Performance reports for M1 Macbook Pro or Air and Logic Pro ?

[Aloe]

with a TB3 audio interface are very small latencys doable (roundtrip) !! (presonus in my case)

hey, but how stable are M1 Macs with a minimal latency with a TB audio interface?

I have a TB interface and usually run it at 2.5ms RTT, is M1 Mac able to handle that load stable and without dropouts?

I actually believe, Logic uses a larger buffer for non-record-armed tracks (like auto buffer raising if you are not recording anything), so this should be considered in the tests.

 

[silky smoove]

they run graphic processing in these tests, using the CPU AND the RAM AND the SSD to 100% .
That won´t ever happen in normal music making conditions,

While I agree with you in principal, I will say that a lot of modern pop productions that I'm sent to mix have an alarming number of tracks that can really eat into CPU. Older styles of music often have far fewer tracks and in those cases you really do have to hammer things to get your CPU to give up on a session, but modern pop is an odd duck in that regard. I received a production last week for mixing that had 133 tracks in it! By the end of the mix my 2018 Mac Mini was struggling a bit and was unable to playback periodically due to the CPU being overtaxed.

Similarly I did a mix for a faux-Broadway production. The track count was low, but each "scene" of the production required drastically different processing. To avoid having tons of tracks I did a lot of this through automation of various plugins, sends and buss/VCA faders. It worked well to keep the track count down, but the number of plugins to produce all of these different sounds for each scene were extensive. Less tracks than the aforementioned pop production but a huge amount of processing that was definitely taking its toll on the CPU of my Mini.

I'm hopeful that these new M1 models, as well as the upcoming versions (M1X and M1+ are two names I've seen listed) have more horsepower to deal with these increasingly large audio productions that are getting into similar processing demands as some video tasks.

 

[Funky40]

While I agree with you in principal, I will say that a lot of modern pop productions that I'm sent to mix have an alarming number of tracks that can really eat into CPU.

yeah, but the original point was:
How good can the M1Air stand it vs. the other M1macs ? since it has no active cooling, and will throttle down when a certain amount of heat has accumulated.

" My Guess is", that the CPU load alone won´t do the same amount of heating, vs. if *everything*, CPU, RAM, and SSD, plus graphic card on top of all, would run full steam.
So, i´m personally very optimistic that the M1Air can stand its place vs. a M1mini, vs. hi-loads in music apllications/productions.

But i personally won´t ever run my M1Air hot, since my main application, GigPerformer ( a VSt Host), is anyway a single Core app ! its not running multicore "per loaded instance".
so i set only one CPU core under haevy load.......and not much else. ( at least in my M1Air)

 

[Funky40]

hey, but how stable are M1 Macs with a minimal latency with a TB audio interface?

its hard to make a valid statement here.

My *guess* is, that the M1 should be better vs. stabvility than a intel mac.
It runs internal the data faster. Thats perceiveable.
Also if you look how latencys do scale vs. CPU load. The linearity is different, big buffers vs. small buffers, versus how much CPU load it adds, ....or you´d win with higher buffer settings.
M1 runs small buffers better ! 64 samples up to 128 samples is the sweetspot area.
for 32 samples buffer, one of those big multi CPU monsters might be better.

Personally i run gigperformer4 mostly, which is VERY stable anyway !!!
I had very rare crashes with GP4, and mostly when the M1mac + BigSur was fresh.
What i have in GP4 with my new TB3 audio interface is some crackling ( other users report same with TB interfaces and very small buffer settings/latencys).
While other audio apps don´t do that crackling with my TB3 AI ( presonus quantum2626),
and NOT having any crackles with my USB audio interfaces. But these don´t have same little latencys

But i have quite some crashes with abletion live11, .....which seems to be normal from what i gather.
Can´t comment on Live11 beta vs. the ARM ready version. I´ve not donne anything with it so far.

I see no reason to worry about crashes with M1macs, really.
Its the best system i ever had.
It feels like a computer just should feel !!