The Ultimate M1/M2 Mac Buying Guide for Music Production: M2 vs M2 Pro vs M2 Max vs M2 Ultra

Could you please inform me whether Mac silicon (M1 and M2) supports AVB for integration with a Person's rack mixer? Does it support AVB?

Great Thanks!

Is macbook pro m2 16/1tb is ok ?

Very informative thank you 💯

Great video although I wish you could’ve included studio one 6 in your testing.

to bad no FL no Studio One 😢😢 great video tho

Hats of for you! This is a amazing and well structured guide! I know now that I will probably buy a refurbished M1 Pro MacBook Pro for hopefully a lot less then the price of a new M2 pro!

Great video! I hope sometime you do one comparing bitwig too, I really want to see how it stacks up for CPU optimization

People talk about how many tracks you can add but always with native logic instruments and I've never understood this. We know logic can do a crap ton of tracks with its own instruments. Most people don't use those like that though. Stack the V Collection, Pigments, NI, Serum, Vital to really push these chips and give a sense of real world performance. Will the M1/M2 catch on fire with 200 tracks of Serum?

superb video!

hey there great video, did you actually study something in the music area? if yes what, I'd like to Know thank u

As a die-hard Apple user and mixing engineer, I have held out on upgrading my 2015 MacBook Pro with 16 GB RAM. Mainly because of the ports that were not included throughout the reign of the M1 chip. I can finally say that the Mac mini would be a substantial upgrade. And this video really helped thank you.

Hey guys! Can you please tell me which one is better, i am not that good in a laptop specs and after watching this vid i didnt make up my mind still

MacBook Pro 16 (M2 Pro 12-Core, GPU 19-Core, 16GB, 1TB)

or MacBook Pro 16 (M1 Max 10-Core, GPU 32-Core, 32GB, 1TB)

p.s, i work in ableton

thanks is advance for all your answers!

Really good video, very informative 🙏🏽 but I need advice I want to buy the Mac mini M2, Id only be using it to record R&B vocals with plug ins and pre brought instrumentals using logic so I want to know what specs id need for Mac mini or any other suggestions of Mac. Thanks you.

Hope you do a M3 chip review.

If money wasn't an issue would getting the largest internal SSD drive 8TB be best for performance or are there any drawbacks with larger internal SSD drive?

If you have a very large Virtual Instrument Library, is it better having a large internal Mac hard drive say 4TB, or better to still use external SSD drives?

thank you. PC it is 🙏

wow, it's really surprising Logic performs worse than Reaper and Cubase considering it's pretty much made by and for Apple. Oh well!

I’m trying to write music in a similar style and track count as being me the horizon (that’s the spirit era). These are very dense productions with between 100-200 tracks and lots of virtual instruments. Currently have the M1 MacBook pro 16gb and it handles things to a point but I still get cpu overloads, crashes and plug ins not opening, even when I bounce tracks and turn off the original midi. Am I doing something wrong or do I need to upgrade?
Was thinking it may just be a ram issue but could it be cpu too? I could get a m2 ultra with 64g or even 128g ram but don’t want to waste money if there’s a simple fix of course.
Please let me know if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions!

I have the iPad Air M1 with the Magic Keyboard it replaces a laptop or low budget PC.

Hi James, have you tested reason 12 with the MacBook pro 12 core 19 gpu silicone...?

Thanks for the information, much appreciated. I just bought the Mac mini, m2 pro, 1 tb, 32 g..love it. I use Studio One as my DAW. When recording or mixing, everything is snappy, no spinning beach balls. I upgraded from a 2018 Mac mini, 256 tb, 16g. I used a lot of external ssd's. Sometimes, depending on my mix, I would be maxing out the Mac mini, I'd see beachballs spinning, a couple of times I had a freeze. I thought about going with the Mac Studio, but I really like the mini, it's footprint, just works for me. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts.

I replaced my Mac Studio M1 with a Mac Studio M2 a few weeks ago, and I simply love that the Mac Studio M2 is so incredibly silent.

Great review thumbs up! As to Ableton there’s peculiar info in the manual regarding CPU optimization for apple silicon: “The relationship between real-time audio performance and buffer size changed with the introduction of Apple Silicon Processor's architecture.

On Intel-based CPUs, the following relationship in Live is as follows:

Smaller buffer sizes may result in higher CPU usage. Larger buffer sizes may result in lower CPU usage

Contrastingly, on Apple Silicon CPUs:

Smaller buffer sizes may result in lower CPU usage. Larger buffer sizes may result in higher CPU usage”

It sounds counterintuitive, but might it be a big buffer size that is the reason why these efficiency cores are not utilized?

Wow! That's a Mac buying guide for musicians! Thank you so much!

how about studio one?

Thanks James, good video. I bought an M1 MAC mini in 2021 (8 GB RAM and 256 GB SSD) This has served me well in my (relatively small) Audio recording projects on GarageBand. Good to hear the M2 wouldn't buy me anything for Audio. 8 GB shared Memory is enough. I also concur with your recommendation to go with a 1TB SSD, as I have had to move most of the stuff on my Boot SSD to one of my External 1TB NVMe SSDs to free up space for larger projects.

Wasn't mac mini M1 Pro canned? 🤔 Do you mean M1 Pro Macbook in your comparisons to mac mini M2 Pro? Thanks

I’m a pro musician with low knowledge of computers. I Want to use logic on a Mac- considering “Apple A Grade Macbook Pro 16-inch (Retina XDR, 32-GPU, Silver, 1yr Warranty) 3.2Ghz 10-Core M1 Max with 64 gig ram but if less ram eg 16 what would be the difference in performance?

Fantastic video! So how are you generating those graphs and CG graphics?

FANTASTIC video! Quick question: I work in Logic using a lot of virtual synths and stacks of efffects that give me a lot of System Overload errors but I also do a lot of of animation and effects-heavy video in After Effects. I need a laptop. For the best possible results for both jobs, would you get the most GPUs and the most RAM you could get?

This is an extremely useful video, thank you sincerely for all the insight and attention to detail. I'm currently in the process of upgrading to a silicone-chip MacBook Pro. You don't happen to have any information or data on how FL Studio performs on an M2 Pro machine, and whether FL Studio can use the unified memory efficiently? I am struggling to decide between 16GB and 32GB unified memory. Also, what is that core monitor program you're running? Thanks in advance!

Is there a reason you didn’t have Studio One in the mix?

Cubase is the best optimized DAW and best overall 🎹🇩🇪👻

What’s best for FL Studio?

MacBook Air M1 is still king as best portable DAW laptop. I run Logic, Cubase, FL, Live, Reason, Studio One, Bitwig, Gadget, Maschine without hiccups

Mac Studio :)

I would like a Mac Studio but the cost of the screen is not warranted for me so I’ll wait until they release an iMac with the m3

The only useful video for audio persons regarding macbooks.

I recently picked up a Mac Mini m2 base model with only 8gb of RAM. The reason i came to this purchase decision wasnt actually music production (I use Ableton Live 11)...it was video. My intel i5 wth 16gb ram 2020 Macbook Pro was good for music production, but the second i load a 6k or 4k RAW video file into Davinci Resolve? Forget it. My mac just said "No." lmfao. So i was gonna get a new mac but saw a huge price difference on the 8gb ram model and the 16gb ram model...but understood Apple Silicon works quite differently. I have an Ipad Pro with an M1 chip and 8gb of ram and loaded a 4.7k RAW clip into the Davinci app for Ipad Pro....and i couldnt believe it played back, even with color grade nodes and didnt drop a single frame. So i said "what the heck, get the base model and if it doesnt work out? Return it." and WOW! Running ableton with so many soft synths, plugins, huge master chains, automation on virtually every track...my performance was astounding. I would say 3x-5x better than my Macbook pro with 16 GB of ram. My CPU on my biggest track with alot of processing, automation, LOADS of procession plugins and synths that would play all at the same time...32% CPU utilization and 4gb of ram usage. I think if youre a composer using alot of Kontakt libraries? The base model will in NO WAY cut it for you....but for making EDM/Dance Music? The base model clearly is all you need. I also run a UAD Apollo Twin Duo, not sure if thats helping me with my performance as far as audio processing being offloaded from the mac...but the base model M2 mac mini does EVERYTHING i need it to do

This is sooooooooooo helpful man, thanks a million.

Any from MacBook Pro from 2015 and newer. I have a friend that recorded a lot on his through Logic Pro.

Hi. Thanks for your video. I’m about to buy a mini but not shure if I should buy M2 or M2 pro. I only use Logic and virtual instruments and several voice tracks around 12. As I understand I can work fine with M2 because M2 pro is design for video or 3D dessingers although O do use Final Cut a lot. So, what do you recommend? Thank you

I was running a Mac Pro 3,1 until it finally died its death. So when the M1 dropped I grabbed a Mac Mini with 8GB/512GB. Despite losing a 3rd of my Ram it was still a HUGE generational leap for me. I expenaded I was able to grow, and surprisingly found myself outgrowing it after 18 months. I now have an M2 Pro Mac Mini 32GB/1TB and again it felt like this HUGE generational leap forward for me. Although I doubt I'll start pushing this capacity out for a long while.

(No gaming, no video editing, just Reaper recording and mixing)

Hi
James. This video you have produced is the best one I have ever seen for this subject. Question: All I do is surf a bit and produce with Logic. I don't master but I mix with it. I don't use massive sample libraries. I have a couple of Dell screens lying around so Mac Mini was my choice. What's your recommendation?

This is a really helpful video bro!

So which is better for music production, laptop or desk top? Get Mac Mini or Mac Book Air?

Hello James, do you think you can answer to my question? First thank you so much for this fantastic video explaining so many details. But as I will continue working on Ableton (I understood it was not the best DAW for performance !!!), can't understand the best choice for me upgrading to Apple M1 / M2. I would really like to stop having issues with heavy projects with lots of heavy synths (VPS Avenger, Omnisphere, Nexus ....) and plug ins . Maybe what I understood is that in any case, the more Core we have the best it is, no ? This is why maybe the 24-Core CPU Mac Studio model could be a good choice. Do you agree? Or the difference between 24-Core and 12-Core will not be significative with Ableton...(this would let me much more choices (like laptops also).
Do you know if I will truely feel the difference using 24 core instead of 12 with Ableton and lots of synths/plugs ?
Thank you so much if you can help!
Very best,
François (from France!)
😃