quote:

Originally posted by tehlord Your Macbook is plenty powerful enough, and you don't need to run an audio interface on it either as Core Audio works perfectly well with large multi channel projects. Just plug your headphones into the headphone outputs on the Mac.

Any drawbacks to this? Sampling rate and everything will be kosher?

quote:

Originally posted by xstalkrx Any drawbacks to this? Sampling rate and everything will be kosher?

The only drawback will be that there is a slight increase in output quality of a bespoke audio interface, but not enough to really make a difference to your ability to mix a track.

Sampling rate is whatever you set it at within your DAW project, it's not dependant on the interface you use.

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There is also one tiny advantage in a dedicated audio interface in that the drivers are usally slight better written/slightly more efficient so you can squeeze a little more processing power out before things just chunchy, but to be honest, mac onboard audio is that tight the difference is minimal.

We'd be having a different conversation if it was a PC you were thinking of using.

quote:

Originally posted by xstalkrx Also, will my mid 2012 macbook pro retina 15 inch with 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7 and 8 gig of ram be plenty for a large project in ableton? I will be getting an external audio interface and wireless mouse as well. Would be nice to use the thunder port on the mac too. That Motu ultralite can be powered by the thunderbolt instead of dc power which is attractive. Just want to make sure I don't get a big project going and start bottlenecking.

the bottleneck is not your soundcard. The driver stage is where it happens unless you are sending 96 tracks to a digital mixer. Thunderbolt performs the same as usb2 pretty much

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People on the internets are saying that 250 ohm headphones are too much for the onboard macbook pro audio. What do you think?

just tried the dt 9990s

fine. Most people listen about 20dB too loud. Used macpro laptop and my iphone. Iphone was at about 80dB.

most peole on the internet regurgitate gearsluts bullshit.

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old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
Mad For Brad's gay little contest

quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney just tried the dt 9990s fine. Most people listen about 20dB too loud. Used macpro laptop and my iphone. Iphone was at about 80dB. most peole on the internet regurgitate gearsluts bullshit.

So true; Headphones should actually be listened to at lower levels - it makes your brain work and actually pick out the detail, rather than having a driver less than an inch away from your eardrum slam soundwaves at it.