spec a friend a macbook for music production

Bad_Boi

Bad_Boi

Bad_Boi

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Asking for a genuine question for a friend who is on the market for a macbook to produce music (using logic, ableton, reason). His 2012 mac is on its last legs, & he ask me if he should move to a windows setup, or stick with Apple. I said stick with what you all ready have..

So, spec a friend a macbook for music production

He has no clue about processors (amd/intel3,5,7,9/Mchip)

Which should he buy?

Budget £1500
 
I agree with ChrisD, my friend uses a lot of Music software and was worried if 16gb would be enough to handle large files when using Ableton/Logic etc. He wanted to get a full spec 16" and ended up going for a 16gb Macbook Pro M1 and is very happy with the purchase. Even though Ableton wasn't fully supported with the M1 (this was 4 weeks ago, this may of now changed) he found it was way better than he expected and was happy because it could only get better!

I'm very impressed by the M1 I have and haven't come across anything it can't handle. Day to day my older MBP fans would whirl like crazy, if I even opened Final Cut Pro or another program it was like liftoff. Now on the M1 I haven't even noticed it getting slightly warm.
 
Whilst software and plugins are a mixed bag with them either being officially supported on Apple Silicon, kind-of-works-ish with the use of Rosetta or just "nope", hardware is the bigger issue as plenty of manufactures have yet to role out Apple Silicon drivers.

If he wants to go M1, then I'd recommend scouting manufacture websites and forums and seeing what's supported and/or works under Apple Silicon before purchasing.

Alternatively just go for Intel and save the hassle knowing that it'll be supported for a fair while yet and better M equipped and spec'd Mac's will be out when he does need to upgrade again.

This is not to pee on the M1 but I'd be pretty gutted to find my audio interface, controller or favourite plugin doesn't work and I'll have wait however long until it's supported and that's if they'll be supported at all - some software/plugins require x86/64 instruction sets that simply aren't on Apple Silicon.
 
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