard drive. And a 256Gb SSD.
The OS is installed on the SSD according to the seller, and it boots really quickly he says. And I believe him. I think this is going to be a huge leap forward for my rig, and open up lots of processing head-room for me to do a lot more.
So, on to my questions.
I am a somewhat familiar with Macs, but not in depth.
Is there anything I need to do to optimize the thing to be used as a DAW?
Do I need to turn off system sounds like I did on my PC?
What about auto-updating of apps?
What else?
I'd like to feel pretty comfortable with it, before I use it live the first time.
I am also using it at home in my studio as the center of my recording setup.
I had never done anything major with my old lappy because I knew it wouldn't take that many tracks to lock it up, so I didn't try.
But I do plan on using this new one more for that purpose as well.
Thanks in advance for any advice!
I am really excited about this. I think it's gonna be a huge improvement!