I still can't choke out my Intel i9 9900KS w/ 64GB of system RAM. Massive plugin chains, 35+ MIDI and or Audio tracks, 128ms sample rate at 48KHz while driving outboard gear too. Combined with my Tascam 20x20 and Arturia Audiofuse 8 Pre in ADAT configuration audio interfaces set to 128ms sample rate but can drop down to a blistering 8ms if I need to but I do not; my AIO CPU cooled i9 maybe creeps up to 50% utilization in Ableton Live 11 with everything cranking away. And even then, Windows 10 only shows 4 of my 8 cores actually doing anything. 🤷🏾♀️ I think my system is overkill to be honest. I could only imagine an AMD Thread-Ripper or Ryzen 5k series build rocking 64GBs+ of system ram. Also, I can literally load all of my most intensive Kontakt VSTi's directly into system RAM and play them stutter and glitch free. Kinda crazy.
@marq lmao. Great comment honestly, but the tower costs half the price. Built a 9900k tower for under a grand, and it’s great. I’d like to eventually upgrade to M1 though as well, but the price difference is nutty.
I‘m using a Mac mini with 16 GB ram and a 1TB SSD. Have recently checked the beta and it‘s already working very well and really fast. But there is still a good way to go for some of the plug-in makers to have everything in native apple silicon code. Looking forward to seeing it 👍
First off, love your channel, i really dig the topics you choose to cover, and your efficient way of covering them. I started doing audio work on computers back in the 1990s; ive seen the mac vs. pc debate going on foreverrrrrrrrr imo, the debate mattered more back a decade ago; there were for a long time serious differences in HW+SW compatibility, issues w/ timing stability, how different platforms handled background processes that interfere with audio drivers, etc... but by 2021... its really at this point just sort of a preference thing. i think this video (useful! and insightful) is really mostly about 'if you're primarily running a laptop'. in my case i always have done work at home on a PC i built myself specifically for music. Heat and noise were never an issue (while my on my 2006-2010 mac laptops, it aways was); these days, performance is so good from mainstream CPUs that audio is quickly becoming 'too easy to do'. You're not going to get into much trouble on either platform (unless! its a live performance rig, but then only 'maybe'). I am very into the new M1 processors, and the efficiency they offer. Am seriously considering an M1 mac mini for my next 'core workstation'. But the point you made about 'lack of i/o' is a real issue. Lots of people don't just do 100% ITB work all the time. You've also got lots of peripherals and all those things need to be plug+play, and play nice w/ every platform. In some cases its better to have an "old" (read: established) technology for music because you can just be sure everything is going to work. ffs, I still regularly use shareware music apps that were made for windows XP. More importantly, every time computer base technology changes, lots of legacy audio interfaces become defunct (this happened w/ me and my frontier designs cards more than a decade ago) i'm sure the current mainsteam guys will all do updated drivers for M1 chips. But its not something i'd rush into blindly. Basically, i see no reason for people to ever become early adopters of any new platform for something like music production. You should always wait until everyone in the industry has already fully established support, or else in some cases you'll find certain older pieces of gear (or sw) you have are now just unusable. but w/e. just my 0.02$. making music imo isn't really a matter of needing 'the best computer' anymore. if anything its people needing to find better workflows to learn to do simple things fast. Which your channel btw is very good at talking about, so kudos.
Appreciate your comment my UA-cam friend! Did you get the Mac or any Apple hw for music? Can't believe I gotta consider an Apple laptop for live music (DJing).. I pretty much hate Apple lol
I have had none of the issues you talk about on PC in maybe a decade, never needed to 'tune windows for audio' and I do some BIG sets with tons of plugins, I haven't updated a driver in years Win10 does that. So yeah we have had very different experiences but your point about the M1 processors is very on point and impossible to argue with intelligently. I do worry about plugin compatibility as I use a lot of different VST, is that a problem with M1 processors?
AU Plugins (Mac-only plugins) are all supported because they follow the AUv2/3 (Audio Unit) standard format. VSTs will be harder as the binary (or wrapper in some cases) would need to be recompiled to support the aarch64 architecture.
Good lord, thank you for just saying a thing out loud. I almost didn't care what it was as long as I didn't get to the end of the video just to have you say "whatever suits your workflow best." I know sometimes thats the best answer, but also sometimes #data.
I tried to do music on computers for 20 years and I never ever had reached the point where I could get constant fun out of it for the reason that my PC based machines constantly came up with new issues that kept me from making music but instead I had to try to fix those issues in time consuming google searches (btw, I'm a computer engineer and would say I know my stuff, but not all internals of windows that could go wrong...). And when I got it running... there was the fan... So most time of my (hobby-) music career, I stuck with my guitar and my amp... Just switch it on and it works. That is more or less what I expect of my hobby. Now, there is this company Apple, which I always avoided due to it's restrictive policy (and due to the prices of and fans in their computer products) that came up with those M1 processors and the MacBook Air which does not hava a fan... So, I gave it a try and since I have it, I'm just as blown away as all other reviewers of this little machine and I totally agree with everything that is mentioned here in this video. For me, the MacBook Air M1 is the best ever computer to make music on and I doubt that I ever will reach it's limits for what I am doing with it. And it just works! Next thing I do is to get this M1 beta from Ableton...
sorry for late response.... well, first of all, I'm not a pro. I'm fidling around with Audio and DAWs an recrding for about 2 decades. But it was always some iind of hobby, by which I got annoyed very fast, when my computer "decided" for whatever reason, that all my settings regarding audio, from last week are worthless today, because everything was cracking and delaying again... It was a mess and I never spend the continous work in keep everything running. But to make it clear: Sometimes, I went all the way down to DPC latency checkers and stuff, in order to fix it. But it was always a temporary fix.... Now, regarding the Macbook Air M1: I bought it, installed Ableton on it and it runs just flawless since about a year now. I'm totally happy with it. The first time in 20 years, I can focus on making music instead of figuring out, why it is not working. I also recently tested the native M1 build of Ableton but I don't see a major performance boost to the Rosetta driven Intel build. Since I have Native Instruments plugins (e.g. Guitar Rig 6) I still use the Intel build and as said above: I'm totally happy!
@@Kiamur Hello, would you mind if I ask do you have the 8GB or 16GB version? And how many tracks and busses do you usually deal with? Also, do you use a lot of VSTs? I'm actually considering the Macbook Air M1 for music production. My workflow usually consists of recording acoustic guitar, vocals, cajon by mic, and piano by MIDI, and usually I'll be dealing with not more than 12 tracks per project, with some reverbs and delays busses. Also some simple video editing with nothing too crazy. Would you think the Air will work for me?
@@namede6210 Sorry for not answering earlier... Unfortunately, Google does not notify me, when there are comments to my comments... To the point: I'm not a professional at all, but the stuff you are going to do seems to be managable by the M1 Air. I have the highest end M1 Air, which means, I have 16GB of RAM. My biggest project was about 12 audio tracks, where I doubled lots of guitar and vocals. The guitar was using Guitar Rig 6 from Native Instruments. The Vocals were using stock plugins from Live. For drums I use Eazy Drums 2 from Toontrack. I do not use busses (I'm a hobbyist... ;) ), but I had one of the stock master plugins in the master channel. The CPU workload was not at it's limit with this project. Hope this still helps after such long time after the question was asked....
Great vid, well thought through. As a PC (current i9900k) and Mac ( current 2015 mbp) user, PCs generally give more grief (as more variance in parts and configuration) but when you have issues with a mac they take longer to sort and make less sense, imo. Had gpu issues with the mac that took a really long time to sort out and the solution was bonkers. Backwards compatibility tends to be more of an issue on macs too.
I worked at Apple about 15 years ago, and at least back then, all the "Geniuses" preferred refurbs because they actually get MORE testing than new product off the line. Anyway, thanks for the vid!
Hi, I had a MacBook Air M1 ITB SSD 8core, sold it and got myself a MacBook Pro late 2019 2.4 Ghz i9 2TB SSD 32 GB RAM Radeon Pro 5500M 8GB. I sold the M1 because I wanted 2 monitors, and no hassle with dongles. I get 128 tracks on the i9 and with TGPRO no fan noise. I was really impressed with the M1 but sold it to a developer. The i9 can handle all I throw at it, both are great machines. I got the mac i9 for a really good price and with a little extra cash I bought an ipad pro 12.9 certified refurbished from apple like new. I bought all synths on the ipad pro and use a motu 2 to load the sound into the MBP i9. Ableton link is a great feature. I use an Air2 128 Gb as a remote for LogicPro with some other cool apps. Mac's are great with that. Enjoyed your video keep up the good work.
Im running Ableton on my 2009 5,1 mac pro tower. I upgraded it last year with 32 GB ram, SSD’s for system and sample library and faster CPU, as well as an upgraded OS. I run into cpu hits on hungry plugins with too many un rendered tracks. I changed my workflow a bit by sketching on Maschine and turning everything into 8-16 measure loops and then import into Ableton. Im waiting for the next mac mini with M1 Pro or Max before i finally upgrade. Ive been using Macs for 30 years and had been recently considering PCs for gaming and music until the parts shortage and M1 releases hit. Im still wanting to build a gaming PC but now I don’t care about making music on it.
Could you maybe do an in depth real world test with the M1 Air? In the wake of the all new Macbook Pro 14 and 16 inch releases I'm considering buying one of them instead of an M1 Air. But, since it's about a 1000€ difference in price in the EU I'm wondering if it's worth it. You would probably be the only person on UA-cam giving a fair and educated review of the machine. Everyone else is leaving out key parts and not really showing real world workflows. How well does it work with Kontakt instruments? How many analog emulation synths like Diva can you use simultaneously? How does it handle 100+ tracks of audio for people with microediting workflows? What about max for live and max MSP? How is the battery life during audio production? What is the latency like when recording and performing?
using a '21 air w live 11 and the only time ive ever had problems was working outside in the middle of the summer, due to lack of on board cooling the cpu would throttle really early. other than that it's been smooth af and super portable. i also run ableton on an eluktronics mag 15 gaming laptop and it's been great but required more tinkering when other hardware was involved due to latency issues
+100 to buying a refurb Mac. Your experience was the same as mine: if there was a common issue, they will have fixed it. I've never had to service a refurb other than keyboard and battery issues that most had.
I think people underestimate how long it takes for new technology to make it's way into the entire development toolchain infrastructure. The length of time to port software to M1, M1 graphics issues, M1 security, all these things take iterations and time. DSP developers depend on specific Intel instructions that have been there for over a decade, this is no small thing. M1 competes with the likes of Intel/AMD/NVIDIA. Windows has the best development environment for DSP, games, everything, and that attracts developers. Windows also allows deeper control of performance profiles that means your track won't swap to a much slower core that will realtime affect your sound processing chain. Mac is becoming more of a consumer device. For all these reasons, after 25 years of Mac, I built a windows audio PC and switched, actually, I run both as I have the abominable MBP intel. The downside of PC is I had to figure out some pretty low level details like secure boot, memory integrity protection, CPU step modes, Thunderbolt 4 on Windows. It is no easy journey. MacOS is definitely easier and support (mac store/genius) is amazing. Windows, if you can master it, gives you a much broader and cheaper infrastructure of machines to access. Intel's latest gen is already equivalent to M1 and NVIDIA GPU is better. The vertical integration by Apple is unbeatable from a simplicity standpoint. But if you can handle the overhead, I think the PC ecosystem with Windows has a lot more to offer.
Dude.. this video is on point. As soon as I heard about the heat and power performance of the M1 chip, I realized that my next music production computer was probably gonna have to be a Mac... and this is coming from a life-long PC user. The new Macs just have too much going for them. Thanks so much for covering this in depth. Side Note: I've been naughty... so I may take you up on your lessons + Ableton offer. I've watched countless music tutorials on youtube and you are, easily, one of the best teachers out there!
I compared Ableton Live 11.1.1 on Macbook Air M1, 512 gb, 8 gb ram to a Lenovo Yoga Pro 7 Slim (i5 11300H) 512 gb, 16 gb ram. Same project, same plugins, same everything. The Macbook Air M1 is consistently using 10 percentage points lower CPU load. No issues what so ever on any of them. The Lenovo was 300$ cheaper.
this is why I'm moving to Mac, because no matter how much I work to get my personally built PC from 2014 to optimize for music, windows 10 just won't allow for it. It worked flawlessly on windows 7.
Yeah, I use both a Mac and a PC for my productions. I tend to favor Apple for the stability but hate everything the company stands for : the price gouging, the constant change of ports, the soldering of parts but yeah, my M1 mac mini is the best value computer for music production and without the compatibility issues.
DUDE WTF!! I almost finished your video before realizing I saw you perform a couple of weeks ago at Pryes in Minneapolis. To make matters worse Ive been a subscriber to your YT channel 😅. Lmao, great set! Keep up the content!
This really cleared a lot up for me, thanks a ton. I was thinking about getting rid of my M1 and switching to a Razer 14, yet I haven't heard it put exactly like this. The point in which you stated that Apple does some pretty cringy things as a company hit home hard and is why I want to leave them all together. However, it helped even more that you pointed out to not be completely on one side either way. This helps my decision to purchase a pc for mild gaming and usability, and keep my M1 for my professional work with Ableton. Great video, keep up the good stuff; thanks again.
Not quite sure whats the Mac vs Pc argument all about. I have & use both...PC wise I have a Lenovo Thinkpad 12 gb Ram amd Ryzen5 & a 2015 15" Macbook Pro with a Quad core i7 processor, 16 gb ram...They both run the same Ableton with the same plugins & I have absolutely no problems with both.I use both interchangeably studio Production wise & also as my live onstage keys rigs...Musicians just need to stop the fanboying sh%t regarding platforms & learn to embrace both worlds.
Having made music on PCs for over 20 years, this is the first time ever I've been persuaded to consider a Mac. Sounds like a game changer. Thanks for the video 🙏
This was awesome! I am not a fan of Apple at all and it's not because of their products (another discussion for another time) but currently they seem to have a slight advantage for musicians/producers. I appreciate your honesty as well as your informative videos!
I had a '97 Mac tower which was feeling old. I upgraded the processors to dual 3.46ghz/6 core Intel Xeon, 128g ram Radeon Saphire gfx card.....all of that was pretty affordable on a Mac I already owned. It's now a 64bit capable unit with almost 10TB storage. I run Live 10 as the legacy plug-in's all still work. Useful video, thx
Hey Anthony. Just started looking for a new computer for production. Does your recommendation still stand over a year later? And what about with the M2? And sorry for all the questions, but with a Silicon will I need more than 8 gigs of RAM?
2:34 Thats some statement.. I could say the same about mac users. Macs have just as much hangups and issues than a well build pc when you try to make it do anything else but the most basic stuff. Been there done that.. I have a dell optiplex that I use for 3d cad/internet browsing and its running 24/7 because I hate having to boot it up when I need to draw something fast. And its been running without a reboot for months perfectly stable. 🤷♂ My i7 12650h music production nuc same story. I leave it running over night because it hardly uses any power in idle and it too is perfectly stable.
I always like your videos, man. Thanks for this one. Very pertinent one, I must say. I tried a Mac mini M1 over the summer but the ports issue really put me off, so I returned it. I now got a 14" Pro model... but .. honestly, I have reason to believe it is not worth the stretch $$$ wise. I'm thinking of getting an M1 Air, with 16G RAM and a 1Tb SSd. What do you reckon ? I switched from Logic to Ableton when I switched to a MIDI setup.. a few years ago-- I'm probably gonna use both now.. Probably Logic to Record and Ableton to play live. I mainly write music.. 90% MIDI and VSTs... and a little % of Audio... mostly Guitars & bass. Are you happy with your Air.. or are you upgrading to the Pro models ? Cheers from Portugal
I've been struggling with this decision for a while, not that i can afford anything but had finally settled on m1pro fully loaded as soon as i can afford it. I figured that's going to be next year anyways so a lot of the vsts i use will run natively by then. Thanks for the video! Very timely.
Thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for this evening as I am looking to buy a new MacBook and was wondering if the new MacBook Pro could handle Ableton (my 2019 Mac Air cannot). I'll look into the M1 Mac Air maybe. Thanks.
From your point of view I get that with a laptop it breaks down. But my baystation never gets any problems still have an old pc here that still runs to this day.. And every laptop I've owned? Has broke. When you use decent parts for a PC they last forever..
Spot on. Personally I might hold out for the 2022 though. Maybe get a used mid 15 Pro till then. Should retain value well. It's just a tool. I'm not loyal to any particular brand of hammers either.
Which is the best UPDATED guide to optimize Windows 10 for Audio? any links please? I've seen several ones giving the SAME tips they used to give for windows xp! 🤣
the best tip is to forget crappy USB Protocol and go Thunderbolt or get a RME PCIe Card .. its worth it... if you do that (like myself) optimizing windows is no longer a '"must do"
I need help. I saw a refurbished MacBook 2019 i9 with 64GB RAM 2TB SSD for $2200 should I get that over the new M1 with 1TB and 32GB RAM for $3100? My budget is a little tight and I could really use the extra money I save.
I agree with you 100% I have a pc all in one pc and it runs ableton fine for what I do but I want the portability and efficiency of the m1s I will get a apple laptop for my travel studio for sure
Boss that M1 is a bad Boy and is so off the Chain, I have a Ryzen 5 Laptop 64 gb 4Tb SSD, and 4Tb SATA, 6 cores 12 threads, GTX 1650 Nvidia it is a Beast! I"m not challenging the Silicone MAC Processor but I'm not buying one either. 1 those MAC Machines OS is not compatible with a lot of plugins and yes I am reading about their incredible performances and they are very impressive. IMOP they are way over priced! My Desktop is even is smashing my Laptop and yes I built it and configured it for Audio and Videos, and they both are Super Quiet. Now to buy a Apple Machine to do what my Desktop does I would have to spend at least $8500 💵's. I use S1! I am interested in Live 11 and would like to use with S1 because of ARA and how they work together Simultaneously. 40% sounds super Good to Me. I love your Video. I don't need what I use to be better. I just want it to be as good. When a person, place, or thing is as Good. Now you have Options👍.
Really enjoyed this video. You're a very funny guy and that earned you a like and a subscribe 🙂 As for the Apple M1 silicon, I totally agree. I have a lot of Apple products (iPads, Apple TV, iPhone, Apple Watch) but I never had a Mac computer; always used PC's my entire life. That is until recently. I bought a Mac Mini M1 because of all the reasons you mentioned. I'm still awaiting delivery on it but I'm very excited. And I'm exited about Apple's next moves with their M silicon technology. Will have a look at your training courses too!
I wanna know now that Ableton is m1 native, how well does it perform on an M1 Macbook Air base model with 8 gigs of RAM? Do we still need 16 gigs for this?
Yeah! It’s true. I switched into a Mac back in 2013.. That one still uses my daughter. I have a maxed 2017 MacBook Pro and sooner or later I’ll go for M1max cause I’m architect during days so maxed MacBook will earn for itself:)
Apple Silicon is game changing. Apple OS has always rained superior over Windows. Dongles are so cheap and can be put out of sight with only one or two cables poking out of your laptop. I have been using the M1 Mac for a year with no issues (besides Massive X not running due to requiring specific GPU hardware) but Native Instruments fixed that several months ago. There is now a slight issue with Massive X running on Monterey OS, but I’m sure that’ll be addressed soon.
I've got an intel MacBook Pro and the fan noise is my biggest pain indeed, when recording or even mixing, and the only issue I would like to get rid forever. I've been eyeing on M1 macs (the mac mini), but one of the limitation of the base M1 is it only supports 1 external display without workarounds, I can't wait for the M1Pro mac mini just because the new 14" seems to have fan noise and the 16" is yet another 3000 euros around here, only 2 years after spending as much sigh... I'll keep my current for portability with lighter sets. One question please: how is the native M1 Ableton beta work with plugins, I know most of them were compatible via Rosetta, but natively I've heard a lot of them weren't compatible yet (like they actually won't work with the native beta)?
its on the devs now. with Ableton about to release the silicon native version, and with many other daws such as logic and reaper being silicon native, these plugin devs are really feeling the pressure. The latest silicon build of Live now allows au plugins to still be used rosetta, which i think is an awesome compromise while we wait.
@@Burnout_AU ive been thiniing of designing a live rig around using a mini and an ipad as the screen. Any experience with using an ipad as the display?
14" seems to have fun noise??? It's gonna be very low, you know that. Most of comparison on the internet are crap, as they compare the real noise with the FAN manually turned ON but they don't focus on warmth handling and power efficiency of the unit itself, which is outstandingly good! So the M1 very rarely requires the FAN to work, whereas the INTEL mac just relied on it for pretty much any CPU load...
If only Native Instruments would speed up their native M1 support, most if not all major companies are already there. I made the switch to M1 earlier this year. PC parts were either not available, or were overpriced. At the same time the M1 was available and reasonably priced, so I made the jump. No regrets. From day 1 everything was running great, and not a single plugin I had to part with after switching to MacOS.
Running a base model refurbed 13" MBP with M1 chip and Ableton Beta and it's... insane. I run a LOT of chains and plugs and still only hitting about 30% CPU. Spent most of my production time before freezing tracks and now it's just having fun.
Hi Anthony @Seed to Stage thanks this was super helpful, however I was wondering how much RAM you have? I've seen a lot of debates on the interwebs about 8gb not being enough for large projects, or in the future, thanks!
I've been trying to like Apple computers since we first got those Color back macs in elementary but I just don't like the OS layout, look & feel. No matter how much I use one (sometimes a year straight) it still feels alien and awkward to me, any solutions?
You can get good results with either OS. If you like Windows better, then keep using it. Most of the issues you have with a PC getting older can mitigated if you refresh your OS every so often.
Will all m4l devices work with the m1 chips once Ableton for m1 is released? It’s past time for me to upgrade my computer, but so much of my process is based max for live devices. I’ve got hardware that would become useless without these devises.
@@SeedtoStage super good news! Thanks for getting back to me. One step closer to the upgrade. I hadn’t considered the MacBook air until I saw your video. Im going to look a bit deeper into that and the mini. That makes things cheaper, and by that, I mean more possible. Thanks for the videos!
Love this channel, Man. It was interesting that you did not mention hard drive configuration. Ableton recommends a three drive config even for Apple. However I am likely an edge case in this regard as I am trying to capture many parallel live inputs with Ableton being the primary effects unit for a robust guitar, bass, and multiple vocal chain signal flow. I am in the process of a clean boot and implementation of this three drive config… hoping to see some real improvement with the two extra drives.
Yeah I think the HD recs are outdated because of the sheer speed of newer tech. I haven't put the air to the test yet but I've recorded 32 tracks simultaneously to an external drive with my old MacBook and it never broke a sweat.
and the m1pro and m1max SSDs are twice as fast as last year's drives, even faster as you get higher capacity. the internal drives are much faster than any external drive you can get. i'll be going for the 2tb when i upgrade, just waiting for the m1pro/max mac mini
Right now there is only one reason left why one would go pc instead of Mac: you also want to game on it and it’s not your profession. In any other circumstances Apple silicon for the win
And have lots of fair price HW expansions and for me expecially 4 Monitors. The Monitors are really great for phases of creativity and writing. Also i use it for Streaming and use 13 USB ports at once without looking crazy on your Desk.
Actually, that's not true. I use to love Apple, and wouldn't consider using anything else. Then they got caught programming the iPhones to slow down after a certain amount of time so people would be forced to buy a new one. To me, that's no different than stealing from your customers. If you stole from the Apple store, you wouldn't be allowed back in. I just have the same policy.
Hi, I agree that a mac laptop is probably the best platform for audio production and mostly live performance, esp. since the release of M1 chip. It works faster and is more stable, although i didn't like my MBP 16 and ended up selling it. But I would disagree with the part mentioning that even with one is not touring, why would he give up portability ? If your studio is not meant to be carried around, with synths plugged all around, then upgrability should be the main criteria for your system. I see Windows/Mac comparisons everywhere in favor of MBP, which is fine, but what about desktop systems ? A Ryzen or Intel desktop setup is dead stable for years now, not mentioning that i dont need a laptop on my desk when i produce. At this point i think both systems are so stable and powerful nowadays that it really doesnt matter regarding which one to choose - just use the one you are familiar with.
I guess mainly because the new platforms allow usb c connectivity to entire systems with power using one cable. (hds interfaces cameras etc) And tbh an m1 pro chip can deliver similar performances to giant intel tower builds.
You have give tu us a very important information, we are music producer and we need to have the right tool for the job. Please if it is possible can you give me the spect or your M Mac. Thank you very much.
Nice Video, but for me as an Desktop PC user i have no fan noise too, have 4 Monitors and using over 10 Usb Ports without exteacost for overpriced Adapters. M1 are truly worth a look, but i think Apple would "their" development money back ;)
The big question for me is how do you deal with storage expansion? What are the options if you need more? My current libraries are about 1TB alone, just the libraries.
Cool thing about the m1 is their usb c ports have such a fast transfer speed that they rival internal drives. Long story short you can put your libraries on externals if need be. You can also buy them with up to 2 tb of internal storage.
@@SeedtoStage Thank you. After I asked I went to the Apple site and I notice you can even go up to 4TB !! in the biggest models, of course the price rise to the sky. I'm still not sure about installing the libraries to an external drive.... not even sure if that's possible (I'm talking about kontakt and 3rd party orchestral libraries). And even if possible, I wonder if the external disk will keep up with the performance. I suppose I can enclose a NMVE disk and connect it by USB-C.... that woud be the fastest external disk possible.
@@cesar_m.p. the thing is my m1 air has usb 4 thunderbolt ports that have a transfer speed of 20/gb per second. I'd imagine any amount of demand could be addressed for audio. Video on the other hand might get sticky but i mean thats SO FAST.
@@SeedtoStage Great!, I get it. That's about 2500MBps which is faster than most NVME disks, so external disks will be as faster as internal ones 😎. Thanks for replying!
I can’t wait to get a M1. I definitely started on a pc and totally would have went further if I didn’t find a refurbished Mac for like a 1/4 the cost it was when it came out. This has gone for 5years no problems except the tracking pad but hey I have a mouse and I gladly think I got my 800 dollars worth in this 5 years
I still can't choke out my Intel i9 9900KS w/ 64GB of system RAM. Massive plugin chains, 35+ MIDI and or Audio tracks, 128ms sample rate at 48KHz while driving outboard gear too. Combined with my Tascam 20x20 and Arturia Audiofuse 8 Pre in ADAT configuration audio interfaces set to 128ms sample rate but can drop down to a blistering 8ms if I need to but I do not; my AIO CPU cooled i9 maybe creeps up to 50% utilization in Ableton Live 11 with everything cranking away. And even then, Windows 10 only shows 4 of my 8 cores actually doing anything. 🤷🏾♀️ I think my system is overkill to be honest. I could only imagine an AMD Thread-Ripper or Ryzen 5k series build rocking 64GBs+ of system ram. Also, I can literally load all of my most intensive Kontakt VSTi's directly into system RAM and play them stutter and glitch free. Kinda crazy.
@marq lmfao
@marq lmao. Great comment honestly, but the tower costs half the price. Built a 9900k tower for under a grand, and it’s great. I’d like to eventually upgrade to M1 though as well, but the price difference is nutty.
I‘m using a Mac mini with 16 GB ram and a 1TB SSD. Have recently checked the beta and it‘s already working very well and really fast. But there is still a good way to go for some of the plug-in makers to have everything in native apple silicon code. Looking forward to seeing it 👍
First off, love your channel, i really dig the topics you choose to cover, and your efficient way of covering them.
I started doing audio work on computers back in the 1990s; ive seen the mac vs. pc debate going on foreverrrrrrrrr
imo, the debate mattered more back a decade ago; there were for a long time serious differences in HW+SW compatibility, issues w/ timing stability, how different platforms handled background processes that interfere with audio drivers, etc...
but by 2021... its really at this point just sort of a preference thing. i think this video (useful! and insightful) is really mostly about 'if you're primarily running a laptop'.
in my case i always have done work at home on a PC i built myself specifically for music. Heat and noise were never an issue (while my on my 2006-2010 mac laptops, it aways was); these days, performance is so good from mainstream CPUs that audio is quickly becoming 'too easy to do'. You're not going to get into much trouble on either platform (unless! its a live performance rig, but then only 'maybe'). I am very into the new M1 processors, and the efficiency they offer. Am seriously considering an M1 mac mini for my next 'core workstation'. But the point you made about 'lack of i/o' is a real issue. Lots of people don't just do 100% ITB work all the time. You've also got lots of peripherals and all those things need to be plug+play, and play nice w/ every platform. In some cases its better to have an "old" (read: established) technology for music because you can just be sure everything is going to work. ffs, I still regularly use shareware music apps that were made for windows XP. More importantly, every time computer base technology changes, lots of legacy audio interfaces become defunct (this happened w/ me and my frontier designs cards more than a decade ago) i'm sure the current mainsteam guys will all do updated drivers for M1 chips. But its not something i'd rush into blindly. Basically, i see no reason for people to ever become early adopters of any new platform for something like music production. You should always wait until everyone in the industry has already fully established support, or else in some cases you'll find certain older pieces of gear (or sw) you have are now just unusable.
but w/e. just my 0.02$. making music imo isn't really a matter of needing 'the best computer' anymore. if anything its people needing to find better workflows to learn to do simple things fast. Which your channel btw is very good at talking about, so kudos.
Appreciate your comment my UA-cam friend! Did you get the Mac or any Apple hw for music? Can't believe I gotta consider an Apple laptop for live music (DJing).. I pretty much hate Apple lol
I have had none of the issues you talk about on PC in maybe a decade, never needed to 'tune windows for audio' and I do some BIG sets with tons of plugins, I haven't updated a driver in years Win10 does that. So yeah we have had very different experiences but your point about the M1 processors is very on point and impossible to argue with intelligently. I do worry about plugin compatibility as I use a lot of different VST, is that a problem with M1 processors?
AU Plugins (Mac-only plugins) are all supported because they follow the AUv2/3 (Audio Unit) standard format. VSTs will be harder as the binary (or wrapper in some cases) would need to be recompiled to support the aarch64 architecture.
I just ordered a 16" M1 Pro, I'm really excited to make music on it
Same but the order takes ages, a week now and still not even send on the way even though they said it was in stock.
Good lord, thank you for just saying a thing out loud. I almost didn't care what it was as long as I didn't get to the end of the video just to have you say "whatever suits your workflow best." I know sometimes thats the best answer, but also sometimes #data.
I tried to do music on computers for 20 years and I never ever had reached the point where I could get constant fun out of it for the reason that my PC based machines constantly came up with new issues that kept me from making music but instead I had to try to fix those issues in time consuming google searches (btw, I'm a computer engineer and would say I know my stuff, but not all internals of windows that could go wrong...).
And when I got it running... there was the fan...
So most time of my (hobby-) music career, I stuck with my guitar and my amp... Just switch it on and it works. That is more or less what I expect of my hobby.
Now, there is this company Apple, which I always avoided due to it's restrictive policy (and due to the prices of and fans in their computer products) that came up with those M1 processors and the MacBook Air which does not hava a fan... So, I gave it a try and since I have it, I'm just as blown away as all other reviewers of this little machine and I totally agree with everything that is mentioned here in this video.
For me, the MacBook Air M1 is the best ever computer to make music on and I doubt that I ever will reach it's limits for what I am doing with it. And it just works!
Next thing I do is to get this M1 beta from Ableton...
Hello! Hows the air working with ableton?
sorry for late response....
well, first of all, I'm not a pro.
I'm fidling around with Audio and DAWs an recrding for about 2 decades. But it was always some iind of hobby, by which I got annoyed very fast, when my computer "decided" for whatever reason, that all my settings regarding audio, from last week are worthless today, because everything was cracking and delaying again... It was a mess and I never spend the continous work in keep everything running.
But to make it clear: Sometimes, I went all the way down to DPC latency checkers and stuff, in order to fix it. But it was always a temporary fix....
Now, regarding the Macbook Air M1: I bought it, installed Ableton on it and it runs just flawless since about a year now. I'm totally happy with it. The first time in 20 years, I can focus on making music instead of figuring out, why it is not working.
I also recently tested the native M1 build of Ableton but I don't see a major performance boost to the Rosetta driven Intel build. Since I have Native Instruments plugins (e.g. Guitar Rig 6) I still use the Intel build and as said above: I'm totally happy!
@@Kiamur Hello, would you mind if I ask do you have the 8GB or 16GB version? And how many tracks and busses do you usually deal with? Also, do you use a lot of VSTs? I'm actually considering the Macbook Air M1 for music production. My workflow usually consists of recording acoustic guitar, vocals, cajon by mic, and piano by MIDI, and usually I'll be dealing with not more than 12 tracks per project, with some reverbs and delays busses. Also some simple video editing with nothing too crazy. Would you think the Air will work for me?
@@namede6210 Sorry for not answering earlier... Unfortunately, Google does not notify me, when there are comments to my comments...
To the point: I'm not a professional at all, but the stuff you are going to do seems to be managable by the M1 Air.
I have the highest end M1 Air, which means, I have 16GB of RAM.
My biggest project was about 12 audio tracks, where I doubled lots of guitar and vocals. The guitar was using Guitar Rig 6 from Native Instruments. The Vocals were using stock plugins from Live.
For drums I use Eazy Drums 2 from Toontrack.
I do not use busses (I'm a hobbyist... ;) ), but I had one of the stock master plugins in the master channel. The CPU workload was not at it's limit with this project.
Hope this still helps after such long time after the question was asked....
2014 15inch MacBook user here. Works like a dream. CPU overload during heavy processing sessions but nothing track freezing can’t solve
Great vid, well thought through.
As a PC (current i9900k) and Mac ( current 2015 mbp) user, PCs generally give more grief (as more variance in parts and configuration) but when you have issues with a mac they take longer to sort and make less sense, imo. Had gpu issues with the mac that took a really long time to sort out and the solution was bonkers. Backwards compatibility tends to be more of an issue on macs too.
I worked at Apple about 15 years ago, and at least back then, all the "Geniuses" preferred refurbs because they actually get MORE testing than new product off the line. Anyway, thanks for the vid!
Holy shit. I have always suspected this.
Hi, I had a MacBook Air M1 ITB SSD 8core, sold it and got myself a MacBook Pro late 2019 2.4 Ghz i9 2TB SSD 32 GB RAM Radeon Pro 5500M 8GB.
I sold the M1 because I wanted 2 monitors, and no hassle with dongles. I get 128 tracks on the i9 and with TGPRO no fan noise. I was really impressed with the M1 but sold it to a developer. The i9 can handle all I throw at it, both are great machines. I got the mac i9 for a really good price and with a little extra cash I bought an ipad pro 12.9 certified refurbished from apple like new. I bought all synths on the ipad pro and use a motu 2 to load the sound into the MBP i9. Ableton link is a great feature. I use an Air2 128 Gb as a remote for LogicPro with some other cool apps. Mac's are great with that. Enjoyed your video keep up the good work.
Im running Ableton on my 2009 5,1 mac pro tower. I upgraded it last year with 32 GB ram, SSD’s for system and sample library and faster CPU, as well as an upgraded OS. I run into cpu hits on hungry plugins with too many un rendered tracks. I changed my workflow a bit by sketching on Maschine and turning everything into 8-16 measure loops and then import into Ableton.
Im waiting for the next mac mini with M1 Pro or Max before i finally upgrade. Ive been using Macs for 30 years and had been recently considering PCs for gaming and music until the parts shortage and M1 releases hit. Im still wanting to build a gaming PC but now I don’t care about making music on it.
Could you maybe do an in depth real world test with the M1 Air?
In the wake of the all new Macbook Pro 14 and 16 inch releases I'm considering buying one of them instead of an M1 Air. But, since it's about a 1000€ difference in price in the EU I'm wondering if it's worth it.
You would probably be the only person on UA-cam giving a fair and educated review of the machine.
Everyone else is leaving out key parts and not really showing real world workflows. How well does it work with Kontakt instruments? How many analog emulation synths like Diva can you use simultaneously? How does it handle 100+ tracks of audio for people with microediting workflows? What about max for live and max MSP? How is the battery life during audio production? What is the latency like when recording and performing?
Damn man I want an answer to this badly
From what I've seen don't buy the 14", exact same performance than the 16" but at the price of higher temperature therefore more fan noise!
using a '21 air w live 11 and the only time ive ever had problems was working outside in the middle of the summer, due to lack of on board cooling the cpu would throttle really early. other than that it's been smooth af and super portable.
i also run ableton on an eluktronics mag 15 gaming laptop and it's been great but required more tinkering when other hardware was involved due to latency issues
i should note, i paid around $1600 to get the fully upgraded air with 16 gb RAM
@@purplism4857 so are you using lots of heavy cpu plugins etc?
+100 to buying a refurb Mac. Your experience was the same as mine: if there was a common issue, they will have fixed it. I've never had to service a refurb other than keyboard and battery issues that most had.
I think people underestimate how long it takes for new technology to make it's way into the entire development toolchain infrastructure. The length of time to port software to M1, M1 graphics issues, M1 security, all these things take iterations and time. DSP developers depend on specific Intel instructions that have been there for over a decade, this is no small thing. M1 competes with the likes of Intel/AMD/NVIDIA. Windows has the best development environment for DSP, games, everything, and that attracts developers. Windows also allows deeper control of performance profiles that means your track won't swap to a much slower core that will realtime affect your sound processing chain. Mac is becoming more of a consumer device. For all these reasons, after 25 years of Mac, I built a windows audio PC and switched, actually, I run both as I have the abominable MBP intel. The downside of PC is I had to figure out some pretty low level details like secure boot, memory integrity protection, CPU step modes, Thunderbolt 4 on Windows. It is no easy journey. MacOS is definitely easier and support (mac store/genius) is amazing. Windows, if you can master it, gives you a much broader and cheaper infrastructure of machines to access. Intel's latest gen is already equivalent to M1 and NVIDIA GPU is better. The vertical integration by Apple is unbeatable from a simplicity standpoint. But if you can handle the overhead, I think the PC ecosystem with Windows has a lot more to offer.
Dude.. this video is on point. As soon as I heard about the heat and power performance of the M1 chip, I realized that my next music production computer was probably gonna have to be a Mac... and this is coming from a life-long PC user. The new Macs just have too much going for them. Thanks so much for covering this in depth.
Side Note: I've been naughty... so I may take you up on your lessons + Ableton offer. I've watched countless music tutorials on youtube and you are, easily, one of the best teachers out there!
If you don't need a laptop I recommend the M1 Mac mini. You get the whole power package for 700 bucks!
@@quinxx12 I will definitely have to look into that, thanks!
Imagine having to turn off all visualisers on every instance of EQ eight you use on a fresh out of the box MacBook Pro
Your comparison using the Prius vs Mustang really did age well, Prius are mad fast in 2023, lets see their reliability.
Well said! I will be taking your course just as soon as I find a new Mac
I compared Ableton Live 11.1.1 on Macbook Air M1, 512 gb, 8 gb ram to a Lenovo Yoga Pro 7 Slim (i5 11300H) 512 gb, 16 gb ram. Same project, same plugins, same everything. The Macbook Air M1 is consistently using 10 percentage points lower CPU load. No issues what so ever on any of them. The Lenovo was 300$ cheaper.
With a same audio interface, do they sound same?
Yes
Which computer is the best to use? because my Microsoft is not running Ableton
this is why I'm moving to Mac, because no matter how much I work to get my personally built PC from 2014 to optimize for music, windows 10 just won't allow for it. It worked flawlessly on windows 7.
Yeah, I use both a Mac and a PC for my productions. I tend to favor Apple for the stability but hate everything the company stands for : the price gouging, the constant change of ports, the soldering of parts but yeah, my M1 mac mini is the best value computer for music production and without the compatibility issues.
DUDE WTF!! I almost finished your video before realizing I saw you perform a couple of weeks ago at Pryes in Minneapolis. To make matters worse Ive been a subscriber to your YT channel 😅. Lmao, great set! Keep up the content!
This really cleared a lot up for me, thanks a ton.
I was thinking about getting rid of my M1 and switching to a Razer 14, yet I haven't heard it put exactly like this.
The point in which you stated that Apple does some pretty cringy things as a company hit home hard and is why I want to leave them all together. However, it helped even more that you pointed out to not be completely on one side either way.
This helps my decision to purchase a pc for mild gaming and usability, and keep my M1 for my professional work with Ableton.
Great video, keep up the good stuff; thanks again.
Not quite sure whats the Mac vs Pc argument all about. I have & use both...PC wise I have a Lenovo Thinkpad 12 gb Ram amd Ryzen5 & a 2015 15" Macbook Pro with a Quad core i7 processor, 16 gb ram...They both run the same Ableton with the same plugins & I have absolutely no problems with both.I use both interchangeably studio Production wise & also as my live onstage keys rigs...Musicians just need to stop the fanboying sh%t regarding platforms & learn to embrace both worlds.
I just gave my dad my 2012 MacBook because he needed a computer and I have so much music on there. I have and m1 air too and it’s a monster
Having made music on PCs for over 20 years, this is the first time ever I've been persuaded to consider a Mac. Sounds like a game changer. Thanks for the video 🙏
Thanku so much i was really confused about buying m1 air u literally cleared all my doubts
What's the difference between m1 mini, m1 air, and m1 pro? I'm leaning towards the m1 air
Huh! None of my PC's have ever needed "servicing" EVER. lmao.
I love the overhead view GTA
Got both - I give it to Mac for one reason - plug-in management.
This was awesome! I am not a fan of Apple at all and it's not because of their products (another discussion for another time) but currently they seem to have a slight advantage for musicians/producers. I appreciate your honesty as well as your informative videos!
Slight? When I think of anyone in my circle of producers - none of them are using PC. Thats my experience
I had a '97 Mac tower which was feeling old. I upgraded the processors to dual 3.46ghz/6 core Intel Xeon, 128g ram Radeon Saphire gfx card.....all of that was pretty affordable on a Mac I already owned. It's now a 64bit capable unit with almost 10TB storage. I run Live 10 as the legacy plug-in's all still work. Useful video, thx
Hey Anthony. Just started looking for a new computer for production. Does your recommendation still stand over a year later?
And what about with the M2?
And sorry for all the questions, but with a Silicon will I need more than 8 gigs of RAM?
2:34 Thats some statement.. I could say the same about mac users. Macs have just as much hangups and issues than a well build pc when you try to make it do anything else but the most basic stuff. Been there done that.. I have a dell optiplex that I use for 3d cad/internet browsing and its running 24/7 because I hate having to boot it up when I need to draw something fast. And its been running without a reboot for months perfectly stable. 🤷♂ My i7 12650h music production nuc same story. I leave it running over night because it hardly uses any power in idle and it too is perfectly stable.
Best vid on this area! what would you recommend for today late 2022?
This is exactly the info I was looking for. Very useful/ helpful. Thanks 👊
I always like your videos, man. Thanks for this one. Very pertinent one, I must say.
I tried a Mac mini M1 over the summer but the ports issue really put me off, so I returned it.
I now got a 14" Pro model... but .. honestly, I have reason to believe it is not worth the stretch $$$ wise.
I'm thinking of getting an M1 Air, with 16G RAM and a 1Tb SSd.
What do you reckon ?
I switched from Logic to Ableton when I switched to a MIDI setup.. a few years ago--
I'm probably gonna use both now.. Probably Logic to Record and Ableton to play live.
I mainly write music.. 90% MIDI and VSTs... and a little % of Audio... mostly Guitars & bass.
Are you happy with your Air.. or are you upgrading to the Pro models ?
Cheers from Portugal
I heard ram was always the issue with ableton. Is the mac air okay for production and mastering not shows.
Thanks Buddy, I'll be signing up for you course too.
Popcorn ready!! Great content, thank you friend new producer and need to upgrade soon 😁
I've been struggling with this decision for a while, not that i can afford anything but had finally settled on m1pro fully loaded as soon as i can afford it. I figured that's going to be next year anyways so a lot of the vsts i use will run natively by then.
Thanks for the video! Very timely.
If you don’t mind me asking, how has your experience been?
"It's called Ableton.. not dis-Ableton."
Priceless!
Thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for this evening as I am looking to buy a new MacBook and was wondering if the new MacBook Pro could handle Ableton (my 2019 Mac Air cannot). I'll look into the M1 Mac Air maybe. Thanks.
From your point of view I get that with a laptop it breaks down. But my baystation never gets any problems still have an old pc here that still runs to this day.. And every laptop I've owned? Has broke. When you use decent parts for a PC they last forever..
Value the insight! as well as the trailer park boys reference, rock on
Spot on. Personally I might hold out for the 2022 though. Maybe get a used mid 15 Pro till then. Should retain value well.
It's just a tool. I'm not loyal to any particular brand of hammers either.
You’ve given the best explanation ever for Mac vs PC! Thank you!
Which is the best UPDATED guide to optimize Windows 10 for Audio? any links please? I've seen several ones giving the SAME tips they used to give for windows xp! 🤣
the best tip is to forget crappy USB Protocol and go Thunderbolt or get a RME PCIe Card .. its worth it... if you do that (like myself) optimizing windows is no longer a '"must do"
@@aloahe4807 true to that
I need help. I saw a refurbished MacBook 2019 i9 with 64GB RAM 2TB SSD for $2200 should I get that over the new M1 with 1TB and 32GB RAM for $3100? My budget is a little tight and I could really use the extra money I save.
I agree with you 100% I have a pc all in one pc and it runs ableton fine for what I do but I want the portability and efficiency of the m1s I will get a apple laptop for my travel studio for sure
Congrats man for the video! Straight on point!
Hello where can we see your live performance and band ? Thanks
Boss that M1 is a bad Boy and is so off the Chain, I have a Ryzen 5 Laptop 64 gb 4Tb SSD, and 4Tb SATA, 6 cores 12 threads, GTX 1650 Nvidia it is a Beast! I"m not challenging the Silicone MAC Processor but I'm not buying one either. 1 those MAC Machines OS is not compatible with a lot of plugins and yes I am reading about their incredible performances and they are very impressive. IMOP they are way over priced! My Desktop is even is smashing my Laptop and yes I built it and configured it for Audio and Videos, and they both are Super Quiet. Now to buy a Apple Machine to do what my Desktop does I would have to spend at least $8500 💵's. I use S1! I am interested in Live 11 and would like to use with S1 because of ARA and how they work together Simultaneously. 40% sounds super Good to Me. I love your Video. I don't need what I use to be better. I just want it to be as good. When a person, place, or thing is as Good. Now you have Options👍.
Really enjoyed this video. You're a very funny guy and that earned you a like and a subscribe 🙂
As for the Apple M1 silicon, I totally agree. I have a lot of Apple products (iPads, Apple TV, iPhone, Apple Watch) but I never had a Mac computer; always used PC's my entire life. That is until recently. I bought a Mac Mini M1 because of all the reasons you mentioned. I'm still awaiting delivery on it but I'm very excited. And I'm exited about Apple's next moves with their M silicon technology.
Will have a look at your training courses too!
what kind of Mac M2 can you recommend for 40-50 tracks?
I wanna know now that Ableton is m1 native, how well does it perform on an M1 Macbook Air base model with 8 gigs of RAM? Do we still need 16 gigs for this?
Yeah! It’s true. I switched into a Mac back in 2013.. That one still uses my daughter. I have a maxed 2017 MacBook Pro and sooner or later I’ll go for M1max cause I’m architect during days so maxed MacBook will earn for itself:)
What computer are you using?
Would you say it's important to upgrade to 16gb unified mem, or is 8gb plenty for a hobbyist/amateur?
Apple Silicon is game changing. Apple OS has always rained superior over Windows. Dongles are so cheap and can be put out of sight with only one or two cables poking out of your laptop. I have been using the M1 Mac for a year with no issues (besides Massive X not running due to requiring specific GPU hardware) but Native Instruments fixed that several months ago. There is now a slight issue with Massive X running on Monterey OS, but I’m sure that’ll be addressed soon.
Been waiting for some black Friday deals to get a Mac and Ableton Suite with Push 2.
This is the way
This was the definitive video to push me over to an M1. As always, thanks!
I've got an intel MacBook Pro and the fan noise is my biggest pain indeed, when recording or even mixing, and the only issue I would like to get rid forever. I've been eyeing on M1 macs (the mac mini), but one of the limitation of the base M1 is it only supports 1 external display without workarounds, I can't wait for the M1Pro mac mini just because the new 14" seems to have fan noise and the 16" is yet another 3000 euros around here, only 2 years after spending as much sigh... I'll keep my current for portability with lighter sets.
One question please: how is the native M1 Ableton beta work with plugins, I know most of them were compatible via Rosetta, but natively I've heard a lot of them weren't compatible yet (like they actually won't work with the native beta)?
its on the devs now. with Ableton about to release the silicon native version, and with many other daws such as logic and reaper being silicon native, these plugin devs are really feeling the pressure. The latest silicon build of Live now allows au plugins to still be used rosetta, which i think is an awesome compromise while we wait.
@@SeedtoStage oh wow I didn't know about the rosetta on the native ableton, yay!! And thanks for answering me this quick, I love your content!
@@Burnout_AU ive been thiniing of designing a live rig around using a mini and an ipad as the screen. Any experience with using an ipad as the display?
14" seems to have fun noise??? It's gonna be very low, you know that. Most of comparison on the internet are crap, as they compare the real noise with the FAN manually turned ON but they don't focus on warmth handling and power efficiency of the unit itself, which is outstandingly good! So the M1 very rarely requires the FAN to work, whereas the INTEL mac just relied on it for pretty much any CPU load...
If only Native Instruments would speed up their native M1 support, most if not all major companies are already there. I made the switch to M1 earlier this year. PC parts were either not available, or were overpriced. At the same time the M1 was available and reasonably priced, so I made the jump. No regrets. From day 1 everything was running great, and not a single plugin I had to part with after switching to MacOS.
Chugging! Great video - keep it up dude
Selling my van and buying an m1 ASAP
Sweet. Just reinforced my decision to switch to Apple. My new iMac arrives next week!
Hi is the Macbook air m1 have only 256gb and 8gb ram ? Or I can get more ?
I want to switch to the Mac...but the screens seem so small and I'm not familiar with the OS. I really need to upgrade.
Pro or Studio and how many cores an ram for 40 - 50 Tracks in a production set?
I'm planning to upgrade ableton 9 to 11. If I take your course, am I gonna benefit from your 40% discount with black friday discount?
Running a base model refurbed 13" MBP with M1 chip and Ableton Beta and it's... insane. I run a LOT of chains and plugs and still only hitting about 30% CPU. Spent most of my production time before freezing tracks and now it's just having fun.
Is 8gb of ram good enough with the m1 macs?
...which one is the most privacy capable?
Super useful and timely. Great job.
I also have a 2012 macbook pro. I'd love to know more about the changes you make to your computer. Great video and I subscribed to your channel :)
I added 16 gb ram and a SSD. Works like a charm. Massive improvement of performance.
Hi Anthony @Seed to Stage thanks this was super helpful, however I was wondering how much RAM you have? I've seen a lot of debates on the interwebs about 8gb not being enough for large projects, or in the future, thanks!
He has 16
I've been trying to like Apple computers since we first got those Color back macs in elementary but I just don't like the OS layout, look & feel.
No matter how much I use one (sometimes a year straight) it still feels alien and awkward to me, any solutions?
Haha once you full screen ableton it doesn't matter which you use, visually they will be the exact same.
You can get good results with either OS. If you like Windows better, then keep using it. Most of the issues you have with a PC getting older can mitigated if you refresh your OS every so often.
analogy was on point😳👍
This was pretty informative. Thank you! What is the name of the dock you are using?
What about plugins. Do they seamlessly run under Rosetta?... Or do you have to wait for the developers to recompile for m1?
I've only got a few issues. Everyting works on Rosetta, only Softube still playing catch up on M1.
Will all m4l devices work with the m1 chips once Ableton for m1 is released? It’s past time for me to upgrade my computer, but so much of my process is based max for live devices. I’ve got hardware that would become useless without these devises.
M4l devices work right now in the silicon native public beta.
@@SeedtoStage super good news! Thanks for getting back to me. One step closer to the upgrade. I hadn’t considered the MacBook air until I saw your video. Im going to look a bit deeper into that and the mini. That makes things cheaper, and by that, I mean more possible. Thanks for the videos!
Love this channel, Man. It was interesting that you did not mention hard drive configuration. Ableton recommends a three drive config even for Apple. However I am likely an edge case in this regard as I am trying to capture many parallel live inputs with Ableton being the primary effects unit for a robust guitar, bass, and multiple vocal chain signal flow. I am in the process of a clean boot and implementation of this three drive config… hoping to see some real improvement with the two extra drives.
Yeah I think the HD recs are outdated because of the sheer speed of newer tech. I haven't put the air to the test yet but I've recorded 32 tracks simultaneously to an external drive with my old MacBook and it never broke a sweat.
and the m1pro and m1max SSDs are twice as fast as last year's drives, even faster as you get higher capacity. the internal drives are much faster than any external drive you can get. i'll be going for the 2tb when i upgrade, just waiting for the m1pro/max mac mini
2nd hand Macs and PCs from C.E.X in UK have 2 year guarantees. Some stock has known faults. Caveat emptor
Do you find that the M1 Air thermal throttles while producing music over extended periods of time?
That's only happened once since using it for about 8 months
is the m1 macbook with 8gb gonna be enough for live performance with lots of plugs and things like live auto tune? (vs 16gb) Thx
Right now there is only one reason left why one would go pc instead of Mac: you also want to game on it and it’s not your profession.
In any other circumstances Apple silicon for the win
And have lots of fair price HW expansions and for me expecially 4 Monitors. The Monitors are really great for phases of creativity and writing. Also i use it for Streaming and use 13 USB ports at once without looking crazy on your Desk.
Actually, that's not true. I use to love Apple, and wouldn't consider using anything else. Then they got caught programming the iPhones to slow down after a certain amount of time so people would be forced to buy a new one. To me, that's no different than stealing from your customers. If you stole from the Apple store, you wouldn't be allowed back in. I just have the same policy.
Hi, I agree that a mac laptop is probably the best platform for audio production and mostly live performance, esp. since the release of M1 chip. It works faster and is more stable, although i didn't like my MBP 16 and ended up selling it. But I would disagree with the part mentioning that even with one is not touring, why would he give up portability ? If your studio is not meant to be carried around, with synths plugged all around, then upgrability should be the main criteria for your system. I see Windows/Mac comparisons everywhere in favor of MBP, which is fine, but what about desktop systems ?
A Ryzen or Intel desktop setup is dead stable for years now, not mentioning that i dont need a laptop on my desk when i produce. At this point i think both systems are so stable and powerful nowadays that it really doesnt matter regarding which one to choose - just use the one you are familiar with.
I guess mainly because the new platforms allow usb c connectivity to entire systems with power using one cable. (hds interfaces cameras etc) And tbh an m1 pro chip can deliver similar performances to giant intel tower builds.
Just get the Mac mini if you want a desktop version
Does the discount work on upgrade licenses ? I have 1 suite and want to upgrade to 11 suite .
What About A Hackintosh ?, anyone out there using a hackintosh and running ableton and assorted Plug-ins ???
You mentioned a discord, but I don't see a link for it anywhere?
The disord is reserved for members of my ableton course community. It's exclusive to them.
Another great video. thanks :)
Great video 👍
The problem is that i need to upgrade my soundcard too if i want a new mac and i love my motu 828 mk2:)
You’re good at guitar
You have give tu us a very important information, we are music producer and we need to have the right tool for the job. Please if it is possible can you give me the spect or your M Mac. Thank you very much.
Nice Video, but for me as an Desktop PC user i have no fan noise too, have 4 Monitors and using over 10 Usb Ports without exteacost for overpriced Adapters. M1 are truly worth a look, but i think Apple would "their" development money back ;)
The big question for me is how do you deal with storage expansion? What are the options if you need more? My current libraries are about 1TB alone, just the libraries.
Cool thing about the m1 is their usb c ports have such a fast transfer speed that they rival internal drives. Long story short you can put your libraries on externals if need be. You can also buy them with up to 2 tb of internal storage.
@@SeedtoStage Thank you. After I asked I went to the Apple site and I notice you can even go up to 4TB !! in the biggest models, of course the price rise to the sky. I'm still not sure about installing the libraries to an external drive.... not even sure if that's possible (I'm talking about kontakt and 3rd party orchestral libraries). And even if possible, I wonder if the external disk will keep up with the performance. I suppose I can enclose a NMVE disk and connect it by USB-C.... that woud be the fastest external disk possible.
@@cesar_m.p. the thing is my m1 air has usb 4 thunderbolt ports that have a transfer speed of 20/gb per second. I'd imagine any amount of demand could be addressed for audio. Video on the other hand might get sticky but i mean thats SO FAST.
@@SeedtoStage Great!, I get it. That's about 2500MBps which is faster than most NVME disks, so external disks will be as faster as internal ones 😎. Thanks for replying!
@@cesar_m.p. the drives in the new macbook pros are double that 2500mbps speed - i think 2tb is the sweet spot for capacity/performance
I can’t wait to get a M1. I definitely started on a pc and totally would have went further if I didn’t find a refurbished Mac for like a 1/4 the cost it was when it came out. This has gone for 5years no problems except the tracking pad but hey I have a mouse and I gladly think I got my 800 dollars worth in this 5 years