Hey,

Is it better to invest in the latest Intel Mac or go for M1 when it comes to support of older plugins as well as cracked plugins?

 

Dude forget Intel Macs. M1 is much superior and pretty much all plugins work. Old plugins work with Rosetta 2 like on Intel Macs.

 

M2's are around the corner. if i were you, i would either go for intel to use bootcamp windows, or i would wait for M2.

 

M1 or wait, no Intel

 

ok, do you know if cracked version of Logic works on M1?

And does anyone know if Dune 1.4 synth 64 bit AU works on M1?

 

If anyone can do me a favour and test if latest legacy Dune 1 works on M1 machine? I would appreciate it

here is the demo

https://www.synapse-audio.com/demos/dunedemo.dmg

 

at this point in time definitely wait for the M1X. 16GB of ram will never be enough for music production IMHO.

but the real questions are:
1. is there really a big difference between intel and M1(M1X) UNDER rosetta? no doubt M1 is certainly a win in the long run, but just for how long would all your favorite plugins be supported for M1? I dont see that coming in a few years.
2. will all your favorite *cracked* plugins run successfully on Big Sur\Monterey\M1? Something i'd also really want to know since im still staying at catalina.

 

You should really remember what many of Apple's customers are like. As soon as a new iPhone or M1 or whatever else comes out, they have to upgrade. Even though they did not actually need to. Chances are, they didn't need what they started with.

So you will see a flood of lightly used, second-hand devices at artificially depressed prices. If you keep an eye out while you are waiting anyway, you may come across a deal that is too good to pass up. And Mojave will run almost everything you throw at it. Minus Logic 10.6, which barely matters.

 

Never be enough?

ive worked on film scores, TV sync’s and music productions that got big airplay on laptops with 8GB Ram on a daily basis.

Guess it depends on your needs though, I don’t use many VSTi’s, it’s mostly real instruments, synths etc...

 

16GB RAM on M1 doesn't feel like 16GB RAM on Intel Mac/PC. I can confirm that as many other testers on Youtube. I have a Intel Mac with 32GB RAM and a M1 with 16GB RAM, it pretty much feels the same for music production. And to your questions:

1. Yes there is a big difference. Depends on plugins, but some load much faster on M1. Also overall experience on M1 is so much smoother than on Intel. Never had any lags and CPU overload on M1 on large project files with over 100 tracks. Can't say that for my older Intel Mac.

2. I run Big Sur, pretty much all cracked plugins work. Actually I don't even know which ones don't work. Even some old plugins that are not officially supported on Big Sur work for me.

TBH I think it doesn't matter much for music production if M1 or M1X unless you're a composer that runs huge amount of Kontakt libraries at the same time. The M1 is so good that in normal circumstances, you don't have to worry about lags or CPU overload any more. These times are gone.

 

So older cracked Logic Pro versions like 10.4.1 should work on M1 and Big Sur?

 

Yeah people who say that are usually people who use huge orchestral templates with all the big Kontakt libraries loaded at the same time and hundreds of tracks.

 

Buy M1 you'll be fine. if you're an electronic music producer 8gb unified is enough but 16 always welcome.

If you want more power wait for m1x . But tbh m1 is more than enough tho.

 

Why 10.4 it's a bit old. I think 10.6 is the first optimized one for apple silicon chips.

 

It is no longer possible to manually upgrade RAM memory sticks in Macbook M1? For example if a buy a M1 with 8 GB ram and i want to upgrade to 16 gb?

This means i have to buy the M1 setup i want in a M1 macbook directly?

 

There are no memory sticks in m1 macs. It's embedded in the SoC with the processor. That's why you can't compare its potential and performance by size with the Intel era. It's a different story. It works almost like cache memory, hardly any latency, much higher bandwidth.

Perhaps the most annoying difference between Intel and M1 macs is the temperature that consequently causes fan noise and throttling in Intel macs while M1 is mostly silent and cool.

 

I have used both 16 and 8 varients of mac mini. You will not counter any performance issues with 8gb until using huge kontakt libraries.

1.If you use kontakt a lot.

2.If you have huge projects over 100 tracks filled with analog emus and samplers with some crazy work.

If you have those necessities buy 16 or just buy 8 you will be fine.But if you have money then no choice go with 16.

 

Note: Pro studio users that purchased the M1 Mac mini are recommending you get 16Gb with it. Better to have that extra memory then not enough when you'll be locked into that amount of memory at purchase time!

 

Its been like that since at least the 2013 MacBooks as much as I remember... this is decade old news. It sucks, and they supposedly have their reasons, but I am not at all happy with the ram tax bullshit they run on us on a new system.