Apple M1 chip, yay or ney?

[Forum Admin]

OK more info on Comic Life 3 here:
http://plasq.com/apps/comiclife/macwin/

It's not M1 native but would run under Rosetta 2 I'd wager.

If he's 13 he's got a good few years left at school. M1 Mac gives him future-proofing, but a new Intel iMac will last him too... decisions, decisions.

If I was his parents, I'd be asking the school what the likelihood of them upgrading their Intel Macs within 5 years will be, and act accordingly upon their response? (That won;t be much help if they say "we have no idea... budgets have been cut, etc".

[Zukan]

Good advice. Thanks Knower.

[Murray B]

A yay from me with my experiences so far.

You may have already encouraged the parents to do this, but if not make sure they ring Apple directly to order the machine and explain that the new machine is for their 'student' child - this will result in a 10% discount on the cost price of the hardware and access to the Pro-Apps bundle which is Logic Pro X, Final Cut Pro, Compressor and MainStage for £199

[ManFromGlass]

Good point - will M1 projects open on an iMac?
I guess it depends if the code writers start taking advantage of the chip in some form of non-backwards compatible way.
If I was using Logic on the M1 I don’t think I could open the file on my current tower set up. I’ve had this error message recently with a friends Logic file.

Damn.

And Zukan - the Logic file that gave me the warning message was from a Logic version newer than 10.4.4 but not from an M1 machine. I could open the file. All the crossfades were out of time. I tried to import all into my template but the crossfades were still off. In the end I had to bounce all tracks down to audio files in the newer song and import them into my template.

[Zukan]

Damn, more confusion.

[blues_n_cues93]

As someone who bought an M1 mac mini after optimistically watching some YouTube videos about how it works with Ableton - I can say it's not gone as smooth as I'd hope.

Yes, the Rosetta translation allows me to open Ableton, and nearly all of my plugins (which is an amazing feat - I'll give them that) BUT because these need to be translated to work properly - I am running at 25-30% CPU usage with 2 tracks and no plugins. The front-end load on CPU is high. Which becomes an issue when you add more tracks and plugins, etc.

It DOES do a remarkably good job at NOT driving up CPU the same way my old mac book did, I can add 30 tracks with less CPU heavy plugins and it only goes up to 35%-40% - that being said, if I try and use Izotope or a heavy CPU plugin on each track, it will start overloading around 15 tracks.

It's still better than my old Mac Book, but you will not be able to realize even near the chip's full capabilities unless you're using Mac ONLY software. That is just my experience, but thought I'd share in case it helps!

[Humble Bee]

As someone who bought an M1 mac mini after optimistically watching some YouTube videos about how it works with Ableton - I can say it's not gone as smooth as I'd hope.

Yes, the Rosetta translation allows me to open Ableton, and nearly all of my plugins (which is an amazing feat - I'll give them that) BUT because these need to be translated to work properly - I am running at 25-30% CPU usage with 2 tracks and no plugins. The front-end load on CPU is high. Which becomes an issue when you add more tracks and plugins, etc.

It DOES do a remarkably good job at NOT driving up CPU the same way my old mac book did, I can add 30 tracks with less CPU heavy plugins and it only goes up to 35%-40% - that being said, if I try and use Izotope of a heavy CPU plugin on each track, it will start overloading around 15 tracks.

It's still better than my old Mac Book, but you will not be able to realize even near the chip's full capabilities unless your using Mac ONLY software. That is just my experience, but thought I'd share in case it helps!

I don’t want to be a smart arse but how can you ignore the recommendations from Ableton in this matter?

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... -with-Live

[Kwackman]

but you will not be able to realize even near the chip's full capabilities unless your using Mac ONLY software.

When Apple changed from powerPC chips to Intel chips a few years ago, non Apple software companies soon had updated their products to run natively on the then "new" Intel.
I would be surprised if there aren't M1 native versions of the main players available in the near future.
I'm more concerned about when the M1 chip becomes a requirement to run software!

[Forum Admin]

It's still better than my old Mac Book, but you will not be able to realize even near the chip's full capabilities unless you're using Mac ONLY software. That is just my experience, but thought I'd share in case it helps!

Thanks for the feedback, but worth pointing out that this is based on the current status. Ableton will be working on an M1-compatible version of Live, as too will all major DAW makers and mainstream plug-in makers (especially those with CPU-intensive apps, since native M1 should improve performance here significantly).

Just a matter of time... but it would surprise me if most music software has not been updated and is running native within one year. (Sooner we hope.)

[fruitcake]

I tried a M1 Mini in the beginning of the year. Digital Performer and Logic with an MOTU 828ES interface. Lots of different plugs. I, too, found that certain plug-ins bogged down the cpu pretty quickly. I’m sure a lot of those have/will be updated fairly quickly. The thing that put me off though was I couldn’t get my MIDI interface to be recognized. No M1 driver. MOTU MIDI express. I could use a USB MIDI controller which may be fine for most or 1 through the 828. But I couldn’t get multiple 5 pin MIDI devices hooked up.
So, for me, I’m waiting for hardware to catch up. And more time to get it working.

[Sam Spoons]

If he's looking at a MacBook I'd say definitely M1, I bought one a few months ago and, while I only use it for general computing (my studio machine is a 2008 MacPro) it is great, light, excellent battery life and a superb display. If he's going Mac at all then M1 has to be the sensible long term choice even if there are a few potholes in the immediate future.

[Urthlupe]

I tried a M1 Mini in the beginning of the year. Digital Performer and Logic with an MOTU 828ES interface. Lots of different plugs. I, too, found that certain plug-ins bogged down the cpu pretty quickly. I’m sure a lot of those have/will be updated fairly quickly. The thing that put me off though was I couldn’t get my MIDI interface to be recognized. No M1 driver. MOTU MIDI express. I could use a USB MIDI controller which may be fine for most or 1 through the 828. But I couldn’t get multiple 5 pin MIDI devices hooked up.
So, for me, I’m waiting for hardware to catch up. And more time to get it working.

I’d check that’s not the current MOTU problems with Big Sur compatibility rather than a processor issue....

Loopy