Thinking of buying macbook Pro 13" for home music recording

[Ianold]

Hey everyone. Just need a bit of advice please. Im thinking of buying a MacBook Pro 13" which is my budget of £1150.00. I want this for music production, but not on a professional basis. I will only be using at the most something like 4 to 5 tracks of 3 minutes. I need it mostly for playing my guitar etc through interface. Would the above MacBook be OK for me. I used to use Windows but everyone says macs are much better. This is the max budget I will pay. Appreciate anyone's advice. Thanks

 

[pigoo3]

I'm thinking of buying a MacBook Pro 13" which is my budget of £1150.00.

Can we assume this is a brand new 13" MacBook Pro? It wasn't super clear if we're talking new or used.

If new...then we are probably talking one of the new 13" M1 MacBook Pro's. The new Apple M1's CPU setup is supposed to be pretty powerful (more powerful than most previous Intel based CPU 13" MacBook Pro's).

If this is a used 13" MacBook Pro...we would probably need to know exactly what model it is...and its spec's.

Nick

p.s. Welcome to Mac-Forums.

 

[chscag]

Welcome to our forums.

The new MacBook Pro 13" model is powered by an Apple M1 CPU which is a very different from an Intel machine which you might be familiar with.

As Nick requested above, please let us know which MacBook Pro 13" model you're thinking of purchasing.

 

[Ianold]

Welcome to our forums.

The new MacBook Pro 13" model is powered by an Apple M1 CPU which is a very different from an Intel machine which you might be familiar with.

As Nick requested above, please let us know which MacBook Pro 13" model you're thinking of purchasing.

Ah yes sorry. Is all I know it's a 2020 model

 

[Ianold]

Hey everyone. Just need a bit of advice please. Im thinking of buying a MacBook Pro 13" which is my budget of £1150.00. I want this for music production, but not on a professional basis. I will only be using at the most something like 4 to 5 tracks of 3 minutes. I need it mostly for playing my guitar etc through interface. Would the above MacBook be OK for me. I used to use Windows but everyone says macs are much better. This is the max budget I will pay. Appreciate anyone's advice. Thanks

This is the one I'm interested in......
Apple M1 Chip with 8‑Core CPU and 8‑Core GPU
256GB Storage

 

[chscag]

Ah yes sorry. Is all I know it's a 2020 model

Yes, that's a new M1 model 13" MacBook Pro. And as mentioned, the M1 is a different architecture from Intel which Apple formerly was using. As Nick stated, it's a powerful machine which should suffice for your music needs.

Be aware that the new M1 architecture does not allow Windows to be run in a dual configuration or virtual machine as was possible with the Intel architecture. So if you need to run any Windows programs we advise you to keep your older Windows machine around for awhile.

 

[Ianold]

Yes, that's a new M1 model 13" MacBook Pro. And as mentioned, the M1 is a different architecture from Intel which Apple formerly was using. As Nick stated, it's a powerful machine which should suffice for your music needs.

Be aware that the new M1 architecture does not allow Windows to be run in a dual configuration or virtual machine as was possible with the Intel architecture. So if you need to run any Windows programs we advise you to keep your older Windows machine around for awhile.

Thank you so much for your help. Much obliged

 

[pigoo3]

Another important point with the M1 CPU based MacBook Pro's and MacBook Air. They natively only support 1 external monitor (in case you wanted to run 2 external monitors). There is a way around this...but it's not an inexpensive solution.

You can have dual displays (the 13" MacBook Pro display itself + 1 external displays)...just not 2 external displays.

Nick