Best spec used MacBook Pro to use with Pioneer Rekordbox

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

Best spec used MacBook Pro to use with Pioneer Rekordbox

Hi, I’m looking at getting my own mobile dj setup to use for gigs. I don’t want to spend a lot of money and happy to buy second hand. I’ve always used Mac platform since the iBook/PowerBook/Powermac days and most of my old software is Mac anyway. I just wanted to know what would be a sufficient machine spec to run Pioneer Rekordbox software. Which year MacBook Pro would be enough? Processor/Ram/Hard Drive space etc?

I’ve seen some of these MacBook Pro’s from around 2011 year which look sufficient to me and can be picked up somewhere between £300-400.

I will probably look at dj controllers at some point also but wanted to get the laptop first.

Many thanks,

Nick

2

Any Mac after late 2009 will do the trick (except the Macbook Air with 2gb of ram).

Any mac after 2011 will be future proof for a few years.

The MD101 (13" 2012 model) is probably the best bang for buck and most upgradeable.

IMHO get the fastest i5 you can, throw and SSD, 8gb of ram in it, and get a hard disk caddy which fits in the CD Slot for an extra $150. That machine will feel snappy as hell.

3

Thanks for this much appreciated. Would you go for a 13" or 15" screen?

4

Down to what you can afford really, the 15’ tends to go for $300-$500 more for the standard version and $500 - $700 more for the retina.

For DJ purposes personally I never felt the 13 was too small.

5

I have the 13" mid 2012 i5 (2.5Ghz) with 16gb ram and SSD. It has more than enough power to handle any DJ software. I can run Maschine, Ableton, and Traktor at the same time without any lag, although it does get a bit hot with all of these running, I use a laptop cooler under it to combat that.

I’m contemplating selling my macbook though and purchasing a brand new one, which I would go with a 15". The 13" is nice for portability but if you can afford the 15" go for it, otherwise don’t even think twice about getting a 13", you’ll be just fine!

6

If only Macbook Airs had more juice! Each pound of dead weight matters when traveling with gear.

Late 2013 Retina MBP has been my workhouse for all things DJ and personal, but it’s damn heavy!

7

Chris Liebing uses a new MacBook Air for his setup. Traktor + Maschine both running at once.

8

My gig machine is an early 2015 11" Macbook Air. (i5 / 4Gb memory /256 Gb SSD)

Even though it only has 4gb of memory it runs Traktor / Serato / RekordBox just fine.

9

MacBook Air 11" from 2013 here, it’s the i5 at 1.3GHz with 4GB of RAM, still doing well for Traktor but starting to show it’s age when using my S5 and a pair of D2’s … no glitches with audio but the sheer amount of screen rendering it needs to do can cause some jittery wave forms. Currently running Sierra, not going to the new OS. Ideally I’d still be running Moountain Lion 10.8.5 as it was such a sweet little unit to run Traktor Pro 2.6.8 but I was keen to make use of my D2’s and S5, and some of the venues I work in moved to NXS2 players so I had to upgrade my Traktor.

It also runs Rekordbox really well, and although I’ve got Maschine and Ableton installed on it I haven’t used them live all together, they’re on it so I can work on remixes when travelling.

Ideally if you can find an i7 in the 13" Air with 8GB of RAM and 256+ SSD, the benefit with it is that it has the same 1440x900 resolution as the 15" MacBook Pro but in a much smaller lighter form factor.

I am however waiting for the MacBook Pro 13" to get the new low power 8th gen quad core processors, then it’s probably time to update from my 11".