MacBook Air M2 x Reaper - Can it handle a full mix?
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- čas přidán 12. 09. 2024
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Today we're seeing what my brand new MacBook Air M2 can do - can it handle a full mix? Let's fire up Reaper and see.
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Life-long windows user here but the M2 Air lured me over to Apple. I tried several 2022 PC laptops and all had horrible battery life, ran really hot, and lagged in performance. The M2 Air is a huge improvement in every respect. And I still can't get over the superior build quality Apple is famous for.
greqt tool. M1 Air here, almost the same performance, for those wanting to save a LOT of money.
@@Journeymanlive 16 or 8 ram???
Where I live 16 gb is twice the price =(
@@wasabi333 I have 8g of RAM. 512gb of hard drive. I do nice Logic Pro sessions, Da Vinci video editing. More powerfull than my "pro" 2019 Macbook Pro Intel i9 with 16go Ram. Even the base M1 Air is a beast.
@@Journeymanlive Thank you!
What scares me most is the memory paging, and maybe killing the SSD, therefore killing the whole machine.
What kind of music do you make?
I use a lot of synths haha. Like VSTi.
Thanks!!!
the ram bothers me, but otherwise same here, love the mac after decades of windows
Nice - I bought this exact Air m2 myself! Multi-decade PC user, also bought the 10 core GPU version. So far it's been AMAZING. Faster than my dual-socket Xeon music workstation. REAPER works a treat on it!!
@Ozan I bought the 16 GB version. I think you would need that to get multiple years out of it. I’d go for it!
Congrats,- a month ago I jumped into the deep water, buying a M2 Air too. Same CPU, but 24G ram and 2Tera ssd. Came from 15" Apple Macbook Pro with Intel.
I know, expensive,- but I'm tired of running out of storage and ram :)
I'm a IT guy, some stuff are still hanging, I need lots of virtualization,- and Apple silicon is still weak on this, I hope (a lot of) improvements will come in the future.
So,- I run some virtualization stuff on an Intel Lenovo X1 carbon besides. A brilliant laptop too (running Ubuntu).
I play with machine learning and AI, hoping the M2 can do basic stuff with that, I think it will be a succes.
And Reaper,- I'm just a home-amateur musician, learning a lot from your videos, thank's a lot for your great tutorials.
I love the M2 Air, small, light, incredible battery life, really powerfull. For the same money, I could buy a 14" M1,- but it's more heavy and chunky.
absolutely love my M1 MacBook Air. been using it with Logic and ProTools as my main system for just over a year. only had it W*nk out once during the heatwave where it just couldn't keep up with a mix but that didn't help I had no AC or anything in the room I was working in.
I create music with 8 tracks, simple on logic (using some inbuilt amps and reverb) with my early 2015 MBP.. and I think this will be my next choice (a bit sad about that the 16gb won't be available for me.. but getting the 512gb version atleast)
Just commenting to help with the algorithm and cheekily mention the EVALUATION LICENSE notice from Reaper at the top of the screen. 😃
I suspect working with Apple products in the studio again is in my future as well. But, I'm still waiting to dive back in as I'm old enough and been doing this long enough to have known the hell that was Apple transitioning from PowerPC to Intel based chips. That transition was such a nightmare back then as a Studio owner and engineer. Thankfully, it seems the Pro Audio industry is moving quicker these days to ease the transition.
Thank you so much. This video shows the true depth of a song by a power user. What a computer the M2 Air is.
I too am a PC user, looking to sell my hardcore gaming rig to buy an M2 Air and finally have some flawless fun with Ableton and Komplete 13. You’ve convinced me 😃
Just a friendly heads-up to double-check the software compatibility with Komplete 13. Native Instruments issued a statement saying it is not yet fully compatible with M2 chips, though it has resolved a lot of the issues with compatibility regarding M1 chips. I too am looking to upgrade from PC to Mac M1/M2 chips using both Ableton 11 (which is compatible) and Native Instruments plug ins
As far as compatibility is concerned, m2 is m1. They might say “fully” because maybe one or two of the plugins haven’t been finished yet but the ones I use seem to work fine
That's the best T-shirt to wear while reviewing a computer.
I'm glad you're open to this being a PC guy.
I too am interested in getting some apple stuff for music and video editing especially with what's happened in the span of 2 years with the m series stuff. Definitely something to consider when you think about Macs in the past decade are just overpriced PCs with a different OS.
Love seeing all the win folks enjoying their computers. My first was a C64....then Mac Plus...then.... Been using linux whenever possible, but I decided to treat myself w/ a 2016 mbp. Love the multi-boot ability of the Intels...
For people wondering 🤔 about the m2 air..I used to have a laptop with 2gb ram with intel celeron on it..that was 2 years ago..reaper work smoothly..no matter the pc...wish some manufacturers can learn from reaper..without us needing a 1000 dollar pc
I just ordered one and I’m waiting on it coming in. I got the slower 256 gb drive, but with the most ram. Figured if I ran out of storage I can use an external hard drive.
that would be my choice, for the same reason.
One thing forgot to consider: sustained performance. The Air has no fans so after a few minutes under high load,it may throttle down performance.
Sure, but even the busiest mixes don’t use 100% of the cpu and hardly any gpu, so in my experience it’s not even an issue.
Video editing is a different story.
@@adamsteelproducer does it matter if you use an external monitor? Does that tax the machine a lot?
Not at all, the gpu section handles that and it’s not a hard task compared to a machine from 10 years ago
@@adamsteelproducer thanks a lot for the advice!
This is really helpful, thanks :)
Very nice review, I have never laid a finger on a MacBook in my life, and couple weeks ago, I purchased a MacBook Air M2 to start my path of DJ. It’s by far amazing 🤩
How’s it going for you? I’m looking to get a m3 air right now but I’m worried about it overheating during a long performance.
@rosin87 it wouldn’t overheat unless you’ve got a huge amount of plugin processing going on, my m2 air is fine as long as I don’t massively overload it
I have no issues with it. I also have Ableton suite 11 which is also running well
Nice ! Any idea which audio interfaces M2 works with ? or is it same as M1. Im looking at Motu interfaces but interested to hear what you are using , thank you :)
Apologies if I missed it but how much RAM did you have? Is it essentially the base model with a bigger SSD?
I was gonna get the pro14 but this made me switch to air15. thanks
Hey Adam, have you been using the m2 air much since this video. I was wondering how it was for tracking and how it handles low buffer size? Love your content and your intimate reaper guide👍
Use it all the time, it’s really good for tracking. Thunderbolt interfaces are better than usb for latency, but that’s not the Mac’s fault
@@adamsteelproducer Good stuff, I suspected as much about TB interfaces. TB on windows seems very hit & miss in my exp. so could be another + for the MBA. Thanks for the reply.
Happy to see this !! Try a Mac Studio or MBP Max machine, I dare you ;)
I tried them! They're fine. Still don't get the price tag on them though, there's no battery or glorious screen on the Studio, and the lack of PCIe slots really stops the plans dead for my needs. MBP Max is complete overkill as well, may as well get a desktop at that rate
@@adamsteelproducer Cool. I love my Mac Studio. A beast of performance that is quieter than a mouse. Classic Windows vs Mac preference I guess.
Not really as I use both, I’m pragmatic with performance vs price, always have been. For thin and light laptops apple are currently unbeatable but for desktops their proposition is good but very overpriced atm
Well reaper users are loving reaper completely aside from platform! The community is growing every day so it’s all good :)
@@adamsteelproducer Good to hear...I'm brand new to Reaper
So I have an important question if anyone can help I'd appreciate it. I just bought the same model 8 gigs of RAM and 256 hard drive and I have tons of plugins like contact T-Rac etc etc. if I bought a Mac Studio in the future let's say and backup my entire MacBook Air with plugins and Logic with everything and everything music production apps, can I then migrate that backup into the Mac Pro ?
thank you, great content. I have the same setup but I'm getting very different results... I can see from your screen that you get 10ms in and out latency at 512, I get 35ms in and 25ms even at lower settings. more, my microphone is seen as a single channel instead of two. Are those your settings from the internal audio? Thanks a lot, really.
How does the M2 air do with virtual instruments like Diva or Serum?
I think I still prefer the M2 Pro MacBook Pro 14 inch. But I’m still happy to hear that the M2 Air performed admirably nonetheless 😁😁😁
Hi, Can i use fior live music making using omnisphere nexus and kontakt?
Ive seen 8gb of ram, but up to 24gb of unified memory. What does that actually mean if you dont mind me asking?
Question, can you use a external hard drive to extend memory
Is this the base model?
Curious, is this video recorded using the MV7?
Great video, thanks. I think I'm sold! How much RAM did you get? Not sure you mentioned it in the video??
I got the one I could buy - which was the stock 8gb model. Honestly it's enough because of the rapid SSD
@@adamsteelproducer Wow, that's impressive! I'm looking at getting the same model as yours, but with 16GB.
Now, where did I put my credit card??
Haha I don’t get any money so I can say it freely, I’m really impressed! Of course if you do heavy sample based work 16 might be needed, and if you do heavy video work this might be underpowered but as far as portable machines go, it’s hard to beat right now
@@adamsteelproducer so no reason to get the 24gb ram for logic pro use when using larger sample libraries?
Only if you’re going absolutely crazy with orchestral stuff, usually it can pull the samples from the SSD fast enough. If you’re going that hard though, you’ll need the SSD upgrade as you’re already in custom build territory
I wonder.. I just downloaded Reaper but it seems to lag bit, like the meters and GUI. I have m2 pro 16gb
The only issue I've had is trying to get it (M2 mini) to find or use any 3rd party .component plugins other than the reapack AU ones. They're in the components folder which I added in the file path but yet invisible to Reaper. Any help on this issue would be appreciated.
Would you also help me to find out a way to install SWs and find the extension on that bar on Repear? Somethings is wrong cAn't make it
do you partition the drive for virtual instruments? Is it neccessary? Do you recommend a second internal drive for virtual inst? does the Thunderbolt ports share bandwidth? Is it recommended to use an external drive for virtual instruments? Thanks. Gonna do a Mac Mini M2 pro video?~ Can you do a video on Music production PC?
No point partitioning solid state drives, doesn’t help anything. And no I won’t do an m2 Mac mini video, I don’t have one and I don’t need one. I’ve done several videos on production PCs.
@@adamsteelproducer guess I can search your video files for your pc build video. Of course , although the hardware and processor industry has gone through several generation since that video. Thanks for the partition info.
Blackmagic cameras record ProRes 422 HQ. Both Premiere and Resolve chew it easily, and on Mac it will be a breeze.
I don’t like prores though, the file sizes at 4k are double Q5 BRAW and I can’t change iso etc in post- so it’s easy to edit with but doesn’t fit my needs. And the m2 still struggles a bit because it’s only a 15W device! It’s impressive for what it is but we have to be reasonable…
@@adamsteelproducer Then there is no need to change your workflow. And when you are in need m2 will still be good enoug for a casual edit.
In fact I’m editing on it right now! It won’t render super fast but the playhead is as smooth as a full desktop machine, it’s kind of scary…
Hi,- let's hear about your M2 again. :)
Still satisfied? I'm happy for mine.
It’s coming up again in another video very soon, it’s fantastic. I couldn’t do my next project without it
@@adamsteelproducer Thank's mate, I'm looking forward to another great video :)
I can't believe how lucky a guess I did buying one. Just curious, if you had the same experience.
He bought a Mac 😲 Quick, call an exorcist, he's been possessed and wandered over to the dark side ;-)
How does the onboard headphone socket shape up when using your high impedance cans? I remember that was one of the issues they said they'd addressed.
It’s better than I expected, drives HD650s pretty well, obvs not as well as a dedicated interface or head amp, but does ok for louder things like video edits and compressed mixes
Also use HD650s with Sonarworks off the onboard headphone port. For uncompressed audio, I found I had to turn down the "auto audio compensation" on SoundID or else it was too quiet, even near 100%. And at 100% it sounds a little ragged. But, if I get rid of that -7dB cut SoundID adds, and make it more like -2dB, it's totally fine.
Vercy nice, but ould have been nice to see hownit react on redering the full mix tho .
How it reacts? It renders it, what more needs to be said?
@@adamsteelproducer for what I know, and i'm not a professional producer, redering take a lot more cpu than playing the mix. I'm pretty sure that the m2 would render this whole mix very well, but I'd like to know how much cpu it would take.
That’s not how it works- it should take exactly the same amount of cpu power to render as to mix. Usually offline bounces go faster than real-time so they take more cpu cycles if they can, but there’s no reason it would stop or cause problems. In my experience there’s no problem at all
I have a 2018 intel macbook and it render mixes with 30 tracks at 75% of cpu. When i press play with all the plugins it take 40-50% of cpu. I suspect that the m2 the difference between playing and redering is much less than that.
I love the thought of the m2 mac book air but I wonder how it would deal with a few instances of superior drummer 3, I fear it will run out of memory, so then you spec it up and then it's gets too expensive?
Yeah could be an issue, but then “a few instances of SD3” seems like a really niche thing- most people would use 1! And the SSDs are so fast you don’t really need to keep everything in ram like on older machines so it’s not the problem it used to be
@@adamsteelproducer yep I do drums a percussion in different instances can use up alot of ram but you make A good point sir. Thanks for your reply
how much RAM?
Hi, thanks for the video! I wonder if it is possible to control the volume level with apple keyboard. Many external audio interfaces has volume controls greyed out on MacOS. I wonder if that is the case for Motu M2 as well? Googled a bit but can't find something about it, would really appreciate if you could answer!
Hey, if you select an external audio interface on your Mac settings you never or almost never are able to change the volume with your keyboard.
@@driesferiani Hi, thanks for the message. I have bought Motu M4 and am able to change external device volume with the keyboard without any additional software or setting, fyi. Also I would not say never, since it is not that rare. Motu Ultralite, RME Fireface, all Apogee models are pretty much supporting this. But newer models are always unknown, hence asked it here.
What was the sample rate and buffer size you used for the full mix? Maybe I missed that.
You didn’t miss it because I didn’t say, I think that mix was 48khz and probably at 256 or 128 samples because those are what I usually have it set to
@@adamsteelproducer great thanks! That is pretty impressive!
I just got the 24 GB RAM version also with the faster processor. Which is the max RAM you can get on this. He didnt say how much RAM his has but its either the same or even less so I am happy to see that it is that much of a beast. Was a little worried about the RAM because I use virtual strings (Nucleus lite), virtual Bass(EZBass), virtual drums (the GGD libraries) and sometimes virtual Piano (Neopiano). My productions dont have hundreds of tracks though because I am still very much a beginner in composition and production. This looks like I should be absolutely fine with what I got. Phew 😂😂
I got the standard 8mm version, which is fine for most things- I bet it would even load all those instruments because it’s a lot more memory efficient than the older intel models. Mine also has the upgraded processor, which is nice for short bursts but turns out it’s not super useful for big projects because it hits thermal limits and clocks down very quickly. Still really good compared to anything else you can get that’s even close to its size.
How are things going with the mackbook air? I'm thinking about getting the mackbook air m2 with 24gb and 1tb of storage but I've read that if I'm going to get specs like that I might as well get the mackbook pro.
You said it! 8gb ram is just fine on the air, if you’re after doing super high performance work, the lack of fan on the air will be your first limitation.
For me though it’s been just dandy for anything on the go, rendering video can be hard but I can play back raw video on a timeline no worries
@@notsogood9449 I have just made my first template with all the most important virtual instruments I am using. Which is not a lot of tracks when i compare it to professional production...maybe 20 or so. I have every track that I dont need deactivated and recently moved all my sample content (GGD Invasion, GGD Modern and Massive and Nucleus lite) to an external drive. I am still getting a few spikes where the CPU usage is at max though. But nothing compared to my old laptop.
Just got a Mac yesterday and I'm trying to figure out this Rosetta thing. Because you're using metric a/d through Rosetta, does that mean you're running Reaper and all your native compatible plugins through Rosetta as well? Or can you have everything running natively that can and just have the plugins that can't run through Rosetta?
Thanks
Don’t worry about Rosetta with reaper, it only comes into play per plug-in when needed. Everything is native unless there’s no option
@@adamsteelproducer Okay, just can't seem to find many videos of how it works with native and Rosetta together. About 80% of my plugins are native compatible ( 3rd party) I'm wondering if I should even bother installing the plugins that aren't for now.
Thanks
Yes install the non native ones as well, they will work just fine- then update them to apple silicon versions as those come out.
Intel and AMD have to be quaking in their boots over the M series chips. There's an M2 MBPro in my household that just slays. Well done, Apple.
Yeah...I have to agree. Apple Silicon was a major leapfrog move. In the past, I would understand Adam's perspective on price/performance...not now though. (Well, other than the Studio monitor!) When the Mac Pro comes out for Adam's PCIe cards...his argument will very likely be a good one! $$$. But I despise Windows vs Apple debates...so :)
I don't see any PC on the market .. for my needs ...that would tempt me away from Apple in 2022.
My Mac Studio + RME interface is giving me 2ms latency. I think I'll "get by" ;)
can you play and record a piano or any synth vst realtime without noticeable latency on it? mmmmm...
Interface depending, sure
5:22 macbook have never done that. it's just a windows thing.
Does it heat up during music production/mixing?
Little bit, same as any machine. Not been a lap-burner though
@@adamsteelproducer sounds good man, thanks for your reply
hi all - any thoughts as to why my new minmac M2 will not accept Reaper 64??? but universal is ok??
Cheers
The universal binary is the one that is built to work with the M2 arm processor, that’s the correct one that you need.
@@adamsteelproducer ok thank you very much
Would still like to see at least 16gb of ram and 1tb ssd for the price though it’s an extra £400 just for those upgrades which is ridiculous.
The ram isn't a big deal, it seems to be far more efficiently used than on X86 systems. Agree completely on storage though
@@adamsteelproducer to be fair it is more about the cost, for £1500 8gb of ram is a little insulting and charging £200 for an extra 8gb is ludicrous when you can buy 16gb of ddr5 for £75
@@tarkett8529 you compare slow pc parts with an SOC, the insane performance comes at a price since its all baked in.
which is what makes those things fly so hard
Is it the 16gb RAM version?
he answered this in another comment. It's the 8gb
I have an irrational dislike of laptops although I take one to a coding meetup in the city. My dislike of Apple as a company is much more reasonable.
Ran PCs for years. Have to be portable a few hours a week, so have used Precision laptops for MANY years. This was my first Mac, and it's flat AMAZING.
@@shaunobi I know they are brilliant but it sticks in my craw 😄
the soldered SSD ( + They overcharge 3x-4x per TeraByte compared to any other SSD manufacturers on the market ) is an Abomination we need to Abolish :X
The apple tax is real, and I don’t like it either- but at the moment, with the laptops being the most reliable option I know of, it’s a price I’ll pay as a business. Not had any other Mac in years though because of exactly these kinds of reasons
they are in the chip, this is what makes everything so fast, you cannot compare old pc tech with this SOC iphone power
Nah, pass on the fruit cult. Pc work's just fine.
How much RAM?
he answered this in another comment. It's the 8gb