Logic Pro on a Macbook air 11''

Question

Hi, the Macbook air 11" has a 1366x768 rez, and the minimum required for Logic 9 is 1280x800, according to the documentation and Apple's website. Has anyone tried Logic with lower resolution than required? Will it work or will it make access to some parameters impossible? The puzzling part is that you can order the 11" air with logic express pre-installed... Any thoughts?
-Fred

Answer 1

Hi Everyone
I recently purchased a maxed out 13" MacBook Air and very successfully running Logic 9 on it. I posted my summary on Gearslutz a little while ago, but I'll copy it here for your information:
Just thought I would give a short report of my experience using Logic Pro 9.1.3 on a MacBook Air (late 2010). It is the 13.3” 2.13GHz, 4Gb memory, 256Gb SSD model.
First of all, I am not intending to use it for any kind of audio recording. I’m not saying that the MBA couldn’t handle the task; it’s just that I have no need of it. I want to be able to sketch out ideas in a hotel room with minimal equipment (in other words, a laptop, a two octave keyboard, a pair of headphones and me).
First of all, I tried the Logic Pro Multicore Benchmarktest several times. It gives a solid 17 tracks, which I am very happy about. My previous laptop, a MacBook Pro 15” (mid 2009) 2.66GHz 4Gb, could only get 20/21. So doing the maths, I was only expecting about 16 from the MBA anyway.
Secondly, I tried several instances of Omnisphere (my main sketching VI). I used three instances, each running the “Astral Visions 1” patch, another three instances, each running the “Bandpass Trancer” patch and finally another three instances, each running the “Brazillian Bandpass Thipper” patch. That’s 9 separate instances of Omnisphere and there was still processor to spare.
So feeling brave I tried adding some MULTI instances of Omnisphere. I managed to add 4 (“Fandrum Club Groove”, “Techno Land”, “Balaphonic Dance” and “Vox Continental Arpeggiations”) and although the processor bars were both peaking into the red, the project never once stopped (I left it running silently for an hour). Activity Monitor showed an average of 135% CPU being used with over 1Gb of memory still free. The fan does come on and there is a slight noise but nothing very noticeable.
Logic looks good on the 1440 x 900 screen and even though the pixel density is much higher than on the 15” MacBook Pro screen, everything was still easy to read and use.
So to summarise, I am a very happy MacBook Air owner. Obviously it’s nowhere near being a desktop replacement, but that’s not I was looking for. I wanted a lightweight machine that could run several VIs easily and that’s exactly what I have. If I sound a little bit smug, it’s because I am!