#439

These benchmarks make it seem like you could get away with just an air.

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#441

The thing that I’d like to hear in your situation is how much (if any) performance hit the air takes from thermal management when pushed.

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#443

That’s a million dollar question. My dogs shed lots of little short hairs that get into everything, its bad enough to push me towards the air.

I really hope the thermals are not too bad. Judging (with zero math) by the battery life and capacity it looks like they should run reasonably cool. It’s hard to make a lower power heating element… I think.

#444

million dollar question

2 Likes
#445

It depends on the driver. Kernel extensions will definitely not be translatable. But drivers for most recent interfaces should not be requiring one. If the driver was written using DriverKit, then it is supposed to be translatable with Rosetta. Note that I don’t have any experience trying different drivers so I’m just reporting on what’s supposed to happen.

rule of thumb: if you had to reboot your computer after installing the driver, it’s probably not going to run via Rosetta.

4 Likes
#446

I assume anything that uses core audio will be fine?

#447

Core Audio is a blanket term for a bunch of MacOS audio frameworks at different levels. So, not really.

1 Like
#449

Have you tested Max/msp over Rosetta 2 at all, @randy? Just curious how that runs…

1 Like
#450

About Big Sur (on Intel) compatibility with music software. Reaper and Reaktor newest versions both work on my machine, but unfortunately SuperCollider does not. The weird thing is that older version I had installed (3.9) worked, but I had some problems with starting SuperDirt so wanted to check out if maybe upgrade could help.

#451

I have a simple way of thinking about these new chips through thermal envelopes / wattage / intel perf targets: i3 in the Air, i5 in the 13" Pro, i7/i9 in the 16" Pro. The 16" MBP has a more generous thermal budget, so I kind of understand why they wouldn’t just put the same M1 chip in it.

#452

This twitter thread on the M1 chip MacBook Pro is good:

And Gruber’s review is very positive: https://daringfireball.net/2020/11/the_m1_macs

2 Likes
#453

I’m also hearing a whole lot of good things about the Air. Like way less heat issues and less throttling than the last version even though it has no fans. I’m thinking about picking up an air, but I’m a bit worried about how well things like Live will run through Rosetta without optimization for M1 (and Ableton tends to be slow about that sort of thing). So I think I’ll wait around and see until some of the M1 Macbooks are in circulation.

#454

I have not found any exhaustive tests of the MBA M1 + Ableton yet, but a few posts like this one are very encouraging:

1 Like
#455

I have a 2014 MBP, works fine other than battery life. I do all my recording in Garageband with no real interest of change DAWs. I have years of GB files - will a new MB Air be an improvement in speed and storage space? Will Garageband files from 2009 still open?

#456

This thread is dangerous for me. I bought a 2019 16” MBP with an i7 and while it does the job, it gets SO UNBELIEVABLY HOT with so few tasks and the fans are constantly blasting. I’ve only really hit the processing cap on a couple of Ableton projects but was running almost 80 tracks with almost an entirely ITB mix so it’s performed well.

That all said, the prospect of a super light thin workstation with that same level of processing AND substantially better battery AND a lack of fans screaming (esp while recording) AND not having it be super hot is really enticing. I’m just struggling wrapping my head around them performing as well or better than my current laptop at such a lower price.

I certainly don’t want to impulse buy one but I can’t seem to escape that thought

3 Likes
#457

I think most of the times when my 2019 15inch is getting hot with fans blasting is when gpu engages. there is an app to easily switch between integrated and discreet gpu and setting it to integrated only when working with Ableton should help

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#458

I’m keeping a keen eye on the M1 Mac mini as an alternative to the PC desktop I was planning to get.

Just to add to the non-scientific M1/Big Sur chat, https://twitter.com/ewanpearson is saying his new Air is performing as well/better than his Mac Pro, and the majority of software/plug-ins he’s tried are working correctly (presumably mostly under Rosetta).

3 Likes
#459

I have been looking at replacing my 2014 macbook pro with a pc build for a couple months, but I just bought the mac mini. I haven’t wanted any of the computers apple has put out in a long time but after all of the weird supply issues in sourcing pc parts and all the software costs I would have had in switching, I’m happy to soon have a reasonably priced computer that will do the work I need (video editing with some pretty computer intensive codecs from my new camera). Really did not expect to buy another mac

2 Likes
#460

I’m in the exact same boat. Those fans are such a damn nuisance, especially when I’m tracking delicate stuff in Ableton with my LOM mics. I’m considering trading in my 16-inch (which seems to depreciate every couple of weeks on Apple’s website) for a new M1 MBP with 16gb of ram. More research to be done, though…

2 Likes
#461

I feel like an insane person considering trading in a laptop I bought this year to be a power house and last me years for what is now their lowest end cheapest laptop, but here we are. Honestly the biggest caveats for me are that I have come to enjoy having the screen real estate, especially for web dev but at the same time if I’m doing serious work, theres a fair chance im in front of my external monitor or tv which i can airplay to. It might come down to just buying one without trade in and then using my 16" as a more permanent desktop that I can just store somewhere a bit out of the way.

I just really don’t think anyone expected them to be THIS powerful. I remember during the event that my roommate and I were chatting back and forth about some of the outlandish claims being made and I kept saying “it’s either going to live up to these claims and be INSANE or these are going to be inflated statements that don’t hold up but we won’t know until it’s here” and even now its hard to believe they’re true.

1 Like