Which Mac is needed for YOUR music production?

[Think77]

The Apple Silicon technology is powerful and efficient, and Apple has finished their transition from Intel to AS. For music producers like myself the question becomes: how much power do we REALLY need in order to get our projects done in a way where we don’t get “overload” errors in our daws? Do we go Mac Mini with 16GB of RAM? Mac Studio Max base 32 GB of RAM? Ultra? 64 or 128 GB of RAM? Or even Mac Pro?

This thread is meant to be an informative and, hopefully, enlightning discussion on that 😊 Among other things, what would be interesting to hear is whether your choice of machine has showed up to be the right choice? Or should you have upgraded your BTO config? Or maybe the machine is actually TOO powerful (for the time being)? And maybe you can elaborate on the kind(s) of projects and project sizes that you work with?

On a personal note, I just received my Mac Studio M2 Max base 32 GB of RAM, and so far it’s amazing - but then again, my projects may differ wildly in size and complexity from other people’s projects.

BTW, I thought it would become too complicated to include the laptop equivalents, so people who use (or are considering) Apple Silicon Macbooks can just vote for the desktop version with the same chip. M1 users can also choose the M2 equivalent.

 

[aizarged]

I'm buying a Mac Studio M2 Max with the upgraded CPU (more for graphics) and 64Gb of ram. I'll report back with how it will work for me.

 

[Schnitzel1979]

planing on the Mac Studio M2 Ultra with 64 Gb Ram

 

[sehnsucht77]

I'm buying a Mac Studio M2 Max with the upgraded CPU (more for graphics) and 64Gb of ram. I'll report back with how it will work for me.

just put an order in for a Mac Studio Max with 38 cores, 64GB ram and 1TB storage. lots of mixing and recording. hope to get the custom build in 2 weeks. went with a desktop instead of MacBook Pro this time around for the better ventilation and ports.

ultra was out of budget for me and with the marginal numbers for logic and plugins, I didn't think it was worth it.

 

[Think77]

just put an order in for a Mac Studio Max with 38 cores, 64GB ram and 1TB storage. lots of mixing and recording. hope to get the custom build in 2 weeks. went with a desktop instead of MacBook Pro this time around for the better ventilation and ports.

ultra was out of budget for me and with the marginal numbers for logic and plugins, I didn't think it was worth it.

Yeah, the M2 Max may be a sweet spot for (most) music producers? Or would even a base M2 Mac Mini sometimes be enough? The further question is whether or not there’re are scenarios/project types that can’t be done with the M2 Max chip - and requires an M2 Ultra? I’m truly curious 😊

 

[sehnsucht77]

Yeah, the M2 Max may be a sweet spot for (most) music producers? Or would even a base M2 Mac Mini sometimes be enough? The further question is whether or not there’re are scenarios/project types that can’t be done with the M2 Max chip - and requires an M2 Ultra? I’m truly curious 😊

curious as well. I was on the fence for the ultra and since I will be using the machine for recording and programming, I wanted something capable AND thermally cool. I am not a super fan of Max tech but the temp comparison between the max and the ultra was what clinched it for me. I figure the 64GB RAM and ITB should be enough for even the most demanding of my IDEs. I guess I'll find out

for something to warrant an Ultra -that would have to be really intensive commercial work like one would find at a post-production facility

 

[Schnitzel1979]

@sehnsucht77: are you from Germany ? i live in Munich; my hobbies are watching movies / series and play computer / videogames

 

[Shamgar]

Most of my audio projects are mixing down recordings of live bands with about 20 to 30 tracks. There tends to be a fair bit of clean-up work with things like RX 10 that are processor hogs, but its otherwise fairly simple. I could make it work with an M2 and 8 GB, and could do it without having to worry about freezing tracks on an M2 Pro with 16 GB. When I start loading up orchestra samples and/or multi-task with the video editing side, I see RAM usage push up to about 50 GB.

When it came time to upgrade my old i9 hackintosh, I went with an M1 Ultra 64 GB as my workstation. Export times for video and audio were a major bottleneck in my workflow when doing extremely fast turnarounds, so even if I never needed the Ultra's performance during actual editing I valued the extra cores for that specific workload. I don't need the same kind of export speeds these days, so if I had an M1 Max, I could just get a coffee instead.

 

[SepticUG]

Got a Studio M2 ultra 128GB / 2 TB couple of weeks ago coming from an 16c MP2019.

Running around 120+ tracks 44.1 64 samples buffer, small process buffer (512 samples)this setup was doing it on a 512 audiodriverbuffer and medium (1024 samples) process buffer on the MP

Singlecore around 30% multicore 50-60% when playing.

80 channels SSL CS2 in HQ mode, many buscompressors and inserts.
Audiogridder on masterbus at 30-40% load (SSL fusion plugs/M-A-S/Pulsar 8200/Pulsar MU/Console one/ etc)
8 auxsends wth verbs/delays, 8+4 mixbusses and 4 vca's.

Also hanging on the MacStudio:

SSL UC1 / SSL12 / SSL UF1
3 x Avid Artist Mixers
2 x Soundforce mdicontrollers
2 x midi keycontrollers
1 x roland system 8

2 x LG 43" 4K displays
1 x Belkin TB4 dock
1 x Samsung 4TB external SSD