I have a Macbook-Pro, mid 2012 (non-retina with a traditional harddisk).

I intend to upgrade it with an 1 TB SSD and at the same time I am considering an upgrade of the OS. My old Focusrite Forte does support all operating systems up to macOS 10.14 Mojave.

My DAW is Ableton Live 10. Apart from music production I use my Mac for Photoshop.

Which OS would you advice or should I stick with Mavericks (which is the original OS)

 

I would upgrade as far as my hardware will allow. I think perhaps Sierra. I have one computer lab at work with older iMacs, and I think that is where we are in there. I have not experienced any compatibility issues with Mac OS's for quite a while. But that is my experience. However I do run four large Mac computer audio labs where I work.

 

I have a (second-hand) MacBook Pro 13" mid 2012, version with Core i7, upped with 16GB ram, 500GB SSD and 1TB HDD (optical drive removed);
I'm running High Sierra 10.13.6, used El Capitan 10.11.6 previously;

primary (and perhaps only reason) for my MacOS version choice is I prefer to run same version on all my devices (couple hackintoshes, mac minis, mac pros etc..), and High Sierra is the very latest version to support nVidia hardware, full proper support for APFS filesystem (which is a way to go if you have SSD, and also nowadays .DMG images are formatted that way by default, older OSes before Sierra can't read it at all);
also High Sierra appears to be the very last MacOS to support Macs from year 2012 (MacBooks, Mac Pros, Mac Minis etc...)

current Mojave isn't "final" 10.14.6 yet, and upcoming Catalina 10.15 doesn't offer any additional important features either, so I feel High Sierra 10.13.6 can be a sweetspot for some time yet;
if you keep track on supported MacOS versions by software you use, then you don't need to have latest OSes or ancient OSes;

on a side note, I definitely recommend checking out Affinity Photo as an all-round better alternative to Adobe Photoshop ;)

 

Last edited: Jun 6, 2019

I got 2 macs, hackintosh running sierra and elcapitan(for old software) i recommend Sierra (runs latest logic pro and mainstage btw) one odd thing i have experienced is AL9 started slowly, but AL10 fixed that. If everything is working fine why update it will eat up resources.

 

Thanks for your advise, it`s greatly appreciated!

 

There is an older thread about this, with many great posts, and I remember concluding "el capitan or sierra is the way to go", with me later going for Sierra on my hackintosh. El Capitan was running great, but there were some compatibility problems which Sierra resolved. Maybe try El Capitan and then if that doesn't work for you, update to Sierra for better future compatibility with software. El Capitan is the last OS-X. Sierra is the first MacOS.

 

I have the same mac with 1TB SSD and I bought a HD frame from OWC (cheap and easy to install) and replaced the DVD with a 2TB traditional HD, 16 GB Ram. With the SSD as system disc it´s really up to speed compared with newer MacBooks.

Re OS, I would recommend you upgrade to Sierra/High Sierra, Sierra runs stable here, I use different DAW´s, (Live, Logic, Nuendo, Reason, latest versions) they all run smooth. And Photoshop as well.

K-))

 

Last edited: Jun 8, 2019

I don't recommend Sierra, there have been some major changes since El Capitan, which were properly fixed in High Sierra;
so general rule:
High Sierra 10.13.6 if hardware is compatible, and if not, then El Capitan 10.11.6

 

Kontakt 5.6 kills LPX and Garageband in newly released Catalina Beta. Both just BLIP - and close. Beware.

 

you mean Kontakt 5.6 wont work under catalina anymore?

 

I don`t use Kontakt, although I do have Komplete Ultimate 9. However, I have drastically limited the amount of 3rd party VST`s.

 

Sierra, hands down! High Sierra sucks when it comes to recognizing plugins after installation, so you have to restart a lot

 

I disagree. Sierra handles plugin recognition after install much better, imo.

 

that's true, AU plugins do often validate only upon restart, but that's not really a problem to be honest, since Reaper supports VST and VST3 on MacOS ;)

 

I have the same MBP A1286 and I've just made the same upgrade last weekend: A Micron 1TB SSD that I purchased on owc for just $79. With carbon copy cloner I cloned my old 750GB HD with MacOS Sierra, then I upgraded to MacOS High Sierra. Everything works flawlessly and really fast. Even softubes and other non-legit plugins with openshh dylib method. I installed the last versions of Ableton Live 10 and Logic Pro X released on the AZ sister site and everything works perfect. Conclusion: I recommend High Sierra.

Edit: I don't know about Adobe Photoshop.

 

Which ones?

 

Mostly the ones which don't come with a pkg installer. But sometimes theese too have the issue. Can't remember them. For the most part, the major league plugins are no problem, though.