M1 vs M1 Pro vs M1 Max

[K Roche]

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

And if we remove ACB, will it load?

Where are these discussions occurring which reference hands-on experience with PT and the new Macs? There seems to be an awful lot of theory & speculation flying around (not referring to you), and conflicting reports.

Yes it will load and run and apparently there are some third party plugins that will work also No mention of ACB but this fellow ( 14 " second tier bass model M1 Pro ) is running 400 tracks in PT through his Avid Carbon, does not really talk about DSP either

https://youtu.be/9P3Rc2jFYns

Whether or not it might be a move somebody should make now or wait for native PT compatibility is a completely different question totally related to each individual situation and arguably something only the individual can determine Because I have a perfectly fine functioning studio computer and I do need a new laptop I am in fact ordering the second tier base model 10 CPU 16 GPU 16 GB RAM 1 TB SSD so it can double as Final Cut Pro X work station

[off the wall]

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

And if we remove ACB, will it load?

Where are these discussions occurring which reference hands-on experience with PT and the new Macs? There seems to be an awful lot of theory & speculation flying around (not referring to you), and conflicting reports.

Yes, a plain install of PT 2020.10 without the Avid Complete Bundle will run fine. As will Waves Diamond package, UAD with a thunderbolt device, Soft Tube, and PluginAlliance stuff. None of the Isotope stuff I've tired works either. PT will load but crash if you try to put on an Isotope plugin.

I have an M1Pro set up like that. Not theory, real world experience. It's just an experiment right now. Without Avid Complete Bundle, it is not a useful system for me.

I imagine it's going to be a couple of months before Avid gets it together on Monterey support. That has been the case year after year with October macOS updates. Last year it was the March/21 PT release that finally brought 10/2020 Big Sur compatibility.

[off the wall]

Originally Posted by marcnyc

Thank you that’s helpful.
Has anyone been able to downgrade to Monterey to BigSur or start up an M1 Pro/Max with BigSur on an external drive or a boot drive or a Parallels/BMWare emulator?

No, an M1Max or M1Pro requires Monterey. It will not boot from Big Sur. This has always been the case when Apple releases new hardware along with an OS upgrade. Big Sur and earlier will not have the required drivers to understand the new hardware.

I suppose it might be possible to hack something together to get an earlier OS to run in Parallels or the like. I've done it before with older machines and older OS's. But the odds that something like PT would run in an emulation in Rosetta 2 are nil.

Pro Tools on Monterey will have to wait for Avid to fix and approve it. For those saying to wait for native M1 PT. That is going to be a VERY long wait IMO. Pro Tools runs great in Rosetta on M1's. Better than most any Mac/Intel laptop machine. I would sincerely hope Avid is prioritizing Monterey compatibility in Rosetta over rushing an M1 native app.

[mophilly]

I took the plunge and purchased a MacBook Pro M1 MAX, 32GB, and a couple of 1TB SSD externals for projects. My audio work is limited to my own creations, and I use very few plugins at the moment.

First impressions are positive. Rosetta 2 seems to be quick and unobtrusive. Existing projects load and run. I have done a tiny bit of editing; so far, so good. Time, of course, will tell the tale.

When the M2, assuming they are called M2, machines are released, I will try to sell this M1 to brother.

[off the wall]

Originally Posted by mophilly

I took the plunge and purchased a MacBook Pro M1 MAX, 32GB, and a couple of 1TB SSD externals for projects. My audio work is limited to my own creations, and I use very few plugins at the moment.

First impressions are positive. Rosetta 2 seems to be quick and unobtrusive. Existing projects load and run. I have done a tiny bit of editing; so far, so good. Time, of course, will tell the tale.

When the M2, assuming they are called M2, machines are released, I will try to sell this M1 to brother.

It's all speculation on my part but don't think you're going to see an "M2", or the like, laptop in the next year or so. There will be small iterations in performance of the M1, M1Pro and M1Max for laptops. I think the next big jump will be some sort of power M"x" chip for desktops. I've read about the possibility of Mac Pro's with multiple M1Max type chips. The issue with those power machines are that the M1 has the GPU and the RAM on the chip. That makes less sense for a Mac Pro type machine that can have multiple super powerful GPUs and huge amounts of RAM. Apple has committed to getting off of Intel completely in the next year. The powerhouse Mac Pro is the next obvious goal.

[mophilly]

That makes a lot of sense. The M1 architecture is very interesting, for me anyway, and the specs are awesome.

Off topic: I posted a question about ultrawide monitors in another thread. Given the specs in your bio, Off The Wall, your thoughts on that, in the other thread, are most welcome.

[dominicperry]

Originally Posted by off the wall

It's all speculation on my part but don't think you're going to see an "M2", or the like, laptop in the next year or so. There will be small iterations in performance of the M1, M1Pro and M1Max for laptops. I think the next big jump will be some sort of power M"x" chip for desktops. I've read about the possibility of Mac Pro's with multiple M1Max type chips. The issue with those power machines are that the M1 has the GPU and the RAM on the chip. That makes less sense for a Mac Pro type machine that can have multiple super powerful GPUs and huge amounts of RAM. Apple has committed to getting off of Intel completely in the next year. The powerhouse Mac Pro is the next obvious goal.

This article disagrees with you, and says that the M2 chip will probably come to the new MB Air early next year. But the implication is that the M2 will be faster than the existing M1 but not as fast as the M1 Pro or M1 Max.

Like all speculations - it is speculation.

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/10/20...io_source=true

[off the wall]

Originally Posted by dominicperry

This article disagrees with you, and says that the M2 chip will probably come to the new MB Air early next year. But the implication is that the M2 will be faster than the existing M1 but not as fast as the M1 Pro or M1 Max.

Like all speculations - it is speculation.

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/10/20...io_source=true

Actually other that calling it an M2, the article actually agrees with me. No new groundbreaking M chip for laptops, just a new chip that is a minor performance iteration of the current M1, below the M1Pro and M1Max. Which is what I was guessing. This M2 isn't something that's going to make an M1Pro or M1Max user want to switch machines.

[raypiasecki]

Perhaps the M2 may use a different instruction set than the M1s. May not be compatible with tools?

[off the wall]

Originally Posted by raypiasecki

Perhaps the M2 may use a different instruction set than the M1s. May not be compatible with tools?

Anything's possible but I doubt that, would be really self defeating on Apple's part. They are trying to get transitioned over, starting a new would be counter productive.