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Macbook air for DJing

good enough? can i trust it for not crushing in a middle of a set?

thanks in advance

You'll be OK but you should probably get something else.

I guess you could

Problem is you'd need a firewire cable for your interface. Air just has a USB right?

I guess there are USB interfaces though... anyone know if the performance hit is significant?

The few friends I know that owned an Air, didn't like it. Most of the reasons was as Brad mentioned, only a usb port. I don't believe there's a slot for an interface? Macbook is a far better buy. Check out the white model (if it's available). I've heard good things about it. Another one you could check is the mini. It's cheaper and has plenty of processing power and memory for every dvs program.

Could always get a USB to Firewire adapter if that's the issue.

But I'd be more worried about processing power. What software are you DJing with?

i'd be less concerned about the usb issue... i, for one, haven't used the firewire port on my macbook since i got it... and yes, i do dj. the audio 8 dj is a very good sound card for djing, and it's usb.

i'd be more concerned about storage, it comes with 120gb internal storage only, which might or might not be enough. depends on how much music you'll be carrying around, what other work you might use the laptop for, and whether or not you'd accept carrying an external hard drive with you.

Re: I guess you could

quote:

Originally posted by BradMiller Problem is you'd need a firewire cable for your interface. Air just has a USB right? I guess there are USB interfaces though... anyone know if the performance hit is significant?

I've never had any issues with my USB soundcards.

I would wait for the new revision early next year

thanks guys
im thinking of buying mcbook air because its on sale here (store is closing and selling laptops in funny prices)..i cant really afford to buy macbook pro at the moment..and ill have to wait few more months to save money for macbook white. other options are relatively powerful DELL laptop but its windows os so meh..im using usb sound card with traktor pro, but im trying to understand if processing issues of macbook air are bigger than those in DELL or other non apple laptop. this is pretty much my sole concern.

thanks everyone

I'm sure you'd be fine.... but in this case I'd personally go for a base model Macbook (not pro)... the white one.

quote:

Originally posted by Stu Cox Could always get a USB to Firewire adapter if that's the issue.

Afaik there is no such thing, apart from the adapters which allow you to connect a DV camera to a USB 2.0 port, but they require drivers which are generally available only for Windows.

I've always ran USB to my interface, as long as the computer can handle it you can achieve a good latency setting, not sure how powerful those Airs are though.

quote:

Originally posted by skip Afaik there is no such thing, apart from the adapters which allow you to connect a DV camera to a USB 2.0 port, but they require drivers which are generally available only for Windows.

This surprises me. I'm sure I've seen one before, although after a hunt around on the net there's talk of one which has been discontinued.

I guess it's the flaky nature of USB and no one wants to guarantee you the fixed rate you need for Firewire.

You can, however, get combined USB and Firewire hubs which connect up using USB. Although I don't know whether they've actually got a way around the constant rate issue or whether they just hope for the best. Again, dunno if there are ones with Mac drivers...

Never seen or heard of such hubs. I know there are combined FireWire/USB hubs, but they require both connections to the computer. One example is the LaCie Hub:
http://www.lacie.com/intl/products/...t.htm?pid=11074

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