The truth: It’s the best Mac ever made. From a musician perspective, the MacBook Pro M1 is a game-changer, for one simple reason: there’s no need to break the flow.

I completed two music albums with the new MacBook Pro M1 in just a month. I was able to do things that no other portable device ever allowed me to do (such as running 20 tracks of Serum AT THE SAME TIME).

Performance

Many bloggers have mentioned that users should wait until Apple releases the M1X chip to make the jump to the Mac M1 ecosystem. I get that. The next chip will be epic. However, the cost of delaying could be higher than the cost of buying another one in 8-10 months when they become available. That was my case: I wanted to produce music, but both of my older MacBook Pros couldn’t run my ideas.

So I needed to upgrade. Something that would not limit the artist in me. Thus, I bite the bullet and gave Apple my precious Canadian dollars and got the new M1 MacBook Pro (256 GB and 8 GB config).

Even six weeks later, I am still shocked at just how good this MacBook is! It’s the best. It’s so freaking fast – I can have 100 tracks on Logic Pro X with 300 plugins and… it keeps on rocking. I have failed to see the limit of it! And I only have 8 GB of ram!

The battery lasts around 5 hours when used at max brightness and producing on Logic Pro (far from the 20 hours announced by Apple).

The MacBook gets hot when using Logic Pro for a bit. The fans will kick in and will keep on running for hours. If you are a musician, do yourself a favour, and stay away from the fanless MacBook Air. I think that thermal would be an issue.

My only regret is having gotten the 8 GB version instead of the 16 GB: it’s not enough for my need. So the ideal config for a musician is definitely a 512 GB SSD + 16 GB.

Should you upgrade from, say, a MacBook Pro 13 Intel to a M1 if you’re a musician? 100%. It’s that much better.

On a final note, here’s a list of pros and cons.

Pros:

• Fastest laptop on the market for music production

• Incredible battery life

• Ridiculously good speakers (sometimes, I start tracks just using them!)

• Good keyboard

• Amazing battery life

• You won’t see the end of its performance: it’s absurdly incredible

Cons:

• Touch Bar

• No more magsafe

• Lack of I/O

Conclusion?

Go get one.

It revolutionized my workflow and inspired me to great better tracks. It’s hard to understand just how good it is, until you try one. Then you’re hooked… and $2000 CAD poorer ;)

Cheers,

JP