Music Rig. Should I trade up, or get an iPad?

[darkanddivine]

Hi! I've been playing around with my music production setup now for a couple of years. I have the iMac M1 chip with 4 performance and 4 efficiency cores, which to date has served me quite well. I can run sessions with 30-50 tracks without always needing to bounce which is reasonable bandwidth for my needs, but I do occasionally run into bottlenecks.

In normal circumastances, I'd probably just live with this until I next need to upgrade (previously had 8 and 7 year runs). However, I have been feeling the need to move around a little bit with my workspace. This isn't like ultra-portability - but the ability to disconnect from a monitor and SSD's and go elsewhere even in the house would be nice.

The initial thought I had for this was to augment the desktop with an iPad. Obviously an iOS rig doesn't do as much as a desktop, but I could have fun with some of the iOS only music apps that make use of the touchscreen, and start Logic projects over there to bring to the desktop. That probably gets me the portability but also buys me time to think about the next desktop/laptop.

However, I've been watching with interest the progress of the M-chips. I notice that they are reducing the amount of performance cores in the chips release by release. DAWs don't use the efficiency cores, so their presence seems to be quite important. This got me thinking if now is a good time to move for a Pro chip.

I don't feel like a Max is appropriate for my needs, but a Pro could be. The uptick in speed would probably be small, but probably noticable. The M3 model I'm looking at has 6 performance cores at a higher speed. On Geekbench, my current Mac has a Perfomance Core score of 8334, where the M3 Macbook Pro has a Performance score of 14000. There's also an additional 2gb of RAM, up to 18 from 16gb. The model I've seen that might work is the 2nd level base model with these specs:

• 12-core CPU (6 performance)
• 18GB Unified Memory
• 1TB SSD Storage

Really I suppose it comes down to what shape my iMac M1 standard chip will be in over the next 5 years, and whether taking the M3 Pro would put me in a better spot for the upcoming changes to the M lineup. An iPad would be less upfront outlay, but I would be able to trade in my iMac to make that cost a little more palletable.

Any thoughts on this dilemma? Another options is of course to just stick with what I have...

 

[MajorFubar]

I don't know about your particular circumstances, but in your shoes if I definitely felt the need to upgrade I'd prefer to throw iPad money at a proper computer. So given your choices it would be laptop all the way for me, though actually I would choose to use something like a Studio or Mini connected to my choice of monitor keyboard and mouse/trackpad.

 

[darkanddivine]

Thanks for chiming in! It's a trade off for sure. If it helps, here's a bit more detail.

The M1 is not bad as such. It's way better than the days when you had to freeze more than 3 tracks with plugins on it, I can happily run dozens. So it's not a "must upgrade" scenario, but more shooting the breeze on some options. But then again, once you experience that power, you wonder what the uptick from 8334 to 14/15000 performance would be like on the M3 Pro.

One creative reason for the iPad idea is that there are some music apps, not least some of the new stuff in Logic Pro for iPad (eg: Sample Alchemy/Beat Breaker, plus others) that are designed for a touch screen. My idea here would be to augment my sessions in Logic for using the plugins/libraries with experimentations on the couch with the iPad for shorter/fun sessions to put on my main machine. I like the idea of having an additional, tactile non-desktop addition to the studio.

But to your point, I could just grab the MBP M3 for the power, since that is what appears to be a clear upgrade. That would skip the unique iPad aspects with the touchscreen etc, but it would allow me to have a single, unified workflow whether that be plugged into the screen, or on the couch. I wouldn't be able to bring my libraries with me everywhere, but hey, that's what bouncing is for. As you say, overall while neither route is "cheap," a laptop does cover both angles (portability and power) for a single outlay. I'd also get some trade-in value on the iMac as well, so that would offset the upgrade to a point.

The Mini is an interesting option, as is the Studio. An M2 Mini would be where I'd start if I was starting from scratch. However I don't have a screen/keys/mouse, so that would all need to be bought. That would be a longer term option once I've locked in an element of portability. I can see 2 routes here:

• Go iPad and only upgrade the M1 iMac to an M4/5/6 once I've exhausted the possibilities of this machine a few years down the line. This is the slow & steady upgrade option. The only potenital downside to this is I just need to make it work with the M1 for as long as possible. Or...
• Go M3 Laptop and don't get an iPad at all. Focus everything on that one device. The only downside (and it is minimal) is missing out on the potential addition of an iPad as a couch/fun device.Plus the fact that pound for pound, laptops are a bit more expensive.

Not sure if that's useful or would change your suggestion?

 

[MajorFubar]

Another thing you need to consider is that despite the pretty graphs shown to you by Apple (because they want you to spend more of your money), upgrading to an M3 computer is not going to give you a huge improvement over what you've already got unless you buy a Pro Or Max version, and even that won't be true leaps and bounds. The seismic shift that occured when Apple moved from Intel to M1 will not happen again, it's all about incremental differences. GeekBench figures do not give the whole story.

 

[darkanddivine]

Yeah that's the idea! So I'm on M1 Standard, and M3 Pro is the potential route here. I notice the main difference is 8 cores (4 efficiency, 4 performance) vs 12 (6 efficiency, 6 performance.) I believe these extra cores are available in the M2 and M3 Pro chips. The extra 2GB of RAM (up to 18 from 16 in the M3) I imagine would be negligable, but nice to have for sample libraries.

In some ways though, your point is why I'm on the fence a bit. Is it worth it to get 2 additional perf cores? Part of the reason for looking into it is that I know they've been trending down ever since M1. Some people have been saying that because of the performance core drop, the choice for musicians is actually more between the M3 and the M3 Max because the Pro doesn't offer enough of an uptick in speed to justify the price. For example, Music Radar suggested the 15" M3 Air might be better even than the 14" Pro because it has a bigger screen and has only 1 less performance core than the base pro.

I'd certainly be prepared to hold out for M5/6 and see what the Pro range looks like at that point, once I've extracted everything I can from my M1 Standard. It might be that after the negative feedback on the M3, perhaps the M4 or future Pro chips might have more performance cores again.

I do like your points though about the shiny new object. I'd be happy to run the M1 for a good while at this point, and maybe hold for a few years before making a call on whether or not to upgrade (and what to.)

 

[MajorFubar]

It's a difficult one isn't it.
Remember there's an option of buying e.g. a 15" Air then returning it within the return-window if you find the performance differences aren't as profound as you'd hoped. EDIT: In fact tbf that option exists for any Apple device you buy, so you could scratch that itch and try to integrate an iPad.

 

[darkanddivine]

It's a difficult one isn't it.
Remember there's an option of buying e.g. a 15" Air then returning it within the return-window if you find the performance differences aren't as profound as you'd hoped.

Heh yep. I might hold on for now. Like the M1 is good. But then again the jump to an M4/5 desktop in a Pro format is likely to be pretty outstanding, so perhaps I'd best buckle up and think ahead to that rather than taking something that's a marginal jump in the short term which will effectively mean starting again and paying from scratch. Thanks for the pointers!

 

[MajorFubar]

Yeah this is why I so far haven't been tempted to replace my Studio. I mean mostly it's the fact it's only two years old and I feel I can't financially justify changing my computer every two years, but on top of that it's the fact that the performance gain would, realistically, be negligible IRL. Let's say a 50-track four-minute project with lots of plugins would take 30 seconds to render offline instead of 35 currently. Whoopy do.

 

[ry-guy]

From what I’ve read, “most” audio production and plugins run hard on the single core performance and don’t really benefit from the multi core so much. Ram “may” have more of an impact but idk what’s in your current machine.

M1 was pretty huge in the audio world for Mac users and it can’t be obsolete already since as others have said, the performance gains have been incremental since then.

I have a M1 Mac mini with 16 gb of ram and i haven’t noticed any slowdowns, unless it was on the software side of plugins not optimized, etc.

Hard to predict the future, but I’ve been looking at a m-chip iPad for Logic myself for similar reasons as you. I need to try it out in the store or something to see if it could be worth it but it’s hard to tell.

There’s a Logic group on FB that may have some more real world experiences for you, since it seems a bit slower here.