MacBook Air (M1 chip)

The Lounge Other Gear
#21

Thanks everyone, this has been an awesome help. It’s been really reassuring to here all the positive stuff around the Mac, I was half thinking people would say I needed better spec etc so it’s reassuring to hear others are using and having success with this model.

I already have an audio interface (UA volt 276) which I use to record to my iPhone so that should work perfectly with the Mac, and with that I got a bundle of free software including live lite so that along with MPC studio will be where I start out, and I’ll see where I get to from there.

Finger is now hovering over the ‘buy’ button as we speak!

6 Likes
#22

When I saw this topic I was going to link that @fin25 thread too! This whole topic was discussed in depth and it was a similar perspective.

Off topic

@fin25 left the forum??? That’s a major bummer. He was very insightful and funny as hell

@Clarke_111,
These M* chips are way better at memory management than the Intel systems. 8GB on an M* is far superior to 8GB with an Intel chip. It’s just managed more efficiently and the difference is night and day. I’ve thrown some crazy workloads at these new Apple silicon systems and they are super impressive.

I think you can get by these days with any Apple Silicon computer, even with only 8GB of memory, but I would get 16 to future-proof it a bit more.

I just got an M3 pro with 18GB and I predict it should last until the time it can’t take macOS updates anymore, many years from now. I think I might have also been fine with an Air with 16 if it was just to run a DAW, but I have other non-musical computer needs that require a MacBook pro.

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#23

The M3 Macbook Air has just come out so you could probably get a good deal on a refurbished M2 which has the more modern design etc. Personally I would go for 16gb ram and 512gb ssd but you could get by with less if you don’t mind using an external drive

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#24

this is a good point. the certified refurbs are often a great deal. especially if a new machine was just released. and don’t think of them as “used.” they’re usually just machines that had some sort of issue on original receipt that Apple had to take as a return; then they’re repaired and re-sold. I had a refurbed iMac for over a decade, with zero issues and zero signs of use when I got it.

somewhat unrelated: I found this pic on one of Apple’s Macbook Air pages :rofl:

mba13-m2-gallery7-202402
mba13-m2-gallery7-2024024000×3072 3.2 MB

3 Likes
#25

I use a 2020 MacBook Air M1 8GB. Use it with Ableton Live 11 and 12 and recently have been using more plugins and VSTs and haven’t run into any performance issues.

One con I will point out though is that this model only has two USB-C ports, and no dedicated charging port. That means if you’re plugged in for power, you only have one USB port for everything else. Of course you can buy a USB hub, but you can run into trouble here as it’s not recommended to run certain things through a hub (like your audio interface), and some hubs have issues handling MIDI over USB, or you may end up needing a powered hub depending on the power draw of any bus powered USB devices you’re using.

I’ve considered trading in for an M2 or M3 model, which have dedicated MagSafe charging ports just to free up one of those USB ports (and possibly go for more RAM), but it’s kind of a big expense to fix what is a very minor hassle.

Otherwise I have zero issues using this for making music. Just thought the limited connections was worth mentioning if you’re planning to plug a lot of USB devices into the MacBook.

3 Likes
#26

With the release of the M3 Macbook Airs last week, Apple is no longer selling the OG M1 version. You can pick up a 13inch M2 new from them, or maybe just future proof yourself and get a new M3 one. The M2 and M3 models are a nice upgrade over the original M1 Air.

#27

I run a CalDigit TS4 thunderbolt 4 dock, and it charges my M2Max macbook pro, runs my 34”WQHD (3440x1440) monitor at 144Hz via displayport, talks to my MOTU M4 perfectly with 128samples / 5 ms latency, plus my USB-C 2Tb time machine SSD, and has lots of ports to hook my other instruments and such into, in addition to an external cam/mic I stream from. I’ve had no issues running that way with Live Suite 12. There is a single thunderbolt cord from it to my mac, no other cords plugged into the mac.

It is pricy. But it works very well. (I’ve seen some in threads here complain about heat shutdowns on their TS4, but I’ve never had this issue)

1 Like
#28

…m1 will do totaly fine…8 gigs of ram will do totally fine…air will do totally fine…and that garageband tip is priceless if u have never touched a daw before…

#29

I thought the M3 wasn’t as good as the m1/2 for music?

#30

Why do you say that?

There were some problems reported with M1 Pro and Max varieties and Overbridge:

but these were addressed in Overbridge 2.7.9.

There is a debate about the number of performance cores on any given variety, but that’s not an issue for someone looking at a MacBook Air.

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#31

was something bout that, ok so what’s the deal with that and why isn’t it an issue of Air-lookers?

#32

The deal with that is that on the third generation, the number of p cores has been reduced on the pro chips compared to previous generations. Whereas the air has always had the base chip and that one has kept the same p versus e core ratio through each iteration. The base chip has 8 cores. 4 efficiency and 4 performance cores.

The pro chip comes inn two flavors on each gen. M1 pro has an 8 or 10 core version (6 P +2 E, or a 10 core one with 8+2) M2 pro came with a 10 core version (6P +4E) and a 12 core one (8P+4E) and then M3 pro came with the 11 core version (5P+6E) and the 12 core version (6P+6Ek) and given some daws only utilize performance cores, in terms of numbers, the pro chip makes less and less sense, however this isn’t telling into account the fact each new generation features a higher clock speed which also plays a role but i do not know whether this actually balances out the core count or not in real life usage. I’m hoping there will be more testing taking place to truly find out for sure. Ideally we should be getting the most cores work the highest clock speed for best results. So max or ultra are the way to go if you can afford it.

2 Likes
#33

The Air is more than enough for most music makers. Unless you’re scoring a movie or use a zillion plugins all running live and simultaneously.

I think the Air might be the perfect music computer, with one exception: the speakers on the MacBook Pros are amazing. I often use mine with a Push and nothing else. The speakers are nowhere near as good as monitors, of course, but for they’re easily good enough for experimenting and composing.

I also love that you can use iPad music apps on the M-series Macs. They’re not always well-suited to a trackpad, but with FX plugins, it doesn’t really matter.

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#34

the speakers on the new pro’s really are amazing (for what they are), I can confirm. But on the Air they are also much better than 95% of windows laptops, even much larger ones. So not a big issue, I think they are workable in a pinch.

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#35

Well, I have some hardware gear like Akai Force and Digitakt but still DAW would be my first choice for making finished song. I have MacBook Air M1 -16 GB RAM and 1 TB of storage. I’d recommend you to take MacBook Air. I use Ableton Live and it runs perfectly on my laptop. The obvious DAW for apple user is Logic as it is only 200 for the full version and you get a LOT at once! I found myself working more in DAW rather than on hardware gear. You can buy base version of macbook air and add external SSD, this way you’ll save some money.

#36

I find the speakers of my MBA M1 2020 very useful. However, I would be interested to know how the speakers of the 15" MBA sound compared to the 13" MBA and to the MBP.

I have heard the speakers on the 16" MBP before and they are exceptionally good for their size. Does this also apply to the 14" MBP or are there differences?

#37

How does this work? Can you simply install iOS apps on M-series laptops?

#38

Yes. If the developer has marked them as available for the Mac, they just show up in the app store.

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#39

That sensation I’m feeling must be clarity😁
got it and thanks.

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#40

in this video dude says that the 16gig model was using ssd for swap even though all of the 16g of ram wasn’t being used… add this to the list of things I didn’t know about computers

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