Macbook Pro 15.4 and Protools questions?

[Realfi]

This was languishing at the bottom of another similar thread can anyone help?

I'm about to purchase a Macbook Pro 15.4 to run with my Mbox and I'd really like to hear from anyone who's successfully doing so.

I'm curious as to whether you're running a firewire drive, how much RAM is on board and how you're going from the point of view of track-counts etc.

For 002 users...is anyone running>external firewire>oo2 in series?

People tell me this will work will it?

I ultimately want to upgrade to a 002 but the 15.4 only has 1 x firewire 400 of course.

I know a 17" would solve the problem but it's a bit big for my purposes and of course a fair bit more expensive.

 

[zimv20]

For 002 users...is anyone running>external firewire>oo2 in series?

yes, that does indeed work, though i have the 002 in the middle.

 

[cschreppel]

For most of the time, I'm running the 002 into my PowerMac G4 and recording to a dedicated internal 250GB hard drive and then syncing that drive with my 200GB external FW800/400 drive.

However, when I'm doing mobile recording with my 002 console, I'm using my 15" TiBook. It's got a 1GHz processor with 1GB RAM. I usually run the PB > drive > 002. If the 002 fails, the drive will still be intact. If the computer fails, it doesn't matter what's connected where...the drive will still crap out

With this system, I've been able to record 12-16 audio tracks (6 drums, bass, 2 guitars, vocals, room mics, etc.) without much difficulty. I just disable any plugins so that I don't max out the CPU.

However, in your case, you can probably run more plugs while recording than I can on my G4 tower when mixing!

When I'm mixing on my TiBook, I can usually get 22-26 audio tracks, plus Aux Tracks for effects, plug ins on most tracks, plus automation, etc. It'll start to lag right around 25-28 tracks. With my G4 tower, I can max out the audio track count (32) plus a ton of auxes. I can also get a fair amount of plug-ins on each track without lag. However, when I'm running 4-5 reverbs, CPU heavy mastering compressors, etc., it get a little funky.

Again, you should be fine.

I would recommend at least 1GB of RAM and a 160-250GB hard drive. Anything larger than 250GB can be a bit difficult to run unless you partition it. But it's almost a necessity to get a Firewire drive. You never want to record to the system drive.