Just to answer a load of questions on here, this video was purely just me recording my experience with upgrading to the new MacBook & whether everything would work. I hadn’t really planned the video so the stress test wasn’t super technical, more just something I was curious about (as you could probably tell). I’m not a tech reviewer, just a music artist making videos 😉
Ableton users: ✅ 2019 Macbook 16" vs 2021 Macbook Pro 16": ✅ Using CPU intensive third party plugins: ✅ Ableton 11 vs Beta 11 comparison: ✅ Finally, I can get on with my day .... 👍
I would never want to try and sway someone from going Windows to Mac or Mac to Windows, they're both good ways to go when it comes to Ableton. I think it's purely just personal taste and I've always been more comfortable on a Mac.
@@DirtySecretz I hear you 100% and this isn't persuasive at all 😂, I just want to experience Ableton on a Mac that's all. I love Windows, been writing on it since I can remember however I'm not a "Windows forever" kind of guy, I'm open to trying new things. 🤷🏽♂️
Top tip, keep all your VST installers in a folder on an external HDD. Then you don't have to run around different websites downloading them. If there's an update then just exchange the installer within the HDD.
We'll most likely see a jump in performance when the plugins are native, they're still running in a wrapper to work in the beta, if you look in your activity monitor you will see another ableton process just for the intel plugs. I really want NI/Izotope and Arturia to get them native soon, but they have so many.. The reason why massive X took so long was because it uses certain instruction sets that were only native on intel and amd processors. No idea how they got that working but to transition completely to Apple Silicon will be a huge challenge i'm sure.
what about the difference in fan noise? honestly, I am (almost) happy with the (Ableton) performance of my MB Pro 15" 2015. But imagining a lot more power at silent fans makes me so excited. stressed fans stress me!
Yeah I'm not noticing much difference on the new MBP on the 11.1 beta vs the not so beta. The beta also broke a few of my plugins as well, including KORG Gadget which is basically all of my synths lol
Not sure if you know, but Massive X is *not* optimized for M1 Macs, and has been notoriously broken and buggy for those of us in M1 land. So perhaps this particular synth isn't the best to use in terms of representing how well Ableton performs on M1. Tbqh, I'm shocked that you've managed to get it running on M1 at all, and have that many instances!
Yeah i read that beforehand that it was only via Rosetta and only really tried that one because I knew it was a hog for me before. It’s amazing how it handled it considering like you said it’s not optimised yet!
It was only one dongle I had to buy for the audio interface at £20 so preferable rather than spending another £900 on a new RME… although I was tempted 😉
thanks for the video; going through the same thing with the M1 air. The dongle situation with firewire is ridiculous indeed. Do you plug your adapter to the dock or directly the double adapter to the mac? also just a few things to keep in mind: -some of these plug-ins are NOT running natively (pretty sure massive X is not); so the performance should improve when they are -when you use the native version of live; it can't load non-native (intel) VST; but there's a feature built-in macOS that will load intel plug-ins as AU; so during the transition it's probably best to use AU versions only; and for old sessions either run the rosetta version or going through them one by one and replacing them with the AU version. A few plug-ins are already native though and can run either way.
I plug the FireWire into the 2 dongles and straight into the MacBook and then the dock is plugged into another thunderbolt port. I figured best to keep the audio interface as direct as possible!
I understand where you are coming from with the buildup of these tests but keep in mind: 1. Non-native M1 DAW will only work under Rosetta2 emulation layer INCL. all the plugins. 2. Native M1 DAW will work with native VSTs (thats the ideal situation) OR with non-native VSTs, opening a Rosetta2 emulation layer for EACH plugin individually! With these in mind I think your tests are mixture of these situations, which is fair and realistic, but if you really want to isolate the situations to measure the upgrade you should test different scenarios. Also, as you have pointed it out, many VSTs are still not ready for M1 architecture, but certainly many are.
Yeah as I mentioned in my previous comment, this wasn't a technical test - just me playing around which most of my videos are. By keeping it informal I was hoping to show what a normal, non-technical user (just like myself) would deal with on the new Macbook. There are plenty of other people that will go into the nitty gritty of the technical stuff, that's just not what my channel is about - I just like sharing my experiences and hopefully it helps others 😊
Fans run silent even on the normal 2020 M1 processor. You can get a Macbook Air or even a $650 to $700 Mac Mini M1 and run Ableton pretty darn well. The benefit of course being that processing power and the SILENCE of the fans which can interrupt mic recordings and such. Ty Tim Apple!
Do I need to wait the compatibility of my plugins with monterey ? Because i do à list of the Big Sur/ m1 compatible plugin ( everything work fine excepted UAD/ Soundtoys/ Softube and eventide in native mode ) , but monterey is not compatible now, do I need to wait to upgrade to my new MacBook Pro Max ? And sorry for my bad English lol im french
Well the new MacBooks all ship with Monterey and I would guess that previous versions of MacOS wouldn’t support the new silicon M1 chips so downgrading probably wouldn’t be an option. What I’m going to do is test plugin updates when they get released and once all the plugins I usually use within my workflow work fine then I’ll start using the M1 MacBook as my main machine.
Yes I had the very same question when I first came to buy the machine. After watching quite a few review videos it felt like because of how efficient the new cpu is the RAM didn’t seem as important as it did before. Honestly i’m not that technical when it comes the real detail with hardware but after seeing early reviews from video editing professionals it seemed the 16gb was more than capable so I went for that (although they did say I could bring the MacBook back within 16 days if it wasn’t powerful enough for me)
Thanks for great video, I have a 2019 MBP 16" and fans run constantly when using Ableton, even when it's not playing anything, super frustrating. May I ask at what point did the fans kick in on your new M1 Pro?
They haven't kick in at all yet, which is what I've heard from most people with the new Macbooks. I'm not quite sure how far you need to push it to get them going!
I'm still getting a loud pop (and 100% CPU spike) when I change presets in Output libraries as well as others in Kontakt as well as other plugs getting pops (and 100% CPU spike) when I stop the track.
Just wondering, do you get any bit crushing audio glitches with the Fireface 400 on the M1? Seems to be a common issue with older Mac mini and previous intel MacBook Pro’s.
I can't say I have, the only time with my previous Macbook was under heavy CPU load and so far I haven't noticed it on the M1 but it's still early days!
These computers did just come out, but the m1 architecture has been around for a while. Most plugins are native now, but certain companies seem to be draggin their feet about it haha they've had at least a year if not more to start working on it. But yea I'm really bummed about the ableton beta. I was really hoping there'd be a bigger change in cpu performance, cause honestly I've never had a computer that felt like it could truly keep up with what I'm doing in ableton haha i don't wanna have to freeze tracks 😂 hopefully I'll be solid with this one
Amazing! Thanks for this! Could you drop some more comparisons maybe pushing the RAM with some heavy sample libraries? I find myself in the same situation, high spec 2015 15" and planing to upgrade to an M1 Pro, but wondering whether to go for 32GB of RAM or not, so some idea of how that computer performs on 16GB would really help. Thanks! Great video!
I can’t say I use large sample libraries so couldn’t test that but I know what you’re saying about the Mac dilemma. From what I’ve seen from video editing professionals the 16gb option is certainly very capable because of how efficient the cpu is so that’s why I decided to go with that. I’m not that technical when it comes to machine specs so have no idea about the finer detail but I’ve not had that much of an issue with just 16gb in my previous machine.
Hello Jose. I have seen some testing of the MB Pro with 16GB of RAM and the Pro Chip, and it didn't show a significant reduction in performance from the same MB Pro with 32GB of RAM. What the tests revealed is that the new M1 Pro chip & new SSD in the MB Pro are so fast that it can use the SSD to make up for the lack of RAM in the 16GB version. Now, these tests did not use large sample libraries & a DAW, but they did prove that having only 16GB of RAM is not huge problem. Of course, it still may be better to have more RAM in some cases, but the 16GB version will perform quite well.
@@derekbaker3279 what I read is that, regular and heavy usage of swap wears the SSD quite a bit. That's why I have this dilemma of whether to go for 16 or 32 unified memory..
@@falak88 I have seen a lot of experts saying that the issue of SSD wear is real, but greatly exaggerated. Also, real world tests show that the SSDs that Apple uses last longer than advertized, so the swap issue shouldn't become a problem during the lifetime of the laptop.
This is weird. I was wondering about the Pro but then I did my own test just to for reference. I'm running 60 instances of Massiv X on logic 10.7 in 256 samples on a late 2018 MBP i9, 32gb ram with OZ9 with the same preset as you. It looks like Ableton need more time for development.
That's pretty impressive! I would not say my tests are that scientific so I'm sure there's probably something I haven't got configured right but good to hear it's pulling well on a 2018 Macbook.
Native Instruments isn't optimized, that's the problem, not Ableton. I have the same problem myself that midi Clock is not able to sync or freezes and keeps playing after ibhit stip
I don't understand how Ableton is reporting the CPU usage because I can load a few synths and be at 30-40% usage, but then also add quite a bit of effect plugins to those, and some additional synths, but my usage only goes to 40-50%. I would imagine that Ableton was built around Intel/AMD but Apple Silicon behaves differently, so Ableton is not providing an accurate look at how much CPU a project is using. M1 16gb Macbook Air. I can run a project with about 8 synths, with about 3-5 effect plugins on each, with about 4-8 plugins on the master just fine. That's with Ableton and 95% of the plugins using Rosetta.
Yeah I don't think the meters can taken as gospel as most of the time they don't make a lot of sense but when things start stuttering it can be useful to pinpoint which channel that is coming from.
Nice to hear you got a FireWire interface working on this. And good thing RME has updated the drivers too! I am expecting that I may have to abandon one or more of my audio interfaces.
Very good video. It helps me a lot and answers a few of my questions. Because till now I use a Macbook from 2015 with the same specs as your old one. But my machine is struggling with izotope plugins. So I have one question: Which OSX do you use on the 2015-Macbook? I'm working with High Sierra.
Yes the MX master has been fine with the unifying receiver although my Logitech keyboard has been really patchy with Bluetooth - often takes a bit to recognise it after wake.
Yes the MX master has been fine with the unifying receiver although my Logitech keyboard has been really patchy with Bluetooth - often takes a bit to recognise it after wake.
Is massive X comparable or more CPU intensive than U-HE DIVA in divine mode? Do you think there is any need to get 32gb RAM - I'd rather not spend the extra £400 if it's not necessary.
I haven’t used Diva so I couldn’t really say but I’m guessing probably similar as Massive X can be a right hog on CPU! As for the ram upgrade, I’d heard before I bought the MacBook that because of the way the CPU is optimised and the speed of the SSD, the RAM wasn’t as big of a concern but recent test videos have shown this too: ua-cam.com/video/gqiYSt4nAFs/v-deo.html
Are you selling your old MacBook? I don’t really have the budget to buy the latest version. I’m currently using my mini iPad 4 to make music and videos editing.
Nah I’ve always kept everything on the internal drive as I’ve just found it more stable myself - I went for the 1TB option this time to make sure I got plenty of room
There is one factor you missed. The M1’s sip power vs Intel. Probably won’t make a huge difference in your electric bill, but collectively, across the planet, it does help…and keeps everything cool and fan noise down. And ARM based chips, like the M1, are super quick to wake vs Intel, making M1 based macs more like hardware than an X86-based computer. MPC Live/Live II, X and One as well as Machine+ are basically ARM based computers, running custom OS’s. Your iPad/iPhone (I believe…could be wrong) are also ARM based chips. I use a crap old iPad as a synth, because, I never have to restart anything. I can leave it idle for weeks and come back to my controller and start jamming away, without having to re-boot anything. So I would imagine that the M1 based Mac would behave similarly…I haven’t pulled the trigger on buying yet, so you tell me. Can you leave Live open, leave your laptop idle, and then come back to it and everything is still goody?
Hey, thanks for the really great and informative video. Nicely done! Did you happen to have any of your soundtoys plug-ins running in that session? If so, did they open ok / work? Thanks!
Tbh the only soundtoys plugin I use is radiator and I haven’t tested that out yet. I’d imagine like most they’ll work fine under Rosetta but not fully optimised yet
Doing God's work here. Have to give a thumbs up to anyone making vids focused on these new machine and production as it's lacking from most of the other youtube reviews. My only criticism is it would have been nice to see testing at different sample rates or even more focus on the sample rate you were using. I froze the vid where you showed the audio and it looked like at that time it was on 512 which isn't really low. Not sure if you kept here for the whole test but would have loved to see how far you could push it with latency at the lowest setting (like 64 or 32 samples).
Yeah if I’d have thought about doing the tests properly I would have set up some proper benchmarks but that’s what ya get for not planning something out lol
From what I've seen so far, the speed of the SSD seems to be making the biggest difference for me especially with audio files. I did consider the Max but just didn't think it was worth the extra money as the Pro already seemed more than capable of everything I'd throw at it.
Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences on the new MBP. I was wondering what midi keyboard were you using. coz my new MBP2021 (same spec as yours) doesn't recognize my NI s61 and A49 at all.
I'm using the NI M32 and that worked fine straight away! Still having a couple of issues with the Komplete software but keyboard has worked just great.
No, I didn't even think about it when I was testing - I've explained this in the video description, comments and in this follow up video: ua-cam.com/video/CHaOD-Zvdjg/v-deo.html
@@mikelmarion just the standard quality, I didn’t change it for either machine. I’m afraid I don’t use Serum or Diva but I might give their trials a go
Thanks for your evaluation of the new Sillycon M1. I was wondering if I needed the “max”, but the Pro looks capable. I do some final cut, but easy editing of drone footage. I would imagine the pro is gonna be ok for that. My biggest bummer is no support for my interface, also 10 years old; Presonus 16.4.2. I’m forced to upgrade. Maybe an Apollo twin x.
I edit all my videos in Adobe Premiere and that works great on the Pro, miles fast than my old i7 Mac. Of course the Max will perform better but the Pro is more than enough of my needs, it’s just how power hungry you are really.
@@potsandjacks It does suck. But also plugin makers need to get their shit together. M1 has been out for a year already, and the roadmap was telegraphed years before that.
@@nickcoyne4949 That’s very true. To be honest… For me this is almost completely out of sight out of mind. I’m 95% dawdles now and if never felt more liberated. Lol still going to get an m1*. Lol I’m in dire need of an upgrade. There’s nothing like the connection you make with equipment that forgotten about when using a computer.
I installed RC20 from Splice but I also used XLN Audios installer to make sure it was the latest update. I believe Ableton was working under Rosetta but I’ll check next week!
The Max just felt like overkill for me. My 2015 intel mac had been doing me just fine, running out of CPU only occasionally so I knew any upgrade probably would have worked. Quite glad I did too as I’ve seen a few videos saying the max was overkill for most people.
Hey I played the same demo project with the same 215 buffer and i saw your meters were at 30% but mine was at 15%. Should we even care about those meters? Cause i'm on a windows system and i'm certain your computer is way better than mine.
Myself I don't pay much attention to the meters apart from when something is stuttering and each computer, OS, plugin combination is going to be different in some way so it's a little hard to compare. I mean the whole idea of having the meter there is to have data you should be able to use but I agree, it rarely seems accurate.
Why don't you make the stress test with the same buffer size on the 2015 and the 2021? I think it doesn't make much sense doing it with different parameters
I didn't even think about the buffer size when I did the test, I only added those details to the description afterwards when it was asked about in the comments and then I realised they were set differently. It wasn't really a planned, controlled test - just a spare of the moment thing but had I thought about it & compared like for like the differences would have been even bigger for sure.
Previously I had 256gb SSD in my old Macbook so 1TB is more than enough for me. I usually backup old projects and have a clear out of samples every now and again.
@@tomallonsmusicalcreation1111 I don’t use Omnisphere, all instruments and samples all live on my hard drive. I don’t tend to use sampled instruments that often, only sometimes the NI ones that I download & use when necessary.
@@devsadana if you want to go the mac route you could always get a mac mini... it is much cheaper than a macbook but you will just need a monitor, keyboard and mouse to go with it.. i just recently switched from windows pc for music production for over 13 yearts to a mac mini with M1 processor, 16 gb ram, 1tb ssd and im happy
Just gave my DT880 Pros a try through the new Macbook and it is driving them a little harder but I can't say if there's any noticeable audio quality improvements. I always have my headphones plugged into my audio interface through the Mackie Big Knob as that drives harder but the improvement might be a nice addition when on the go.
I wonder how you doing with 64 buffer size. That's the real world comparation for live performance with the lowest latency....not really the lowest, but it's acceptable compare to 128 or even 256. Good video stress test for Ableton btw. I have Ableton 10 right now, waiting for the whole developer joined the party to optimize the M1PRO. Probably I'll go for the M1PRO with 32GB RAM and 2TB.
It was purely the default and I started using it on that. Tbh I haven't had any time on the new macbook past this video as I've been down with covid for the past week or so but hoping to give it more of a test going forward!
@@DirtySecretz Wow, sorry to hear that about the covid. This thing really become problematic. Thank you for replied the comment in the middle of your recovery. I'll pray for your speedy recovery quicker. 🙏🏼
Tbh I didn’t even think of doing that. Although I have to say I’m not an official hardware reviewer, just a music artist sharing my experience. I have just updated the description of the video with it... ↓ 2021 Macbook Pro 16" Spec Apple M1 Pro (10 core) 16GB Ram 1TB HDD Ableton 11 Buffer Size: 2048 Samples (48.6ms) ↓ 2015 Macbook 15" Spec 2.5ghz Intel i7 (4 core) 16GB Ram 500GB HDD Ableton 11 Buffer Size: 512 Samples (27.2ms) Ableton 11.1 Beta Buffer Size: 512 Samples (27.2ms)
I also realised after thanks to the comments on here I’d forgot to make sure the buffer size was the same so the old MacBook was running 2048 samples whilst the new one was on 512 so I’m pretty sure had it been set the same the differences would be even greater.
@@DirtySecretz oh lol that makes a huge difference. Thanks for sharing. I use Bitwig and the arm version ridiculously more powerful. No one has posted a video of that on the new Mac yet sadly. The main difference was that the Intel chip would spike and jump all over the place. The M1 chip will be extremely steady..
It's not Massive, its the Beta being terrible. Music-Prod did the same test with diff plugs and the M1's totally underperform to intel. Bottom line is :its better than a 2015 but should be WAY better than whats seen here in its current performance in Ableton. The beta is totally screwed up and needs ALOT of work. It's so buggy it doesn't even seem like a beta more like an OG, OG Alpha. Considering theres literally no upgrade in CPU resources in the beta it just looks like Ableton is really struggling with this transition, which totally sucks for us Ableton users who got into M1. Here we are a year later and the native version they've shown is worse that Rosetta... I really hope it isn't ANOTHER year or even longer before we see the proper gains. On a side note I'd be curious to see you do the stress test with a plug-in that is compatible with Apple Silicon, instead of Massive X maybe try a U-he synth, those are compatible with silicon and would be a proper control and rule out any unwanted variables.
Oh yeah, totally know it's the beta causing the issues as it was fine on the stable released version. The beta really disappointed me to, it seems pretty terrible at the moment and totally unusable. I mean, it is a beta so we can't really consider it for using in the real world and the stable 11 version seems to work pretty decently so far with rosetta, it just would be nice to have optimised version.
@@markdillon9588 Oh yeah, sorry yeah I have some plugins through Splice Rent-to-own. However just the other day I solved the issue with RC-20 by installing a new update direct from XLN which I'm not sure is available from Splice yet.
@@DirtySecretz Ah I see, just looked very convenient to use but if that issue exists maybe the updates are slower via splice, cheers I'll have a look 😁👍
how about the specs of the macs?? What's the point of making a video about an old and a new mac, when we have no clue to the specs of the machines the old mac could be configured with two different processors and so can the new. Not to mention the ram, buffersize etc. Sorry bro giving you a thumbs down for not even bothering giving us some basic info, you'd find on any comparisson video!
You know I’m not an official news source right? I’m just a music artist with a UA-cam channel. I’ll add the specs to the description in the video soon though.
Just to answer a load of questions on here, this video was purely just me recording my experience with upgrading to the new MacBook & whether everything would work. I hadn’t really planned the video so the stress test wasn’t super technical, more just something I was curious about (as you could probably tell). I’m not a tech reviewer, just a music artist making videos 😉
Finally a review of Ableton on the new macs, most of the reviews has been for logic. 👍🏽
I wish I could like this comment (and this video) 100 times
FINALLY it is not yet another video editing review about the new macs!
wym there's a lot of videos about music prod. Check out Bolo Da Producer
Ableton users: ✅
2019 Macbook 16" vs 2021 Macbook Pro 16": ✅
Using CPU intensive third party plugins: ✅
Ableton 11 vs Beta 11 comparison: ✅
Finally, I can get on with my day .... 👍
Thank you for the review with Ableton live! This is exactly what I was looking for.
I'm going from the 2015 13" with the 3.1ghz to the 14" m1 max. Pretty excited to see how much better it is with Ableton.
firewire! what a throwback!
I'm primarily a Windows user in two minds about getting an M1 Macbook, however this is helping with my decision, thank you!
I would never want to try and sway someone from going Windows to Mac or Mac to Windows, they're both good ways to go when it comes to Ableton. I think it's purely just personal taste and I've always been more comfortable on a Mac.
@@DirtySecretz I hear you 100% and this isn't persuasive at all 😂, I just want to experience Ableton on a Mac that's all.
I love Windows, been writing on it since I can remember however I'm not a "Windows forever" kind of guy, I'm open to trying new things. 🤷🏽♂️
Top tip, keep all your VST installers in a folder on an external HDD. Then you don't have to run around different websites downloading them. If there's an update then just exchange the installer within the HDD.
The Izotope slow installation moment is such a relatable vibe lol. So slowwwwww
We'll most likely see a jump in performance when the plugins are native, they're still running in a wrapper to work in the beta, if you look in your activity monitor you will see another ableton process just for the intel plugs. I really want NI/Izotope and Arturia to get them native soon, but they have so many.. The reason why massive X took so long was because it uses certain instruction sets that were only native on intel and amd processors. No idea how they got that working but to transition completely to Apple Silicon will be a huge challenge i'm sure.
what about the difference in fan noise? honestly, I am (almost) happy with the (Ableton) performance of my MB Pro 15" 2015. But imagining a lot more power at silent fans makes me so excited. stressed fans stress me!
never mind. see you answered this one already. So, no fan noise. Awesome!
I use those 2 dongles with my audio interface on my M1 Macbook Air, works perfectly
Yeah I'm not noticing much difference on the new MBP on the 11.1 beta vs the not so beta. The beta also broke a few of my plugins as well, including KORG Gadget which is basically all of my synths lol
I use the the m1 13” MacBook Pro. Interesting to see the cpu usage still sits at around 35% on the newer models too.
Thanks for doing this with Ableton! It's great to see. Also with USBC, I love using the hub system. One cable to connect everything is great
Not sure if you know, but Massive X is *not* optimized for M1 Macs, and has been notoriously broken and buggy for those of us in M1 land. So perhaps this particular synth isn't the best to use in terms of representing how well Ableton performs on M1. Tbqh, I'm shocked that you've managed to get it running on M1 at all, and have that many instances!
Yeah i read that beforehand that it was only via Rosetta and only really tried that one because I knew it was a hog for me before. It’s amazing how it handled it considering like you said it’s not optimised yet!
Oh my. For the price of the dongles and the mess, I would have bought a new interface.
It was only one dongle I had to buy for the audio interface at £20 so preferable rather than spending another £900 on a new RME… although I was tempted 😉
thanks for the video; going through the same thing with the M1 air. The dongle situation with firewire is ridiculous indeed. Do you plug your adapter to the dock or directly the double adapter to the mac?
also just a few things to keep in mind:
-some of these plug-ins are NOT running natively (pretty sure massive X is not); so the performance should improve when they are
-when you use the native version of live; it can't load non-native (intel) VST; but there's a feature built-in macOS that will load intel plug-ins as AU; so during the transition it's probably best to use AU versions only; and for old sessions either run the rosetta version or going through them one by one and replacing them with the AU version. A few plug-ins are already native though and can run either way.
I plug the FireWire into the 2 dongles and straight into the MacBook and then the dock is plugged into another thunderbolt port. I figured best to keep the audio interface as direct as possible!
had the same issue with RC-20 on M1 machine, jus delete a caches on library and restart the macbook. Works for me.
Oh nice tip I’ll try that! It is weird because it’s a brand new install, thought it’d just work fine
I understand where you are coming from with the buildup of these tests but keep in mind:
1. Non-native M1 DAW will only work under Rosetta2 emulation layer INCL. all the plugins.
2. Native M1 DAW will work with native VSTs (thats the ideal situation) OR with non-native VSTs, opening a Rosetta2 emulation layer for EACH plugin individually!
With these in mind I think your tests are mixture of these situations, which is fair and realistic, but if you really want to isolate the situations to measure the upgrade you should test different scenarios. Also, as you have pointed it out, many VSTs are still not ready for M1 architecture, but certainly many are.
Yeah as I mentioned in my previous comment, this wasn't a technical test - just me playing around which most of my videos are. By keeping it informal I was hoping to show what a normal, non-technical user (just like myself) would deal with on the new Macbook. There are plenty of other people that will go into the nitty gritty of the technical stuff, that's just not what my channel is about - I just like sharing my experiences and hopefully it helps others 😊
@@DirtySecretz fair enough and thank you !
Fans run silent even on the normal 2020 M1 processor. You can get a Macbook Air or even a $650 to $700 Mac Mini M1 and run Ableton pretty darn well.
The benefit of course being that processing power and the SILENCE of the fans which can interrupt mic recordings and such. Ty Tim Apple!
they even run more silent on the M1 air. (I have this and it's still weird to me that it has no fan and it doesn't just burn up)
Might finally be time to upgrade my 2006 MacBook Pro...
Do you have an UPDATE FOR 2024???? awesome Video! more details then other UA-cam videos I seen
great video, thanks !
Bummer that Massive X doesn’t work… I mean it works but you get stuck midi notes when you hit the stop button.
Thank you for this. Subbed.
Massive x is the biggest problem !
Loving the thumbnails 👍🏾
Do I need to wait the compatibility of my plugins with monterey ? Because i do à list of the Big Sur/ m1 compatible plugin ( everything work fine excepted UAD/ Soundtoys/ Softube and eventide in native mode ) , but monterey is not compatible now, do I need to wait to upgrade to my new MacBook Pro Max ?
And sorry for my bad English lol im french
Well the new MacBooks all ship with Monterey and I would guess that previous versions of MacOS wouldn’t support the new silicon M1 chips so downgrading probably wouldn’t be an option. What I’m going to do is test plugin updates when they get released and once all the plugins I usually use within my workflow work fine then I’ll start using the M1 MacBook as my main machine.
Hi, do you think that 16GB RAM in enough for your needs or would it better to increase to 32GB RAM? If yes in which cases?
This! please.
Yes I had the very same question when I first came to buy the machine. After watching quite a few review videos it felt like because of how efficient the new cpu is the RAM didn’t seem as important as it did before. Honestly i’m not that technical when it comes the real detail with hardware but after seeing early reviews from video editing professionals it seemed the 16gb was more than capable so I went for that (although they did say I could bring the MacBook back within 16 days if it wasn’t powerful enough for me)
Thanks for great video, I have a 2019 MBP 16" and fans run constantly when using Ableton, even when it's not playing anything, super frustrating. May I ask at what point did the fans kick in on your new M1 Pro?
They haven't kick in at all yet, which is what I've heard from most people with the new Macbooks. I'm not quite sure how far you need to push it to get them going!
@@fabiansmith5860 No idea, I've not used main stage so couldn't say but I'd imagine it'd do a good job
Great freaking video
I'm still getting a loud pop (and 100% CPU spike) when I change presets in Output libraries as well as others in Kontakt as well as other plugs getting pops (and 100% CPU spike) when I stop the track.
Just wondering, do you get any bit crushing audio glitches with the Fireface 400 on the M1? Seems to be a common issue with older Mac mini and previous intel MacBook Pro’s.
I can't say I have, the only time with my previous Macbook was under heavy CPU load and so far I haven't noticed it on the M1 but it's still early days!
These computers did just come out, but the m1 architecture has been around for a while. Most plugins are native now, but certain companies seem to be draggin their feet about it haha they've had at least a year if not more to start working on it. But yea I'm really bummed about the ableton beta. I was really hoping there'd be a bigger change in cpu performance, cause honestly I've never had a computer that felt like it could truly keep up with what I'm doing in ableton haha i don't wanna have to freeze tracks 😂 hopefully I'll be solid with this one
Amazing! Thanks for this! Could you drop some more comparisons maybe pushing the RAM with some heavy sample libraries? I find myself in the same situation, high spec 2015 15" and planing to upgrade to an M1 Pro, but wondering whether to go for 32GB of RAM or not, so some idea of how that computer performs on 16GB would really help. Thanks! Great video!
I can’t say I use large sample libraries so couldn’t test that but I know what you’re saying about the Mac dilemma. From what I’ve seen from video editing professionals the 16gb option is certainly very capable because of how efficient the cpu is so that’s why I decided to go with that. I’m not that technical when it comes to machine specs so have no idea about the finer detail but I’ve not had that much of an issue with just 16gb in my previous machine.
Hello Jose. I have seen some testing of the MB Pro with 16GB of RAM and the Pro Chip, and it didn't show a significant reduction in performance from the same MB Pro with 32GB of RAM. What the tests revealed is that the new M1 Pro chip & new SSD in the MB Pro are so fast that it can use the SSD to make up for the lack of RAM in the 16GB version. Now, these tests did not use large sample libraries & a DAW, but they did prove that having only 16GB of RAM is not huge problem. Of course, it still may be better to have more RAM in some cases, but the 16GB version will perform quite well.
@@derekbaker3279 what I read is that, regular and heavy usage of swap wears the SSD quite a bit. That's why I have this dilemma of whether to go for 16 or 32 unified memory..
@@falak88 I have seen a lot of experts saying that the issue of SSD wear is real, but greatly exaggerated. Also, real world tests show that the SSDs that Apple uses last longer than advertized, so the swap issue shouldn't become a problem during the lifetime of the laptop.
This is weird. I was wondering about the Pro but then I did my own test just to for reference. I'm running 60 instances of Massiv X on logic 10.7 in 256 samples on a late 2018 MBP i9, 32gb ram with OZ9 with the same preset as you. It looks like Ableton need more time for development.
That's pretty impressive! I would not say my tests are that scientific so I'm sure there's probably something I haven't got configured right but good to hear it's pulling well on a 2018 Macbook.
Massive X is running through rosetta; that may be a part of the explanation. Also Logic is more optimized it seems.
Спасибо 👍 Очень полезное видео 👍
Native Instruments isn't optimized, that's the problem, not Ableton. I have the same problem myself that midi Clock is not able to sync or freezes and keeps playing after ibhit stip
why? does NI Komplete audio 6 sound card work with M1? tnx!
@@mitadonac91 they are working on it and they plan to update iz soon, maybe untill the End of the year...
40% seems pretty high for this session considering all the benchmarks for the computer. Ableton may need to do some more optimisation.
I don't understand how Ableton is reporting the CPU usage because I can load a few synths and be at 30-40% usage, but then also add quite a bit of effect plugins to those, and some additional synths, but my usage only goes to 40-50%. I would imagine that Ableton was built around Intel/AMD but Apple Silicon behaves differently, so Ableton is not providing an accurate look at how much CPU a project is using. M1 16gb Macbook Air. I can run a project with about 8 synths, with about 3-5 effect plugins on each, with about 4-8 plugins on the master just fine. That's with Ableton and 95% of the plugins using Rosetta.
Yeah I don't think the meters can taken as gospel as most of the time they don't make a lot of sense but when things start stuttering it can be useful to pinpoint which channel that is coming from.
Nice to hear you got a FireWire interface working on this. And good thing RME has updated the drivers too! I am expecting that I may have to abandon one or more of my audio interfaces.
Very good video. It helps me a lot and answers a few of my questions. Because till now I use a Macbook from 2015 with the same specs as your old one. But my machine is struggling with izotope plugins. So I have one question: Which OSX do you use on the 2015-Macbook? I'm working with High Sierra.
I was also using with High Sierra on my 2015 Macbook, seemed to work just great
Hi Thank you for the great information. Can you please let me know what preset did you use in Massive X?
Hi there. Would like see test on stock plagins. Just more operators or wavetables
Does your Logitech mx mouse work with the unifying receiver without any problems on the M1 MBP ?
Yes the MX master has been fine with the unifying receiver although my Logitech keyboard has been really patchy with Bluetooth - often takes a bit to recognise it after wake.
Yes the MX master has been fine with the unifying receiver although my Logitech keyboard has been really patchy with Bluetooth - often takes a bit to recognise it after wake.
What’s the first demo song and is it available anywhere? Not “Let It Go” but the one with the female vocals.
It’s Eternity 😊
open.spotify.com/album/1pshcppDMOpJT0h05dL1mg
@@DirtySecretz nope, not the house track, the mellow female vocals track @ 5:12 timestamp
Is massive X comparable or more CPU intensive than U-HE DIVA in divine mode? Do you think there is any need to get 32gb RAM - I'd rather not spend the extra £400 if it's not necessary.
I haven’t used Diva so I couldn’t really say but I’m guessing probably similar as Massive X can be a right hog on CPU! As for the ram upgrade, I’d heard before I bought the MacBook that because of the way the CPU is optimised and the speed of the SSD, the RAM wasn’t as big of a concern but recent test videos have shown this too: ua-cam.com/video/gqiYSt4nAFs/v-deo.html
Are you selling your old MacBook? I don’t really have the budget to buy the latest version. I’m currently using my mini iPad 4 to make music and videos editing.
No, keeping my old MacBook for other uses but plenty to be found on eBay and through Apple refurbished
Do you not use an external drive? Have you had any issues having your Sample Library and Projects on your internal drive?
Nah I’ve always kept everything on the internal drive as I’ve just found it more stable myself - I went for the 1TB option this time to make sure I got plenty of room
There is one factor you missed. The M1’s sip power vs Intel. Probably won’t make a huge difference in your electric bill, but collectively, across the planet, it does help…and keeps everything cool and fan noise down. And ARM based chips, like the M1, are super quick to wake vs Intel, making M1 based macs more like hardware than an X86-based computer. MPC Live/Live II, X and One as well as Machine+ are basically ARM based computers, running custom OS’s. Your iPad/iPhone (I believe…could be wrong) are also ARM based chips. I use a crap old iPad as a synth, because, I never have to restart anything. I can leave it idle for weeks and come back to my controller and start jamming away, without having to re-boot anything. So I would imagine that the M1 based Mac would behave similarly…I haven’t pulled the trigger on buying yet, so you tell me. Can you leave Live open, leave your laptop idle, and then come back to it and everything is still goody?
I usually leave it for an hour over lunch and it’s all good afterwards!
Hey, thanks for the really great and informative video. Nicely done! Did you happen to have any of your soundtoys plug-ins running in that session? If so, did they open ok / work? Thanks!
Tbh the only soundtoys plugin I use is radiator and I haven’t tested that out yet. I’d imagine like most they’ll work fine under Rosetta but not fully optimised yet
Did you have the same buffer size on both systems you tested? an dwhat buffer size was it set to?
All that information is in the description of the video
Doing God's work here. Have to give a thumbs up to anyone making vids focused on these new machine and production as it's lacking from most of the other youtube reviews. My only criticism is it would have been nice to see testing at different sample rates or even more focus on the sample rate you were using. I froze the vid where you showed the audio and it looked like at that time it was on 512 which isn't really low. Not sure if you kept here for the whole test but would have loved to see how far you could push it with latency at the lowest setting (like 64 or 32 samples).
Yeah if I’d have thought about doing the tests properly I would have set up some proper benchmarks but that’s what ya get for not planning something out lol
I’m wondering how my pre-ordered 16 inch pro max with 64 gb memory handles my elaborate tracks in 32 bit 96 kHz format
From what I've seen so far, the speed of the SSD seems to be making the biggest difference for me especially with audio files. I did consider the Max but just didn't think it was worth the extra money as the Pro already seemed more than capable of everything I'd throw at it.
It's called a MIDI panic
Thanks! I'm between the same new m1 pro, or waiting a bit for next M1 Air that seems to handle Ableton just fine far much less $$
I’ve heard good things about the standard M1 cpu so if they put that in there I’m sure the Air would be more than capable
How about serum? It's optimized for m1. How many instances of serum can m1 pro handle?
I have no idea, I don't use Serum but I'm sure there will be a video along soon from someone who does
Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences on the new MBP. I was wondering what midi keyboard were you using. coz my new MBP2021 (same spec as yours) doesn't recognize my NI s61 and A49 at all.
I'm using the NI M32 and that worked fine straight away! Still having a couple of issues with the Komplete software but keyboard has worked just great.
Did you use the same buffer length while comparing the two MacBooks?
No, I didn't even think about it when I was testing - I've explained this in the video description, comments and in this follow up video:
ua-cam.com/video/CHaOD-Zvdjg/v-deo.html
How is the performance of ableton, when you run it through Rosetta? Is it better than the intel ones?
I was running Ableton automatically in Rosetta for the video
May I ask the exact configuration of your M1 Pro (CPU/GPU/RAM)?
↓ 2021 Macbook Pro 16" Spec
Apple M1 Pro (10 core)
16GB Ram
1TB HDD
Ableton 11 Buffer Size: 2048 Samples (48.6ms)
↓ 2015 Macbook 15" Spec
2.5ghz Intel i7 (4 core)
16GB Ram
500GB HDD
Ableton 11 Buffer Size: 512 Samples (27.2ms)
Ableton 11.1 Beta Buffer Size: 512 Samples (27.2ms)
@@DirtySecretz could you run this test with Serum if you have it??? And or Diva? Massive I don't think is optimised for Apple Silicon
@@DirtySecretz also, what quality did you have massive on?
@@mikelmarion just the standard quality, I didn’t change it for either machine. I’m afraid I don’t use Serum or Diva but I might give their trials a go
@@DirtySecretz would love a new stress test video if you pick up one of those especially serum!
Thanks for your evaluation of the new Sillycon M1. I was wondering if I needed the “max”, but the Pro looks capable. I do some final cut, but easy editing of drone footage. I would imagine the pro is gonna be ok for that. My biggest bummer is no support for my interface, also 10 years old; Presonus 16.4.2. I’m forced to upgrade. Maybe an Apollo twin x.
I edit all my videos in Adobe Premiere and that works great on the Pro, miles fast than my old i7 Mac. Of course the Max will perform better but the Pro is more than enough of my needs, it’s just how power hungry you are really.
It seems like Ableton didn't put much effort into the M1 version. I know it's in beta, but still...
Don’t know man. It was rock solid at 35%. That really good.
It only runs native if all your plugins are native. Otherwise it reverts to rosetta, same as before.
@@nickcoyne4949 oof, that’s lame lol. I run Bitwig and it runs every plug-in in its own individual sandbox so it doesn’t have that problem.
@@potsandjacks It does suck. But also plugin makers need to get their shit together. M1 has been out for a year already, and the roadmap was telegraphed years before that.
@@nickcoyne4949 That’s very true. To be honest… For me this is almost completely out of sight out of mind. I’m 95% dawdles now and if never felt more liberated. Lol still going to get an m1*. Lol I’m in dire need of an upgrade. There’s nothing like the connection you make with equipment that forgotten about when using a computer.
Arre you sure the R20 from Splice is the latest version on their site? Compare with the official site.
Might work if you start ableton under rosetta?
I installed RC20 from Splice but I also used XLN Audios installer to make sure it was the latest update. I believe Ableton was working under Rosetta but I’ll check next week!
I was wondering why you didn't get the max?
The Max just felt like overkill for me. My 2015 intel mac had been doing me just fine, running out of CPU only occasionally so I knew any upgrade probably would have worked. Quite glad I did too as I’ve seen a few videos saying the max was overkill for most people.
What are the specs of the m1 you purchased?
As i am looking on buying one.
Thx
Specs are in the video description, it’s the 16” with the M1Pro cpu, 16gb RAM and 1TB SSD
What buffer size are you using?
Check the video description for the full spec
What thunderbolt hub are you using ?
The Belkin Express Thunderbolt 2, I've been using it for years and just makes docking my Macbook to the studio much easier.
Hey I played the same demo project with the same 215 buffer and i saw your meters were at 30% but mine was at 15%. Should we even care about those meters? Cause i'm on a windows system and i'm certain your computer is way better than mine.
Myself I don't pay much attention to the meters apart from when something is stuttering and each computer, OS, plugin combination is going to be different in some way so it's a little hard to compare. I mean the whole idea of having the meter there is to have data you should be able to use but I agree, it rarely seems accurate.
Why don't you make the stress test with the same buffer size on the 2015 and the 2021? I think it doesn't make much sense doing it with different parameters
I didn't even think about the buffer size when I did the test, I only added those details to the description afterwards when it was asked about in the comments and then I realised they were set differently. It wasn't really a planned, controlled test - just a spare of the moment thing but had I thought about it & compared like for like the differences would have been even bigger for sure.
@@DirtySecretz Thanks for the reply! It would be great to see the difference with same settings
Thanks for the test, but a stress test is hardly conclusive if you are not running the same buffer size as it has a massive effect on CPU.
It wasn’t really a technical test, it was just something I thought of during recording the video so wasn’t really planned
Do you regret not getting 2tb ? Or you find 1tb enough for.music production ?
Previously I had 256gb SSD in my old Macbook so 1TB is more than enough for me. I usually backup old projects and have a clear out of samples every now and again.
How do manage your external drives ? Omnisphere and other libraries
@@tomallonsmusicalcreation1111 I don’t use Omnisphere, all instruments and samples all live on my hard drive. I don’t tend to use sampled instruments that often, only sometimes the NI ones that I download & use when necessary.
I am really confused. Should I buy Mac or Windows for music production
I think it’s really down to personal preference and budget because if you get the right spec machine either will do the job well
@@DirtySecretz I am getting Ryzen 9 9500HX 32gb ram in $1400. Is it worth to spend $2500 for MacBook Pro 16?
@@devsadana if you want to go the mac route you could always get a mac mini... it is much cheaper than a macbook but you will just need a monitor, keyboard and mouse to go with it.. i just recently switched from windows pc for music production for over 13 yearts to a mac mini with M1 processor, 16 gb ram, 1tb ssd and im happy
@@nicholasmarch3286 bro cracks easily available?
@@devsadana yeah if you search around you can find them.
U look like Bobby white !
Did you try any open headphones on the new mac?
Just gave my DT880 Pros a try through the new Macbook and it is driving them a little harder but I can't say if there's any noticeable audio quality improvements. I always have my headphones plugged into my audio interface through the Mackie Big Knob as that drives harder but the improvement might be a nice addition when on the go.
I wonder how you doing with 64 buffer size. That's the real world comparation for live performance with the lowest latency....not really the lowest, but it's acceptable compare to 128 or even 256.
Good video stress test for Ableton btw.
I have Ableton 10 right now, waiting for the whole developer joined the party to optimize the M1PRO. Probably I'll go for the M1PRO with 32GB RAM and 2TB.
It was purely the default and I started using it on that. Tbh I haven't had any time on the new macbook past this video as I've been down with covid for the past week or so but hoping to give it more of a test going forward!
@@DirtySecretz Wow, sorry to hear that about the covid. This thing really become problematic.
Thank you for replied the comment in the middle of your recovery.
I'll pray for your speedy recovery quicker. 🙏🏼
Buffer is different. Test is unrecognized.
Didn’t think about checking before doing it, I only thought about doing the test while recording so didn’t plan it
Abletton, the native beta version?
Yes, they say to install the universal package for the M1 update
What buffer size was used in the test?
this, the video is practically worthless without knowing this. wish he would had adjusted that as he went.
Tbh I didn’t even think of doing that. Although I have to say I’m not an official hardware reviewer, just a music artist sharing my experience.
I have just updated the description of the video with it...
↓ 2021 Macbook Pro 16" Spec
Apple M1 Pro (10 core)
16GB Ram
1TB HDD
Ableton 11 Buffer Size: 2048 Samples (48.6ms)
↓ 2015 Macbook 15" Spec
2.5ghz Intel i7 (4 core)
16GB Ram
500GB HDD
Ableton 11 Buffer Size: 512 Samples (27.2ms)
Ableton 11.1 Beta Buffer Size: 512 Samples (27.2ms)
So the M1 version ar 30-35% is at almost 1/2 of the 2015 Mac at 55-60%. That twice as fast as the old Mac.
I also realised after thanks to the comments on here I’d forgot to make sure the buffer size was the same so the old MacBook was running 2048 samples whilst the new one was on 512 so I’m pretty sure had it been set the same the differences would be even greater.
@@DirtySecretz oh lol that makes a huge difference. Thanks for sharing.
I use Bitwig and the arm version ridiculously more powerful.
No one has posted a video of that on the new Mac yet sadly.
The main difference was that the Intel chip would spike and jump all over the place. The M1 chip will be extremely steady..
@@potsandjacks bro mac or Windows which one to buy. Really confused?
@@devsadana the M1 pro/max is a game changer for sure.
It's not Massive, its the Beta being terrible. Music-Prod did the same test with diff plugs and the M1's totally underperform to intel. Bottom line is :its better than a 2015 but should be WAY better than whats seen here in its current performance in Ableton. The beta is totally screwed up and needs ALOT of work. It's so buggy it doesn't even seem like a beta more like an OG, OG Alpha. Considering theres literally no upgrade in CPU resources in the beta it just looks like Ableton is really struggling with this transition, which totally sucks for us Ableton users who got into M1. Here we are a year later and the native version they've shown is worse that Rosetta... I really hope it isn't ANOTHER year or even longer before we see the proper gains.
On a side note I'd be curious to see you do the stress test with a plug-in that is compatible with Apple Silicon, instead of Massive X maybe try a U-he synth, those are compatible with silicon and would be a proper control and rule out any unwanted variables.
Oh yeah, totally know it's the beta causing the issues as it was fine on the stable released version. The beta really disappointed me to, it seems pretty terrible at the moment and totally unusable. I mean, it is a beta so we can't really consider it for using in the real world and the stable 11 version seems to work pretty decently so far with rosetta, it just would be nice to have optimised version.
what is that install tool you use?
I don't use any install tool, I just do it all manually
@@DirtySecretz splice doesn't show plugins no ?
@@markdillon9588 Oh yeah, sorry yeah I have some plugins through Splice Rent-to-own. However just the other day I solved the issue with RC-20 by installing a new update direct from XLN which I'm not sure is available from Splice yet.
@@DirtySecretz Ah I see, just looked very convenient to use but if that issue exists maybe the updates are slower via splice, cheers I'll have a look 😁👍
@@markdillon9588 generally it works well but in this case it seemed to be behind :/
How are the fans tho?
Still haven’t heard them kick in yet
@@DirtySecretz that is incredible!
Reinstall the one that does not work.
how about the specs of the macs?? What's the point of making a video about an old and a new mac, when we have no clue to the specs of the machines the old mac could be configured with two different processors and so can the new. Not to mention the ram, buffersize etc.
Sorry bro giving you a thumbs down for not even bothering giving us some basic info, you'd find on any comparisson video!
You know I’m not an official news source right? I’m just a music artist with a UA-cam channel. I’ll add the specs to the description in the video soon though.
What a knob. At least he did a video on it. Do it yourself then.
But the m1 is out from the 13" Mac so the plug-in should be ready