Mac OS X 10.11 "El Capitan" audio device issues?

Recording, Mixing and Producing
#1

I had been looking for an upgrade OS X from Snow Leopard as many applications are out of date with my specs. My current setup is fine for audio, but I do use the MBP for other things and am finding it limiting. I finally got Apple to help, and though I was wanting to go to Yosemite (10.10) after seeing some bad press about El Capitan (10.11), the only upgrade available in the U.S. was El Capitan (according to Apple). The criticism of EC was that some audio software Mfrs were not recommending it due to problems with their products (especially Logic Pro plugins but I don’t use that) and that it slows down the OS unnecessarily.

I’m just wondering if anybody is using or has used El Capitan on an older Mac and what your experience is. EC is the highest upgrade I can do with my old hardware and after that I’m stuck with it or out of luck. So it may make sense to go ahead if it’s not going to give me problems, but if it is I might opt to stay with Snow Leopard. I use a Windows PC for other things including audio, so I’m not necessarily tied to the Mac, but still enjoy using it and want to get the benefit of its useful remaining life.

#2

I have El Capitan on an older mid 2009 mackbook pro. It actually runs just fine, BUT that’s after swapping out the harddrive for an SSD and putting in 8GB of ram. Before I did that, the thing was pretty much a brick when I updated.

I don’t do much recording on it other than testing, but you will need to make sure your interface works on El Capitan. My interfaces are always the first thing to break when I update, but usually there’s a driver update to fix it, and El Capitan has been out long enough to where if someone is going to update their driver, they should have done it by now.

I have another mackbook from around the same time that only has 2GB of ram and a HDD. I would never think about upgrading past 10.6.8 on that machine unless I swapped out the hard drive and updated the RAM.

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#3

Thanks Boz! My MBP is a late 2008 model with 4GB RAM. It does seem like I have reason to be concerned. I need to check the interfaces too, as that’s a potential deal-breaker.