KVR Audio

antic604 · Post by **antic604** » Thu Jun 10, 2021 11:40 am

I've made a poll & post on Bitwig's subforum asking the above question, but I figured perhaps the general public has some thought on it too, not necessarily specific to Bitwig:

viewtopic.php?f=259&t=566420

If you do, please comment (& vote) there ^^^ or below.

Thanks!

jonljacobi · Post by **jonljacobi** » Fri Jun 11, 2021 2:01 pm

Pro if you want minimal throttling. 16GB if you use large sample libraries. Air if you want the best looking.

All depends on how hard you’ll be banging on it.

chagzuki · Post by **chagzuki** » Fri Jun 11, 2021 2:16 pm

Don't know about Bitwig but purely in terms of the hardware, I got an Air about a month ago. I didn't bother updating the OS for the first 3 weeks; I assumed it was near up-to-date anyway. The performance was disappointing, with Logic stuttering. After updating for some reason things are completely different and I'm getting loads of tracks on Logic, things running smoothly, and the MacBook not running particularly hot. I don't think the absence of a fan is affecting performance... in fact it's more likely that the lower RAM tier (I opted for 8GB) is more of a bottleneck on big projects, so I'd go with the general wisdom that for the same price an Air with 16GB RAM is better value than the Pro with 8GB. Right now, I have the impression that I probably won't hit the limit of the CPU, particularly once plugins are native.
I thought I might regret the purchase if M1X machines came out at a reasonable price following the WWDC event. Right now it seems to me to have been a good choice, since it will probably have enough power for audio needs and wasn't too expensive. Of course I'd prefer more ports and am yet to find out how well I can get by with the two thunderbolt ports. And also, fingers crossed on not having any hardware problems once the warranty expires with integrated RAM and SSD... I'm banking on the general reputation of the reliability of MacBooks.

Battery life isn't as good as claimed, but still very good, and it's possible to record for a substantial time with USB Audio Interface on battery. I can use Logic for a decent time on battery with no performance loss.
The decision as to whether 13/14/16 inch display would really make a big workflow difference for audio isn't straight forward if one has other Apple products. I happen to have an iPad, and with sidecar it can be used as a second display, e.g. purely for the piano roll/mixer etc.. I'm not sure if I'd prefer the portability of the Air or a larger display of a future 16 inch model... obviously smaller bezels than with the current M1s would be nice, but the machine is superb in every other department. Trackpad and keyboard are awesome.

hameedm · Post by **hameedm** » Sat Jun 12, 2021 8:10 am

jonljacobi wrote: Fri Jun 11, 2021 2:01 pm Pro if you want minimal throttling. 16GB if you use large sample libraries. Air if you want the best looking. All depends on how hard you’ll be banging on it.

Not sure specifically about Bitwig - but I’d +1 on the Pro purely because it has fans. I’d be annoyed if I needed to run lots of stuff in Live or Logic and got throttling because of heat.

antic604 · Post by **antic604** » Sat Jun 12, 2021 9:41 am

hameedm wrote: Sat Jun 12, 2021 8:10 am
jonljacobi wrote: Fri Jun 11, 2021 2:01 pm Pro if you want minimal throttling. 16GB if you use large sample libraries. Air if you want the best looking. All depends on how hard you’ll be banging on it.
Not sure specifically about Bitwig - but I’d +1 on the Pro purely because it has fans. I’d be annoyed if I needed to run lots of stuff in Live or Logic and got throttling because of heat.

Well, in any DAW and in any computer you'll eventually run out of CPU power, so I guess it's a matter of heavy one's projects are and whether that 10-15% throttling performance drop makes a difference.

BTW, thanks everyone for chiming in!

syntonica · Post by **syntonica** » Sat Jun 12, 2021 2:06 pm

There's a simple thermal mod you can perform on the Air to give it the same performance as the Pro, if throttling becomes an issue for you. So, go with the model you like more.

If this is going to be a longtime machine, try to get double the RAN and SSD, if you can afford it to future-proof it for future growth. My MBP just celebrated its 6th birthday and if it had better than a 4th gen i5 processor, it would still be going strong. However, just one core of the new M1 is palpably faster than my entire machine, so replacement is in order.

If this machine only needs to go a year or two before the next thing comes along, then just get the most basic spec you need.

Which M1 Macbook for Bitwig?