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

[Ploki]

A 85W processor in a laptop? Wow!

45W cpu + 35W gpu (and some overhead, i think cpu tops at 50W)

Apple chips are all in one

[Bombadil]

Wonder how that chip would handle Civ VI, which is choppy on my iMac with 2 gb Radeon, I think. That's at lowerst rendering, too.

[masterhiggins]

Maybe more detailed and nuanced everything without cutting corners because of CPU... maybe developers could finally make plugins without worrying about people crying about CPU usage...

As long as there’s the cpu disparity between intel/non-ryzen AMD/M1 performance there will always be crying. I wonder if such a massive increase in cpu headroom will encourage some developers to not bother with optimization.

[Passing Bye]

Yeah, there’s that too...

[Jim Rosebrook]

From Native Instruments forum today (Dec 16):

Hi everyone!

Some of you have been asking about Apple Silicon compatibility and I'd like to share some notes regarding Native Access:

From Dec 16th, 2020, we’re enabling the installation of NI products on computers with Apple Silicon processors. With the exception of MASSIVE X, all of our products can be activated, installed and updated as normal using this beta version of Native Access, which will run on the latest generation of Mac computers via Apple’s automatic translation environment Rosetta 2.

Please note however that we are not yet able to offer technical support for products installed in this way.

We are working to ensure full support for Apple Silicon across all of our current products, but time frames for compatibility will vary, and we are not yet able to announce any specific dates.

We will keep you updated with any new developments on this topic, but in the meantime, please check updates on our Knowledge Base to obtain current information on compatibility with Apple Silicon: https://bit.ly/NISupport_Silicon

Thank you
Matt

[george]

Regarding M1 support, right now OB-Xd, OPL, Discovery, Discovery Pro, Schroeder Reverb and Scope visualizer are Universal 2 Binary. The SSE to NEON optimization of Discovery and Discovery Pro took me less time than expected and the performance results are impressive.

[Double Tap]

So I ordered a 16gb MBP which is probably going to arrive next week but I've not had a Mac this millennium - got any suggestions for what I should or shouldn't do when setting it up that aren't obvious?

I'll be using a second monitor with a crap USB hub that I'll eventually replace and most of my stuff is archived to OneDrive so I'll keep using that. There's also a NAS that I use for back-ups and archiving.

[Cinebient]

From Native Instruments forum today (Dec 16):

Hi everyone!

Some of you have been asking about Apple Silicon compatibility and I'd like to share some notes regarding Native Access:

From Dec 16th, 2020, we’re enabling the installation of NI products on computers with Apple Silicon processors. With the exception of MASSIVE X, all of our products can be activated, installed and updated as normal using this beta version of Native Access, which will run on the latest generation of Mac computers via Apple’s automatic translation environment Rosetta 2.

Please note however that we are not yet able to offer technical support for products installed in this way.

We are working to ensure full support for Apple Silicon across all of our current products, but time frames for compatibility will vary, and we are not yet able to announce any specific dates.

We will keep you updated with any new developments on this topic, but in the meantime, please check updates on our Knowledge Base to obtain current information on compatibility with Apple Silicon: https://bit.ly/NISupport_Silicon

Thank you
Matt

Great, thank you for the info I had passed otherwise maybe.
Installed all my Kontakt libraries and all works fine so far on my M1.
So, now I have almost everything running again without any major problems. That was faster as I expected.

[simmo75]

Sorry in advance but I haven’t read the other 47 pages

Are the new M1 Mac Mini’s actually capable of being the main computer in a project/post studio or more of a hobbyist type of thing?

[Passing Bye]

Sorry in advance but I haven’t read the other 47 pages

Are the new M1 Mac Mini’s actually capable of being the main computer in a project/post studio or more of a hobbyist type of thing?

Depends on your needs, they are fairly powerful for the buck, something like AMD Ryzen 3600 desktop PC system.



M1 Mini have similar score as this hackintosh
https://www.logicprohelp.com/forum/view ... &start=200

So I just got my Mac Mini in (base model - 8GB RAM 256GB drive).

I was able to get 107 going without a hitch. Insanity! What further impressed me was how smooth the UI still was even when the CPU was being absolutely hammered.

[Sascha Franck]

Sorry in advance but I haven’t read the other 47 pages

Are the new M1 Mac Mini’s actually capable of being the main computer in a project/post studio or more of a hobbyist type of thing?

They are plenty more powerful than, say, my 2010 Mac Pro. And on machines of that very type, countless chart toppers have been produced.
Your individual needs may vary, though - so, in case you're doing fullblown orchestral works, you may still need a more powerful machine or outsource some sample libraries to a slaved remote computer.

[egbert]

Looks like M$ wants to crash this party. Already hitting Intel's stock price apparently.
https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/18/ ... arm_chips/

[revvy]

Got a MBA on order as an Xmas present for my better half. The really cool thing is I get to play with it too, to test out Logic, plugins, etc. Win-win.

Edit: Gold colour....

[Cinebient]

So after some weeks now I am still mostly happy and so far everything I installed and wanted to use works (more or less).
I am really pleased with the single core performance because that was a much limiting factor for me with some tools like P900 synth. Now I finally can play my 16 OSC Pipe Organ (4 instances with 4 OSC each, 8 voices set to 4X oversampling) like I want without it breaks the cpu after some seconds and makes it hot like an oven.
At the same time I already see why I would like a 16" with 8 performance cores since 5 instances and it over here, so I need one performance core for each instance here. If I could double that I could play my 32 OSC version
Not sure why but P900 gives me my favourite Organ sounds which are something like a hybrid from synth to organic sounding but I even prefer it over my sampled organs, lol.
However, if a 16" really could double it (or more) these are good times.
I really like to layer sounds to play and record them live and i reached way to far the cpu limit here.
When I also judge the size, weight, heat it produce (or better said it not produce), still I did not hear the fan once (is there even one in my MacBook Pro, lol), battery which last so much longer as on any intel laptop I ever had, no loss in performance when running just on battery until it reach under 10%.
Last but not least I am still surprised how good the speakers are even in the 13".
The 16" must be like a good soundbar then.
To sum it up, this is the most usable and powerful computer in a really mobile size I ever had.
Also finally I would not say its overpriced as it was in the past.
I payed as much as I did for my old MacBook Pro 15" i7 quad core in the past (and I got a good sale on it) and its so much better.
The bad side, I thought this M1 has all the power I ever need but now that I licked the blood......

[Bombadil]

Just ordered a basic mini model. My wife's mini is long in the tooth (2011 server), and since she doesn't do any heavy lifting with it, the basic model will be enough for her. I will also be able to use it to get my bearings when I buy an M1 iMac later this year.

Supposed to be here tomorrow. I'll be able to see how Logic performs and what works.