Mac Pro 2013 Owner - Upgrade to MacBook Air M1 16GB worth it?

[SdkDel]

Hi all,

My work on Mac OS is mainly with Logic Pro X and non-Apple plugins and VSTs. I'm currently running a Mac Pro 2013 (8-core/64GB Ram/2TB NVMe) and I know it's certainly overkill for the type of music I mainly work on (Hard Rock / Alt Metal / Acoustic). I also own a MacBook Pro 13" from 2015. I thought I could maybe sell both on (no warranty left on either) and unify my use to one single Mac (with an iPad 8th Gen on the side which I already own).

Would I notice any difference performance-wise if I were to get the MacBook Air M1 / 7core / 16GB + 1TB at all? I know for sure I'm not stressing my Mac Pro as much as it can, so I don't think the M1 would be any kind of bottleneck for my usage.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance!

 

[justinboreland]

Hi - I have recently migrated from a Mid 2012 MacBook Pro Retina 15 inch - 8 Core - 8Gb Ram ICatalina) to the new M1 13 Inch MacBook Pro (Big Sur)- Mainly for music production.

I have most of the music software plugins you can imagine, Waves, Spectrasonics, Sonnox, FabFilter, Serum, Kontakt, Thorn, Slate Digital, Plugin Alliance, East West, Izoptope and so on.. Basically, 90% of my plugins used on my old Mac loaded and work perfectly once Rosetta was installed into my new 13 Inch M1 MB Pro: I used Migrator Assistant to transfer data from my old Mac to the new M1 13 inch MB Pro, it was very straight forward.. Considering most of the plugins are not making the most of the M1 chip the performance is lightning fast and I have yet to hear the fan go on... Logic Pro X however, has been optimised for Big Sur so you'll find any of their native plugins respond at lightning speed! Native FX, Compressors, AU's, all respond speedily! One shudders to think the performance capabilities of Big Sur once Logic Pro X's third-party software plugins have been optimised!.

As far as your set up is concerned, 64 GB Ram is a lot! Considering you can only get 16GB RAM for the new M1 MacBook Pro, you might ask yourself, do you really need to change? However, if you're looking ahead and want a laptop that is further proof and can really pack a punch even with 16GB Ram, go for it! I love my new 13 M1 MacBook Pro.