Renoise on an old macbook?

Help, Support & Bugs
1

Hello,

I was given a late 2012 13" macbook pro. I’ve never owned a Mac before so i know very little about them.

Over the years my rig has evolved into a hefty PC based thing, many TBs of data and lots of VST and hardware synths etc. I use it professionally and i dont really use Renoise anymore since Ableton dropped the rewire support, which is sad.

So I thought maybe this little Mac could run Renoise and an old version of Ableton Live and that might give me a nice portable rig that could spark some creativity and fun back into my music making.

I’m wondering, given the vintage of this little Mac, which version of Renoise you would recommend and if you have any other advice that might help me shape the laptop up into a productive unit?

Many thanks, im a total apple newb.

Cheers

2

try the Renoise v2.8 32bit version.
at least start with that. the 32bit versions are your friend.
if you don’t want trouble, hit 32bit audiounits, ignore vst3 and vst (well vst 32bit versions are what you need if you must)

3

I have v3.4.4 right now. Do you think its bloat for a 2012 macro pro? Really interested to know how you find the 32bit versions VS the 64bit.

4

if v3.4.4 32bit works on your 2012 macbookpro, then fire away :slight_smile:

5

but there are no more 32 bit versions. since 3.2.0 they are not compiled

6

if you’re running v3.4.4 64bit on your 2012 macbookpro, and it works ok, go with it! :+1:

7

3.4.4 should Work just fine on that setup. Simply give it a try…

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8

Running 3.4.4 on a late 2012 MBP here. Works fine, barring the odd few issues with plugins. I’d suggest maxing out the RAM and installing an SSD to speed things up. Also don’t bother with the later macOS versions, they aren’t great on such old hardware. High Sierra (OS 10.13) ran best for me.

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9

Yes exactly, newer macos versions (I actually don’t think you can install above 10.13 on a 2012 model?) only will slowdown these older machines, specifically because it will also install non-revertable cpu microcode updates, to patch those old Intel CPU bugs. These microcode patches will drastically reduce the performance of these cpus.

At the same time, I would recommend to install a proper, lightweight third party firewall and block all the system services from the internet, incoming and outgoing. This because these old os versions contain a lot of security holes. It might not be targeted specifically, because there are like 0,0005% of users still using this, yet there is a risk. Little Snitch always does a great job here.

And stay away from the installed Safari. Switch to Firefox ESR (well, it won’t be updated either after march anymore). Maybe the still is another up-to-date browser for 10.13?

There also is a way to skip the microcode cpu update while a macos update. But this is hackery. Basically you download the update from the app store. Then you remove the microcode update files inside the update package (it’s inside on a root level dir or so). Or before restart, you remove the update file from the boot drive, it will be installed inside EFI (I don’t remember) partition or system partion inside a hidden temp dir on root level. The update of the microcode is happing directly after restart, as very first action.

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10

Oh ok, actually you can upgrade to 10.15. I would do that.

11

I run the latest Renoise and Ableton Live 10 on my MB Air from 2013 and MB Pro from 2015. Works great. One of the laptops have Mojave while the other is on High Sierra.

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12

You can. Whether you should is a different question! In any case these machines should definitely be kept off the internet unless you’re prepared to do some work ‘hardening’ the OS.

13

NO. don’t upgrade to Catalina.
Mojave is the last (10.14) that supports 32bit apps.
if you upgrade to Catalina, you’ll lose access to ALL 32BIT APPS, ALL 32BIT PLUGINS.
it’s HELL.

my 2015 macbookpro is kept on mojave so i can keep using 32bit Renoise, 32bit plugins, etc.

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14

I must always keep a 32-bit machine to use Final Cut 7. But will get a M2-3 machine sometime.

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15

I know, it is not compatible with FCP 7, but you might try FCP X, it’s way, way better, and like 100 times faster…

16

FCPX does not have the same plugins and workflows as fcp7. Please trust professionals to know which tool they want to use and how.

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17

I think I have over updated the OS (Big Sur 11.7.4) or plugins on my old late MBP 13" because GUI performance of plugins has become quite sluggish especially with Fabfilter, other than that Renoise works fine as is… some day I’ll try reinstall and downgrade everything

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18

you wanna wipe the whole computer and try and run macOS Mojave on it.
get the installer, make a usb-stick and hit it

good luck

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19

High Sierra is a better bet for old Macbooks IMO. Mojave has an early implementation of APFS as the file system and I think it’s not great. Lost some files recently when my machine had a kernel panic while moving them to external storage. HFS+ is much more stable and reliable for old machines/drives.

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20

Thanks for all the replies.

It’s a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012) running macOS Catalina Version 10.15.7 with 8gb RAM.
That microcode update sound horrendous, I’m certainly happy with an older OS but with more horsepower.
I guess I’m safe though if I keep 10.15.7 ?

There certainly seems to be some interesting info about which OS version is best for these old machines. I have to say, I’m just starting out with the Mac now, having never owned one before. So I don’t have a pre-existing workflow or stack of 32bit stuff that I have relied upon over time. I’m brand-new to it all.
I do like the idea of using the latest version of Renoise, with all it’s improvements over the older versions. And I do like the idea of not crippling the older CPU with microcode stuff that I simply don’t need.

I’m not even sure what VST plugins I’ll end up using on this Mac rig. It’s going to take me a long time to get used to not having a numpad !!

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