Upgrade: Mini M4 vs Mini M4 Pro vs Studio M4

[darkanddivine]

Hi! So I've been considering upgrading my music production desktop. But a recent video that shows the uptick in the base model in the M4 Mac Mini has me rethinking what level to go in at. Currently on iMac M1 - 4 performance cores, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD.

My system is completely based on music production, using Ableton Live, some 3rd party VSTs, sample libraries and so on. Sessions are around 50-60 tracks with a mix of instruments and effects. The M1 handles quite a lot of it, though I have pushed it to its absolute limit using Kontakt libraries and intense processing software like Ozone. I do notice that I can push up to the limits of both RAM and CPU. CPU I can easily get up to the high 90%'s and memory pressure is often orange when running sessions. This can be mostly managed on the M1 by splitting sessions into creative and mixing phases, and also freezing and flattening tracks. (Ps: I'm aware that compared to the studios of the past where 16 channels would be considered a luxury that even having a 60 track session is a crazy advantage of modern computing.) It's worth noting that Ableton cannot use the E-cores, so performance is constrained by that.

I prefer to have 1TB storage on the machine if possible. But I could potentially stick more to stock plugins and run a very lean machine, so i could bring that price down a bit with a lower storage amount. I currently have about 200GB on my current drive which mostly has my key files, Ableton and some software on it. I don't currently have any plugins on the system to see what the "naked" install of the DAW and my key files looks like. Adding lots of plugins would probably make that less viable.

I believe the M4s are able to process data quite a bit quicker than the M1s, and it seems to be proving out in the case of the tests I've seen. One guy posted a video comparing the base Mini M4 to the base mini M1. Using the demo song in Ableton Live, he doubles the tracks as far as he can. The key thing for me is that the M4 chip plays 120 tracks hovering at around 50% with a spike at one point in the song, while the M1 hits 100% CPU right away and is pretty unusable. For Ableton specifically, it looks like essentially 35-40% more the performance even on those 4 P-cores, which is a surprisingly impressive upgrade. Obviosuly this is partly down the machine having 16GB RAM vs 8GB RAM, but the processing speed does seem like a decent uptick.

So yeah, I think the M4 standard would be a good improvement on what I have, but of course in speccing these machines up you notice the alternatives. And It's not a huge bump from a reasonably specced M4 standard up to the Pro.

Specs I've been looking at:

• £1,399. M4 Mini: 4 P-Cores, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD. Pros: Cheapest option. Double RAM on the iMac. Full 1TB drive. The uptick mentioned above in speed. Ability to upgrade to an evenfaster chip/machine if needed. Cons: Might want to do that upgrade sooner than later?
• £1,599. M4 Mini Pro: 10 P-cores, 24GB RAM, 512GB SSD. Pros: additional 6x performance cores. Cons: 8GB more RAM as a pose to 16GB more on the standard unit.
• £1,799. M4 Mini Pro: 8 P-cores, 48GB RAM, 512GB SSD. Pros: Not 10 cores but still double a standard chip so should be plenty, plus it gets all the RAM. Cons: Starting to get towards the pricey end of things, and dropping back 2 P-cores to save cash.
• £2,099. M4 Studio Pro: 10 P-Cores, 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD. Pros: A 10 year computer, no need to upgrade for a long time. Cons: Overkill?

Advantages that apply to all of them ove iMac M1: Ability to go up to the 27"+ monitor. Support for high-impedance headphones (not on the iMac M1 I believe.) Possibly more P-cores and at least slightly more RAM.

One caveat is I have heard issues with thermals on the Mini pro?

My hunch would be that the £1,599 is maybe not a total sweet spot but a pretty good choice (perhaps at least a 6-7 year machine?). It's the most cores for performance. I would prefer more RAM and storage, but I think I could adapt my workflow to be less reliant on sample libraries and more using CPU based instruments and effects - which it should handle. And I'd have to look at ways of remaining a bit more organised while shunting files off to external or cloud storage. If I needed the sample libraries perhaps the £1,799 would be a better shout.

Sorry, long rambly post. Am I in the right ballpark with these choices? Any thoughts on a good choice here?

 

[MajorFubar]

Welcome to how Apple works: well rather than spending £X I could just spend £X+200 (=£Y) and wow look what else I get. But then again, I mean if I'm spending £Y anyway I may as well spend £Y+£300 and get Z. To be fair to Apple, they are by no means alone.

A fundamental flaw in some of your thinking is that the more you spend the longer the kit will last you. I don't want to sound like some tinfoil-headed conspiracy-theorist, but it doesn't work like that. What will eventually force you to upgrade from any of those machines will not be you running short of computing power, but obsolescence, which will kick in at exactly the same time (whenever that is) no matter whether you buy an M4 base Mini, or a maxed-out £10K Studio, or something inbetween. I learned this the hard way: were it not for enforced obsolescence, I'd stil be rocking my maxed-out 2011 3.4GHz 27" i7 iMac with 16RAM, which, when I retired it in 2022 because it could no longer run contemporary OS's and apps, was still amply powerful enough for my needs. The rule I learned was just buy what you need now, because over-specc'ing a product in the hope it will last much longer, just doesn't play out IRL.

If you use a lot of sample-based VSTs, you might want to throw some of your money at more internal storage than 512GB rather than higher performance: those kind of VSTs are a glutton for storage while being easy(er) on the processing. I tend to use VSTs which rely on emulation, mostly from Arturia. They don't suck a lot of storage but they are heavy on the CPU, which is why I kitted myself out with an M1 Studio Max rather than a Mac Mini back in April '22.

 

[MajorFubar]

...but despite the option these days to harness what seems like limitless processing-power to your projects, personally I think you should think about ways to optimize your projects' performance. It just makes sense. Like you've already said, do you really need eg all 60 tracks to be live VSTs sapping all that processing-power rather than converted (frozen) to audio files, which will free processing-power (but at the cost of storage)?

I pretty much always convert my VSTs to audio tracks anyway, sometimes quite early on in my production process, and definitely at the end, again because of lessons I learned the hard way. When VST companies update their products, the sound changes, sometimes subtly, sometimes massively, sometimes a particular plugin or effect gets obsoleted completely. I don't want to open a project in 5 years time that doesn't sound the same as it does today. Imagine if that had happened with tape. Studios would have gone crazy.

 

[apostolosdt]

IMHO, Minis are not for pro work; Studios are and I think the strategy by Apple was to offer a mid pro Mac. I would go for the Studio, but consider the number of GPU cores as well as the RAM. Dig into Internet info on those machines before you make up for mind.

And don't understimate the RAM's frequency: it doubles from Mini to Studio Max to Ultra.

 

[darkanddivine]

What will eventually force you to upgrade from any of those machines will not be you running short of computing power, but obsolescence, which will kick in at exactly the same time (whenever that is) no matter whether you buy an M4 base Mini, or a maxed-out £10K Studio, or something inbetween. The rule I learned was just buy what you need now, because over-specc'ing a product in the hope it will last much longer, just doesn't play out IRL.

This is an excellent point.

In terms of workflow and software needs, you might be right in that I'm a bit spoiled by even the base M1. I do run fairly power hungry sessions and leave bouncing to audio until the last minute. If I were to go for a more minimal setup and roll back to stock plugins (something I'm experimenting with) I could probably stick with what I have for a while. It's mainly that CPU bottleneck I spotted that triggered the upgrade thought. Then the idea of a bigger screen became appealing. But I see your point about getting trapped in the cycle of, up to this and up to that, and before you know it you have a fully kitted out Mac Studio.

But to your point, focussing on the CPU and screen is mostly where I'm at. I may hold for a while based on this conversation, but it has focussed my mind a little more. Especially in not overspeccing the machine if I do go down that road.

 

[D*I*S_Frontman]

I'm thinking the M4 Max Mac Studio, i.e., the current base Studio, is a new plateau for music production. So long as the end user isn't loading huge symphony orchestra libraries into the CPU's unified memory, the base memory is more than sufficient to handle any audio task with perfect stability and infinitesimal latency. The Studio's thermal management system can handle way more heat than that of a Mini, in virtual silence. And thanks to TB5, blazingly fast external storage options come into play such that provisioning expensive on-board Apple storage isn't necessary, either.

Some of this requires self discipline. For a dedicated audio production computer for a home studio, once computing power, minimal latency, and system stability have been achieved, you're set. Keep that system offline. No need for continuous OS updates or downloading the newest, glitziest plug-ins. Other than a solid backup scheme, there's no reason such a system won't be able to crank out music projects for a decade or more–just the way it is.

I have hundreds of plug-ins now, from UA, PSP, SSL, Waves, etc. Lots of 1176s. LA2As, Pultec clones, tape emulations, saturators, channel strips, and analog eq sims. They all work fine. If I record at 96k, even the plugins that have aliasing issues and don't offer oversampling (ahem, Waves) are still acceptable because the 96k sample rate pushes those problems up and out of the way. Bottom line: I don't need any more plugins to accomplish what I want to do. Not now, and not ever, really, if I'm recording rock tracks.

At the end of 2025 I will be eligible for another interest-free computer loan from work. At that time, I'll likely get a M4 Max Studio with the base configuration. By then Apple may release an update, allowing me to possibly get that unit at a discounted price or as a refurb. I'll set it up, test it under all loads and conditions, then turn OFF the wifi and keep it disconnected from the outside world. No security problems. No need for OS updates. If I absolutely must upgrade or buy a new plugin for any reason, I'll download it to my laptop and save the install dmg to a thumb drive, then install it on the Studio.

That's where the discipline comes in: remaining unaffected by constant plugin marketing, and resisting the urge to use the system as not exclusively a recording studio tool, but also as an online time-waster (email, social media, YouTube, etc). That's my take, anyway. I think there is value in making one's recording set-up a walled garden.