I honestly was happy with the pro specs when they talked about it. And I would have happily bought that but given they announced the Max it made me even more excited as I tend to keep my machines for a long time.
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M1 Pro vs. M1 Max Buyer's Guide
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It depends on what you mean by music production/creation, it's a very broad field with vastly different demands on gear depending on what you're doing.
If you just want to tinker and make some music using Logic Pro with a bunch of soft synths and plug ins, then a MacBook Air would easily do the trick. But if you're talking about working with huge sample libraries making very dense music (such as full orchestral mockups), or very elaborate electronic music where you want to run as many instances of the most resource-intensive synths and effects without running into CPU overloads, then it's a different ballgame.
For the former, any M-series Mac is up to the task. It really just comes down to things like what size display you'll be happy working with (the Logic interface is a lot more usable on big screens), and having enough RAM and storage to get by. At this level you'd also have pretty modest needs when it comes to audio interfaces and outboard gear, so limited Thunderbolt ports is not likely to be much of an issue.
For the latter, it gets much more complicated. How much CPU grunt you'll need really depends on how big and complex your projects are. How much RAM you need really depends on if you're a big sample library user or not. Being able to use more than one external display becomes important if you're a music composer working in film or TV, so you can run a display for video playback and another one (or more) for your Logic interface and other niceties like an extra display for the virtual mixing console for example. Having more Thunderbolt i/o becomes important if you have a lot of hefty outboard SSDs to run your projects and sound library (which is also possible - if expensive - by upgrading the internal storage on a MacBook Pro to 4TB or more), and also if you need to run multiple audio interfaces and/or other pro audio gear.
If all of the above paragraph went above your head, then you just need an M1 Mac, your choice which one.
In a MBP 14" OR 16" chassis ?
14" 70 Whr battery ( old Intel four port 58Whr so +20% )
16" 100 Whr battery ( old Intel 16" 100Whr so no change )
The "natural" place for the Max is in a 16" chassis. Putting it in the 14" chassis is likely closer to getting back closer to Intel MBP heat and battery life issues with the Max pushing the envelope relatively harder (old 13" got by with just one fan). There was no dGPU in the 13" model so not really getting a big "savings" by dropping the dGPU+VRAM.
Just buy whichever one you want, try it out for a week, and return it. I think when people catch on to how all these youtubers review Apple products and then just return them within 30 days for a full refund and then so many people do that and it affects apples profits, Apple is going to change the return rules. Unfortunately that's the only way you can get one of their products when it comes out, because they won't be in stores for long for a few months. It's messed up.
if you are doing creation on the move and using the built in speakers then the sound system on these new laptops is likely better than on the air. If external speakers only ( headphones or speakers ) that can be normalized across the systems.
The iMac as an option suggests that this is all primarily stationary though.
As another post mentioned, if this is a computationally "heavy" Logic workload then spreading out over more P cores will help. A good way to judge is to go back to system currently using and taking a look at how the CPU is loaded and/or have to "tip toe" around doing "too much" without getting warnings/glitches.
The Max is just as soldered down as the Pro.... It isn't going to necessarily "future proof" much . Especially if either one is gross overkill.
Apple is going to "retire" both at approximately the same time. Paying hundreds more isn't going to change Apple support policies. Apple's vintage and obsolete policies have zero to do with system cost. Nothing. As long as both are superseded in the product line up at the same time they'll be retired at the same time.
Sounds like a good move. I upgraded to a M1 MacBook Pro with 16GB ram last December from a 2009 MacPro and a 2012 MacBook Pro which I still sort of use. I use my M1 for audio editing while at the same time video editing and also uploading to YouTube.
Keep in mind that the Max comes with 32gb minimum. If you were interested in a m1 pro with 32gb, the difference is not as much as you’d think
I've created an animated GIF which highlights the physical relationship between M1 Pro and M1 Max. Both have the identical CPU complex but the Max, with quad channel LPDDR5 and twice the SLC, should have improved CPU performance for memory latency sensitive work loads.
Will have to wait to see specs and reviews, but I would expect the OS to only use the low-power cores when you're not running something demanding, so it shouldn't make a difference. Of course scheduling is tricky and may not work exactly as desired; I'm always shaking my fist at the dGPU/iGPU switching on my work machine (I wanted no gGPU at all, but this is what they gave me).
And if you're maxing out your CPU, yes the faster processor will use more power, but it'll also get the task done more quickly. Idk whether it'll be proportional.
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Question: Will we be able to upgrade the internal SSD drive on these new MBPs, so we don't have to pay the ridiculous Apple price of upgrading an internal drive when we buy?
Not thrilled with having to buy the top of the line 16 inch, but I do a lot of still photography and video editing. So I will have to bite the bullet. I've been using a mid 2014 decked out 15 inch MBP and I now think it is time to bite the bullet. I certainly got my money's worth.
Not thrilled with having to buy the top of the line 16 inch, but I do a lot of still photography and video editing. So I will have to bite the bullet. I've been using a mid 2014 decked out 15 inch MBP and I now think it is time to bite the bullet. I certainly got my money's worth.
Using what software exactly? All the motion graphics software is heavily optimized for CUDA (meaning an NVidia GPU).
Not sure I understand your question. The modules attached to each channel are either 8GB or 16GB. All the channels have identical module sizes and access time will be the same between channels. Between the 8GB and 16GB modules the smaller one should (not always) have faster access but it depends on how the modules are organized (ie height, width, banks).
As someone who will be updating from a mid-2013 MacBook Air, the base model 2021 MBP (M1 Pro with 8-core CPU, 14-core GPU, 16GB RAM) but with an upgrade to a 1TB SSD will be a huge upgrade for me that will do me for another 8 years or so.
Like others have mentioned it really depends on how many tracks and what kind of instruments they are. All the M1 series can handle basic production, but if you're using dozens of tracks of heavily scripted sample libraries for orchestral or film music etc. then the Pro or Max will be a better choice. Plus Logic just came out with new mixing plug ins that cripple good older macs, so realize they aren't staying still.
Think of it this way, because this is how it is. My old 09 Mac Pro with a newer chip installed, 12 core 3.33ghz Xeon gets killed at times by Alchemy patches, and NI Massive X doesn't run on it, no AVX etc. It's a beast of a machine, but modern plugs ins spike it. The M1 will be great for a few years, but at essentially four good Performance cores for music, it won't be long before Logic starts limiting the amount of tracks it can do before processor overloads. The other concern mentioned here is worth thinking about memory bandwidth doubles with the Max, and if you are thinking about getting a high end orchestral library and doing that kind of work, that's a great thing to have. Music is third in line to film and animation work in terms of eating CPU, RAM and disk throughput, but the rule is get what you can afford.
On the other hand if you're planning on doing rock, dance music or hip hop etc. then you could do just fine with the basic ten core Pro.
I went with the 14" Pro with base 16GB memory, upped to 10 core and kept at 512GB drive. I have a pretty fast external (for the road), TB 4TB SSD and a Synology hybrid SSD/SATA NAS at home. Good thing about Apple is that you can trade-in your Ipad towards the purchase (which i just did with my 2018 11" IPAD Pro and just use my regular Ipad for tablet stuff)
But once going to 32gb ram and 1tb storage its atleast here only 200 euro more to get the max. So seems strange not go with max when so small price difference
We don't need to understand.
If Tim says that 32 GB costs 400$ and 16 GB costs 400$, then that's how it is
It’s purely a marketing strategy imo. For instance, Internet Service providers tend to provide similar pricing for bandwidth tiers to make you believe that you have got a ‘deal’ by going up the ladder.
thanks for this important point about battery life. This is precisely what concerns me too.
Do you or does anyone know if the M1 Max will still use more battery life even if there's no high-end graphic work going on, i.e. browsing, emails etc.
In this case it wouldn't matter so much as I'm usually plugged in when I do video editing/export etc.
If battery life is expected to be similar to M1 Pro under low gpu usage then it's perhaps a no-brainer.
I'm a software developer and have a couple of medium/large sized iOS projects I've developed on the M1 Mac mini with 16Gb Ram and I haven't had any memory issues either (other than with Web Browser tabs so I can just close them). I have also edited a few videos, mine do not require more than a couple of tracks and effects and it has not had any issues, and as I develop photo software I have processed large numbers of photos with tools like Lightroom and seen no issues. So I'm going to go for the same option as you suggest. I'll probably want to upgrade to M2 or M3 to get better single core performance at some point, so not a lot of point in that expensive RAM upgrade locking me on. £400 for 16Mb extra RAM is the major downside of Apple, that's eye waveringly expensive. If they were not so greedy there I'd have gone for the 32, but that is insane.
It’s so pro I’m actually thinking the 13’ MBP with M1 is good enough for me.