Apple announces new Mac Mini, Air + 13" MBP featuring their own M1 chip.

[tq]

Sounds very promising indeed. I am just wondering about the latency issue - with lower buffer settings, the latency should go down, not up, no? Maybe due to the Rosetta version, but still a bit odd.

[Cinebient]

Sounds very promising indeed. I am just wondering about the latency issue - with lower buffer settings, the latency should go down, not up, no? Maybe due to the Rosetta version, but still a bit odd.

Oh, maybe i confused something here. Again i tested it with and without headphones and compared it again. It shows me indeed shorter (one way) latency on my old BUT the round trip latency is actually shorter mostly or quite the same on the M1 machine.
Anyway i feel not really any difference here so all is fine for me in this case.
Well, i am not a drummer

[Cinebient]

So another real life test:
I installed Hans Zimmer Strings and Eric Whitacre Choir (running the samples from my extern SSD) which offers up to 26 mic positions 100´s GB of samples and can eat up RAM pretty fast.
Of course I can just compare it to my old i7 quad core MacBook with just 8 GB RAM.
So on my old machine I maybe could run 1 instance with 6-7 mic positions with the same HZS preset or 3-4 with each 3-4 mic positions to play smooth together for a while.
Now I expected to double that hopefully. No...... I got something like 10 times more or so. Crazy.
As example I could play still smooth 8 instances of HZS with each having 4 mic positions plus 4 instances of EWC also with each instance having 4 mic positions used. And by the way also at a lower buffer setting.
I think it still can handle more. And yet it all runs inside the Rosetta version of Logic. That was much better than I expected.
I have to try really how far I can go but indeed here double the RAM feels like I have 10 times more. Not sure how that works and how it will be with more mixed RAM heavy plug-ins but so far it a monster upgrade for me in terms of playing RAM hungry plug-ins all at once.
Even without Kontakt I will not go back to my old intel oven.
OH, and of course while playing all at once for a while the MacBook stays cool while my intel had already fry my legs with a fraction of this....if it even could handle 20% of this.
So again, on my old one I could handle about 4 instances with same settings playing in real-time while on the M1 12 was no problem but I guess it can handle still more.
Also I tried one instance with all 26 mic positions which will not even run on my old one. Here is works fine and even after copy it 3 times I could run 4 instances, each with 26 mic positions.
Again all that also with a sample buffer of 512 while on my old I had to use the max of 1024 inside Logic.

[re.mark]

So another real life test:
I installed Hans Zimmer Strings and Eric Whitacre Choir (running the samples from my extern SSD) ...
Again all that also with a sample buffer of 512 while on my old I had to use the max of 1024 inside Logic.

This sound very exciting. So Spitfire Audio Installer/Authorization software and SA Player ran and installed ok on the M1 under Rosetta? Hoping Labs player does the same then.
What did the Memory usage look like in Activity Monitor during these tests?
Just need NI to get Native Access sorted so we can get Kontakt running for all the other libraries now. This is whats holding me off going in on M1 now. My 2011 Mac Mini completely died last month, it's painful holding out atm.

[Cinebient]

So another real life test:
I installed Hans Zimmer Strings and Eric Whitacre Choir (running the samples from my extern SSD) ...
Again all that also with a sample buffer of 512 while on my old I had to use the max of 1024 inside Logic.

This sound very exciting. So Spitfire Audio Installer/Authorization software and SA Player ran and installed ok on the M1 under Rosetta? Hoping Labs player does the same then.
What did the Memory usage look like in Activity Monitor during these tests?
Just need NI to get Native Access sorted so we can get Kontakt running for all the other libraries now. This is whats holding me off going in on M1 now. My 2011 Mac Mini completely died last month, it's painful holding out atm.

The Spitfire app gives me a bit headache since some things says not installed but they are and got those annoying repair messages again and again but still it works. But that could be my fault since I reseted all libraries and just wanted to install the plug-ins to my new MacBook while I already have all the samples on my extern SSD.
However it works and I just can use everything I have inside the Spitfire Audio App registered which does not use Kontakt which are all the Labs (I did not install and tested them all yet), Hans Zimmer Strings, Eric Whitacre Choir and BBC Discovery.
As example when I used the preset with all mic positions the instance shows me about 8 GB RAM used but still when I copy it several times and also change presets, settings, instruments I see just 12 GB RAM used in the activity monitor.
But in general I do not care about any numbers I see but just what works when I layer tons of stuff. And like I said here it handles so much more than my 8GB that it feels a lot more than 16. Not sure how that works and maybe you can even make settings to perform even better (less preload into RAM etc.)
I will make another test and will try to max it out with a single instance and with several instances.
I also tested some other things since I saw something about some bluetooth issues with new M1 machines. But so far I have no problem with it. Also f.e. my Seaboard Rise works perfect via bluetooth.
Another thing which was mentioned but I thought is not so important is really now bringing me joy. Alone that when I close and open Logic, it is so much faster that it feels all much more snappy. It might be just a second here and there but that all sums up to a much more smooth experience.
Now I also installed Repro and will see how far I can go with a huge Repro-5 pad on HQ setting.

[Cinebient]

So i also tried now change the settings in the HZS Plug-in to load the less into RAM and so far it works and I just have to use about 1/4 of the RAM where it still performs as good as my old one. And yet even with the default settings I feel I can use a lot more RAM as just double compared to my old 8 GB.
Its maybe a bit tricky to find the perfect setting for cpu/RAM usage but in general I am quite happy how this smaller, lighter, cooler, much longer battery life machine here works.
Now if Apple can scale that up to a maxed out 16" it will be a beast of a machine.
But so far this already handles all I need.
I guess it also would perform even better if I would use the samples on the intern faster SSD.
I thought about to go with the 2TB but decided to save some money and gone just for 512 (256 is really not enough for me) and still use my extern SSD for my sample libraries which works good enough for me. And there I already have 1.5 GB full so I hope Samsung release a 4TB T7 or T9 in the future.
Another CPU test I made just for fun was now using a heavy P900 preset going trough 2CAudio Kaleidoscope (very cpu heavy) and a B2 (also not easy on cpu).
I could play one at 1024 sample buffer with my old one (again an older i7 quad core but which still worked fine mostly) and a non stable instance at 512 after just a minute.
On my M1 MacBook I could play 3 instances of this at 512. At 256 it struggles a bit and at 1024 there is no difference really. 4 was also a bit too much.
At least that means in this example 3 times more while staying longer stable without thermal throttle as well. And not to forget, still under Rosetta with not optimised plug-ins which unheard could give you another 30% (or more or less in some cases) better performance.
So i am really happy even with Rosetta.
I really was not sure about to stay with this machine because I really would like to use my Kontakt libraries but even when some things works "just" double as good as on my old machine the whole experience without fan noise (actually i still was not able to hear the fan in my MacBook Pro M1), much snappier usage in general, the Touch Bar (yes I really like the Touch Bar for Logic and some other things), better trackpad, more RAM, more SSD space and it was even the same price as my previous machine. So also its maybe the first time I feels that it was not that expensive at all for what you get.
But then I only use Logic and just a hand full of third party stuff yet since Logic almost gives me everything I need beside some FX and sample libraries I still will not miss.
I am not a Apple fan boy but this indeed feels like a new generation of laptops I always wanted.

[Sascha Franck]

And there I already have 1.5 GB full so I hope Samsung release a 4TB T7 or T9 in the future.

This here would give you 7.68TB right here, right now:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-7-68TB-Sam ... %3A2334524

And you could even slap it into a TB enclosure:
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB3 ... 290a18050c

That combination should result in kickass performance, even for the most demanding streaming sample libraries. And it's not *that* expensive (at least not as much as I thought it'd be).
True TB docks are available already, too.

[Markus Krause]

Before you buy a SSD and use USB for power supply make sure that the USB port is able to provide enough power.
I had an incident yesterday. I connected a Toshiba Q Series Pro HDTS325 in a ICY BOX and copied data to it. Copying seemed to work fine. But after I rebooted the data was lost

[Sascha Franck]

TB ports provide *plenty* of power. More than enough to power an external 2.5" drive.

[Markus Krause]

Fact is that the data copied to my SSD connected through USB was lost.
The Toshiba SSD is an older drive. So it might need more power than modern ones.
A broken SSD is unlikely since it worked flawlessly a day before when I still had it connected it with SATA in another computer.
I do also not think that it was caused through a loose contact since I did not receive an error message during the copy process.
So it seemed to be caused a lack of power or a compatibility problem

[Sascha Franck]

Fact is that the data copied to my SSD connected through USB was lost.

Did you check for reproduceability?

[Markus Krause]

I replaced the SSD with a newer Samsung model and now it seems to work.

I also checked out the USB 3 specification. It allows a maximum current of 900mA. With a voltage of 5V this gives a maximum of 4,5 Watts power.
On writing you can drastically exceed this limit with a HDD. Some SSD models with an adapter can also exceed it or get close to the limit.
I further should note here, that I also had connected a Logitech G502 mouse, a USB keyboard with LED background lightning and a midi device to another port of the Mac mini when the problem occurred.

References:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/8747/sam ... -review/10
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0

[Sascha Franck]

I further should note here, that I also had connected a Logitech G502 mouse, a USB keyboard with LED background lightning and a midi device to another port of the Mac mini when the problem occurred.

That's simply nothing for a decent TB port. You should be able to connect various drives, interfaces and an HDMI monitor with ease, given you've got a decent dock.

[KenjiDeVries]

Had the chance to test the M1 (mac mini) over the weekend. The performance was not bad but somehow not that impressive. During tests with Logic, StudioOne and ProTools (which all had similar results) I noticed Logic didn't have all cores enabled for processing. I enabled them but it didn't change anything. I saw in a Bitwig thread here similar experiences and also found youtube videos about that. I wonder if either Logic or the M1 itself is limiting the processing power. Very strange. After around a 15 to 20 minutes Logic even started to have audio dropouts as if the CPU would suddenly calm down. Any energy settings I could check?

Unfortunately some plugins couldn't be translated to Rosetta2 at all and some had weird behavior afterwards. Don't know, not that positive first impression here.

[zvenx]

Interesting. I take it this is Logic 10.6? I would have thought that unlike Studio One and ProTools it is already Silicon Native and would have performed much better then again the performance may be limited by all to plugins running Rosetta 2.
rsp