Mac Mini for Music Production

[StoneJack]

I almost went M1 or M2. But I got to thinking about it and I think there's a good possibility I will want to do some video editing with it and some photo and graphics editing so this gives me a little more flexibility and in general will just be a longer lasting machine (I hope). But I do think I would have been fine with the base M1 or M2 mini. I can't believe how fast all these machines have become.

Yes, M1 also has built in video decoders so it edits 4k video like a knife in butter (can I say so?). Anyway, even for video, the differences are within few percents, caused mainly by difference in clock speed and number of cores.

 

[leftyMac]

And if you want to save some money, you can get a second hand 2020 M1 mini - they should be quite cheap now, but I assure you the power is almost that of the 2023 M2. I had the M1 before, and they're both so powerful that it's actually quite difficult to notice the difference.

I concur. I'm still using a base model M1 Mac Mini (the 8GB RAM model!), a typical project in pop / rock / instrumental genres, has 100+ tracks, lots of virtual instruments on top of real instruments audio tracks, each track has multiple plugins, iZotope in master channel, and never had any issue. The only thing I added was an external HD via USB C, with absolutely no lagging.

I wouldn't mind upgrading to M2 mac Mini, but it's still working flawlessly, I can't really justify the cost.

 

[Dr. McKay]

Chiming in a bit late...

Apparently, performance on Apple silicon depends on your choice of DAW. It seems that Cubase, Reaper and FL Studio all use both the performance AND efficiency cores in a M1, M2 and M3 Mac. Ableton, Pro Tools, Studio One and strangely enough, Apple's own Logic Pro only seem to be able to use the performance cores, not making use of the efficiency cores at all.

Does that mean Logic Pro is not the best DAW for your Mac ?

 

[Ben J.]

Chiming in a bit late...

Apparently, performance on Apple silicon depends on your choice of DAW. It seems that Cubase, Reaper and FL Studio all use both the performance AND efficiency cores in a M1, M2 and M3 Mac. Ableton, Pro Tools, Studio One and strangely enough, Apple's own Logic Pro only seem to be able to use the performance cores, not making use of the efficiency cores at all.

Does that mean Logic Pro is not the best DAW for your Mac ?

"Apparently…"
"It seems that…"
Two of my least-favourite, most-used phrases used by posters around the web. Where did you hear this? Any documentation?

I would think that there is more to it than "using all the cores". That the two types of core and how they work is a pretty complex matter to understand. But I'd love to see a 'efficiancy cores and performance cores - for dummies'.

 

[Dr. McKay]

"Apparently…"
"It seems that…"
Two of my least-favourite, most-used phrases used by posters around the web. Where did you hear this? Any documentation?

I would think that there is more to it than "using all the cores". That the two types of core and how they work is a pretty complex matter to understand. But I'd love to see a 'efficiancy cores and performance cores - for dummies'.

(1) The Ultimate M1/M2 Mac Buying Guide for Music Production: M2 vs M2 Pro vs M2 Max vs M2 Ultra - YouTube

 

[Ben J.]

(1) The Ultimate M1/M2 Mac Buying Guide for Music Production: M2 vs M2 Pro vs M2 Max vs M2 Ultra - YouTube

Thank you. I watched it, and for what it is; a condensed, very informative explanation of the different aspects of the many versions of the M1/M2 chips (Efficiency/performance cores, GPU cores, and memory) and how they relate to DAW computing specifically, is the best I've seen so far. All DAW users on macs should see this.

Nothing very new as far as I'm concerned, just reassuring me that my new M2 Pro 32GB was a good choice, for me.

I still would like to know a little about how exactly apps and macOS is managing processing between efficiency and performance cores, though, and how the two differ. I'll get to it eventually. I think.

Thanks again.

 

[rm5]

Apparently, performance on Apple silicon depends on your choice of DAW. It seems that Cubase, Reaper and FL Studio all use both the performance AND efficiency cores in a M1, M2 and M3 Mac. Ableton, Pro Tools, Studio One and strangely enough, Apple's own Logic Pro only seem to be able to use the performance cores, not making use of the efficiency cores at all.

Does that mean Logic Pro is not the best DAW for your Mac ?

Evidence to back that up? I haven't heard anything about that...

"Apparently" doesn't mean it is in fact true. Regardless, most of the time, Logic runs fine for me CPU-wise.