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To Update - or not?


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Question for the hive mind:

I've got a 3 year old MacBook Pro that I use for playback work.  Pro Tools runs pretty much fine - but I've decided to upgrade the hard drive to an SSD and up the RAM because every now and then I get a hiccup with bigger sessions.  I can't quite decide though if I should upgrade my OS (still on 10.9.5) to the latest, which probably means needed to upgrade my Pro Tools from v10 up to 11 or 12.

Normally I'm pretty good with upgrading, but since I've largely stopped doing post work, I've not felt the need to always keep up with the upgrades.  I suppose I'm now at the point where I simply can't decide...Do I upgrade the OS and PT software - or just stay put?

I'm kind of sick and tired of always needing to upgrade all these devices (iPhone, etc...) when they generally seem to work just fine.  (Am I turning into old curmudgeon?)

I suppose this is more of a rant than anything - but I'm curious what y'all would do in this situation.

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Hey Greg, If it's affecting your work and causing problems for you I'd upgrade the laptop and go with the newest PT there is. I'm running a 5 year old MacBook Pro and PT's 8 and I'm not having any issues for my gigs, but if I did I'd upgrade. In fact I will most likely do so in 2016 anyway. I like to get my systems dialed in and never touch them again. Just me. I am on old guy......

CrewC

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I had to upgrade to Yosemite for improved keyframing and better motion smoothing for specific project in Final Cut X (only available if running 10.10), but then Pro Tools 10 went weird with items not showing until moused over in drop down menus, so I upgraded to Pro Tools 11, ( I wanted offline bouncing anyway, a huge time saver), and so it goes on....... I'm ignoring Pro Tools 12 for the time being because it's gone to a subscription mode, which I don't like, and is confusing. But it's the fashion for software to go to subscription modes now, it gives them a more reliable revenue stream, but it removes a big incentive to invest in improvements speedily if people are just stumping up the cash anyway, my rant.......

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Esp. with Apple I have kind of arrived at the opinion that you get the OS the thing came with and maybe 2 more.  I've upgraded mac laptops out of usefullness in the past, and feel like a solid working system, esp involving a complex pgm like PT etc that you have to use under pressure trumps being on the bleeding edge--most of what we do just doesn't require it.  When you get a new computer upgrade everything to the latest that works--it will be a hellish first few days but then it should all settle down.  Piecemeal upgrades have caused me issues on both location and studio machines.  Using computers under the pressure of a shoot (or for live recording or at an "attended" mix) is hairy enough without having new software/OS to contend with also.

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My thinking has been that upgrading the hard drive and ram should clear up the few hiccups I've had.  Almost all the CPU overloads I was having went away when I stopped using a Euphonix as a control surface.

Its nice to hear that I'm not the only one who's not planning on always upgrading a computer to the latest OS, etc...I think I'm going to do the final step of upgrading the hard drive and see how everything goes.

I used to spend a lot of time dealing with upgrades as I tended to do fresh installs at bigger intervals.  These days I like to work as little as possible when I'm not actually at work...

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Sad to say that Apple isn't what it use to be. I've had a "MAC only" mentality for some time now but every new upgrade ticks me off more and more. 

For example:

1. Now I have to deal with annoying pop-up windows requesting that I upgrade/update my software. I use to hate Windows OS for this. 

2. The other day I tried opening an excel document only to find Apple's "NUMBERS" program opening up my file first, without asking for permission. 

3. A few other settings, that I've grown use to, are either missing or replaced with some other setting I must learn. More specifically, clicking on the green "expand" button on a window now makes the window overtake the entire desktop whereas before it would just make it a bit larger. 

 

Just my .02

 

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Sorry to say, Michael, what you are saying really is just .02 --- none of the things you mention come even close to the crap that goes with running Windows. If you doubl-click on an Excel document, the OS might try and open it in Numbers, it doesn't need to ask you permission --- and it will only happen once if you know what you're doing. Just select the same Excel document, Get Info, tell the OS to always open this sort of document with Microsoft Excel --- it will never open Numbers again. I have had to do this with .pdf files that always want to rope me into downloading and installing some horrendous Adobe software that once installed once to take over my computer. So, I just selected a .pdf and told it to always open using Preview, done deal. With Mac OSX changes and support for more Full Screen apps (something which I learned to hate in Windows, a single application taking over the whole screen), this is why your "expand" green button behaves differently, but is that really such a big deal?

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FWIW:

Avid is now offering a (IMO) pretty good way to upgrade to PT 12. 
I was still on v9, which meant $199 to upgrade to v12, including any updates/upgrades for one year.
I believe that if you are on v11 (maybe also v10?) the initial upgrade + one year of updates is $99 right now until  Dec 31.
After that year, you can choose to “subscribe” for $99/year to keep getting any upgrades. Or, you can choose to not subscribe, instead stay on the version you have at that point and keep using that as long as you want.

They also throw in the guitar amp sim plugin Eleven.

My story:

I am on a Mid-2010 Macbook Pro (2.66GHz i7, 8GB RAM).

I’m waiting to upgrade the machine until Apple puts the new Intel “Skylake” chips in the MacBook Pro (the latest upgrade of iMacs did get these, so likely in the beginning of next year, according to speculations).

I am not currently on any projects that require Pro Tools, so I figured I’d give it a try (besides, the upgrade gives you the licenses to run v10 and v11 as well, so I would have the choice of going back to one of those in case of problems - or if I landed a PT gig, meaning I’d be taking no chances).

So…

In a moment of madness, and in the sprit of “F it, let’s try and see what happens, I also went ahead and upgraded the OS to El Capitan.

*** DISCLAIMER: I do not recommend, or in any way advise you to do the same, as Pro Tools is not yet qualified/supported by Avid to run on OS X 10.11 El Capitan. This is especially important if you rely on Pro Tools for work. ***

My findings so far with limited testing: Everything is running smoothly. 

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Rant: After feeling the need to upgrade to Yosemite from Snow Leopard I was given the "gifts" of:

Preview annotation is crippled. Forget being able to easily fill in PDF forms.

No more "Save As". And when you use the hidden option<save it overwrites the older versions.

I mean WTF Apple guys?

/rant

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Sorry to say, Michael, what you are saying really is just .02 --- none of the things you mention come even close to the crap that goes with running Windows. If you doubl-click on an Excel document, the OS might try and open it in Numbers, it doesn't need to ask you permission --- and it will only happen once if you know what you're doing. Just select the same Excel document, Get Info, tell the OS to always open this sort of document with Microsoft Excel --- it will never open Numbers again. I have had to do this with .pdf files that always want to rope me into downloading and installing some horrendous Adobe software that once installed once to take over my computer. So, I just selected a .pdf and told it to always open using Preview, done deal. With Mac OSX changes and support for more Full Screen apps (something which I learned to hate in Windows, a single application taking over the whole screen), this is why your "expand" green button behaves differently, but is that really such a big deal?

Yes, I guess the key is knowing what you're doing. My issue is that whenever I've updated I've had to spend more time figuring out how to get use to the new changes or figure out how to circumvent them so I can keep working the way I use to. Ultimately, these issues aren't a huge deal but when I'm parked in front of a computer for hours trying to get work done then little things like that start to tick me off. Lets not talk heresy now Jeff, I still won't go back to Windows. =) Since you seem to have a better grasp at getting around the "little changes" what do you recommend I do to get rid of that darn pop up on the right hand screen that always asks me to update update update. Most of the times when I review the update they are for programs I'll never use. I prefer not filling up my computer with unnecessary updates. 

 

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Michael,

If you don't use Pages, Numbers and Keynote, delete them. Shouldn't be a problem if you use Word, Excel and Powerpoint. If you want to get rid of all the stuff associated with them (preferences, installers, etc.) download the appropriate trial version of Reggie Ashworth's great app, AppDelete. If you just want different document types to always open with a particular app, go to  an example of the particular file type in the finder on your machine and open the get info window for the file by highlighting one and pressing the command key and the i key. There will be an "Open with" pulldown that will present you with all the app types capable of opening the file in the resulting window. Simply pull down to the application you want to use and then click  on the "Change All" radio button. This behavior has been a part of the Mac OS for a long time.

 

You can change how you're notified about updates in System Preferences by selecting the App Store preference pane. If you deselect "Automatically check for updates" the notifications for application updates should stop. You will also stop getting notices for security updates, if that's at all important to you.

 

Notifications are my least favorite parts of both iOS and OS X. Their appearance in OS X is part of the slide towards a uniform experience on all Apple platforms.

Best regards,

Jim

 

PS: If you like Reggie's app, consider buying it. He's a great guy and very responsive to users of his products.

Edited by Jim Gilchrist
Add the PS
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If you're comfortable with working in the terminal, it's possible to disable notifications completely.

JG

 

I'm not that tech savvy yet but sure wish I was. Maybe this would be a good time to get some books on getting the most out of my MAC. 

 

Sorry, don't mean to derail the thread. 

 

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  • 3 months later...

Hi I run pro tools and logic on my macbook air, and 2 iMacs. I had read issues with El Capitan so installed the update on just the older iMac. Logic working 100%, pro tools okay once i updated the drivers.

My old 1st gen m-box is still working if i use an emulator driver and the quality is ok, maybe not as good as it was but I've since moved on to a focusrite scarlett.

 

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  • 3 years later...

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