I bit. I bought the macbook pro m1 16gb/512 to be delivered before the end of the year.  I'll primarily use it with logic pro and final cut pro...some of my plug ins may take a while to get ported tho.

Oooh!!!

Excited for you Dan.

Native Instruments would be my major issue (I think Kontakt will only run in demo mode right now). Terrible customer service there! (unfortunately, most of my projects have an instance of Kontakt on 80% of the tracks).

Just keep an eye on that Production Expert online list I linked. It should stay pretty current.

Apples seems to have done their best to make the transition as easy as possible.

Oh, I didn't even consider that there's a big possibility my fw ensemble won't work after this.  Damn.  I guess I keep an intel Mac around for logic.

You should be able to do a "dongle to dongle" dongle train.

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/1261576-tbolt-3-fw-really-no-docks-will-do.html#post13932221

I would wonder if the drivers/firmware are Big Sur compliant (contact Apogee or check their web site for the latest).

 

I've got a firewire 400 Metric Halo that I use for location work. I have a 2012 MBP that I use with an external FW800 drive with a usb dock built in. That uses the only FW800 port.

So the Metric Halo is connected to the Thunderbolt 1>Firewire800>Firewire400 (2 dongles).

The driver isn't Catalina compliant so I'll need to do a board upgrade when I buy a new laptop.

 

If you can, use the real Apple dongles. They are pretty solid.

Edited November 30, 20205 yr by ironbut

If you can, use the real Apple dongles. They are pretty solid.

Weirdly, to get TB2 running to my Presonus Quantum the Apple TB3 to TB2 adapter was a non-starter. The dongle cognoscenti informed me StarTec has the preferred solution, and it works a treat.

I stand corrected!

i got the apple one. if it doesn’t work i’ll swap to the other. 

I got the Apple adapter (after a cheap one crapped out) to attach my Blackmagic Multidock TB2 with my 2019 iMac. 

It works fine with the Multidock but YMWV.

If you have issues installing the Apogee software, try resetting CoreAudio in Terminal.

My oldest son took a job as a rep and is traveling. He needs a new laptop and is looking at the 13" MBP M1. Does he really need 16Gb RAM? He was looking at an 8Gb/512G SSD model. Also, would a new Air be just as good for him?

If it was me I would go for the Air with the increased RAM. I actually have come to dislike the touch bar on my Pro but I do like Touch ID (which the new M1 Air has). If I replace my 13” Pro, it will be with the M1 Air not the M1 Pro.

The M1 Macs are too new and plenty of software has yet to made compatible with Big Sur, so we can only make educated guesses where 8G of ram might be a bottleneck.

For now, I'd advise early adopters to max ram.

It could make a huge difference in resale value if it turns out 8G is a real issue.

Do we know we apps he’ll be running? In case it helps at all, here’s a recent M1 Air review driving photography.   

https://fcracer.com/macbook-air-m1-late-2020-review-for-travel-photography/ 

I just cancelled my m1 MacBook Pro order because after upgrading my desktop to an i9-9900k with 32gb, it can handle 171 tracks on the logic benchmark, so I can wait a while longer before upgrading my laptop.

Makes good sense to me Dan.

I have little doubt that the next gen of "pro" level Macs will make my i9 iMac look weak, but at this point, I don't need +200 tracks.

 

IMHO Content is King and 99.9% of folks could care less what gear was used to create something.

My main concern is eliminating distractions and not having to stop to work out some bug.

 

 

 

Well this certainly looks interesting! I love the smaller AirPods for calls and podcast listening so I’m real curious how the tech they’ve done in that product translates to a full size over ear headphone.

https://www.apple.com/airpods-max/

20 hours battery life... that is a step up from the Airpods Pro (5 hours). I guess this is where the Beats acquisition starts to show. Pricey as usual.

Lightning connector.

I'm curious about how they sound – will they compare well against Sony, Bose, and Sennheiser, for example (at nearly double the price)?

29 minutes ago, Hopstretch said:

Lightning connector.

Agreed! Why the fuck did they not use a USB-C connector. Sounds like there is a mole working at Apple.

Where is Tyll when we need him.

Who's going to take one for the team,  or are you going to wait for the pro max?

40 minutes ago, HiWire said:

I'm curious about how they sound – will they compare well against Sony, Bose, and Sennheiser, for example (at nearly double the price)?

They'll sound 75% of the new Orpheus at 1% of the cost. 

48 minutes ago, Grahame said:

Where is Tyll when we need him.

Who's going to take one for the team,  or are you going to wait for the pro max?

To Tyll's credit, he predicted that we'd see the tech come much more strongly into the headphone space in the future when he was on his way out from InnerFidelity.

Apple doesn't seem to be doing personal HRTF in the sense that Tyll predicted, but they do seem to be doing some kind of equalization based on sound interactions from inside the ear cups to fix sonic deficiencies and enhance noise cancellation.

Makes sense. If you can't get there with electrical and acoustic engineering then use EQ to make up a lot of the difference.

I think I might take the plunge.

Edited December 8, 20205 yr by TMoney

I'm running Big Sur on a separate drive on my desktop, and my firewire apogee ensemble is working (via firewire, not via tb3, haven't tested that yet).  

Pianoteq 6.7 and 7 both work inside the latest logic.

I think I might take the plunge.

Much appreciated. I like my AirPods Pro a great deal, but largely because they’re small enough to just always have on my person. I sometimes go three days without putting on shoes lately, so my need for “mobile” headphones is not high.

Computing on a 1990 Apple Quadra 700: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/12/it-still-runs-on-your-imagination-passing-2020-time-with-a-macintosh-quadra-700/

... and I thought I was hoarding old technology.