Buying a Macbook For Music Recording

Hey all,

Im looking to buy a macbook, and spec'd one out that i would like but just need a bit of advice with it.

I will only be using it primary for recording music (guitars/bass/vocals/MIDI input) and editing tracks, will probably use garageband to start with and then move onto a more higher spec program like Logic.

Its secondary function will be to be a media center, just plugging into my TV for Itunes / Video playback.

I have a Dell 1520 that ive had for 9 months now and more then happy with to work with everything else.

the questions i wanted to ask is,

Should I upgrade to have 2GB of ram?
The most i use with vista is 1.2gig when gaming.
Whats the best way to buy one, direct from store? or from the apple website?
Also, is there any changes due to happen in the near future of Mac's?

Cheers guys.

cheers.

 

You will run fine on 1 GB of RAM, but of course 2 GB of RAM will be snappier. I think its worth the investment! Leopard does not use as much resources as Vista does.

It doesn't matter, you can customize it a bit online (expensive though), but you'll get it right away in store, so you don't have to (im)patiently wait!

There are new MacBooks and MacBook Pros expected sometime this or next month, so I'd definitely wait if its not a rush!

 

cheers for the swift reply, after doing research i think ill stick to the base package and upgrade the ram at a later date if it affects anything. i wont really be multitasking on it, will just be runing OS + Internet browser + Garageband most of the time.

ill check them out at the end of the month in the Apple store in london.
any idea if you can blag any discounts in store? as i cant find any UK promo codes on the internet.

 

I would actually suggest 4GB of RAM for music recording. Garageband, while being quite an entry level programme, is actually quite resource intensive imo.

Once you start loading up Logic with all those plugins and whatnot, you will wish you had more RAM.

RAM is so cheap these days, go with 4G and you wont look back.

 

hmm, i think ill go for 2gb to start off with (2x1gb) as a standard upgrade, then upgrade it to 2x2gb as an when i need it... after seeing the price for the apple upgrade, £180 extra for the 4gig option!!!

After reviewing costs, ill go for the student package for £779.03 for the 2.4 C2D, 160gb HDD + 2gig standard... any idea if i can order this discount online even though im not a student? if not, ill get a mate to buy it for me who is... cheers.

 

If you're just bothered about the RAM, you can buy 4 GBs of RAM probably cheaper than 2 GBs of RAM from Apple, else where. Seriously, they really over price their RAM.
If you're only bothered about the RAM, then get 4 GBs from Amazon for 54 pounds here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-Va...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1220819251&sr=8-1
(or some other one, you can never be to safe with Amazon and eBay)
And save like 20 pounds. I personally think you'd get by with just 1 GB, but the standard model is worth the price of all the upgrades it has, IMO.
EMZ=]
P.S Putting RAM in manually is very, very easy. There's hundreds of Youtube videos showing you how to do it on Youtube.

 

cool, cheers for that, i know what apple are like with overpriceing the options.

i get on fine with 2gb on vista, so should be fine for OSX... thats not a bad price to upgrade to though if i need to in the future.