New Macs

[Kennyscrown]

Anyone gone down the new M1 iMac route yet? Any comments?

[MOF]

Anyone gone down the new M1 iMac route yet? Any comments?

I've bought the 13" M1 Laptop. Seems to work fine.

[Kennyscrown]

Anyone gone down the new M1 iMac route yet? Any comments?

I've bought the 13" M1 Laptop. Seems to work fine.

Ah, I'm wondering about the M1 MacAir.

However, how are you doing with the lack of ports?

I'd be interested to see what other people with an M1 laptop are doing in terms of hubs? I see really mixed reviews of the hubs/docks unless you are spending £300 on one. But for me, that defeats the object, might as well just have an iMac.

[ManFromGlass]

M1 Air here. Yes - bit the bullet for a nice hub with a lot of connection options including Ethernet as our wireless signal is mostly crap. Buying the $400 hub was the cost of entry for us, oh right, plus the monitor adapter for the still in great condition old Apple Cinema Display, oh right, plus the 4Tb Traveller external drive, oh right, plus a 2nd 4Tb Traveller drive to backup the first one.
And
It ain’t over yet I suspect.

[MOF]

However, how are you doing with the lack of ports?

Well I don't need extra monitors, I bought the 1TB version so that I don't need external drives, except for backing up. I use a cheap basic C type adapter for usb dongles. I don't charge while using it as it uses so little power.
I bought it to take on holidays etc so I can check 4k video footage and do some composing with Logic, it's not fully loaded with all my sample libraries and plugins though.
I have an iMac 27" for work at home and do find the 13" screen a limiting factor, however I could use it with an external monitor if it was being used on a desk.

[MarkOne]

1TB/16GB MacBook Pro here.

Very impressed so far, but I guess I would be coming from a 2012 MBP.

I'm a little irritated by the tardiness of some plugin manufacturers in getting updates out (I get that there is recoding effort involved here but I'm missing some of my favourite instruments. It's been 9 months since the release of the platform and presumably several months more since developers got hold of dev platforms, yes I know, COVID, lockdown, etc. Still irritated)

Hopefully it will force me to do more with my hardware synths and actual programming rather than lazily pulling up an AU instrument.

[Murray B]

I'm a little irritated by the tardiness of some plugin manufacturers in getting updates out (I get that there is recoding effort involved here but I'm missing some of my favourite instruments. It's been 9 months since the release of the platform and presumably several months more since developers got hold of dev platforms, yes I know, COVID, lockdown, etc. Still irritated)

I am no defender of the plug in manufacturers but have you tried running your Daw with the Rosetta thingy? - I have had to do this in order to use the Sienna Rooms Free Version in Logic (my first non stock plug in ). With the Sienna Rooms plugin the system can overload momentarily if you make lots of changes to the settings during playback but otherwise remains stable. I've seen videos with other people running Logic with Rosetta and the overall limit on track / plugin count is a little smaller but otherwise nothing untoward is going on.

[tea for two]

Desmond (Ben) hasn't posted since May middle of.
I am aware various forumees including some mods are friends with Desmond.
I hope it's alright to enquire is Des safe and sound? No details necessary. Just a yes suffices.

[Guest]

Desmond (Ben) hasn't posted since May middle of.
I am aware various forumees including some mods are friends with Desmond.
I hope it's alright to enquire is Des safe and sound? No details necessary. Just a yes suffices.

He is still posting on gear space I think, so I guess he is ok.

Probably just had enough of some people here jumping down his throat while he was trying to help them.

[Guest]

...

[ConcertinaChap]

Some of us miss his good sense, lucid explanations and helpfulness a lot.

CC

[Kwackman]

Probably just had enough of some people here jumping down his throat while he was trying to help them.

A great shame.
His help with Macs was very useful, and his knowledge of Logic was almost legendary.
I really hope he returns.

[IAA]

Yes indeed, certainly miss his knowledge and approach.

[tea for two]

Desmond (Ben) hasn't posted since May middle of.
I am aware various forumees including some mods are friends with Desmond.
I hope it's alright to enquire is Des safe and sound? No details necessary. Just a yes suffices.

He is still posting on gear space I think, so I guess he is ok.

Probably just had enough of some people here jumping down his throat while he was trying to help them.

Aaah.

I sometimes wish SoS forum had a block function just so that we can ignore posters posting things uncalled for.

Des' Mu:Zines was one of the best reads during lockdown for me.

[redlester]

Some of us miss his good sense, lucid explanations and helpfulness a lot.

CC

Amen to that. Desmond and your good self were invaluable to me when I switched to Mac a few years back, and I continued to enjoy learning from his wealth of knowledge. I really hope he returns.

[Rich Hanson]

Another vote of support for Desmond - he was one of this site's most helpful contributors (and hopefully will be again some day)

[Kennyscrown]

Just checking back to see if anyone is actually using a new iMac for music production yet.

I'm a bit financially challenged, but updating my 2013 21.5 iMac is becoming a bit critical now. I'm labouring over refurnished vs new, and a new iMac vs an M1 MacBook Air. I probably won't be able to afford my new Mac for a month or two, probably after the M2/M1x chip is release, but I have significant doubts that I'll be able to afford whatever machines they are used in!

[IAA]

I’m not on Apple Silicon yet, but my last 3 studio macs have all been from the Apple refurb shop. All were identical to new and 2 turned out to have more RAM that stated!

So if you can I’d certainly check there first.

I’m waiting another couple of years (fingers crossed) before I make the switch. I remember the transition to Intel.

[Forum Admin]

Once Apple start selling their M1x (or whatever the 2nd gen chip will be called) lots more will switch.

M1 Mac mini plus generic 4K 42” display might be cheaper, flexible option?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[S2]

Hi

I've just bought a new Macbook Air M1 for my wife and I to use as a general purpose laptop. The basic bottom of the range one - 8gb and 256gb SSD.

I have an older (late 2013) iMac with Logic on that I use for all music stuff. However reading these threads it seems I might be able to make use of the Macbook at rehearsals and gigs (should they start again properly!) to record the odd gig or two. It seems that I am allowed to download a second copy of Logic from the Apple store (without all the extras as they seem to add a huge amount of hard drive space) and then use it to record a maximum of 16 tracks (more likely to be 10) at once. No plugins, no synths or anything like that. Then transfer them to the main machine. Is this feasible?

Secondly if I wanted to add an external SSD to record the tracks onto, what should I be looking for - any particular models that people use/recommend?

Thanks.

[Luke W]

It seems that I am allowed to download a second copy of Logic from the Apple store (without all the extras as they seem to add a huge amount of hard drive space) and then use it to record a maximum of 16 tracks (more likely to be 10) at once. No plugins, no synths or anything like that. Then transfer them to the main machine. Is this feasible?

Yes, that's absolutely fine.

Secondly if I wanted to add an external SSD to record the tracks onto, what should I be looking for - any particular models that people use/recommend?

Pretty much any external SSD will be fine for the task, especially if you're running low track counts. You'll probably need to re-format the drive to something that Mac OS/Logic likes, but that's not a problem. I'm using a Samsung T7 for my audio drive, it's bus powered, not expensive and has been great so far.

[S2]

That’s great thank you.

[Kennyscrown]

M1 Pro and M1 Max both look like quite something. New MacBook Pros seem pretty cool, and a lot of the rumours, such as the return of MagSafe, were fulfilled.

I don't think many people were expecting both the M1 Pro and M1 Max, though...

[Forum Admin]

M1 Pro and M1 Max both look like quite something. New MacBook Pros seem pretty cool, and a lot of the rumours, such as the return of MagSafe, were fulfilled.

I don't think many people were expecting both the M1 Pro and M1 Max, though...

Two SoC processor options makes a lot of sense pricing-wise as it keeps them lower if you don't need the maximum RAM and faster memory bandwidth etc.

There's a great audio/music perspective overview of the new M1 Pro and M1 Max specs/features available from the Production Expert site. Worth checking it out:

https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/produc ... and-m1-max

[Jadoube]

I have my new 14" MBP M1 MAX on order... my primary use case for all the horsepower is image processing and battery life but I am looking forward to getting all the audio action going eventually. I imagine its going to be a while before everything will be compatible. My 2017 i7 was doing fine with audio so no worries there... but I must confess I haven't been this excited about a new computer since... well... I can't remember! Super Duper Excited!!