which Mac to buy

[DJ EVON]

Hi all, hope all is well. I have a question for mac users using reason with the newer macbook pro's. M1 pro or M1 max?

Im going to buy a new macbook pro to use with reason and other audio software and would like to know which is better?

cheers,
dj evon

[EnochLight]

Hi all, hope all is well. I have a question for mac users using reason with the newer macbook pro's. M1 pro or M1 max?

Im going to buy a new macbook pro to use with reason and other audio software and would like to know which is better?

cheers,
dj evon

Which is "better"? I mean, it 100% depends on your budget, but the general rule is buy the fastest your budget will allow. The more direct answer is: the M1 Max is the faster CPU.

Read this for some more insight:

https://setapp.com/lifestyle/apple-m1-pro-vs-m1-max

[Sargie]

I've been using computers for 40 years and have worked professionally in software development for over 30 and I can say that my M1 Max MacBook Pro is the best computer I have ever owned.

It's unbelievably fast, unbelievably silent and sips power - I once had it on for almost 5 days without having to charge it and I was using it a lot during that time.

It was also very expensive, but I hear the performance on lower spec versions is equally as good (if not better) for the price.

Buy the best you can afford - you won't regret it.

[Re8et]

Hi all, hope all is well. I have a question for mac users using reason with the newer macbook pro's. M1 pro or M1 max?

Im going to buy a new macbook pro to use with reason and other audio software and would like to know which is better?

cheers,
dj evon

I have the Mini 8gb and it's like an i9 8 core. The fastest Cpu ever owned.
Dynamic memory never let me down , even if Reason can use more than 10gb of RAM, and could crackle a little...
it's not a big problem...
storage I use an external M.2 with the Usb-C and it's faster than my old Win pC M.2 in Sata mode!

It doesn't like games. That said, I agree with the budget thing. I never thought to get the 16gb and it might be better the MAX, or Studio...
I don't make thousands rendering per day as few years ago, so for me it's ok the M1 8gb.
Work dictates the budget... Also VCV rack runs exceptionally well in Rosetta.
Cn't say for video... resolume and that kinda VJ stuff...

[npinero1]

I totally understand why you would ask the main question.
My apologies for the long story but I dont want others to make the mistake I did.
I bought a 2019 Mac Pro 12 Core with 128GB RAM, added 4 separate 1TB NVME drives via a PCI card and a mid level Radeon MPX GPU. All of this cost me close to $8,000 after utilizing my cousins Apple employee discount.

When the Mac Mini launched with the M1 chip I thought "these Apple Chips are a fad, Apple is not going to walk away from Intel !"

THENNNNN, I started hearing how amazed people were with the M1 chip and I started to feel the FOMO itch, The doubt started creeping in but I still thought Intel would get off their ass and build a better chip.

Few months later the new MacBook Pros were launched with the M1 Pro and M1 Max chip and THEN I knew the end was near. So I sold my Mac Pro for $6,000 and bought the MacBook Pro M1 Pro with 32GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD for just under $4,000, pocketed the $2,000 and I HAVE NEVER BEEN HAPPIER.

When you think about it I really lost $2,000 and that was a hard pill to swallow, but I am SO HAPPY with my MBP M1 Pro, especially with the new version of Reason. I can track and playback 20-30 AUDIO & MIDI tracks at a 64 buffer, AND we are still waiting on M1 optimization so it should hopefully only get better.

SO to answer your question: Main difference between M1 Pro and Max is the GPU. If you do video editing in addition to music, buy the M1 Max.
save the GPU cost and use it for a larger internal SSD and memory.

BTW - An M2 Pro and M2 Max chip MacBook Pros are rumored for release in November.
Either way good luck, I think you are going to love it.

[stillifegaijin]

Not really an answer but I just ordered an official Apple refurbish MacBook Pro with M1 Pro. It arrives tomorrow. I got the base model for $300 off the new price. I’m super excited.

I’ve had a Mac Studio M1 Ultra for 6 months as my main work/desktop machine and the newest update to Reason was a game changer. It’s so good I decided I needed to replace my laptop.

I think any version of the M1 (or M2 if you wait) MacBook Pro with be great for what you want to do.

I do agree with the above - the higher end chips, Max and Ultra, are very geared towards graphics and video work, which is my “day job”.

[npinero1]

For another person's perspective on the MacBook Pro for music production:

[DJ EVON]

thank you everyone for your quick response. Npinero1, I think i will get the M1 pro with 32gb of ram and 2tb ssd.

[npinero1]

thank you everyone for your quick response. Npinero1, I think i will get the M1 pro with 32gb of ram and 2tb ssd.

That is cool man! I really hope you enjoy it and are able to create awesome tracks.

[Jac459]

I am surprised by the answers here.
You should definitely get the pro. The max only add GPUs that are irrelevant (at least for the foreseeable future) for music production.
The m1 max tests shows that it use more battery power and has less autonomy than the Pro for equivalent work. It also run hotter.

Obviously if you plan to actually do something else than music that is video intensive the answer could change.
But for musicians, it is generally accepted than pro is best.

To be clear, the m1 max just add gpu to the table, no change in the cpu.

A consideration is that in the future gpu will be used also for audio but I don't see that before 5 years at least, if it really happens.
Audio of today and tomorrow is still only using cpu.. And the m1 pro does have a good gpu, just not a beast like the max. But this gpu in the max will cost you in money, power and autonomy so don't buy it if you don't have direct use.

Also as said previously, you may want to wait for the m2 pro.

[EnochLight]

I am surprised by the answers here.
You should definitely get the pro. The max only add GPUs that are irrelevant (at least for the foreseeable future) for music production.

This is incorrect. The Max also allows for more RAM, and faster RAM (resulting in - yes - you guessed it - a faster computer). But I do agree that the main USP on the Max is more GPU’s, which - perhaps not for Reason - most certainly will help if you do tasks that utilize them like 8K video editing, etc.

[PhillipOrdonez]

Necrothreading as I'm looking to get a new computer in the near ish future. I've never owned a Mac. Been following the SoC saga and at first was eyeing the Mac studio. Then heard that the pro and max chips are equivalent so i was planning on getting the Mac mini M2 pro with 12 cores. But then i learnt about memory bandwidth, which is halved on the pro vs the max chips, so that rules out the mini. I'm now looking at the M2 Mac studio.

Don't think i will wait for the m3 max to come to the Mac studio cause it is already very expensive as is... The M1 version costed approx €2500 for the base model, and the M2 base model costs about €3000. So the new one is going to cost more and comes in two flavors of 14 and 16 cores and only the 16 version has the full bandwidth, so that's gonna cost a lot more probably if i could find a new m1 with 1tb of storage i would get it but those aren't sold anymore.

The main benefit of the M2 is that it has 2 extra efficiency cores compared to the m1, whilst having the same 8 performance cores which afaik, are the only ones reason and live utilize for the time being. Is this still the case?.

So obviously the m3 maxed out max is the clear winner in future proofing but it will be beyond what i can afford. I'm even debating getting the base Mac studio M2 instead of the one with 1tb cause that's 300 more expensive... Which leads to my question:


I understand that Mac users in the past could use external SSD and the performance was good enough that you could run stuff of those as if they were internal. Is this still possible with the new chips? Can I get away with the half a terabyte internal driver and use fast external drives to compensate and store all my files? Cause i would rather spend a bit less instead of more on this new computer. There's a base model m1 Mac studio on one store here but I'm leaning towards the M2...

Thoughts? Thanks for any advice.

[PhillipOrdonez]

Would be nice if a mod changed the title of this topic to be more specific like " which Mac to buy"

[guitfnky]

tbh, unless you’re really hungry for CPU, you can’t go wrong with any of the Mx chips. I bought an M1 Macbook Air last year and it handles most I throw at it without even approaching a hiccup. granted, I don’t use it as a main computer, but after being forced to work on a laptop for several weeks (helping my mom after a shoulder replacement and not being home), I’m confident they’re all very capable.

I would look at performance benchmarks for the different chips to see if you think the extra performance is worth whatever extra they’re charging for the different chips and versions, but any way you go, you’ll be happy. the biggest cost factor (IMO) is the RAM and storage.

[jam-s]

Too little internal storage might be a bummer if you've got many big REs. That's because those still cannot be moved from the OS drive to another drive on macs.

[PhillipOrdonez]

Thanks guilt and jam-s for your comments...

Can you install for example reason on an external drive? Anyone here works like that?

[WaxTrax]

I agree that it's best to get as much internal storage as you can reasonably afford, just because it can't be upgraded (internally) later, and it makes working with application-oriented data (such as the rack extensions and regular plugins) so much easier. However, with something like a Mac Studio that's not necessarily meant to be portable, connecting high-speed external storage is great for offloading things like sample libraries and large ROMpler-style plugins.

External NVMe storage is recommended over traditional SATA SSDs because they have a much higher transfer rate and IOPS capability. The prices on these have come down tremendously. You could get an external NVMe enclosure and a 4TB NVMe M2 drive for less than $250 USD. A 2TB drive is around half that price.