[nike1]

hello,
i have a friend who wants to record/edit audio roughly 12-16 tracks minimum, he wants a laptop so he can remain portable.
would a 07 macbook pro do him well?? or any suggestions would be appreciated.
oh yeah, he wants to use qbase

[Jimbo]

yep provided you have the audio interface to handle it, I think if he wants to record 16 tracks minimum, he's going to be paying through the nose for it...

[Brains]

Multitrack recording with portable equipment is possible, but it will not be cheap.

For Cubase SX4, Nuendo, Ableton Live, Digital Performer, Logic Studio, and just about every other major digital audio workstation (DAW) software available, to be able to handle eight tracks smoothly (let alone sixteen) any MacBook Pro with a FireWire 800 interface and a non-factory, 7200rpm high capacity hard drive, will do the job.

What's going to hurt his budget the most is the audio interface -- the RME Fireface 800 (acknowledged by the Audio Engineering Society as having the cleanest mic preamps and cleanest ADACs going) sells for close to $3,000. There are other interfaces around that will work with FireWire 800, but the RME one is worth every pfennig.

Next up, he's going to need to buy an ExpressCard FireWire interface to hang storage off -- if a Mac sports both FW400 and FW800 connectors, they share the same FireWire controller, and as you should really keep the primary interface solely for audio, then you need something else for storage. Thankfully, a 1394 ExpressCard isn't expensive.

[nike1]

i think at the moment, he's just going to be doing editing,
but thanks for the help

[Brains]

A portable multitrack editing station will be a lot cheaper than a portable recording station. All he'd need then is a good two-channel FireWire audio interface, and they're only $250-350 for something fairly decent. (the onboard sound is rather pathetic, quality wise)

[Rant]

Just check the specs between the Cubase and the MBP, which probably just needs to be Core 2 Duo. 4 GB of RAM would be better than 2.

Unless they need to transfer back and forth between Mac/Windows, it might be time to introduce them to Garage Band, as this long time Cubase user found.