Guitar Gear Forum

I have looked at an iMac and MacBook Pro for music recording and production.
I leaning more towerds getting the MacBook as space is a premium, but I won't have enough usb ins and outs.
Any ideas how to get round this I will need to run the following off USB

Audio interface
NI maschine
Keyboard
And possibly a fader bank. Sounds a lot but surprisingly I can fit this into a small amount of space.

Is it possible to use the Lightning connectors, I know there is a FireWire interface?
Or perhaps use the USB controllers on a USB 2 bank that goes into the USB 3 slot.

It's either that or throw my wife out to make space for an iMac and desk, I don't think my son would be too happy though.

I just use a USB hub so I can plug multiple USBs into one slot. Some things like interface should have their own but I have things like monitors plugged into multiples

That's what I thought, I wish Apple did a USB hub for their lightening 2 interface it would make a lot of sense.

On my recording macs I just keep a hub for all the piddly shit. Keyboard, mouse, drawing tablet (useful for MIDI input sometimes), backup drives, etc. Main USB/Firewire/Lightning interface is used for recording drives, interface, and any audio intensive devices.

nightflameauto wrote:On my recording macs I just keep a hub for all the piddly shit. Keyboard, mouse, drawing tablet (useful for MIDI input sometimes), backup drives, etc. Main USB/Firewire/Lightning interface is used for recording drives, interface, and any audio intensive devices.

I am just hoping multiple USB controllers will be ok, and the bandwidth will be high enough

neilrocks25 wrote:

nightflameauto wrote:On my recording macs I just keep a hub for all the piddly shit. Keyboard, mouse, drawing tablet (useful for MIDI input sometimes), backup drives, etc. Main USB/Firewire/Lightning interface is used for recording drives, interface, and any audio intensive devices.

I am just hoping multiple USB controllers will be ok, and the bandwidth will be high enough

I've never had a problem and my main has two hubs with tons of crap attached to them. If anything gets iffy it's letting a Time Machine backup roll while recording multiple tracks. I just try to remember to shut off backups during sessions.

Don't do it.

(Glad I could help )

nightflameauto wrote:

neilrocks25 wrote:

nightflameauto wrote:On my recording macs I just keep a hub for all the piddly shit. Keyboard, mouse, drawing tablet (useful for MIDI input sometimes), backup drives, etc. Main USB/Firewire/Lightning interface is used for recording drives, interface, and any audio intensive devices.

I am just hoping multiple USB controllers will be ok, and the bandwidth will be high enough

I've never had a problem and my main has two hubs with tons of crap attached to them. If anything gets iffy it's letting a Time Machine backup roll while recording multiple tracks. I just try to remember to shut off backups during sessions.

Ok good to know maschine for example has 2 screens and lots of buttons, lights etc. mixed with a keyboard and maybe faders I worry about it being too much. But I guess I won't hit everything at once.

Sex Panther wrote:Don't do it.

(Glad I could help )

I am sick of pc recording, I have a pc laptop already and it's ok but it does glitch and I thought it was time to move up as I need to upgrade cubase etc.

I used to build dedicated pc's but now it's time to move on

For a reference, my old computer (we're talking iMac from 2010 or so) I could roll twelve MIDI tracks and about 15 audio tracks with TONS of plugins per track before things would start getting sketchy. My iMac from last year I haven't ever scratched the surface of outpacing the CPUs.

nightflameauto wrote:For a reference, my old computer (we're talking iMac from 2010 or so) I could roll twelve MIDI tracks and about 15 audio tracks with TONS of plugins per track before things would start getting sketchy. My iMac from last year I haven't ever scratched the surface of outpacing the CPUs.

Cool, I think an iMac would be better but space and portability is the problem

neilrocks25 wrote:

nightflameauto wrote:For a reference, my old computer (we're talking iMac from 2010 or so) I could roll twelve MIDI tracks and about 15 audio tracks with TONS of plugins per track before things would start getting sketchy. My iMac from last year I haven't ever scratched the surface of outpacing the CPUs.

Cool, I think an iMac would be better but space and portability is the problem

Yeah, it's basically the same computer these days. Just a different case/screen and IO options.

nightflameauto wrote:

neilrocks25 wrote:

nightflameauto wrote:For a reference, my old computer (we're talking iMac from 2010 or so) I could roll twelve MIDI tracks and about 15 audio tracks with TONS of plugins per track before things would start getting sketchy. My iMac from last year I haven't ever scratched the surface of outpacing the CPUs.

Cool, I think an iMac would be better but space and portability is the problem

Yeah, it's basically the same computer these days. Just a different case/screen and IO options.

Good to know, thank you