Apple Mac 13inch Macbook Pro Retina Late 2013 Running Pro Tools On Internal Soundcard - Power Test

December 6, 2014 Russ Hughes

Community member Shannon Bliss-Kelly has run our speed test on his Macbook Pro Retina 13” to see how it handles Pro Tools 11. This is the ‘stuck on a plane or in a hotel room’ test, just the Macbook Pro, internal soundcard and internal drive, it’s just you, your Mac, an iLok, headphones and a USB micro keyboard.

Is it just fit for a few demo tracks or can you get some real work done… find out below.

Test Machine Specification

MacBook Pro
Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
Memory: 8 GB

Pro Tools Session Specification

Internal Mac soundcard used
Pro Tools 11.2.1
96Khz - maximum with internal sound card
24 bit
5 minutes of mono audio, with edits at every 1 second
Volume automation recorded on every track
Disk cache disabled to emulate native versions of Pro Tools
All audio tracks had an instance of Avid Channel Strip and Dverb inserted

Results Of Test

30 Audio tracks reached with stable operation
A mono audio track would record without issue along with 127 audio tracks in playback
Instrument tracks were then added
30 MIDI tracks with an instance of AIR Boom running with MIDI data
30 audio tracks running fine with 30 instrument tracks with samples buffer rates at 1024

Summary

In summary Shannon wrote:

I think someone who wants a Macbook pro and wants to run pro tools this is a great start. if you are going to be running huge sessions then this isn’t worth getting. I don’t see myself ever really needing 128 tracks The most I’ve done is about 18. A Macbook pro 13 i5 8gb is really great for small pro tools sessions not intense large sessions like this test I think this laptop ideal for the on the go bedroom home studio producer as that is what I am at the moment.

If you want to check out our other test then see below, there’s also a link so you can download the session and try it yourself.