I tend to see laptops as convenience computers; they aren’t something I’d want for long running serious grunt. Also, I hate doing physical maintenance on them, not that Apple makes that sort of thing particularly easy.
I mainly hack on Linux unless some vendor software (e.g. firmware/config burners) can’t run on WINE.
Don’t even get me started about phablets. I still have an old flip phone, and for 3g vanishing reasons have to get a new phone soon, and wish I could find something as small as the original MotoGs.
I’m not quite that anti-gadget, but I will only upgrade a phone for a compelling reason. My current phone is a OnePlus 3T and that was an upgrade from a Galaxy S3 about 5 years ago so I’m not one for chopping and changing every year. Also now into my fifties my eyesight’s gone to shit so doing much more than clicking something to play music or make a call is beyond what I want to use a tiny screen device for.
I’m not so much anti-gadget as not liking carrying a huge lump. The Moto I mentioned turn up in a junk pile, and while it’s no longer current, I could hook it up to my net, and download some basic apps (HP emulation, barcode scanners, note pad) I had on a work related tablet. I like that it’s really not much bigger than my flip phone. I appreciate that batteries need room, but I’d rather eat that as thickness. If I want a big display, I’ll use a workstation.
Greets, fellow age > half century guy.
Here’s an unsolicited endorsement for Free42. (I think you can get that for iPhones too.)
Hi you’ve probably bought your M1 already, and others have provided many responses, but for what it’s worth I have a base model M1 Air (8GB & 256GB SD) and I have absolutely no regrets and Rack runs fine. I’ve not encountered any other issues with programs running through Rosetta 2 (Albeton, other music software etc.) and I can comfortably run Rack & Ableton together. The battery life is amazing!
If I had the money I would have liked the 16 GB version and I would have liked to get more storage, but at the time I was looking for a more budget friendly purchase. If you have the money definitely upgrade, but I will say that if you’re looking for a laptop (I had to get one for work and study reasons) then I can’t see a whole lot of reason to get an M1 pro with the current generation. The lack of ports is a major frustration, but I’m absolutely blown away by how much performance for $ the M1 Airs provide. It feels like the first time that buying an Air doesn’t feel like a compromise.
Personally, I’m not pushing Rack with massive patches (I’m still fairly new to all this) and I am seeing this as a device that I have for personal work use that I can also use for music production without being set back too much. For the future, I’m waiting to see if they release an updated M1X/M2 Mini with improved I/O capabilities which I’ll buy in a heartbeat - I just hope that they don’t kick the Minis into the grass and not update them for years like they did previously. I’m also very interested in the new iPad pros with the M1 chips - these look like they’ll have incredible performance.
All in all, for anyone else wondering if the M1 Airs are worth it/capable I’ll say that I have absolutely no regrets for the money spent, but I’d upgrade the storage if you can afford that. I’m far from being a power-user, but I’m quite shocked at how much it’s been able to handle.
Well, since we’re talking laptops here, I would say that Windows laptops, certainly in the cheaper end, all have the same heat issues as well. It’s simply a factor of putting very hot Intel CPU’s into too small cabinets, with inadequate cooling. The exception might be the real so called gaming-laptops, which should have an emphasis on cooling, often with bulkier cabinets. But you will have to love the sound of fan-noise
Yes, for the same reasons as the Windows laptops, and then made worse by the designers’ insistance that “slim is god”. There’s a generation of product management at Apple that ought to be fired for putting out crap like that, at those prices.
Yup, indeed it is. M1 is here to basically save the day for laptops, and all of the sudden they’re industry leaders where cool, powerful chips are concerned. To be honest, I’ve always hated laptops, and the only ones I’d consider buying for anything, are those M1 laptops, which have a lot more good things going for them than the M1 chips. I’d go so far as to say that the M1 Macbook Air I bought for my fiancé is the closest to a “perfect laptop” that I’ve ever seen.
Yes, that was my feeling at the end of my Rack on M1 Air test as well, further up in this topic. My only slight disagreement with what you wrote is, that I would say to @rigo that if you have the choice between more RAM or more SSD in the machine, for money reasons, definately get the more RAM!. Storage can always be pushed out, but not so with the RAM.
I did the Mac Mini jump. Took one with 16GB RAM and 1TB drive. Already had the monitors and external drives anyway. No sound whatsoever from this machine and you can buy it below your 1500 limit. If you have an iPad lying around, you can even use that as a monitor for the Mac Mini and travel with it easily.
My last CPU was running my patches on 115%. Now, 15%.
Most VST things run normally, although when using them in HOST, I sometimes cannot close VCV Rack normally, I have to use force quit.
edit:
One thing to remember though, afaik currently Bigsur does not support booting straight into sidecar. You will need a default screen (hdmi/usb c) to boot first.
This dongle does support booting with an iPad as only screen:
Luna Display.
Couldn’t get it here in NL though, so you will pay extra customs for this to receive it from the US.
I’m going to wait and see what gets announced about Windows, supposedly there’s a keynote with details in 3 weeks, but if there’s nothing compelling and the Mac Mini with M1X stories pan out that’s probably going to be my next platform, I need those extra ports and display options or I’d probably get a mac mini now.
One thing that puts me off going to Mac are the stories I’ve heard about third party products that should work fine are kind of at the whim of Apple and the only guaranteed compatible products are their own massively overpriced offerings. Their pricing structure is nuts e.g. charging an extra £150 to go from a 256GB M2 drive to a 512GB one when you can buy a 2TB M2 drive for £200. But, provided the external options hold up I can live with the unupgradeable nature of the internals. And I’ll still have a PC for gaming, but I’ve hit a wall on CPU and sticking with x86 feels more and more like a dead end.
This all sounds quite sensible, and I think I agree with most of it. Two comments:
If you are hitting a wall with a “gaming computers” on windows you must be making incredibly large patches, assuming it’s a desktop, as they huge majority of people having problems are people using mac latops, which tend to have anemic graphics and cooling. (or maybe are using non-squinky labs modlues - always a bad idea).
It seems that running Intel software, in specific the mac version of VCV, works well. As I’m sure it says in other places, @Vortico has not committed to making a native “apple silicon” version. We can speculate about the future, but for now best not to assume there will be one. So when listening to others talk about how good these machines are for music prod, make sure to keep that in mind.
Maybe you have more information than me, but isn’t x86 back on course now? AMD is on the same level as Intel, and Intels next gen will be (thanks to the M1) the first hybrid x86 design, with DDR-5 and both performance- and efficiency-cores.
I have an AMD 5600x (the newest 6-core) and I never run into any performance issues, neither with VCV or ableton, nor with games or video-editing. It is the most stable plattform I was ever on.
As mentioned in the video, if you want to have the same performance as the internal SSD, you will have to pay nearly the same price for an external solution like the upgrade would cost. I don’t know if that speed is necessary, but still…
But back to topic:
A good friend of mine recently bought a M1 Mini with 8GB and Logic and he is more than happy with it. I saw a session of him (more singer-songwriter audio recording, not so much audio-instruments) with loads of tracks and effects and no problems at all.
And I saw a video of Ricky Tinez recently where he also mentioned that he got a M1 Mini with 8GB for ableton and is happy with that, but he too is more or less daw-less and uses it only for audio recording and effects. But it seems to me, that when you are not depending on sample-libraries, 8GB is totally fine.
I think we are finally living in a computer-age, where even audio- and video-editing works as we want it to. Without thinking about limiting resources… Now a few companies have to step up their development game to the level of line6 for example and we could finally be concentrating on the art of making music and not the pain of working with faulty tech.
Noted. Not hitting the wall in VCV so much, more DAWs with lots of meaty plugins and effects going simultaneously and there’s a limit to what you can bounce if you want to be able to apply various modulations to their parameters in real time . The other big reason to switch is I much prefer the way Macs handle multiple interfaces, ASIO4ALL has been very flaky for me - something I need to use to have an ASIO interface and my drum machine audio via USB for instance. Indeed my (Ryzen 7 2700X) PC has become flaky full stop recently and it has stopped recognising generic USB devices completely after a fairly recent Windows update. I would roll back, but the newest non corrupt backup I have is from 18 months back and I’ve probably installed 1000 plugins since then. All legit bought stuff, nothing dodgy, but still shit happens I guess.
That’s another reason why I’ve set my sights on this new putative M1X Mac Mini, it probably won’t be out for another three months so gives me more time to evaluate the market when it becomes available.
True, but I do use some massive wonderful huge sample libraries, especially in Kontakt, so 16GB is to be on the safe side it’s not like you can easily upgrade the RAM if you find you do need more!
