I play in rock bands live. Guitar, bass, drums are played by humans. So my rackspaces are only keys, not more than 3-4 VST per song.
But I like to use whatever I want, until today no constraints.
At home I produce with Logic. I arrived to 40 tracks projects with no issues, but here I am not a real pro.
Yes, with my setup 16 giga with M1 are enough
Itās the orchestral samples that eat RAM. On a piano, when you want a short note or a trill, you just play it. With orchestral, you can have different sample sets for staccato, marcado, legato, trills, etc. Layering solo instruments over ensembles really helps deliver realism. You can do choirs that āspeakā with consonants and vowels.
One wouldnāt do all that live, but might for developing backing tracks or other composing jobs. Having sounds at hand really help productivity. I once composed and performed a 7-minute musical for a 48-Hour film festival. Deadlines can be killer.
If you might do this in the future, lots of RAM could be important. If not 16 GB is likely fine.
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Hello again, look at that : MAC MINI M1 | Audio and Plugin Performance In Logic Pro X | Apple Silicon - YouTube
What to think about that ?
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Fun video! The processing of the M1 is stunning, which is why I went with the base M1 Pro. As he says, if youāre a film composer or somebody who works with a lot of samples, then wait for a model with more RAM. That me.
Iām using about 12 GB for my live rock band setup (with like seven songs so far), so 16 GB covers what many of us would use. But itās not what youāre doing today; itās what you are likely to be doing four or five years from now. Also, itās not just the live performance, but the additional audio tasks we might do, such as making backing tracks, doing studio work, etc.
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not representative, iirc.
watch the buffer size they use.
IIRC, was it 1024.
a interesting point you make here.
( Not tangenting me, finally. ā¦Neverthelessā¦)
What i wonder is, if the M1Max with its higher memory speed will affect latency numbers for very āFX processingā heavy patches ?
Could be a win, no ?
Yes, the higher memory speeds could help avoid hiccups. Imagine that another process has been using the processor. It finally gets to that newly played note at the last moment. The processor gets the sample immediately and gets the information back into RAM right away, before sending it to the interface without a glitch. Itās probably a tiny improvement, but could help smooth things out if there are bursty processes.
Memory bandwidth is unlikely to improve load times though. That would be throttled by the SDD. But as I recall, the new SSDs are faster compared to the M1 too.
If these new machines live up to their specs, they should last for years to come. (Their lower power usage and low heat should help them live longer too.)
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Letās join our forces. Itās the power of this community.
The first one buying a new MacBookPro with M1pro should report here if Monterey and new hardware are ok for our needs.
This include GigP (that is already M1 native) and plugins that arenāt native (Arturia, NI, ā¦).
I think that M1 and BigSur are now perfectly OK.
My setup is working very well
I have three gigs before December. So I am not changing anything in the next weeks.
But since I am alone, no family, no kids, I guess I will make myself a Christmas giftā¦
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Mine is set to arrive in mid-November. Yes, Iām happy to report on Gig Performer and various plug-ins, including Kontakt, Arturia, EZdrummer, Waves, and others. Iāve still got licenses (and dongle keys to prove it) for EastWest Gold and a few Vienna strings. Iāll have enough storage and RAM to load those up again, 
Iām reasonably confident that the OS wonāt break things, but it will be good to prove it.
On a related topic, I replaced the battery in my 2016 MacBook Pro tonight. What a pain! I had to pull the motherboard. Lots of little screws, tiny connectors, and stubborn adhesive. Took about 2-1/2 hours. The old batteries were swollen and making the case bulge. Iāll gift it to a family member without burning down their house. It seems to work, so Iām happy. 
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I hope that the new MacBook Pro batteries are better than those in my 2016 15-inch model. It was almost always plugged in. For reference, these should be flat rectangles, not balloons. (If the bottom cover of your laptop bulges out, this is the likely cause.)
Oh My!! 
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Wow. Impressive - and expensive.
Yeah, if youāre not as sample-hungry, a MacBook Air (no fan) might do. Way less expensive and 16GB is available. Itās the RAM that pushes it up in price.
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Maybe keeping a MacBook always connected to power supply is wrong for battery health. I was suggested to keep it closed and not powered. This way charge lasts many days
I had the same effect with a HP notebookā¦ not cool.
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Iāve also heard that suggestion (donāt keep it powered.)
Desktop replacement is a key use case. The OS has battery management for plugged and unplugged, optimized charging, etc. The computer should simply handle it.
I wonder if manufacturers make that suggestion, or if itās lore? I hope the new OS and laptop have fixed it.
Anyway, the replacement cost was about $130. The kit from ifixit included everything needed, including screwdriver, bits, solvent, gloves, safety glassesā¦ No special skills needed, but one should have good eyesight/glasses and be comfortable with repairs.
Oh, and my laptop is much quieter now that proper airflow is restored. I recommend this fix for bulging battery laptops. 
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When I have rehearsal with my band I play 3 hours with my MacBookPro without power supply.
Charge arrives from 100% to 75%,
This way I donāt need any hub. Two ports: one for keyboard and one for audio board.
No performance issues ā¦
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There is a good argument to be made for a laptop, rather than Mac Mini or other small computer, for live. Independence from a noisy or unreliable power supply is nice.
When I get the M1 Pro, Iāll do some battery-only tests and report it.
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All types of batteries and industries provide battery charging management. Your car would go through many batteries too if the voltage regulator didnāt cut off the charging circuit when the battery was at capacity. Of course I have seen what you are describing and in many cases itās not the batteryās fault but a failure of the charging management electronics and you can read many accounts of how replacement batteries donāt last as long as the originals. However, most NiMH batteries are good for at least 1,000 cycles, but you can do the math on how many days that works out to, and partial cycles count as well as full discharge cycles.
Things wear out, and the manufacturers usually go by the most common denominator - the average length of time that users keep their devices - and make their design decisions based on that. They win, we pay, thatās the way of the free market for better or worse.
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I guess my notebookās battery died the overheating deathā¦
I kept it within a closed shelf having the lid shut all the timeā¦ so there was no air circulation and, as i know now, the open lid was part of the cooling concept. Maybe this was a bit to much after allā¦
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