Thanks for the review, Dan! No surprise that this has been so highly anticipated. Much appreciate your input and feedback, and I hope to follow in your footsteps soon and upgrade to a very similar machine!

Been waiting for this! Thank you so much Dan!!

One of the best videos (maybe the best) i’ve seen for reviewing this laptop - subscribed!

This is the review i've been waiting for! Thanks so much Dan!!

Incredibly useful review. Really helped me sharpen awareness of what MacBook to get. The first of your videos I have viewed. Will definitely be tuning into your future ones.

Thanks for the great review Dan, looking forward getting mine!

Loving the conversation style review

Thanks Dan, as always - nice, calm, clear and on point.. We have the same mac in our studio and have done for a few months, wish we had of gone for the 8TB SSD but we just added 2x external Sabrent 4TB Rocket 4 PLUS NVMe Gen4's so all is well.. Keep up the good work, it's appreciated!

I got the m1 pro and I’m blown away even coming from intel i9 16”. One of the things I’m most impressed is sample library loading time, it’s incredibly snappy. This should be a big improvement for your work.

Such a great and informative video. I have a spec-out 14” on order, and it’s replacing my 2013 MBP. Thanks for this!

What a review! Felt like you read my mind what I wanted to exactly see.

Best review that a music composer need to see, Keep the great work Dan 😃

Best review ever of the MacBook Pro 14" M1 Max ! Thanks !

Thanks, Dan, of all the reviews, yours for me finally settled any doubt as to the Mac books worth as a composer. Nailed it, Dan.

Absolutely fantastic review :D

I appreciate this video. I have a tip for you regarding how you power your laptop. I also own a fully spec'd out 14" M1 Max, and with just a single Thunderbolt cable, I can fully power everything, plus connect multiple drives, peripherals, and two 4K 60Hz monitors, all without the need of the MagSafe adapter. The CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Element Hub has 8 ports and enough power for the whole setup. And you can add more ports since the unit allows daisy chaining. And it just works. So nice to come home and just plug in one wire and everything's connected and working the way I like. Thought you might like to know.

Great review! These are what I need, all about musician's affairs. Thank you man!

A very thorough review. Thank you so much for sharing your experience.

I literally said “oh that was well done” out loud when you showed what final cut looked like on the screen, and the video playing in final cut was this video, great attention to detail :)

This video is so good. You’re so good at explaining things. Very clear and straight to the point! Thank you!

Thank you Dan! I've been holding off on looking into the new macbook until I saw your review on it. Of course the price is something I'd have to work towards but I really see the power behind this machine. Thanks again!

Thanks for this. I have a Mac Studio coming with essentially the same specs. I have similar demands for media scoring, so this was very informative and encouraging.

Great video, thank you. It answered all my questions regarding spec for my use case as a mix engineer and KZfaqr because as you say, most of the stuff out there is for video editors and graphic designers etc.

Exactly the information that I need, I'm moving from a 7 year old iMac maxing out on 12 tracks of virtual instruments. I'm finally putting my 40 year old composition degree to use using orchestration I thought I'd never hear. I'm still trying to replace my large analog "West Coast" synthesizer with software, almost there, although it looks impressive in my studio. Thanks very much for the real-world information, I'm subscribed and looking forward to your ongoing experiences. Just noticed your Logic workflow video, top of my list when my M1 Max MacBook Pro arrives. It could be a long wait: as of yesterday the only factory building them (located in China) is in a COVID shutdown...

Super insightful , thank you !

Very good review! Thank you.

brilliant speaking and useful information! thanks for the video.

Thx Dan, for your info. I am glad you are the first one I know of to speak out that your still working with Rosetta although many libraries/plugins seem to go native. Now I know I am not the only one. 😁

Great review 🔥

Great review! I purchased the 16" Max w/32g. I only got 1TB because most projects fit within that capacity. Once done, I move to external drive. BTW, I created a "DocLocal". folder outside of Documents so those files stay out of iCloud. It runs 2 4k monitors flawlessly with FCPX. As you mention, rendering times are insane! Cubase 11 runs without issue, so does Traktor Pro. Note that if you are running Parallels, Win10 will not work. You need to get the Windows ARM version. Also love that I can still use a USB port to run and charge. Yes, it was pricey .. $3499 US for my config, but worth it. Thanks again

Thank you for confirming what I have decided already…. M1 Pro, 32GB but 1TB … Great review… honest and non bias … Subscribed ✅

Thanks for the run down of your experience with the M1 Max. I have the 16" M1 Pro, but have been having a little odd behavior with Kontakt overloading Digital Performer 11. I'll do some testing with Logic, but I've also gotten the latest Kontakt beta, which may sort things out. I see many reviewers with the M1 Pro, showing how incredibly powerful it is. For a while I was regretting not getting the Max, but I think I should be able to achieve the full potential of this amazing machine, even at the M1 Pro level of processing power. In comparison, It's and unbelievable upgrade to my 2010 i7 iMac.

I purchased a Mac Studio M1 Max a couple of weeks ago and I found this review and a look at the Gary Barlow video quite useful when I was making decisions about specs.

awww man this is Fantastic to hear! I really want a portable laptop i can bring everywhere, will be buying yours when it goes up for sale in 20 years

Excellent review! I just took delivery of a 16” MacBook M1 Max 32gb RAM, 4 tb SSD. I just replaced my 15” 2014 MacBook Pro 16gb, 1tb SSD. I ran some practical comparisons with large Logic files and rendering a large 4K video. In general, the new MacBook is 2x - 8x faster than my old one. It was necessary but quite expensive.

I got the base 14” Pro. I love it.

As a musician and composer, thank you for your assessment. As I travel back and forth to work with my laptop, I think you’re right about lugging around the 16”. My first MacBook was a 16”and it got to be heavy as hell. Mobility is the future. So thanks, I’m gonna max out my 14”.

Solely listening to your voice itself was a pleasure Sir. nice video, thanks

Very good review, didn’t know about the headphone jack being of higher impedance

Thank you so much for this video.

Bruh what a review, I'm talking serious, your honesty really clarified my thoughs

I agree that the machine is absolutely bonkers. I picked up the 14" M1 Pro (10/14) since I'm not doing any video editing. I moved a Studio One project from my "mid-18" hex core i7 MacBook Pro which could barely play even with a buffer of 1024. My M1 Pro easily plays it at about 28% load with a buffer of 256. Mindblowing!

Excellent interview and covered all the bases. Finally makes me think about a M1 Pro just question of a MBP or wait for the Mac Mini M1 Pro. The only PIA is OS X Monterey for music app is still a mess, Apple needs to assemble a team of programmers to work/lend out to the major music app companies to help speed the transition. Last thank you Dan I now think a M1 Pro 32 GB will be fine for me and won't have to spend the extra $$$ for M1 Max to get 64GB. Update a year later. I ended up buying a used MacBook Pro M1 Max 14" and in general love the laptop. My one regret is having old eyes I wish I had got the 16" model. So I'm trying decided on getting rid of the 14" and getting a 16" or just get a external 17" monitor and using both together.

Amazing video! Thanks for that. Which camera and lens are you using?

Great laptops 100%! Retired my custom built Windows desktop as the Mac runs circles around it. Ended up with a 16" M1 Max, 32GB Ram, 1TB SSD. Only complaint I would call out is that I sometimes get some choppiness using an LG usb-c 4k monitor with a scaled display. Can't tell if it's a performance thing, or something else (sluggish performance with my bluetooth mouse for example.) Nonetheless - one of the best Macs in years and a big leap forward in technology

I have been awaiting the release of this video for weeks. I have had my 16" MacBook M1Max 64GB RAM and 2TB SSD on order for a month and still have another to wait for it. I'm glad to see that I have made a good choice. Thanks for sharing this, the best review I have seen of a Mac for composers and producers.

What has your experience been like using the Apollo Twin X with M1 Max?

awesome. this is the EXACT configuration i've been eyeballing! it seems almost nobody on youtube has been getting the 24 core gpu

i use my current eight core Macbook Pro for djing,music production and video editing .I was having trouble with it over the last year but since i cleaned it which needs special tools for the job to open it .Hey apple sort that out it has been working really well.Right now i am not in need of an M1 but i might consider an M2 at a later date

Hi Dan, great Video. Do u like the 14" so far after 2 months? Does it get hot when u use Logic? do the fans turn on? cheers

For software developers out there, I hear you. M1 pro with the 10 cpu cores and the 14 gpu cores with 16 gb of ram and 1 tb ssd is more than enough. screen size is up to you. I have chosen the 14 inch one and I am happy with the portability. even macbook air with m1, 16 gb of ram and 512 gb ssd is very good in terms of software development on the fly which does not require intensive gpu load (such as game development).

Solid review Dan, I'm looking to upgrade at the moment and was going to ask about your Mac Mini - despite the life changes, would you still recommend?

Awesome video

thanks for the review! I'm getting so confused about all these amazing reviews on KZfaq, but then in contrast the 26 pages of thread on apple disussions about how the 14 and 16 M1 mbp are "un-useable" with Logic on Monterey because of many as yet un-resolved issues. Hardware issue maybe? I dont know.... I bought a 16" 6 months ago and returned it because for my setup (which is similar to yours) I just couldnt get it to run smoothly with my (supporter) RME usb interface. Good luck with yours!!

Hey, great video! Do you maybe have any idea on how the M1 Max might compare to the iMac Pro with 10 cores. I have one, with 32gb of RAM, and it's not powerful enough to run my logic pro projects (slows done a lot and often can't run big projects), and I use a lot of spitfire bbc symphony orchestra and very resource-heavy plugins, so I'm hoping that the new M1 Max 16 inch mbp would at least offer better performance than that? Again, great video, thanks!

It is actually extremely hard to put a Face ID module in mbp. The display is only 4mm thick including the thickness from the front glass and the aluminum shell. The thinnest Face ID module itself right now is 5.9mm (almost 6mm) thick of course not including the thickness of the shell and the display and it is in the iPad Pro. The module is also wider than the notch as well. So it actually needs a significant amount of work and a break through in miniaturization of the module to make the module fit.

Great vid

Hey Dan, we have the same machine. Mine only arrived this week and looking forward to loading up my libraries and giving Logic and Final Cut a spin. Like you I compose with multiple libraries and video edit in 4 k so very optimistic that this will improve my workflow and creative experience.

I am using this 14’ M1 MacBook Pro. It is really great that it can open many many plugins in a low buffer size but the battery will be ran out within 3 hours while opening many plugins in my Cubase11 music mixing.

Thanks so much for this awesome review! Can you please tell us which LG monitor you use?!

Thanks for the informative video. Can you do an in-depth video about the recent Kontakt update, which now supports M1 processors?

Awesome video, 'for the most part', thanks! ;)

Thank you!

Awesome review from a fellow music producer 😌

First I thoroughly enjoyed your video, very well structured and paced. The only consideration with your recommendation is if you get the 16” M1 Pro and upgrade to 32gbs and upgrade the storage you are only $200 away from an M1 Max with numerous other capabilities that the Max delivers. Granted $200 is still $200 but it buys you a lot more useful life out of your new M1 MBP for not a lot more spend.

for musicians they HAVE to offer the touch bar option again . This fader is better than many cc controllers of budget quality, you can use for vibrato even

thanks for this, very informative :-) did you by any change get to check out the kontakt M1 native kontakt beta to try out?

Such a great vid Dan! Question for you: You said you use Logic (definitely M1 native ready, as it’s an Apple product). How about Pro Tools? I’m still so frustrated to not really have an answer if that’s workable for sure on an M1. One newest version doesn’t support video, but is ARM-ready (? Maybe?). Have you tried the composer / Kontakt / Omnisphere test using Pro Tools 2021.?.? on said new 14”MacBook Pro? Much appreciated! As an aside, I love that a British company named themselves after their own badass fighter plane from WW II. How has no one else in England done that recently?! It's such a sick name in and of itself. Not that…..WW 3 is starting…….or…..anything…..

Fantastic review Dan! (no-brainer new sub)… I’m a conductor and I use a lot of Spitfire libraries with Logic to do detailed mockups of contemporary operas I’m premiering. It’s brought so much added value and fun to my preparation process, but even my M1 Mini 16GB chokes on big arrangements. So, I ordered the same spec as you (except 16”) a week ago, and I’m thrilled to hear your positive experience! Two questions: 1. Your point about buffer size seemed to suggest a benefit to running a smaller buffer if possible. What’s the downside of a larger buffer? 2. I know Spitfire recommends external library storage on SSDs but I like to have my core stuff local (BBSO Pro, Chamber Strings, Solo Strings and I just added Appassionata) What’s your take on local vs. external for working with libraries? Thanks!

Hi Dan, i have problems with the mac mini M1 because my Korg budget controller does not work with apple new system Did your control surface work properly with it?

Hi Dan. Many thanks for this upload. I'm also in the market for an upgrade. Can I ask how you configure your new mac in logic please? i.e number of cores, rewire on/off etc and have you had any audio interface issues? Thanks.

Hi ! Thanks for the vid - are you using an audio interface when on the go ? or just the core audio - cheers

Well, you said it yourself: You _do_ edit a lot of high-rez video material, so it makes every sense that you went for the machine with the processing power accomplishing that exact thing. And the commuting aspect also lends itself to your decision in favor of the smaller sized/lesser weight one. A "no brainer" as you aptly put it. Other than that - and that's a secondary or tertiary aspect, I'm aware: Do you think that having certain audio interfaces plugged in has an effect on the machine's performance, say if you had an older USB-C connected interface there, do you think the lesser data bandwidth of that would have an effect on the Soc in your MBPro? Just curious. (and the thought arose over syncing issues I had when screen recording and running a project on my .... vintage machine....) Brilliant, as usual! Everything worth knowing in terms of "real life scenarios" is there! (and ooooh... I just edited my basically first video on my old machine, equipped with a dedicated GPU, but the latter seemingly underpowered... took me days to edit roughly 30 mins. of walkthrough of my #scorerelief2022 project file; rewarding experience, though, learning's always good :-) ) Thanks!

Having this laptop as my working ebook as a software engineer and i'm so impressed, that i want a privat one two, just to kick out my old desktop hardware and switch to this device. For me as a hobby producer, rapper, lyricist and a pro software developer who loves linux, shell, typing - it's great. I wish i could use i3 desktop on macos as a native surface - because i love the fact, that i can produce beats, if i need 10 minutes to get my head off, of developing problems, let my subconciousnes think about the problem - and just be creative while i'm sub-thinking. such a dream come true and i really dream about going deep into machine learning and this device has the ability for my creative freedom as a human.

i just ordered one, previously i've been using the M1 macbook air and honestly, i've yet never been able with my own projects to make logic crash and never got an overload warning even when i'm working on 96Khz. My songs are not that sophisticated. But i needed more storage space for video editing so i'm selling my macbook air and getting a pro for more storage and i went ahead and took the M1 Max. I think i'm gonna be happy except if, it gets noisy. I loved the Air cause it doesn't have a fan.

Great review - something I was wondering is: how do you manage your sample libraries between studios if you're using a racked SSD bay? This is my biggest pain point for producing music on a laptop - having to bring an external drive everywhere, inevitably forgetting to eject it properly every once in a while when switching locations, sweating about possible drive/file corruption due to this, etc.

I’m extremely happy with my M1 Max 14inch ❤

ordered during the launch event. best investment I've made in a while lol

May you explain a bit more how exactly you are using the Blackmagic MultiDock? I saw a video from you where you said you use it for your sample libs. What do you use when you are on remote (train, cafe etc.)? What kind of ssd do you use for the MultiDock? Do you use the different sockets for different libs (e.g. strings separeted from brass, woodwinds and so on)?.

Thanks for this great review! Have you faced any stability issues running your DAW through Rosetta? I'm interested in switching to M1 but some of the VSTs I rely most on are still not optimized for Apple silicon, so my only option would be to run Logic Pro entirely via Rosetta (not just selecting to launch these individual plugins via Rosetta while the main Logic session runs natively), but I'm still not sure how stable that option is.. Are you noticing all the benefits of M1 power when using Rosetta (Efficiency, power, battery, session and plugins stability?) or are there any notable downfalls or hits in performance? This is the only factor still holding me back from updating my current i7 MacBook. Thanks!

Thanks for the video, very helpful! Do you keep any of your sample/kontakt libraries on your local drive or do you keep them on an external? Is there one that you would recommend?

what do you keep on your 2 tb internal storage? a lot of people on yt suggest to only have the OS installed and run everything else on external SSDs. i find this topic very confusing...

I really loved this alot, and it answered alot of my question, plus: "What about those big sample libraries ?" I am firmly decided on 32 GB, and I would love to stretch to Max, if budget allows, and 2 TB SSD if budget allows. And I prefer 16, but would take 14, but also I would love to use it LIVE ? I am a Pro. (My current 1 TB is always full, and has almost no big libraries, and no video clips.) Should I do the jump from 1TB to 2TB SSD ?

Thank you for this review Dan. After nearly 11 years with my 2012 MacBook Pro Retina, I'm finally getting a new machine and was wondering if you had any advice on how to spec it out. My plan is to get a M2 Max MacBook Pro with 64GB RAM and a 1TB SSD. I have been producing music on Macs for decades, but it's typically been of the popular (ie: non-orchestral) variety. However, I am interested in investing in a library like Spitfire's BBC Symphony Orchestra CORE, and was wondering if you thought 64GB was worth it, or would just be overkill (you mentioned having only 35GB loaded for you stress testing). I don't necessarily see myself creating massive orchestral compositions with gargantuan libraries at this point, but it's hard to predict the future. I'm also wondering about the storage. I keep my projects/libraries on an external SSD, but it appears you've opted for a bigger SSD to house your projects/libraries. If that's the case, how has it been working for you? It would be great to have one fewer thing to travel around with. Best!

Can we all just appreciate how great Dan's voice sounds on this mic and setup. I hate it when tech reviewers/youtuber audio engineers over compress their voice in their videos such as another Dan *COUGH Dan Worrall COUGH*. Good to hear a nice natural vocal recording with dynamics, and you have a nice calming talking voice, too 🙏

Would love to know whether you think the Mac Studio Ultra would be a good future-proofing move, or overkill even for large orchestral midi sessions with spitfire libraries. I’m still on the fence, and worry about regretting not shelling out the extra cash down the road… help!

Thank youuu😊😊

I don't understand how anyone can price a computer at $2,499.00 and give you 512GB of Hard drive. it's criminal. No computer should come with less than 1TB of Storage at that price.

I am about to embark on a feature film project. I do use a lot of spitfire libraries and plugins. Will 32 gbs of ram be enough or should I get 64?

Screen usage: are you not using it as a second screen when using the 4K monitor?

I just upgraded. Same specs with 16 inch and 4TB SSD

Do you think having the higher bandwidth memory speed is worth going to the m1max? Or is the m1 pro still good enough?

I dont plan to go quite as far as you on specs but then im not a pro though i have done pro work as a dj but not recently at least live.I usually cut and mix video at around 720p as that seems to be the sweet spot for Serato when mixing video and audio with both visual and audio effects on top especially when using one computer to broadcast on Twitch.This quality may well go up in future broadcasts when i get the M2 but i reckon i will go with a 16 inch model.Iwont take it out much so the larger size wont be a problem

The only MacBook Pro I could find available at Best Buy was the 16inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro Chip, 16gb Ram & 1TB SSD. Now I really wanted one with 32gb of ram but do you think 16gb will be enough for me. I like using soft synths like omnisphere & the Komplete collection. Thanks

Fan def on for the 14 inch m1 max.. But not on the base model or the 16 inch. The 14inch in combination with the m1 max causes much more heat so you will hear the fan. Still not as loud as the m1 though

Nice!

How does a second display affect a logic pro project? this is interesting

Interesting video if you are in the market but could be done in half the time frankly. I bought the exact same spec. Advice to would-be buyers about this Mac. If you get regular clipping (which I did), it was because my interface wasn't powered using electricity unlike my last Mac which ran fine using just USB. This thing is a beast.

Do you feel the 2TB internal storage is enough for you? Is read/write access to external storage fast enough for your workflow? Do you move all files for a project onto your internal storage while working on them or do you use both internal and external storage for projects? (Of course you answered this right after I commented.)

Sound tip for everyone: wrap the cabel that connects the midi keyboard and the computer in Aluminium foil, virtual instruments will sound way better. This also applies to wrapping Aluminium foil around electricity cabels, which can greatly improve sound quality