MacBook Pro 2016 15" 2.7Ghz Touch Bar and Reason9 performance.

[Bloma]

For those having performance issues, have you tried running reason with "Open in Low Resolution" mode? (right click Reason icon > Get Info > tick Open in Low Resolution mode). Reason has had some performance issues since retina resolutions were introduced. My Mac Pro 2013 (trashcan) suffered from bad performance until I enabled this setting (I run it on a 4K monitor). After the setting is enabled performance is solid.

Yesterday I just got a 2016 MacBook Pro, i7 2.9ghz and Radeon 560 Pro, 16gb Ram. Your suggestion definitely made an improvement, but it still seems not as fast as I expected. My old MacBook is a 2011, and it's a lot better than that, but a bit worried now from all the comments in this thread. I could have easily got a gaming windows laptop for Reason. How is everyone else going with performance now?

[propellerhead333]

I never respond to forum posts and such. I'm usually just looking for answers. However after reading this, I had to also comment. Dear Apple, WTF?!?!?!?!?!?! So I got the new mac book pro and ok, I got over the fact that I had to fork out $80 for a converter to get a regular USB port on this thing. But when I plugged in my Roland Quatrro external sound device, I couldn't believe it. The USB speeds on my new mac book pro has caused a massive latentency making my sound device unusable in reason. Wow. Just wow apple. I made the switch to apple years ago because "things just works". They used a power pc chip that was better suited for media applications. Gone. I bought a mac years ago because the life span was much greater than a windows equiv. Just like their phone platform now.... two O/S revisions and the hardware is discontinued.

[plaamook]

Apple is so minimal they won't even need customers soon

[Marco Raaphorst]

I never respond to forum posts and such. I'm usually just looking for answers. However after reading this, I had to also comment. Dear Apple, WTF?!?!?!?!?!?! So I got the new mac book pro and ok, I got over the fact that I had to fork out $80 for a converter to get a regular USB port on this thing. But when I plugged in my Roland Quatrro external sound device, I couldn't believe it. The USB speeds on my new mac book pro has caused a massive latentency making my sound device unusable in reason. Wow. Just wow apple. I made the switch to apple years ago because "things just works". They used a power pc chip that was better suited for media applications. Gone. I bought a mac years ago because the life span was much greater than a windows equiv. Just like their phone platform now.... two O/S revisions and the hardware is discontinued.

Please report also to https://bugreport.apple.com/

I do that often. Apple is very slow in solving bugs I must say.

[jlgrimes]

Hi,

just upgraded to new MBP 2016 15" i7 2.7Ghz (Radeon 460) and tested Reason (internal sound chip) and was horrified of the performance.

I loaded some of my songs which were made in my Mac Mini Late 2012 internal sound chip also (Which were running fine on 256 buffer).

New MBP STRUGGLES (cpu peaks and song has major stutter, CPU limit is none on both) with the same songs which run fine on 4 year old Mac. I have to increase the buffer to 512 / 1024 and suffer from latency.

It also seems that Reason has some issue with displaying graphics (no bugs) but when you minimize the Reason screen you get less stutter (retina giving too heavy load ?).

Also Touch Bar F4 (keyboard midikeys) works randomly.

I ran disk speed tests and cpu bench marks and got top results. Is it possible that internal soundchip is so "shitty" on newer Macs?

Are you running Reason in low resolution mode. You need to do so as Reason isn’t optimized on 4K or 5k display Macs.

It works better in low resolution mode.

[jlgrimes]

I never respond to forum posts and such. I'm usually just looking for answers. However after reading this, I had to also comment. Dear Apple, WTF?!?!?!?!?!?! So I got the new mac book pro and ok, I got over the fact that I had to fork out $80 for a converter to get a regular USB port on this thing. But when I plugged in my Roland Quatrro external sound device, I couldn't believe it. The USB speeds on my new mac book pro has caused a massive latentency making my sound device unusable in reason. Wow. Just wow apple. I made the switch to apple years ago because "things just works". They used a power pc chip that was better suited for media applications. Gone. I bought a mac years ago because the life span was much greater than a windows equiv. Just like their phone platform now.... two O/S revisions and the hardware is discontinued.

I’m thinking of going PC on my next upgrade (which will be awhile). Macs have some nice features but I think you get more with your money on PC and I’m getting tired of Apple making weird decisions that benefits Apple company and not the Apple users.

[Fusion]

I have had my MacBook about a year now and the only problem I have had, is with Reason. Switching to low resolution mode solves the load problem but makes it unsuable. Propellerheads have known about this for a while, so was very disappointed when 10 has still got no Retina support or even bug fixes.

[Shibs]

I ordered a macbook pro i7 2.6, 16gbRAM, touch bar (late 2016). The main purpose is to use it for Reason. (Upgraded to 10.0)
I am currently on i7 Win10. After reading the experience here, I am not sure if I should keep it or return. The vendor I bought it from (B&H) does not accept return if I open the computer (seal opened). The shipment will arrive soon. I am totally confused - because I cannot "try" and return.

Are the problems still unresolved? Should I go for a 2015 macbook pro?

[Fusion]

I ordered a macbook pro i7 2.6, 16gbRAM, touch bar (late 2016). The main purpose is to use it for Reason. (Upgraded to 10.0)
I am currently on i7 Win10. After reading the experience here, I am not sure if I should keep it or return. The vendor I bought it from (B&H) does not accept return if I open the computer (seal opened). The shipment will arrive soon. I am totally confused - because I cannot "try" and return.

Are the problems still unresolved? Should I go for a 2015 macbook pro?

The problems still exist, so I would just continue using the system you have got and wait until PH resolve the issue. I wish I knew about this issue before purchasing my Mac .

[WeLoveYouToo]

i had a 2007 music xpc laptop, and it started conking out on me so i upgraded to a refurb 2014 mbp.
the difference in performance should have been HUGE, but it was relatively minor.
it's silent, the ssd is nice, and the battery life is 6 hours versus the old music xpc's 45 minutes, so i can't really complain. it makes playing live so much less stressful, i can turn it on before a show instead of waiting till the last minute for fear of power loss.
but yeah, i was dissapointed with performance.
to be fair, the low res mode helps, but i also installed reason on a computer nerd friend's fast desktop pc, and it was only slightly faster on there... honestly it seems performance is at a point in 2017 where things like battery life and build quality and startup speed and reliability are much more important factors.
plus, you lose very little money selling a used mbp, should you decide it's not fast enough.

[harlesc]

i always had wonderful performance with reason on my mid 2012 macbook pro. then i switched to a mid 2015 macbook pro retina - it cost twice (!) as much as my previous macbook - the overall performance has been extremely disappointing - especially with using reason. i still have excessive fan noise the entire time when making music - this is especially bothersome as i'm trying to work on low volumes due to ear damage, but i can't, the fan noise gets crazy loud at times. i had the macbook checked at an apple store - they said "there's nothing wrong with the hardware and it's probably software related" afterwards i contacted propellerhead (about a year ago now) and they said that unfortunately reason does not support retina screens: this is why they suggest to "open in low resolution" as it slightly alleviates the performance issues in reason

afterwards i also found out that connecting my macbook (while closed and connected to charger) to an external monitor screen helped a GREAT DEAL in reason performance for me, can 100% recommend this if you haven't already. this is probably linked to the resolution issue with retina screens.

finally, El Capitan was one of the worst OS X i've ever had. upgrading to Sierra (not High Sierra!) has also slightly helped in overall macbook performance

anyways - was wondering if anyone else has the same fan noise issue with any recently bought Macbook Pro?

[Shibs]

I ordered a macbook pro i7 2.6, 16gbRAM, touch bar (late 2016). The main purpose is to use it for Reason. (Upgraded to 10.0)
I am currently on i7 Win10. After reading the experience here, I am not sure if I should keep it or return. The vendor I bought it from (B&H) does not accept return if I open the computer (seal opened). The shipment will arrive soon. I am totally confused - because I cannot "try" and return.

Are the problems still unresolved? Should I go for a 2015 macbook pro?

The problems still exist, so I would just continue using the system you have got and wait until PH resolve the issue. I wish I knew about this issue before purchasing my Mac .

Ok here's my update: Ended up ordering an upgraded version of mac I ordered earlier :i7 quadcore 2.9Ghz, Late 2016 model 16Gb RAM, 4GB VRAM.
Reason 10 works beautifully right out of the box. Ran the Reason CPU stress test file ( viewtopic.php?t=7263897) runs to 44s, which is pretty good I think.. Did not do any optimization or tweaks.

[Fusion]

Decided to do a clean install with Mojave on my Macbook pro 2015 and to my surprise Reason performance is the best I have had it for ages and is finally usable again.