Hi,
I've been looking to get a new MacBook Pro for music production and decided to go second-hand due to recent price increases. The heaviest thing I'll be doing is using large orchestral sample libraries, but not huge orchestral templates like some people use, so 32GB RAM seems ideal.
I have either the M1 Max, M1 Pro, M2 Pro, or M3 Pro in mind. Of all the models, either the M1 Pro or the M3 Pro seems to represent the sweet spot overall.
With the M1 Pro, I'd be looking at it as a stop-gap machine; it's cheap enough that I wouldn't mind it only lasting a couple more years if OS updates stop coming, and it's not in that grey area like the M2 where it's older but still quite expensive. I can pick up a second-hand model with a 512GB drive and 32GB RAM for around £800/$1100, and of course, I'll likely have to factor in battery replacement at some point.
On the other end, the M3 Pro represents something I'd want to keep for a while. I've found one of these brand new in my local area for £1400/$1900, so perfect condition, no battery issue, 36GB RAM, and 1TB hard drive. This will last me longer and be generally more powerful, but it is much more expensive.
That M3 Pro sounds like a good deal, but the only issue I have is that this particular chip has been found to be potentially problematic for music production.
Because it has only 6 performance cores, as opposed to the 8 of the M1 Pro and M2 Pro, you can load fewer tracks in DAWs like Logic (what I use) than with the older models. This was illuminated primarily by the video linked below, which showed that a stress test found this to be the case.
The question is, will this really matter? The single-core performance is better than the other two, even if it has two fewer efficiency cores, and it will presumably be a better machine than the others outside of Logic.
These stress tests are interesting, but the question is whether it actually tracks with real-world performance. Even if the M3 Pro suffers a bit in this area, it's presumably still a very powerful machine for music production, and it wouldn't really matter if I never hit these theoretical limits.
What do you think? Thanks!
I've been looking to get a new MacBook Pro for music production and decided to go second-hand due to recent price increases. The heaviest thing I'll be doing is using large orchestral sample libraries, but not huge orchestral templates like some people use, so 32GB RAM seems ideal.
I have either the M1 Max, M1 Pro, M2 Pro, or M3 Pro in mind. Of all the models, either the M1 Pro or the M3 Pro seems to represent the sweet spot overall.
With the M1 Pro, I'd be looking at it as a stop-gap machine; it's cheap enough that I wouldn't mind it only lasting a couple more years if OS updates stop coming, and it's not in that grey area like the M2 where it's older but still quite expensive. I can pick up a second-hand model with a 512GB drive and 32GB RAM for around £800/$1100, and of course, I'll likely have to factor in battery replacement at some point.
On the other end, the M3 Pro represents something I'd want to keep for a while. I've found one of these brand new in my local area for £1400/$1900, so perfect condition, no battery issue, 36GB RAM, and 1TB hard drive. This will last me longer and be generally more powerful, but it is much more expensive.
That M3 Pro sounds like a good deal, but the only issue I have is that this particular chip has been found to be potentially problematic for music production.
Because it has only 6 performance cores, as opposed to the 8 of the M1 Pro and M2 Pro, you can load fewer tracks in DAWs like Logic (what I use) than with the older models. This was illuminated primarily by the video linked below, which showed that a stress test found this to be the case.
The question is, will this really matter? The single-core performance is better than the other two, even if it has two fewer efficiency cores, and it will presumably be a better machine than the others outside of Logic.
These stress tests are interesting, but the question is whether it actually tracks with real-world performance. Even if the M3 Pro suffers a bit in this area, it's presumably still a very powerful machine for music production, and it wouldn't really matter if I never hit these theoretical limits.
What do you think? Thanks!
