How to optimise your MacBook for use with the S4.....

So......
I've ordered my S4 with the flight case, i will get the S4 tomorrow and the case near the end of the month.
I went to the Apple store and bought a MacBook Pro 13" (250gb, 4gb, 2.4Ghz) to use only with the S4.
I've never used an apple computer, traktor, or any kind of DJ software (currently use a Pioneer MEP700 hard drive controller for giging) so i've got a long way to go before i'll get to grips with all this new gear

Can any of you guys give me an idiots guide to setting up my Macbook to work best with the S4? I want to turn off/de-install any software and programs that I don't need and have the system working as clean and efficently as possible.
Will I have to adjust the latency? (i don't even know what this is or how to go it but i see it coming up frequently in the forum)

 

Honestly mate theres very little to do.

Turn off all energy saving features: Screen Saver, Computer Sleep, Screen Sleep, Dont Let Hard Drive Sleep.
These are in Apple > System Preferences.

Also advisable to turn of Bluetooth and WiFi so there are no pops and crackles in the Audio although in all honesty the later Macs are barely affected by this and although i would NEVER advocate it, i was downloading tunes and checking my email during the first half hour of my show last nite when there were only a few people coming into the club with no issues. Turn them off at first to be on the safe side.

Dont let Time Machine make backups whilst playing.

Some people disable the Dock, i dont.

I dont even think there is ant need for MacJanitor or Onyx anymore to clean up after internet sessions as the Mac will run a script when you switch off that gets the daily crud off there.

I took all my Macs out of the box and used them, no tweaks.
Yes im a Mac evangelist

Of course this is just MY experience, other people have different experiences. It seems that i have to put that disclaimer on posts these days or someone will accuse me of some kind of misinformation

Just enjoy the Mac and Traktor .

 

ooh was tempted by that mep700 at one stage - pretty sure that's the one that can also control traktor?

 

Thanks for taking the time to help me Karlos, no doubt i'll be on here a lot in the near future lol i'll do all the things you've advised.
By the way, what do you mean disable the dock? what is the dock? (sorry if i'm being stupid)

Dj_stick:
I believe it is a midi controller so i think it would work with traktor. I just use it with a hard drive. It's a nice piece of kit, i just fancy trying the S4 as i want to try using a laptop in my setup. the screen is much bigger on a laptop than the little 1 on the MEP7000, and my new set up will be much lighter and more compact. the mep7000, 5 channel mixer all in a flight case is quite heavy and bulky in comparison.

 

Don't worry about disabling the dock. No one needs to do that. I disable Dashboard on my Macs (again just a preference but some say it helps anyway).

The night before a gig (I only gig on weekends now cause I'm old and decrepit) I run Onyx to repair permissions and just cause I'm paranoid I also verify the disks and repair them if necessary. I turn off bluetooth and wifi before turning off (not standby) and packing my laptops. Always better to run any high-performance software on a fresh boot, IMO. Oh and I set smcfancontrol at a constant 4000rpm when I'm gigging, as otherwise with Traktor running 4 decks it can get up to almost 80 degrees C before the fans kick up and then they're just cranked at 6000 for 15 minutes or so, and I get stressed out when electronic components inside the laptop are sucking up juice that they really shouldn't need to.

I know users who do NONE of this stuff and gig 3-5 times a week with no issues at all. I'm an IT guy by trade so I'm a lot more tweaky and paranoid about this kind of stuff, and hey, I haven't had a crash or hiccup on TSP yet.

 

No mate its me being stupid, i meant Dashboard as TeLLy points out.

Dock is the thing that pops up at the bottom of the screen with all the Icons on it, dont worry about that.

No worries

 

Maybe I'm missing something but where can you turn off the dashboard?

 

Here ya go:

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20071102215912892

 

you can also create a seperate partition with another install of osx and apply all the tips above and have only traktor installed. that partition only needs to be no more than 30gb to hold osx and traktor and have enough space for page file.. you should always have your music folder on external usb hard drive in case your comp goes belly up you still have all your analysis and beatgrids etc.

this way you can use your new mac's main partition and use it as your regular computer instead of wasting it as a one purpose machine.

the install disks that came with your macbook pro can be used to install osx on that new partition you create. and when you boot up just hold the option key to select which partition to boot to.

i do that with all my macbooks before with SSL and now with traktor on my new macbook air

 

Wasting your time, with any new mac you don't need to do anything. Turn it on, plug in your S4 and have fun. Seriously, never seen any of these things make any difference in any testing I've done.

Running Onyx is good to do once in awhile to keep things running smoothly, but shouldn;t affect audio performance for something like S4 or any DAW.

 

This.

I have a 2008 13inch Aluminum...and I just turn off bluetooth and wifi as I'm used to it. Sometimes I forget and don't. Never had any issues.

I run Onyx probably once a month.

I am Mac Fan!

 

Ah yes - gotta love the Mac's

 

"Dont Let Hard Drive Sleep.These are in Apple > System Preferences."

Please explain ho to do this.. which part of preference?

 

Look in Hardware / Energy Saver in Preferences. Deselect 'Put hard disks to sleep when possible'.

MIK

 

"Midi-In-Kartel"

hahhaha.... I love that City.

Paisas!

coolest screen name i've seen bro.

 

thanks dude, long live Pablo!
---

Nice pick up by the way

 

Disable "spaces" in osx. When switching from one space to the other and switching back to traktor it loses the screen, making traktor invisible.

Besides that and energy saving setting you don't need to do sh*t!

 

If you're using Traktor though, you're already going to be streaming audio from the disk constantly, so there's no way the OS is going to try and put the disk to sleep thinking it's not being used

 

True, but its just a precaution that i learnt from someone a long time ago when i was still using regular Vinyl/CD along with a laptop. There would be quite long sessions when the laptop was not used.

Im 100% digital now so i guess its not so important.

 

Hey Karlos - what kind of mac do you have? Thinking of upgrading to a MBP 13" 2.4 GHZ 4 gig ram. Want to make sure I have 0 problems with my S4. Is that a pretty common spec on this forum?