Just wanna say THANK YOU all for your support! I will try to respond to every comment but it might take me a while. It's reassuring to hear that that most people understood the purpose of the tests. I still appreciate the constructive criticism; it helps me improve how I communicate in future videos to be transparent and more clear about the goal of a video. I truly appreciate you all!
You are one of the most level headed reviews out there that not only pays attention to detail but also uses logic and common sense when approaching their tests. Thanks for the takes. A lot of people don't realise there is a whole world of videos out there regarding tests and sometimes get annoyed when someone might have not covered a specific they wanted or tested in the exact way they wanted. I found your videos very informative and covered the right things for music producers.
Honestly, your videos are the only source I trust regarding music production and Macbooks. The other stuff on RUclips ins't that good. Keep doing gods work James!
Bro you took the time to do all the research and people are always complaining about something, correct feedback should be doing the research for themselves and sharing those results on their own video instead of asking people to do the job for them, Thank you for your effort James
This man is putting in the work buying these computers, testing stuff so you can make an informed purchase and you are all here making daw wars. It's not the man's fault your daw sucks, go and talk to the Devs and mention this video to them and it won't suck so much anymore! God's job sir and we appreciate your service!
Your first video was perfect. You don't have to change a thing. It was highly informative! If someone has Studio One or Live (I use both) and is unhappy with your results, they can switch to Reaper, lol. I am not switching DAWs because I like both of them, and they already provide the performance and workflow I need. As someone looking to upgrade, your video informed me that the m4pro is a better investment than the previous generation. Thanks so much!
I love Studio One and pretty much use it exclusively. I have no issues with this or the previous video. The focus of your original video (M4 performance per DAW) provides such an incredible amount of value to the community. Truly appreciate it! I hope that Presonus sees it and optimizes better for Apple Silicon.
I would like express my gratitude for the test videos. Most of the reviews on YT are video production focused, which is understandable. The very few reviews focused on music production on YT are NOT informative enough. Your reviews are the MOST informative and complete in my humble opinion. Thanks again for your great service to the music making community!
The amount of detail you bring to these sorts of videos always blows my mind. Thank you for providing such an in-depth review of these new devices for our sake, the switch from Intel to Apple Silicon has definitely thrown a lot of us off, and your reviews are the most based, unbiased and informative ones I've found so far. Looking forward to more! Keep it up man, wishing nothing but the best for you both in your RUclips and production careers!
Really appreciate your testing method and rationale James. I'm a Cubase user and am leaning heavily toward buying the M4 Mini. Aided by your perspective, I think my money is better spent upgrading the memory and storage on a base M4 than jumping to the M4 Pro chip. I believe you said you were going to publish a comparison of the M4 vs. M4 Pro. At this moment (Nov 2024), the constraint is more about whether all my software is compatible w/ Sequoia than anything else. Your perspective has been great, since most testing videos are more about videography (which I don't do at all) and not really about audio. Thanks for shining the light and being part of our community.
Most of comments were not appropriate. Simple. Target wasn't comparing DAWs. This huge test sessions show the relative performance of different CPUs in Apple silicon range. And it helped me a lot to plan cleverly. An M2pro or M3pro were not a good investment if you already have M1 and produce music with a DAW. M4pro is expensive but it is a quantum leap. So I decided to invest. Now I know that I will see clear advantages. I think this is a huge support from Mr. Zahn. Who lost time and resources with ridiculous money income. Who else is supporting us that way?
Great channel James! I can't find anyone else who does such detailed DAW benchmarks on RUclips. I've just discovered the dawnench podcast which is another great resource. Anyway, keep up the great work! To quote Taytay... 'The haters gonna hate hate hate' shake it off 😃
I'm pleased that you included the daw performance tests within the review/m4 pro test. I find this stuff fascinating and I'm sure others do too. I don't have any problems with your testing methods, and I think anyone with common sense can see why you do certain things. People always end up getting offended when you speak badly of something they use. I honour your ability to address these so called 'issues' in a very level headed and objective way - which is something you can tell about your characteristics, from your review video. Keep up the good work :)
be sure to keep comparing in your videos daw. this is very interesting and important. This is exactly why I watch your videos. people need to see everything as it is. your videos are very logical and informative, you can be sure of that. please don't even think about changing the video format.
Hey James, Thank you so much for your followup regarding your latest DAW testing video on M4. Totally agree with your stand point and your test results have been helping me when considering to upgrade my system. While Logic just releases version 11.1, will you do an additional test on this version to see if the native apple DAW starts using the e-core ? Thank you once again and have a great day!.
Studio One used to be so efficient. Up to 4.5. Then they changed the engine and it went downhill. 3 being the best... I moved to Reaper, and im on a windows machine. Your video just sold me on Mac M4.
Thanks, James, for explaining your testing methodology. I totally get why you took this approach. Just wanted to let you know that I appreciate you making these videos, as they help me understand the difference in how each DAW might work with a given Apple M-series chip. I use both Studio One and Cubase and found your video helpful in terms of understanding what I've been seeing while using both programs on my M1 MacBook Pro.
Sadly, we have a Presonus forum moderator Jonny Lipsham that kills any factual discussion he doesn't like. About time he gets replaced. Thank you for taking the time testing and explaining!
Thanks James. As a Logic user, of course I wanted “my” DAW to “win”, especially as it’s Apple’s own, but they obviously have decided not to utilise efficiency cores for some reason. The silver lining for me is that M Silicon is such a massive upgrade by all accounts (I’m still on 2017 era Intel) that it will like going from impulse power to Warp 5 if I upgrade to an M4 Pro. Thanks again for being thorough and even-handed with your critics.
Could you make a video recording live with plugins? (Plugins on input baked in) I’m curious lets say how many SSL E or something like an 1176 plugins the m4 could handle at 32 buffer without crackling. Nice video btw 🤟🙌😁
I reported the CPU load issue to StudioOne after watching your most recent video, which was excellent. Their response was that the M4 is a newer chip and still undergoing testing. This response was not satisfactory.
Is there even a place to report such things? The answers.presonus forum is now read-only afaik and the fb page blocked and/or removed every attempt to post James' video results and discuss. A year ago I posted a feature request on answers forum for Presonus to address the efficiency core issue in Studio One. To this day, there was no reply from the Presonus. Given that, the recent subsciption model, and fb community being more and more toxic - i decided to quit SO.
I think what people don't get is you're tests are more of a buyers guide of new macbook chips depending on the daw one uses than a comparison of daw performance from best to worst. That might not be the intention but people obsessed with daw wars will spiral it to another direction. As an Ableton user, i find you're research handy in getting my moneys worth from new mac chips and making more informed purchases. Good work as always.
I agree, i'm a studio one guy, it doesn't make a significant difference for dropout protection and 1024/2048 buffer size. I will not change my DAW because another one perform better.
I appreciate the trust! But I encourage everyone to always look at different sources rather than just getting the information from one place. I tried my best to make sure my tests make sense and the test results are accurate, but I'm definitely not infallible.
No Worries! I like your testing methodology, I think it is really informative As a long time Windows (Reaper) user, and just planning on getting into the Mac (Mini M4) platform, your videos are giving me a better idea of what to look for in order to get the "best performance" for my expectations (e.g. RAM vs SSD), thanks for sharing!
I am hoping that you can conduct a comparative looks at sample based audio with large orchestral templates on Apple silicon. The various combinations of CPU and RAM at very different price points is highly relevant . You are doing highly valuable work. Thanks so much .
James, great tests you did! Things is, it's impossible to test daws against each other completely on the same playing field. What you did was flawed, but as good as it gets! Thumbs up mate.
There's always got to be those folks who complain. Why can't folks just take your videos for what they are?? Total education. I for one am very appreciative of James' videos.. I never even considered moving from Logic Pro to another DAW. Now I am.
Hi! Thank you for these awesome comparisons! I do music mixing and I was missing some performance data on the MacBook Air M1 and Mac Mini M4 to compare. These are two of the most popular devices from Apple right now. If possible, add the MacBook Air M1 to your next tests to see the performance of the M Pro chips. 😊
Scientific or not, the results are self explanatory. Thank you for this video. It helped me a lot, because as a Studio one user, I was thinking to migrate to Apple silicon. Now I'll wait for developers to sort this out. You've saved me from a big pile of problems and I can not thank you enough. 🙂 If you ever land in my part of the world, pizzas and beers are on me. 🍕🍺😀
I am a Logic Pro and Luna user. For me, the issue I ponder is how much RAM I will need for future use. I wish you did a practical test of 24, 48, and 64 GB on an M4 Pro.
Thanks for the time you spent doing all those vids, it's really useful to make a wiser choice when you dont have the posibility to test by yourself. (it would be great to see the same tests with BItwig)
Great insight. Thanks for all the effort and work. It’s really neat what you discovered and I hope daws engineers see your videos.I use studio one but thinking of going to reaper or pro tools and learning those daws to get the most out of my m4pro
@JamesZahn I have no issue with your method. I think it’s the most true to real test done. I just think Studio One’s dropout protection is flawed or downright broken. I’m wondering what results would be with it simply turned off and the buffer set to 1024.
Well, FWIW I have graduate degrees in two STEM fields and for the purposes of the comparison you did, your experimental design was fine and well-executed. Formally trained scientists might come at you with pedantic corrections in the comments, but at the end of the day your videos add value to the discussion on DAW performance and your conclusions are insightful.
Wow, thank you so much! I'm glad to see even a person with a STEM background like you considers my tests OK. Really reassuring as I don't have a background in STEM.
Your tests were really really useful and you delivered exactly what you promised you would. I use cubase and had an Intel Mac. Wanted to find out what sort of gains I’d get by upgrading to a M4 Pro or is it even worth it. I got all the information I wanted. You made it clear that the video wasn’t a DAW shootout. Keep it up man. Love your work.
Think the follow up would be to test the base M chips against each other. This could be interesting, because it would give you a clou, which DAW is best for lower performance machines.
Great work! I'd be curious (someday when you get to it), to see what Apple did with LOGIC 11.1, major update, they did so many upgrade, curious if they low-key changed the efficency usability. Keep it up James!
Thank you so much, James, for ALL of your great videos. And please don't worry about the complainers who will always find some way that you or your settings were wrong or unfair or whatever. It's always been very clear that you aren't for or against any particular DAW. How about THEY post some helpful testing videos and put the kind of work you put in toward some contributive videos for US to criticize? How bout that??? Cheers man, and thanks again!!
It would be great if you would include a test scenario where the single core performance is shown, because sometimes when I do some sound design I throw a bunch of fx plug-ins on one track. You could test that the same way, just put a cpu heavy fx plug-in on one track and count how any plug-ins you could add. Another way would be sidechaining, afaik multiple tracks that are connected via sidechaining are processed only on one core.
Well done James ! As SO1 user, i'm looking forward to see your M4 coming benchmark, as it seems through your present analysis that the pro version is not providing a massive jump in perf for SO1 ...
Thank you so much for your videos. I really like the experiments you do on different daws and apple chips. And I think for most people, there is one more things here that really matters, which is to use more money on RAM or more advanced chips. Like M4 chip with 32 GB and M4 pro chip with 24GB, which one should I choose then? Thanks again for your effort. It's been really helpful.
People complain about everything, no matter how good is your material 😅! I think your videos saved me a lot of money! End of story, I ordered a Mac Mini M4 Pro 64GB RAM 1TB SSD, instead of a M2 Pro I was going to buy. Who knows AVID has improved Pro Tools because one of your videos. 😛 Maybe Apple should watch them and do the same to LOGIC.
Bro continue to do what you're doing. Your detailed and extremely informative videos were key in me buying the right Mac for my needs and within budget. Thank u man!!blessings from Jamaica!🇯🇲🇯🇲
Hey James! Great video as always! I think comparing DAWs *is* useful. This helps users understand the performance (and limitation) of their system and developers have an idea on what to improve :)
Thanks for creative some of the best informative videos for music production with macs. I would love to know if the new 11.1 Logic Pro update is able to use the efficiency cores. Hopefully you're able to test this version in the near future! Have a great day and thanks again for the amazing content!
I would also like to give a different point of view , Theses video are without a doubt very valuable information for the music production community. Also given us a bit of information on how are DAW are behaving in comparison to other DAWS , Kudos for that james. Also without a doubt that the new M4 is the most powerful computer that's out now , But do we really need to upgrade just because its the latest or because your able to get a few more tracks going without having to freeze or bounce down to audio.Im using a intel i7-9750H CPU and yes its a dinosaur in compression to even the M1 , lets not even talk about the M4 LOL ... Now what i do to work around this is just commit to audio tracks and there lies the secret to having an older computer , but still being able to get your projects done without any issues. If i was to start from scratch building a home studio i would get an M1 at a lower cost and use the rest of the money for a good pair of headphones , monitors , audio interface where its just as important or even more important in my honest opinion.. Hopefully this makes sense to anyone getting started.. Thx again James for such great content 👍
Testing DAWs are difficult, since DAWs work in different ways and in music production the variables are nearly infinite. You are doing extremely good work here, give yourself a pat on the back. :)
Wow, cool to see you here, Bjørnar! Your videos are great, and I'm glad some of our tests pretty much show similar patterns and trends when it comes to efficiency cores vs performance cores utilization. I'm mostly a mixing/mastering engineer working with audio recordings, with no background in electronic music production, and so your tests with synths are really valuable and provide very valuable different perspectives to everyone when it comes to DAW performances on Apple Silicon chips. One thing I recently discovered accidentally is that, if you are trying to run a heavy project in a DAW that cannot use efficiency cores, like Ableton, and at the same time you have some other power processes running in the background, macOS seems to “shift” some of those power processes to the efficiency cores. For example, one time I accidentally left FCP running in the background while running a test in Ableton, and I was surprised to see that efficiency cores suddenly saw a lot of activities when I hit playback, as if they were processing audio for Ableton Live. Once I realized i had FCP running in the background, I quit it and restarted the computer for a clean start, and ran the same Ableton test project again. This time, efficiency cores activities were back to minimum. So I wonder if the bit of activities you see in efficiency cores when you were running some of your tests was because you had screen recording going on at the same time? I wouldn't be surprised this was the whole point of Apple deciding to not have Logic use the efficiency cores-just so people can run other stuff in the background. Either way, really fascinated stuff!
@@JamesZhan Thanks for the feedback and likewise! It is reassuring that we see more or less the same patterns here. I think you are spot on in your speculation of how Apple handles efficiency cores. Your experience with FCP there is really interesting actually and maybe shows why Logic is only utilizing performance cores. The OS can then decide that Logic should get prioritized for available performance because Logic could be used in a live setting. That is also why we probably see Ableton Live using performance cores, because Ableton is also a DAW aimed for live performance. While Cubase / Reaper is probably aimed more for the production side, and because of that they also can use efficiency cores. OBS certainly used some CPU for screen recording, but I think it was low, around 1-4%, moving forward I will use my camera instead to keep OBS out of the equation. I have the 16-Inch, 14-Core M4 Pro CPU, 48GB RAM on the way while I wait for the studio, so I can try some of these tests myself and see if I get the same results. Take care!
You gave great rationale for your testing. It all makes sense. Also like you said, it's just to compare the performance between the different Mac generations and how different DAWs use P/E cores so people can make an informed decision on which Mac to buy for it to be a performance upgrade. Yet there are still numbskulls in these comments whining. You don't really need to address these haters or defend yourself against them. They will always find something to criticize.
Thanks for your efforts and integrity; your analyses are much appreciated. Will you do the same test when M4 ULTRA comes out? Then we have the full M1 - M4 picture. Keep up the good work. Cheers.
These videos are completely self-funded and so I simply cannot afford to buy an Ultra chip just for testing. Maybe one day when the channel gets big enough for me to do that, haha
It's pretty simple for anybody who can write a plugin to determine the process buffer sizes at the different settings for various DAWs. What is not easy to determine is the amount of pre-rendering on different DAWs and that's what makes comparisons difficult, especially since the process buffer size settings are often combined with the pre-rendering settings. More aggressive pre-rendering can make contrived benchmarks look better, but doesn't always work well in the real world.
Thank you James, your work is great and helps a lot of us! I almost bought a Mac Studio M2max a while ago for my mixing studio (running Logic), but then the M4 mini was released... AND I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO NOW! :) I don't want a mini, but I can't wait a year for a Studio M4.... It will be an upgrade from my i7 iMac anyway, but PLEASE, could you point me in a direction!
thx so much james for your test. these tests are amazing and really help to get a good overview in this performance jungle :-). can u tell me a little bit more about the fan situation. are they getting loud in stress test?. thx in advance
One thing I've learned about being on YT for a while now is you can't make everyone happy, and curiosity is fine, outright trolling of a creators, good, solid work says more about the troll not the creator. Compared to 100% of other computer audio tests (track count tests) your's is above and beyond what most people do and its a great resource don't let them get you down James! You are doing a good job and anyone who says otherwise is not worth addressing. You do what you do best! Cheers! PS I'm sure you've read this in the manual. It use to be in the old days Logic 5 through 9 that Process buffer was how fast the DAW could access read/write speed to the drive, (like recording to an external drive and internal Disk based drives and so on) but it still is more about read/write speeds and not necessarily overall latency on modern SSDs. Now all the manual says is. The Process Buffer Range in Logic Pro determines the size of the buffer used to process audio samples and compute effects and mixes: Small: Decreases latency, but may only be usable on very fast modern CPUs Medium: The default setting Large: Reduces the likelihood of overloads, but increases latency
James...you're being VERY kind in your description of the forums.. A lot of mindless fanboys. Your admirable humility in face of these people is appreciated. One suggestion from a "critic" was ""You should rather set them both to a low value like 128 samples and see how many U-he DIVAs you can load in both DAWs." Would you consider testing this? Thank you.
I really like your videos and they are very practical to know which Mac is best for us. And I leave you an idea for a next video that I think is interesting: A recording of the sound of the fans of each Mac´s when they reach the maximum number of tracks. I think this is important for those of us who work with DAWs. What do you think?
I didn't read the comments... 🤭I just give 👍to videos cause, exactly like you said, it give me an overview of how my daw works on different cpus. I only looked at fl studio. I am not gonna change my daw now just because other utilise better the cpu! 🤭 You're doing a great job man!
I appreciate your analysis. While, it is possible that decisions about the process buffer and other DAW specific settings could throw off the exact magnitude of a difference between DAWS and create that false FOMO feeling, you are in my opinion spot on about the buying decision matrix. Budget may seem limit you to upgrade an M3 pro from an M1 say but if the performances only improved negligibly, then you probably want to go with the M4 pro since you’ve demonstrated across-the-board that it adds a great deal of processing power. I do wonder, and this is not a criticism, how the performance of Ableton live for example would change when using equivalent native plug-ins (Ableton devices). I don’t know if this is relevant, but it would be interesting to see if it changes anything. My hunch is it would not. And by the way, I totally get your point that a percentage lower performance of Ableton isn’t gonna make me switch to reaper. In my case I’m a Cubase user for mixing and I use Ableton for production sketching and so on. I usually make stems in Ableton and mix in Cubase .
Thank you. Good to know as I go down this road with my Mac mini M4 Pro using Logic. Just curious to your typical project sizes in tracks, virtual instruments and processing, since you mentioned some overload instances. This happens to me on occasion with very little going on in the project. I attribute it to the external hard drive sitting idle for too long sometimes. It's like it starts to go to sleep almost. I'll click "ok" on the notice and by then it seems to come back online and works fine. I've got the screen saver set on never and sleep disabled too. Hmm
Some of my projects have 10+ instances of amp sims on it, which alone really put a heavy load on the CPU, and it's why I love doing the amp sim test! People say it's not realistic, but it actually is, just depends on what you do. And I always mix into a mastering chain, so things can get extremely crazy very fast. I run my projects on the internal SSD so drive speed definitely isn't the bottleneck.
Please ensure that the buffer size can be set as low as possible! Many of us rely on the lowest buffer settings when recording and monitoring audio with plugins like Auto-Tune, reverb, and other real-time effects. This is crucial in Cubase, as a lower buffer size minimizes latency, allowing for seamless real-time tracking and monitoring without delays. This feature is especially important for those of us who work with vocals and need precise timing when recording with effects in the mix. Optimizing for a low buffer size will greatly enhance the user experience for professional and aspiring musicians alike!
As an artist, and like many others, I love to hear myself with effects applied while recording. This allows me to get a sense of how the final product will sound and helps me perform with confidence. To achieve this effectively, the buffer size needs to be as low as possible to avoid any delays or latency issues. Typically, after recording, the buffer size can be increased for processing, but I personally keep mine at 32 samples on my M2 Pro MacBook Pro, as it’s the lowest my interface allows. So far, I haven’t encountered any issues with this setup, even when running around 18 tracks with about seven plugins each, including Auto-Tune, reverb, delay, and other effects. This setup ensures smooth, real-time monitoring and enhances the recording experience. Maintaining a low buffer size during tracking is essential for artists who rely on effects while recording, so it would be great if this could be prioritized in Cubase for optimal performance.
Just wanna say THANK YOU all for your support! I will try to respond to every comment but it might take me a while.
It's reassuring to hear that that most people understood the purpose of the tests. I still appreciate the constructive criticism; it helps me improve how I communicate in future videos to be transparent and more clear about the goal of a video.
I truly appreciate you all!
You are one of the most level headed reviews out there that not only pays attention to detail but also uses logic and common sense when approaching their tests. Thanks for the takes. A lot of people don't realise there is a whole world of videos out there regarding tests and sometimes get annoyed when someone might have not covered a specific they wanted or tested in the exact way they wanted. I found your videos very informative and covered the right things for music producers.
Honestly, your videos are the only source I trust regarding music production and Macbooks. The other stuff on RUclips ins't that good. Keep doing gods work James!
Bro you took the time to do all the research and people are always complaining about something, correct feedback should be doing the research for themselves and sharing those results on their own video instead of asking people to do the job for them, Thank you for your effort James
This man is putting in the work buying these computers, testing stuff so you can make an informed purchase and you are all here making daw wars. It's not the man's fault your daw sucks, go and talk to the Devs and mention this video to them and it won't suck so much anymore! God's job sir and we appreciate your service!
I cannot understand criticism with your methods. Everything is clear and I really trust them. Thank you!
Your first video was perfect. You don't have to change a thing. It was highly informative! If someone has Studio One or Live (I use both) and is unhappy with your results, they can switch to Reaper, lol. I am not switching DAWs because I like both of them, and they already provide the performance and workflow I need. As someone looking to upgrade, your video informed me that the m4pro is a better investment than the previous generation. Thanks so much!
as a guy going to switch from PC to Mac it seems to me you make the most user friendly user tests. great job
I love Studio One and pretty much use it exclusively. I have no issues with this or the previous video. The focus of your original video (M4 performance per DAW) provides such an incredible amount of value to the community. Truly appreciate it! I hope that Presonus sees it and optimizes better for Apple Silicon.
Yup. Keeping the same buffer setting with all the DAWs makes total sense to me. Thank you for these videos. 👏🏻
I would like express my gratitude for the test videos. Most of the reviews on YT are video production focused, which is understandable. The very few reviews focused on music production on YT are NOT informative enough. Your reviews are the MOST informative and complete in my humble opinion. Thanks again for your great service to the music making community!
Give this man a raise 😂
The amount of detail you bring to these sorts of videos always blows my mind. Thank you for providing such an in-depth review of these new devices for our sake, the switch from Intel to Apple Silicon has definitely thrown a lot of us off, and your reviews are the most based, unbiased and informative ones I've found so far. Looking forward to more! Keep it up man, wishing nothing but the best for you both in your RUclips and production careers!
Really appreciate your testing method and rationale James. I'm a Cubase user and am leaning heavily toward buying the M4 Mini. Aided by your perspective, I think my money is better spent upgrading the memory and storage on a base M4 than jumping to the M4 Pro chip. I believe you said you were going to publish a comparison of the M4 vs. M4 Pro. At this moment (Nov 2024), the constraint is more about whether all my software is compatible w/ Sequoia than anything else. Your perspective has been great, since most testing videos are more about videography (which I don't do at all) and not really about audio. Thanks for shining the light and being part of our community.
Most of comments were not appropriate. Simple. Target wasn't comparing DAWs.
This huge test sessions show the relative performance of different CPUs in Apple silicon range.
And it helped me a lot to plan cleverly. An M2pro or M3pro were not a good investment if you already have M1 and produce music with a DAW.
M4pro is expensive but it is a quantum leap. So I decided to invest. Now I know that I will see clear advantages.
I think this is a huge support from Mr. Zahn. Who lost time and resources with ridiculous money income. Who else is supporting us that way?
Great channel James!
I can't find anyone else who does such detailed DAW benchmarks on RUclips.
I've just discovered the dawnench podcast which is another great resource.
Anyway, keep up the great work!
To quote Taytay... 'The haters gonna hate hate hate' shake it off 😃
I can't find the podcast you mentioned.
@KirkWinterrowd ruclips.net/video/VdrGUsdFa4I/видео.htmlsi=F90rf9hKgT-9-VW8
I'm pleased that you included the daw performance tests within the review/m4 pro test. I find this stuff fascinating and I'm sure others do too. I don't have any problems with your testing methods, and I think anyone with common sense can see why you do certain things. People always end up getting offended when you speak badly of something they use. I honour your ability to address these so called 'issues' in a very level headed and objective way - which is something you can tell about your characteristics, from your review video.
Keep up the good work :)
be sure to keep comparing in your videos daw. this is very interesting and important. This is exactly why I watch your videos. people need to see everything as it is. your videos are very logical and informative, you can be sure of that. please don't even think about changing the video format.
Hey James,
Thank you so much for your followup regarding your latest DAW testing video on M4. Totally agree with your stand point and your test results have been helping me when considering to upgrade my system.
While Logic just releases version 11.1, will you do an additional test on this version to see if the native apple DAW starts using the e-core ?
Thank you once again and have a great day!.
Your video comparison was clear and unbiased imo. It helped me to understand how my daw (Live) will work under the M4. You make great content, bravo.
Studio One used to be so efficient. Up to 4.5. Then they changed the engine and it went downhill. 3 being the best... I moved to Reaper, and im on a windows machine. Your video just sold me on Mac M4.
Your videos help me a lot. Now I know what to expect.
Thanks, James, for explaining your testing methodology. I totally get why you took this approach. Just wanted to let you know that I appreciate you making these videos, as they help me understand the difference in how each DAW might work with a given Apple M-series chip.
I use both Studio One and Cubase and found your video helpful in terms of understanding what I've been seeing while using both programs on my M1 MacBook Pro.
Sadly, we have a Presonus forum moderator Jonny Lipsham that kills any factual discussion he doesn't like. About time he gets replaced. Thank you for taking the time testing and explaining!
Thanks James. As a Logic user, of course I wanted “my” DAW to “win”, especially as it’s Apple’s own, but they obviously have decided not to utilise efficiency cores for some reason. The silver lining for me is that M Silicon is such a massive upgrade by all accounts (I’m still on 2017 era Intel) that it will like going from impulse power to Warp 5 if I upgrade to an M4 Pro. Thanks again for being thorough and even-handed with your critics.
Could you make a video recording live with plugins? (Plugins on input baked in) I’m curious lets say how many SSL E or something like an 1176 plugins the m4 could handle at 32 buffer without crackling.
Nice video btw 🤟🙌😁
The fact, that after your did recognise that there are some performance issues with studio one you upload a fix video is so awesome!
Thanks
I reported the CPU load issue to StudioOne after watching your most recent video, which was excellent. Their response was that the M4 is a newer chip and still undergoing testing. This response was not satisfactory.
Is there even a place to report such things? The answers.presonus forum is now read-only afaik and the fb page blocked and/or removed every attempt to post James' video results and discuss. A year ago I posted a feature request on answers forum for Presonus to address the efficiency core issue in Studio One. To this day, there was no reply from the Presonus. Given that, the recent subsciption model, and fb community being more and more toxic - i decided to quit SO.
I appreciate your method and content even though I’m not into sound but into photography. It’s all interesting stuff
All I cared about was how much improvement the cores got for vocal performance/ chains
So definitely upgrading 😎 thanks 🙏🏽
Your video is a gem. Ppl are just mad about the poor optimization of their daws 😅
I think what people don't get is you're tests are more of a buyers guide of new macbook chips depending on the daw one uses than a comparison of daw performance from best to worst. That might not be the intention but people obsessed with daw wars will spiral it to another direction. As an Ableton user, i find you're research handy in getting my moneys worth from new mac chips and making more informed purchases. Good work as always.
I agree, i'm a studio one guy, it doesn't make a significant difference for dropout protection and 1024/2048 buffer size. I will not change my DAW because another one perform better.
You are the only one we have to trust about Apple Silicon for Audio production..
I appreciate the trust! But I encourage everyone to always look at different sources rather than just getting the information from one place. I tried my best to make sure my tests make sense and the test results are accurate, but I'm definitely not infallible.
I find your tests extremely useful, your time and considerable effort much appreciated! Please keep it up!
No Worries!
I like your testing methodology, I think it is really informative
As a long time Windows (Reaper) user, and just planning on getting into the Mac (Mini M4) platform, your videos are giving me a better idea of what to look for in order to get the "best performance" for my expectations (e.g. RAM vs SSD), thanks for sharing!
I am hoping that you can conduct a comparative looks at sample based audio with large orchestral templates on Apple silicon. The various combinations of CPU and RAM at very different price points is highly relevant . You are doing highly valuable work. Thanks so much .
Best tech audio channel
James, great tests you did! Things is, it's impossible to test daws against each other completely on the same playing field. What you did was flawed, but as good as it gets! Thumbs up mate.
You helped me a lot james , please continue to work ignore bullshit
Thanks James! There was no need to justify your tests. But you did it anyway.
You are doing a fantastic work! I fully trust your workflow and test setups. There are so many that benefit from your tests. THANKS!!!
Don't worry. Your videos are perfect as they are.
There's always got to be those folks who complain. Why can't folks just take your videos for what they are?? Total education.
I for one am very appreciative of James' videos.. I never even considered moving from Logic Pro to another DAW. Now I am.
Hi! Thank you for these awesome comparisons! I do music mixing and I was missing some performance data on the MacBook Air M1 and Mac Mini M4 to compare. These are two of the most popular devices from Apple right now. If possible, add the MacBook Air M1 to your next tests to see the performance of the M Pro chips. 😊
Scientific or not, the results are self explanatory. Thank you for this video. It helped me a lot, because as a Studio one user, I was thinking to migrate to Apple silicon. Now I'll wait for developers to sort this out. You've saved me from a big pile of problems and I can not thank you enough. 🙂 If you ever land in my part of the world, pizzas and beers are on me. 🍕🍺😀
I am a Logic Pro and Luna user. For me, the issue I ponder is how much RAM I will need for future use. I wish you did a practical test of 24, 48, and 64 GB on an M4 Pro.
Thanks for the time you spent doing all those vids, it's really useful to make a wiser choice when you dont have the posibility to test by yourself. (it would be great to see the same tests with BItwig)
Your a legend, thank you for your amazing content James
Great insight. Thanks for all the effort and work. It’s really neat what you discovered and I hope daws engineers see your videos.I use studio one but thinking of going to reaper or pro tools and learning those daws to get the most out of my m4pro
I can't wait for your results on the m4 air
Great video James !!
@JamesZahn I have no issue with your method. I think it’s the most true to real test done. I just think Studio One’s dropout protection is flawed or downright broken. I’m wondering what results would be with it simply turned off and the buffer set to 1024.
Well, FWIW I have graduate degrees in two STEM fields and for the purposes of the comparison you did, your experimental design was fine and well-executed. Formally trained scientists might come at you with pedantic corrections in the comments, but at the end of the day your videos add value to the discussion on DAW performance and your conclusions are insightful.
Wow, thank you so much! I'm glad to see even a person with a STEM background like you considers my tests OK. Really reassuring as I don't have a background in STEM.
Your tests were really really useful and you delivered exactly what you promised you would. I use cubase and had an Intel Mac. Wanted to find out what sort of gains I’d get by upgrading to a M4 Pro or is it even worth it. I got all the information I wanted. You made it clear that the video wasn’t a DAW shootout. Keep it up man. Love your work.
Thank you! Will you be doing a video on the M4 Mac Mini and DAW's?
Think the follow up would be to test the base M chips against each other. This could be interesting, because it would give you a clou, which DAW is best for lower performance machines.
Great work! I'd be curious (someday when you get to it), to see what Apple did with LOGIC 11.1, major update, they did so many upgrade, curious if they low-key changed the efficency usability. Keep it up James!
Finally!!! We all been waiting. We appreciate you.
Thank you so much, James, for ALL of your great videos. And please don't worry about the complainers who will always find some way that you or your settings were wrong or unfair or whatever. It's always been very clear that you aren't for or against any particular DAW. How about THEY post some helpful testing videos and put the kind of work you put in toward some contributive videos for US to criticize? How bout that??? Cheers man, and thanks again!!
Great channel, so detailled, very appreciated. Thanks for your good work.
Great review James, probably the best review on YT concerning Audio. Im on a 2018 intel Mac Mini. Thinking I may purchase the M4 Pro Mac Mini.
Great video, James. I commend you for explaining your previous video in a very clear, elaborate, and detailed way, without leaving gaps. Thanks! 👍🏼
Thanks! I really appreciate your contribution-it was helpful!
It would be great if you would include a test scenario where the single core performance is shown, because sometimes when I do some sound design I throw a bunch of fx plug-ins on one track. You could test that the same way, just put a cpu heavy fx plug-in on one track and count how any plug-ins you could add. Another way would be sidechaining, afaik multiple tracks that are connected via sidechaining are processed only on one core.
Well done James ! As SO1 user, i'm looking forward to see your M4 coming benchmark, as it seems through your present analysis that the pro version is not providing a massive jump in perf for SO1 ...
Thank you so much for your videos. I really like the experiments you do on different daws and apple chips. And I think for most people, there is one more things here that really matters, which is to use more money on RAM or more advanced chips. Like M4 chip with 32 GB and M4 pro chip with 24GB, which one should I choose then? Thanks again for your effort. It's been really helpful.
People complain about everything, no matter how good is your material 😅! I think your videos saved me a lot of money! End of story, I ordered a Mac Mini M4 Pro 64GB RAM 1TB SSD, instead of a M2 Pro I was going to buy. Who knows AVID has improved Pro Tools because one of your videos. 😛 Maybe Apple should watch them and do the same to LOGIC.
Thank you for this video. I was looking for this type of content.
I'm glad you found it helpful!
Big Thanks for your hard efforts James❤
I appreciate what you do. Thank you very much!
Bro continue to do what you're doing. Your detailed and extremely informative videos were key in me buying the right Mac for my needs and within budget. Thank u man!!blessings from Jamaica!🇯🇲🇯🇲
Thank you 🙏🏼 Really like the way uyou test these machines! Keep going!
Hey James! Great video as always! I think comparing DAWs *is* useful. This helps users understand the performance (and limitation) of their system and developers have an idea on what to improve :)
Thanks Dom!
Great videos for this info. Hope you can get to project opening speeds next time. Thanks
The information and content that you share is very valuable...we thank you for your channel and content...💯👍
Thanks for creative some of the best informative videos for music production with macs. I would love to know if the new 11.1 Logic Pro update is able to use the efficiency cores. Hopefully you're able to test this version in the near future! Have a great day and thanks again for the amazing content!
I would also like to give a different point of view , Theses video are without a doubt very valuable information for the music production community. Also given us a bit of information on how are DAW are behaving in comparison to other DAWS , Kudos for that james. Also without a doubt that the new M4 is the most powerful computer that's out now , But do we really need to upgrade just because its the latest or because your able to get a few more tracks going without having to freeze or bounce down to audio.Im using a intel i7-9750H CPU and yes its a dinosaur in compression to even the M1 , lets not even talk about the M4 LOL ... Now what i do to work around this is just commit to audio tracks and there lies the secret to having an older computer , but still being able to get your projects done without any issues. If i was to start from scratch building a home studio i would get an M1 at a lower cost and use the rest of the money for a good pair of headphones , monitors , audio interface where its just as important or even more important in my honest opinion.. Hopefully this makes sense to anyone getting started.. Thx again James for such great content 👍
All in all you do great work
Testing DAWs are difficult, since DAWs work in different ways and in music production the variables are nearly infinite. You are doing extremely good work here, give yourself a pat on the back. :)
Wow, cool to see you here, Bjørnar! Your videos are great, and I'm glad some of our tests pretty much show similar patterns and trends when it comes to efficiency cores vs performance cores utilization. I'm mostly a mixing/mastering engineer working with audio recordings, with no background in electronic music production, and so your tests with synths are really valuable and provide very valuable different perspectives to everyone when it comes to DAW performances on Apple Silicon chips.
One thing I recently discovered accidentally is that, if you are trying to run a heavy project in a DAW that cannot use efficiency cores, like Ableton, and at the same time you have some other power processes running in the background, macOS seems to “shift” some of those power processes to the efficiency cores.
For example, one time I accidentally left FCP running in the background while running a test in Ableton, and I was surprised to see that efficiency cores suddenly saw a lot of activities when I hit playback, as if they were processing audio for Ableton Live.
Once I realized i had FCP running in the background, I quit it and restarted the computer for a clean start, and ran the same Ableton test project again. This time, efficiency cores activities were back to minimum.
So I wonder if the bit of activities you see in efficiency cores when you were running some of your tests was because you had screen recording going on at the same time? I wouldn't be surprised this was the whole point of Apple deciding to not have Logic use the efficiency cores-just so people can run other stuff in the background.
Either way, really fascinated stuff!
@@JamesZhan Thanks for the feedback and likewise! It is reassuring that we see more or less the same patterns here. I think you are spot on in your speculation of how Apple handles efficiency cores. Your experience with FCP there is really interesting actually and maybe shows why Logic is only utilizing performance cores. The OS can then decide that Logic should get prioritized for available performance because Logic could be used in a live setting. That is also why we probably see Ableton Live using performance cores, because Ableton is also a DAW aimed for live performance. While Cubase / Reaper is probably aimed more for the production side, and because of that they also can use efficiency cores.
OBS certainly used some CPU for screen recording, but I think it was low, around 1-4%, moving forward I will use my camera instead to keep OBS out of the equation. I have the 16-Inch, 14-Core M4 Pro CPU, 48GB RAM on the way while I wait for the studio, so I can try some of these tests myself and see if I get the same results. Take care!
James, thank you! I appreciate your tests so much !
James thank you so much for such great informative content. Keep up the good work.
You gave great rationale for your testing. It all makes sense. Also like you said, it's just to compare the performance between the different Mac generations and how different DAWs use P/E cores so people can make an informed decision on which Mac to buy for it to be a performance upgrade. Yet there are still numbskulls in these comments whining. You don't really need to address these haters or defend yourself against them. They will always find something to criticize.
Fantastic videos. Thank you.
Thanks for your efforts and integrity; your analyses are much appreciated. Will you do the same test when M4 ULTRA comes out? Then we have the full M1 - M4 picture. Keep up the good work. Cheers.
These videos are completely self-funded and so I simply cannot afford to buy an Ultra chip just for testing. Maybe one day when the channel gets big enough for me to do that, haha
It's pretty simple for anybody who can write a plugin to determine the process buffer sizes at the different settings for various DAWs. What is not easy to determine is the amount of pre-rendering on different DAWs and that's what makes comparisons difficult, especially since the process buffer size settings are often combined with the pre-rendering settings. More aggressive pre-rendering can make contrived benchmarks look better, but doesn't always work well in the real world.
Thank you James, your work is great and helps a lot of us! I almost bought a Mac Studio M2max a while ago for my mixing studio (running Logic), but then the M4 mini was released... AND I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO NOW! :) I don't want a mini, but I can't wait a year for a Studio M4.... It will be an upgrade from my i7 iMac anyway, but PLEASE, could you point me in a direction!
thx so much james for your test. these tests are amazing and really help to get a good overview in this performance jungle :-). can u tell me a little bit more about the fan situation.
are they getting loud in stress test?. thx in advance
My 14-inch M4 Pro MBP does get loud when all the cores are completely maxed out *when energy mode is set to “high power”.*
Great video again... think some ppl don't want empirical data...
Recent fan of your videos, here.
Please do M4 base Mac Mini test videos for audio production (pro tools cpu usage)
One thing I've learned about being on YT for a while now is you can't make everyone happy, and curiosity is fine, outright trolling of a creators, good, solid work says more about the troll not the creator. Compared to 100% of other computer audio tests (track count tests) your's is above and beyond what most people do and its a great resource don't let them get you down James! You are doing a good job and anyone who says otherwise is not worth addressing. You do what you do best! Cheers! PS I'm sure you've read this in the manual. It use to be in the old days Logic 5 through 9 that Process buffer was how fast the DAW could access read/write speed to the drive, (like recording to an external drive and internal Disk based drives and so on) but it still is more about read/write speeds and not necessarily overall latency on modern SSDs. Now all the manual says is.
The Process Buffer Range in Logic Pro determines the size of the buffer used to process audio samples and compute effects and mixes:
Small: Decreases latency, but may only be usable on very fast modern CPUs
Medium: The default setting
Large: Reduces the likelihood of overloads, but increases latency
James...you're being VERY kind in your description of the forums.. A lot of mindless fanboys. Your admirable humility in face of these people is appreciated.
One suggestion from a "critic" was ""You should rather set them both to a low value like 128 samples and see how many U-he DIVAs you can load in both DAWs."
Would you consider testing this? Thank you.
Logic just got another update to 11.1 today. I hope it uses the E-Cores now.
I really like your videos and they are very practical to know which Mac is best for us.
And I leave you an idea for a next video that I think is interesting: A recording of the sound of the fans of each Mac´s when they reach the maximum number of tracks.
I think this is important for those of us who work with DAWs. What do you think?
That will be discussed in an upcoming video!
@@JamesZhan WOW!!!!
Can you try some tests at lower buffers? I never record at 1024, it’s just not a realistic test in my opinion
It’s realistic for when you are mixing, but yeah, I want a lower buffer as a metric as well for mid composition approximates.
I didn't read the comments... 🤭I just give 👍to videos cause, exactly like you said, it give me an overview of how my daw works on different cpus. I only looked at fl studio. I am not gonna change my daw now just because other utilise better the cpu! 🤭 You're doing a great job man!
Awesome channel
Thank you
I appreciate your analysis. While, it is possible that decisions about the process buffer and other DAW specific settings could throw off the exact magnitude of a difference between DAWS and create that false FOMO feeling, you are in my opinion spot on about the buying decision matrix.
Budget may seem limit you to upgrade an M3 pro from an M1 say but if the performances only improved negligibly, then you probably want to go with the M4 pro since you’ve demonstrated across-the-board that it adds a great deal of processing power.
I do wonder, and this is not a criticism, how the performance of Ableton live for example would change when using equivalent native plug-ins (Ableton devices). I don’t know if this is relevant, but it would be interesting to see if it changes anything. My hunch is it would not.
And by the way, I totally get your point that a percentage lower performance of Ableton isn’t gonna make me switch to reaper. In my case I’m a Cubase user for mixing and I use Ableton for production sketching and so on. I usually make stems in Ableton and mix in Cubase .
Thank you. Good to know as I go down this road with my Mac mini M4 Pro using Logic. Just curious to your typical project sizes in tracks, virtual instruments and processing, since you mentioned some overload instances. This happens to me on occasion with very little going on in the project. I attribute it to the external hard drive sitting idle for too long sometimes. It's like it starts to go to sleep almost. I'll click "ok" on the notice and by then it seems to come back online and works fine. I've got the screen saver set on never and sleep disabled too. Hmm
Some of my projects have 10+ instances of amp sims on it, which alone really put a heavy load on the CPU, and it's why I love doing the amp sim test! People say it's not realistic, but it actually is, just depends on what you do. And I always mix into a mastering chain, so things can get extremely crazy very fast. I run my projects on the internal SSD so drive speed definitely isn't the bottleneck.
Please ensure that the buffer size can be set as low as possible! Many of us rely on the lowest buffer settings when recording and monitoring audio with plugins like Auto-Tune, reverb, and other real-time effects. This is crucial in Cubase, as a lower buffer size minimizes latency, allowing for seamless real-time tracking and monitoring without delays. This feature is especially important for those of us who work with vocals and need precise timing when recording with effects in the mix. Optimizing for a low buffer size will greatly enhance the user experience for professional and aspiring musicians alike!
I do agree. We, as composers, needs low buffer size (at least 128/256).
Thanks for you precious work anyway!
Obsesión for low latency…for me some time is contradictory. When do you need low latency and when not….?
As an artist, and like many others, I love to hear myself with effects applied while recording. This allows me to get a sense of how the final product will sound and helps me perform with confidence. To achieve this effectively, the buffer size needs to be as low as possible to avoid any delays or latency issues. Typically, after recording, the buffer size can be increased for processing, but I personally keep mine at 32 samples on my M2 Pro MacBook Pro, as it’s the lowest my interface allows.
So far, I haven’t encountered any issues with this setup, even when running around 18 tracks with about seven plugins each, including Auto-Tune, reverb, delay, and other effects. This setup ensures smooth, real-time monitoring and enhances the recording experience. Maintaining a low buffer size during tracking is essential for artists who rely on effects while recording, so it would be great if this could be prioritized in Cubase for optimal performance.