seems typical of most apple users to fall back on meaningless insults when confronted with actual facts about their denials. surprising any would actually even know what comptia was let alone pass any tests... probably looked that whole thing up on "chatgpt" where all apple "gospel" comes from...

 

I had all these similar problems you mention with an Apollo Twin X Quad w/ Thunderbolt 3, on fully loaded i7 Macbook Pro. So much so that I sent it back, and ended up back with MOTU. People love their plugins, but in my personal experience; the actual software from them was terrible. They even had a utility program on the UAD website that they had made to clean up failed installations and dropped connectivity.

No-one I know has these problems with just MacOS, of any version. Or at least, none that have mentioned it.

 

That sucks you've been having so many issues!

Is that a more specific-to-M1 thing?

Cos I run an Apollo mkii and a TB Satellite, with an M4 MBP on Sequoia, and have literally not had a single dropout/hang for the month or so since I got this machine. and like, the way my desk setup is, I hotplug my Apollo hardware all the time, and it gets picked up right away every time.

The UAD install procedure on Sonoma is defo a pain - did you follow the instructions on their site, and do the whole boot into recovery mode to change some secruity setting first? (can't remember exactly what it was, but it was a bit of a thing, but like, I followed all the steps, and it worked great).

I primarily work in Ableton, but have used Cubase as well, and it seemed fine too? Like, running at 32 sample buffer, with a whole bunch of other stuff running in the background (the M4 is so crazy powerful that I genuinely forget I've got stuff running - I was working on a track the other day, and literally had like photoshop, discord, edge, and the Sims running in the background, a litearlly didn't realise lol), and it's been fine, haven't really had any hiccups - maybe I'm just lucky, but yeah - just for anyone else reading - it's not all doom and gloom!

 

I gotta say, I don't really see anyone using any insults, unless I'm missing something?

Like, I'm honestly not too sure about a lot of the stuff you're talking about, and I'm not really that worried about it tbh - I think like a lot of other folks who are using their machines to make music, and want them to work reliably, I've been really happy with my MBP.

I was also v happy working on windows machines too (I've always used both).

But yeah, this does appear to be a bit of a personal bugbear for yourself, and that's totally fine - we all have different experiences - but from having a quick read of the thread, I don't think anybody's really looking for an argument here? I think it was more that a couple of your msgs kinda came in a bit hot, and like, this is just a thread trying to help someone find a machine they can make music on, I'm not sure it's maybe the best place to be diving into the dark underbelly of big tech companies, y'know?

 

I'm not sure what is going on with your system, but I, and plenty of others I know have zero issues with apple silicon and running this stuff like a purring kitten with no problems.

Sure, you gotta think about what you toss on your system and from where, but I would think that would be common sense anyways.

I'm not all Mac fanboi here, and all good with people enjoying whatever... but I would strongly beg to differ that it's getting worse on the macOS side in terms of audio production. It isn't. And it's not that expensive.

I'm sure you can 'google' anything and find a ton of idiots and their buddies who don't know what they are doing. Par for the course.

I'm not saying it's the only option. I'm saying it's working just fine.

If you prefer pc, linux, whatever... feel free... all good. and I want everyone to enjoy what they got.

But there are a ton of us using Macs from osx to macOS to mini's to cheese graters to mbp's to whatever... and doing just fine without breaking bank and doing what we will.

whatever, tired os wars are tired and if people can't figure out their shit, (and I'm not saying UAD hardware hasn't had issues, and f' them on that...but whatever, I don't use it anymore or can imagine why I would at this point....) sometimes its not the tool....

 

You are missing when I said in response to the guy actually using AI for everything that MacOS is simple. I also elaborated that most Windows users do not know Windows. He feels personally insulted by the fact he probably does not have a single Windows IT certification that would barely qualify him to work at Best Buy. Even though I was just saying this about the general public. If the shoe fits...

It's ok, he will go back to complaining about how he can't use VPN on the free file hosting sites soon. The only reason for a Windows user to even be reading a thread about Mac so thoroughly is to talk BS about stuff they don't know anything about.

 

Last edited: Apr 7, 2025

PC's are great but I favor Mac OS and Macs build quality.
Apple Silicon have made Macs affordable and very powerful workstations, with small desk footprints.
Caveats are with the storage. It's overpriced from Apple. Get what you need for the system, app and plugins,
and buy some fast external storage for everything else.
If you're lucky enough to find them in stock, and a little handy,
you can upgrade with 3rd party storage fabrications, at a fraction of Apple's prices.

 

I switched from a windows laptop to macbook pro m1 this year and i love it , It took me less than a week to get used to the new system ,Also I have no issues running fl studio and ableton I use them both no complains I also use a bunch of plugins such as uad , acustica , fabfilter ...etc works fine . another thing to mention is how good macos when it comes to switching audio output and input sources , in windows you can't do that without the DAW crashing which really sucks , I use SoundSource for switching between out - in sources it does it seamlessly .

 

The main reason I am considering a MAC is that they use very little power. I am going to use it in my RV. I still have my monster gaming PC at home, which is superb when using Reaper also. I'm running 64 samples on my EVO and it feels like I can literally put on endless with FX. In the RV I'm happy if I can run a couple of Tonex and SD3 and some FX. The MAC Air must be capable of handle that. Thank you for all answers!

 

My wish list for the year 2100 is:

Microsoft and Apple join forces, building the best of both worlds in a single music production computer.
Windows/Apple OS, the Peace OS v1.0 with a 25-year warranty including free updates.

One can still dream...!

 

John Lennon, going ahead, wrote a song about it

 

I just found out about the PC ARM laptops. I'll go for one of those instead

 

used MBP M2 Max with 32GB ram and reasonable internal SSD is probably best pick,

latest M4 is nice, but Air has no cooling and you need consistency in performance

 

I second this.
I'm very lucky to have a MacBook pro which i could test for half a year.
Otherwise I never would have made the switch.
Now I'm switching from windows to Mac because:
It just works!

The core audio from Mac is far superior than this Asio driver stuff

 

Be ready for the fact that there aren't so much cracked plugins on the mac OS if you are a pirate of course

 

This is why Windows users who have "tried Mac" cannot see the benefits. When you produce music for 6 months or a year with 0 problems is when the epiphany finally happens. Many experienced Windows users will set up their machine with a partitioned system drive. One partition contains Windows, applications and plugins; and the other one contains audio files, presets, templates, and so on. The reason why they do it is because it is faster to just restore the smaller system/apps partition, then having to restore the entire drive.

They do it because they are running an operating system where they need to be good at restoring it. That is like pilots who are great at landing planes at the wrong airports.

"Can't be easily fixed or upgraded" is another one. For what purposes, gaming? Instability? More wasted time and money. No-one builds a reliable car from random parts they order off the internet, and then assembled by a hack mechanic down the street. I'll take my chances with a team of system engineers, departments of people testing configurations of newly introduced systems, and robot assembly.

 

That's an apt analogy. The problem with the analogy is that in 10 years, your car will still drive up and down the road at roughly the same speed as all other cars driving up and down the road. It'll still be a comparable car. Can the same be said about any non-upgradeable Mac?

I'm not a Mac guy. I'm not a Windows guy either. I couldn't care less what someone else is using. It makes literally no difference to me. I will say I personally gravitate towards Windows because I can sail the seas far more easily than on a Mac. I can swap parts out far more easily. It's cheaper to upgrade parts than to upgrade an entire computer. And lastly, because everything-Apple is proprietary "only works with other Apple products" nonsense. I hate being locked into an ecosystem that doesn't play nice with other brands. It's about as anti consumer as you can be. The EU is finally forcing Apple to be a bit more consumer friendly so this is becoming more of a moot point as the years pass but their ecosystem is still too closed off for my tastes.

 

Been a WIndows user for 35 years... only a brief of time using Mac when i was in university (Uni COmputer) around circa 2002, never liked it and hate it, also have to use it where certain studio equip with it. But just last year I need a mobile setup coz i will be traveling alot and really into doing foley/sound design.. so i grab my self Macbook M1 pro 16.. at first i bought it because with honesty i really hate most windows laptop look like. 2nd is because i heard a lot of good thing about Apple Silicon tech, especially heat managment.

My first impression, the learning curve.. not that hard, it feel weird at the beginning.. but after 3 days, its pretty much straight forward. Setup my Nuendo and Studio One is much quicker than on Windows..and as not so many K'd plugs on Mac side...so i wont bother much to try every release..most of the time i use stock plug and what ever i already have licensed.

Im also a casual gamer, i love to play FPS game.. but since Mac dont have the game i usually played.. i kinda dont miss it.. i have more focus to finish my work, and shut down, more time with family especially with my son.. no more cluttered desktop, everything save on external drives...

Initially the setup just meant for mobile... but recently i just do most of the work now on this macbook.. just start my PC once in awhile to transfer some files.. i gotta say, i love using mac now.. it made me focus on task in hand and not bother with other things anymore. Am I a MAc boy now? Haha perhaps, maybe...