New Macbook or Dante/waves card

[Andre SParticipant]

Hi guys,

I need some input. With my 13″ MacBookPro (mid 2010,Samsung 850EVO SSD, 8Gb RAM, 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 duo) I can record to LogicProX (48kHz, 32sample buffer size for lowest possible latency) without any problem when I use my old X32. When I use my SQ the sample rate is of course 96kHz and I´m not able to record properly to Logic at 32 samples. Only with a buffersize close to maximum with an unacceptable latency the recorded audio is glitch free.
I know logic is another problem. I have reaper and waves tracks and will test that in the near future. But I´d really love to record to logic directly since that is my weapon of choice regarding mixing

So what is the best way to go:
A) Keep my old macbook and get the dante card for the SQ? Or the waves card (do I need the external server in this case?)?
I know, that I can in this case record with 48kHz…

B) Buy a new macbook and use the build in USB B connection and hope that the new system is fast enough? Is a

C) Is reaper/waves tracks that much more efficent in recording 16 tracks live to a click/track, that I can go for 32samples and keep my old MacBook and use USB B?

Yes, budget is a concern. Yes, I´d like to stay on the apple side.

[Mfk0815Participant]

I did some records yesterday with my SQ equipped with a Dante card. 24 channels@96 kHz.
I used a yoga520 i5-7200U, 8GByte RAM and a SSD with USB-B and a ideaPad with more or less the same configuration but DVS. I recorded on Reaper and had not issues.
I also have a MBP (13,3“ Mid 2012 and 8GByte). I tried a lot but was not able to set the DVS to 96 kHz but with 48 kHz it worked fine (the SQ M-Dante can do the SRC) also recording with the USB-B was fine.
But I have to confess that i do only live recordings and so the latency is no problem for me and i use higher more conservative values.

[SeamusicParticipant]

Hello Andre,
While it’s only anecdotal I have a MacBook Pro 15 2010 upgraded in nearly exactly the same way as yours and I have had no problem recording 24 tracks at 96/24 using the SQ USB-B into Reaper. You can try Reaper for free for a month and after that it’s significantly less than a new laptop so before you spend money I’d recommend trying that first. You could always record at 96/24 to avoid putting SRC on the CPU while it is also trying to do a bunch of time critical write operations and then downsample to 48k files that you could import into Logic if that’s your preferred DAW to mix in. If 96/24 files are going to take up a lot of space a 1/2TB SSD is still going to be cheaper than a new laptop and assuming you don’t use the disk drive in your MBP you can swap it out for to add a second drive. On top of that if you have two drives you can record to both simultaneously in Reaper, giving you a bit of redundancy.

[PBo67Participant]

Hello,
Same opinion as my predecessors, I have a Macmini 2012 equipped with an internal SSD and I record 32 tracks in 96Khz on a external SSD with REAPER in USB3 over 3 hours without worries. This Mac also serves as a player with QLab. I preferred not to convert 96/48, and lose some space on the disc.If you want to save worries, and money, do not do the 96/48 conversion by the Mac CPU.Do it afterwards if necessary.

[Andre SParticipant]

Thanks guys,

I just downloaded reaper and give it a try on friday!

I´ll report back back, if you are interessted!

[Author]

Posts