I have a racked M1 Mini 16/1TB as my main live GP system, and as I’m going away from hardware synths I thought I’d set up a MacBook Pro to use as a VST synth player only, as well as the Remote Desktop controller for the Mini. This would use a surplus Roland Octa Capture as the interface/MIDI.
VSTs I’d load are 6 from Roland Cloud, Korg Collection, Arturia V Collection, Waldorf, a few from Cherry Audio, Keyscape, and possibly some from NI and a few others. Maybe Omnisphere.
The idea is that I’d trigger setups on the 2nd system from the Mini for each song, similar to patch changes on a hardware synth.
I have 2 laptops to choose from already, and either would have AC power so battery life isn’t an issue:
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a 16GB/1TB 16” i9 2019 MBP
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a base 13” 8GB/256GB 13” M1 2020 MBP.
Advantage of the 16” is a bigger screen and more memory and storage, but the i9 is slower in single core and can throttle if I’m pushing it hard (which I doubt I’d do).
Advantage of the 13’’ is that it’s a M1 chip, even though it has less memory and storage.
I’m leaning towards the 16” being the synth and repurposing the 13” as a potential backup for the racked Mini.
I could probably just run everything from the Mini but I’d be needing a keyboard, mouse and screen of some sort anyway and a laptop will easily sit on top of the rack.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Alternatives?