It's a M1 Pro 10 core, 32GB and 1TB SSD. A fresh install/factory reset I guess, I opened it and needed to enter my accounts and so on. It's not refurbished but was checked by an IT company before being sold to me (was a work laptop before). The SSD is completely empty, I didn't install any apps yet.

I'll give it another few hours, try disabling the liquid ass effect and check activity monitor, maybe it's spotlight indexing(?). Since many users report the laggy user interface, it might just be Tahoe, in that case I'll try downgrading to Sequoia. A bit annoying that MacOS needs a lot more work then Windows but it might just be my timing, getting a MacBook after the release of Tahoe.

 

@fnord23 you have a powerful machine with enough CPU power, RAM and storage space. If you have proof it was checked by an IT company they ran a diagnostic on the machine and your hardware is healthy.

I would downgrade to Sequoia.

My brand new M4 MBP has only 24gb or RAM and 512gb of storage compared to yours and it run as it should.
I'm on sequoia 15.1 and didn't upgrade to Tahoe. I will eventually update to the latest version of Sequoia if there are any efficiency benefits to it but I need to research it.

What you describe is unheard of to me, I'm typing this on my 2014 Intel MBP with 16gb of RAM and a 250gb HD (no SSD) operating under BigSur and I have zero problems with finder and apps laughing immediately, it would be crazy if it wasn't the case.
I can still run Live 12, Logic Pro, Serum, Serum 2, Dune 3, Spire, Fabfilter, Valhalla, Devious Machines, Kclip, Boost, etc with no problem unless I absolutely abuse Voices and Polyphony.

Click and pops on 32gb of RAM and a M1 chip which manage CPU efficiency better than a M3 thanks to it's better performance cores is not right. Apple core audio can't be compared to Windows drivers, there is no competition.

Is your audio interface plugged directly into your MBP or into a dock ?
Is the samplerate of your DAW set as the same as your audio interface ?
Do you make orchestral music with tons of samples libraries and hundreds of tracks ?

Hopefully you will have a way better experience soon.

 

Thanks for your advice, I didn't mean to hijack the post by any means. I did a downgrade to Sequoia and everything is a lot better now.

 

Last edited: Mar 22, 2026

Here is some good advice. Stick with PC. life is easier. in 20 years i have yet to hear a difference in a song made on a mac vs a song made on a PC.

 

Windows Defender is far, far worse.

 

Okay.

Until now I installed most of the plugins I use. This is my experience, might be helpful for other newbies, probably common knowledge for Mac users:


- Install is quite easy with Sentinel. MacOS will quarantine a lot of apps but it's still way less annoying then Windows Defender.

- You can decide to run Rosetta compatibility OR native M, not both in the same session. Some companies don't update their VST2, I wasn't able to work on some of my old projects for that reason. The plugins installed correctly but won't show up in my DAW, took me a while to figure out that they are Intel.

- Little Snitch is really great. I was able to keep my DAW offline but allow only certain servers, so plugins that I need to connect can sync without problem. All other plugins stay in an offline cage, which is awesome

- M1 Pro 10 Core performance in Ableton is not to impressive. I got it because it's still better then M2 or m3 (Ableton doesn't use performance cores), but I hit a CPU limit just like on my ryzen desktop PC. That's honestly the most annoying. I don't even have many tracks but plugins like Polyverse Filterverse and some of my Distortion go-to REALLY eat CPU. M4 Pro, which should be a lot better is still to expensive unfortunately.

At this point I'm not sure if I will return to desktop and get a cheap M1 air for my life performances that don't require much heavy plugins.

 

I've tried every major version of Ableton on Macs, some with multiple minor version updates in between them as well. It's always laggy, slower performance than Logic on the same machine. Until you go crazy with all the Steinberg content, Cubase even lags less than Ableton. The issue isn't your Mac, and it probably isn't a Windows PC related problem either. Many people just don't notice it because they learned on Ableton and have just never used anything else. And of course Logic is coded and optimized on a much smaller number of models. Ableton can't do anything much to change Windows related performance; they can only tweak their own product. Apple could even tweak MacOS to optimize Logic performance on their machines. They have way more direct control.

 

@fnord23 If you want to, read the part about CPU and RAM (the whole page can be read under 5 minutes) :
https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/a...puter-specifications-for-running-Ableton-Live

If you are not recording vocals or live instruments set you buffer to the biggest size available into the preferences panel (cmd + ,)
Set your sample rate to 44100 + high quality (same for your audio interface).

AU's are in many cases wrapped VST's, I advise you to use VST3's as they don't affect CPU when they are inactive.
+ if you send you session to a PC user they won't have compatibility issues (can't use AU in windows).

. Always use your Macbook with the charger plugged in to get better performances and protect your battery.
. Go to your battery settings and switch to high power on power adapter (check your battery health too).
. Close all your apps except your DAW when making music.
. Disable Wifi, Bluetooth and screen saver.

I find these videos to be insightful aswell :

 

Thanks for the links, I will check them later when I'm home and try changing the performance settings, but there's only "normal" and energy saving which I switched off. I use Sequoia. Honestly I thought that MacBook Pros don't throttle on battery, hopefully I'm wrong, I'll test again with power plugged in.

I use VST3 exclusively and deleted all AU plugins, only keep some VST2 for compatibility.

Maybe Filterverse and some other plugins are just not very well coded?

 

M3 Pro with 6P cores even slightly outperforms M1 Pro with 8P (with Logic) and M1 Pro slightly outperforms it in Live (judging by James Zhan's testing), basically faster cores is the way to go it seems, much more serial single core loads, probably DAW feels snappier too, faster RAM, SSD, kinda makes no sense to even look at older models.

Probably, especially if they are taxing single core, lately I started using Nebula more and for the first time I managed to actually max out all the RAM and CPU in a project, so thinking to get another machine, nothing makes total sense and there's always some drawback, probably going to wait for whole M5 line up to arrive (mainly interested in Mac Mini Pro), only other thing I found interesting is Macbook Pro M4 14C (10P/4E) 48/512 for 2K used (2 cycles battery, practically new). It's one of those things, I actually just need few more cores and little more RAM, but then you start going back and forth, thinking if I get this it have two more cores, but they are slower, but for 200 bucks I get this and that and then things start pilling up and you end up in total confusion once again, it would be much easier if Bitwig used all the cores.

 

Last edited: Mar 26, 2026

Seems like newest M5 Pro without E cores utilize all the cores in Logic, except one, which is probably there to keep OS and background tasks, but this is great news if this turns out to be the case, probably Live/Bitwig will utilize it the same way.

@4:35 in the video

 

By the same token/time-frame I have yet to see/hear a difference between video or still photo production done on PC as opposed to apple eitherI guess some equate expen$e to quality which is a complete misnomer re: the two major hardware platforms anymore.

 

Last edited: Mar 27, 2026

I was casually just watching this one about Cooling macbook Airs..

I got mine on top of a rectangular plastic tray/basket with mesh holes all over.. lol
So it leaves some empty space underneath, only the rim having contact.
Airflow etc..

But yeah those pads look like a serious improvement

 

When using a MacBook there's at least one big difference anybody can hear: it's 100% silent, I didn't get to start the fans no matter what I did. Unlike every Windows laptop I ever tried.

 

Last edited: Mar 30, 2026

That plugin is very high CPU use for what it actually does.

 

Learn how to use the bundled Apple Notes app, and organize topics into folders. Create a folder for Mac Tips. Create a file in that folder for "pirate stuff". As you learn tips and tricks for things like Unrar'ing files, useful Terminal commands, fixing .nicht problems in Kontakt, using System Settings>Security, etc add them to the Pirate Stuff file. That way you can refer to it if you encounter issues.