Not strictly a GP topic but as im still on my very first Mac im looking advice.
Budget will be low, I guess just over £1000 is fine, nothing approaching £2000.
I currently use a 14" M1 Pro MBP from 2021. Im happy with it, it does all need. We aren’t gigging constantly and this serves as my home computer as well.
Only 16GB betas per my other thread, Predictive loading is fine. I dont think I need to upgrade just to get 24GB, and the Memory monitor in Mac OS shows the full gig rig as around 30GB anyway.
I feel now I should divide home and live. Id like to cut down on what I have on the internal SSD. I was set on getting the new M4 Mac mini for home, and keeping the MBP for just live use. But, as nice as it is, it’s a bit heavy. Im wondering if I should keep the MBP for desktop use and get the M2 or M3 MacBook Air, in which case id go with 24GB for live use.
Just looking for thoughts really. A lighter laptop would be nice as long as it runs GP and plugins as well as my current one. No need to go for a Pro I guess.
Mac mini would be the ideal solution and the cheapest.
Thanks, that makes sense. I only ever use my MBP closed at home, with a larger monitor/keyboard etc, so it’s not a big deal having a laptop as a home computer.
The new Mac Mini’s seem to be getting great reviews, and are much cheaper than the equivalent MBP, but the Air sits in the middle. There is also rumour of the M4 Air at some point next year though, which adds another complication.
The MBP 2021 is still a great box. The one I use for live has a little more horsepower than yours, but the primary reason is that I’ve had issues with predictive loading on both Windows and Mac at the times I’ve tried to use it. As long as you’re not running into memory issues, I would keep using that MBP as your live machine for the next several years to come.
I too like having at least one ‘home’ dedicated unit (but in fact I technically have five…). I have my original MBP (a 2013 with core I7 and 16GB ram), the MBP that was originally purchased for my live rig which has the same specs as yours, a Mac Studio for my recording studio setup and 2 custom built rackmount PCs I previously used for my live rig. One of those doubles as a hackintosh.
If you were thinking of going with a lighter powered box for your live use, I would caution against that as the overall lifetime of the unit in your live rig VS effort to get everything setup and going would not be a losing battle. If you really want to bring that MBP ‘home’ as it were, then I would go with a heavier hitting MBP for your live rig and stick with it for at least 6-7 years.
Thanks for the reply.
Most of that makes sense, nothing i do on my MBP taxes it too hard, i do a bit of video editing with Resolve and use Logic and Cubase without issues.
I cant see me getting a new MBP for live work, thats such a small part of what i use a computer for that the cost would be way above what i deem ‘worth it’
I use Logic/Cubase at home, along with DaVinci Resolve much more than i do GP, and im aware a Mac Mini M4 would easily cover these, no need to max it out, leaving the MBP for GP, but i could do with a bit more ram for GP, hence the Mac Air comment, a si can afford to get a 24GB version. .
Can you explain moire about the last bit, why a MAcbook Air M4 wouldnt be a good idea?
Ok, coming back to this as im now in a position to make a decision, and really cant.
I have asked about M4 Air in another thread, but for this one i want to ask about keeping two macs in sync as far as GP and plugins go, as im now thinking ill get a 16GB/512 M4 Mac mini for daily use, and keep the MBP just for gigs.
Obviously i have to have all plugins on both macs, and i will keep them updated to the same version.
I would plan on using the Mac Mini to do all the sound creation and home practice etc, and then im gussing i just copy the gig file to the MBP and load that up? Obviously id test it all out before going to a gig, but is it really that simple?
Does GP save all the custom patches id use in say, Arturia/Korg etc, or would i need to copy those across as well?
Still quite new to Macs and have never done this sort of thing before on windows either.
If you use GP’s User Preset management, then presets gets saved by default in folders inside the default GP Documents folder. If you use the plugin’s own preset management then the presets go wherever that plugin wants them to go – some allow them anywhere, some require them in certain places.
So there are several advantages to using GP User Presets
Everything lives under one location
GP User Presets show up in the wiring view popup menu and in the quick finder dialog
GP User Presets “know” what plugin was used for a particular sound so if you just save a preset as “My Favorite Strings”, you don’t have to remember what plugin was used it - just search for “My Favorite Strings” (or a substring of it) and it will just work
Alternatively, you can just “explore” the Presets folder and drag a preset into GP to instantiate the appropriate plugin
Thanks again David, very useful info and a great help.
I dont think i worded my question correctly though. What i meant was this.
Say i create a preset in JP-8V for a certain song. I save this preset within the Arturia plugin.
I then save the racksapce, and the GigFile. If i were to open this gig file on a second mac, which didint have the Arturia preset, would GP still open the plugin with the correct parameters, even though it doesnt pull them from the preset, or does it need to load the plugin, and then the preset the rackspace was saved with?
Possibly a silly question, but it’s totally new to me. I just need to get my head around how to go about this. So far ive not use GP presets, although i have used Favorites.
Oh I see — GP doesn’t care about “preset” in this situation (and it doesn’t matter whether you save a plugin preset). If you have a particular sound configured, then the state that represents that sound is what the plugin should give back to GP for purposes of saving and restoring. But it is up to the plugin to give the correct state info back to GP.
Ah cool, that was what I was hoping for. I do try and save plugin presets if I remember, but not always. GP always seems to remember what sound I had when last used so it sounds like im good to go.
When I get more down time im going to overhaul my Gig file. Most most Rackspaces were created as I learnt, over quite a short period of time, and ive then reused them, so although it works perfectly for me now, I m sure there are things I could streamline now I have more knowledge.
Thanks again.
