Macbook for mixing and video

[brewdexta]

My youngest is a bit of a musician and originally wanted a cheap mac to run Garage band as that's what they use at school and there's not enough Macs to go round. She also uses LogicPro for mixing when she gets on the right machine which she likes.

Since then, she has decided to go the creative route for her A levels and is likely to be doing a fair bit of video/photo editing with various Adobe tools such Premier Pro , illustrator and photoshop. Depending on which 6th form college she goes to, there may be a shortage of decent machines so she has asked for a Macbook for Christmas/Birthday.

After taking a bit of advice, I located a second hand 14" Macbook Pro M1 with 512GB SSD and 32MB RAM running Sequoia. I went for the extra memory for video editing, I'm not too worried about storage as you can plug in external storage.

I'm not an Apple fan due to the way their devices are difficult to expand or repair and at a premium price, but the daughter did her homework and virtually all colleges use Macs, she's happy on Linux, Chromebook, Windows or Mac, but in this case it seemed sensible to go with the flow.

Next step is to get some software on there. Any tips on getting Apple Logic Pro and Adobe tools. I'm guessing there may be some student schemes, but if there are other cost effective ways, I'm all ears

 

[Onoff]

As an aside, for anyone looking at a MacBook, Costco have some apparently good deals on at the moment.

Told my daughter she can do hard drugs, drink or bat for the other side but if she brings an Apple product into the house I'll disown her...

 

[Craig-SM]

Mac is the default for creatives. My wife works in a digital artwork studio and they’ve all been Mac since day one.
They all use MacBook Pros M1’s for anything from Illustrator to Premier and Substance 3d.
Adobe is all subscription based now but you can get discounts for students. Software4Students usually give a little more discount.
Having a MacBook Pro myself I would recommend getting a hard case for it. Not just for the protection but for gripping it too as they’re easily dropped.

 

[brewdexta]

Mac is the default for creatives. My wife works in a digital artwork studio and they’ve all been Mac since day one.
They all use MacBook Pros M1’s for anything from Illustrator to Premier and Substance 3d.
Adobe is all subscription based now but you can get discounts for students. Software4Students usually give a little more discount.
Having a MacBook Pro myself I would recommend getting a hard case for it. Not just for the protection but for gripping it too as they’re easily dropped.

Any recommendations on a case?

 

[Kayos]

Not sure on the Mac specs, I know M1 is fast, the newer ones ever faster

Adobe is likely to be subscription only, student discount and special offers will be the only way to save cost

I'm locked into Adobe, however I don't mind. The file formats are open source so if an alternative existed I could move away

 

[Craig-SM]

Any recommendations on a case?

I’ve been using these, not the most expensive or protective but does the job and fits well

https://amzn.eu/d/4Txx8xd

 

[Onoff]

Mac is the default for creatives. My wife works in a digital artwork studio and they’ve all been Mac since day one.
They all use MacBook Pros M1’s for anything from Illustrator to Premier and Substance 3d.
Adobe is all subscription based now but you can get discounts for students. Software4Students usually give a little more discount.
Having a MacBook Pro myself I would recommend getting a hard case for it. Not just for the protection but for gripping it too as they’re easily dropped.

Yep, we subscribe to the full Adobe suite for her at home at the student price and she also has access via her college account.

The Macbook won't even be a Christmas present as "she needs it".

 

[Craig-SM]

Yep, we subscribe to the full Adobe suite for her at home at the student price and she also has access via her college account.

The Macbook won't even be a Christmas present as "she needs it".

as soon as term is over then it can be removed for wrapping ready for Santa to deliver

 

[ukracer]

Not sure on the Mac specs, I know M1 is fast, the newer ones ever faster

Adobe is likely to be subscription only, student discount and special offers will be the only way to save cost

I'm locked into Adobe, however I don't mind. The file formats are open source so if an alternative existed I could move away

Check out affinity products. They probably have a deal on being black Friday month.

 

[Onoff]

I did suggest to my daughter we get my lad to build her a Hacbook based on a high spec non Apple laptop...

 

[Kayos]

Check out affinity products. They probably have a deal on being black Friday month.

Nothing has the catalogue feature of Lightroom. I have tried Affinity and the editor is fantastic but useless to me without a catalogue

 

[ukracer]

Nothing has the catalogue feature of Lightroom. I have tried Affinity and the editor is fantastic but useless to me without a catalogue

Sadly I can't justify expense of light room. I could cope with an older perpetual version but they don't seem to exist.