1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:15,480 For the artist and the creative professional, a good computer is an essential foundational 2 00:00:15,480 --> 00:00:20,520 tool. And while we're all excited to see how Apple's new Mac Studio will fit the bill, I wanted 3 00:00:20,520 --> 00:00:24,280 to give a last Harava look at the new MacBook Pro. 4 00:00:24,280 --> 00:00:27,680 Now, in the world of tech YouTube, we've done our benchmarks and tried out what's 5 00:00:27,680 --> 00:00:32,280 new to tell you how it is. And the new MacBook Pro has impressed just about all of us. 6 00:00:32,280 --> 00:00:37,760 But what about the types of people who they are made for? What is the MacBook Pro like in the real world? 7 00:00:37,760 --> 00:00:54,360 The results might surprise you. They surprised me. 8 00:00:54,360 --> 00:01:04,720 This is Andrew Muller. He's a musician friend of mine who goes by the name Viola Bloom. 9 00:01:04,720 --> 00:01:09,120 He's been growing in music production for a number of years now, accumulating a large 10 00:01:09,120 --> 00:01:15,560 array of cool synths and effect mabobs that plug into his 2015 MacBook Pro, glowing logo 11 00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:21,840 and all. 12 00:01:21,840 --> 00:01:26,320 Software-wise, music producers are spoiled for choice with their digital audio workstation 13 00:01:26,320 --> 00:01:49,360 software. Andrew's choice when writing and producing tunes is reason. 14 00:01:49,360 --> 00:02:07,880 For us, a slow computer is a bit of a nuisance, but for Andrew, it can really cramp his creative 15 00:02:07,880 --> 00:02:13,920 flow. Our audio buffer size is very important, so you can see we have a certain amount of samples 16 00:02:13,920 --> 00:02:26,960 here and it tells us what our latency is. This song, for example, will not play unless I have the set to 2,000 samples. 17 00:02:26,960 --> 00:02:30,880 So this is what you have to do is you have to keep jumping up your buffer size every 18 00:02:30,880 --> 00:02:35,800 time your project gets bigger and now you can touch the project less because you're 19 00:02:35,800 --> 00:02:41,240 like, oh, I want to record some instruments. It starts to create a mess, so it's like, okay, well, I'm just going to increase the 20 00:02:41,240 --> 00:02:47,840 buffer size. 21 00:02:47,840 --> 00:02:51,240 It's like a very long delay. 22 00:02:51,240 --> 00:02:55,160 It's literally impossible because your brain gets confused because you hear it a second 23 00:02:55,160 --> 00:02:58,720 later. It's just like you feel like an idiot. 24 00:02:58,720 --> 00:03:01,880 So can we make Andrew's life a little better? 25 00:03:01,880 --> 00:03:06,560 This new MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro processor is about four times faster than his fourth 26 00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:11,640 gen Intel Core i7 laptop, and so I want to give it to him to see if such an upgrade actually 27 00:03:11,640 --> 00:03:24,720 makes any difference. 28 00:03:24,720 --> 00:03:30,040 On the other side, what about one of our video editors, like Hoffman, whom you might recognize? 29 00:03:30,040 --> 00:03:35,920 He's an editor here at LMG who occasionally takes photos for merch on LTTstore.com, dressed 30 00:03:35,920 --> 00:03:46,840 like me with their plaid flannel. In the edit den, he uses a massive, powerful desktop PC, threadripper, 3090 and all. 31 00:03:46,840 --> 00:03:52,200 His workstation is very powerful and very big, so I want to see how much an M1 Max-powered 32 00:03:52,200 --> 00:03:55,600 MacBook Pro with 24 cores compares. 33 00:03:55,600 --> 00:04:00,800 What the heck are you doing? Well, we're replacing your desktop, heavy and hot, with a new MacBook Pro. 34 00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:04,480 I'm going to see if it's just as fast. Is it going to be faster than mine? 35 00:04:04,480 --> 00:04:07,480 You're going to tell me. You know this is what you want. 36 00:04:07,480 --> 00:04:11,240 I'm not going to say anything. 37 00:04:11,240 --> 00:04:15,520 The goal of this video is to get an idea of what it would be like were someone to add 38 00:04:15,520 --> 00:04:22,040 one of these MacBook Pros into their workflow. So we're going to need a bit of time, at least over a week, to let them get their hands dirty. 39 00:04:22,040 --> 00:04:30,800 So what do I do in the meantime? Well, I could find my backpack, put a touchscreen on a MacBook, go diving for iPhones, clean 40 00:04:30,800 --> 00:04:46,240 my airpods, fix iCloud storage, make a video with an iPhone, use a slow computer and collapse. 41 00:04:46,240 --> 00:04:50,880 Many of the new features introduced in the MacBook Pro are extremely handy, especially 42 00:04:50,880 --> 00:04:56,120 in Hoffman's case. That SD card reader almost worth the price of entry alone, except for the fact that you 43 00:04:56,120 --> 00:04:59,840 also get that fabulous XDR display. 44 00:04:59,840 --> 00:05:15,160 At his desk, Hoffman edits high-quality, high-bit rate Mac Address footage. 45 00:05:15,160 --> 00:05:19,640 Now we do have a server to edit footage of, however, it and Macs have a bit of a fickle 46 00:05:19,640 --> 00:05:24,600 relationship. So Hoffman's editing locally. So how does the MacBook compare to the Threadripper? 47 00:05:24,600 --> 00:05:28,040 There are times when the transcode is just a little bit slower. 48 00:05:28,040 --> 00:05:31,560 For example, it would be like seven minutes to transcode something on the Threadripper 49 00:05:31,560 --> 00:05:37,320 versus 12 minutes on the MacBook Pro, but I just look at it and try to listen to the 50 00:05:37,320 --> 00:05:43,800 fan and I rarely hear the fan sometimes. I mean, it is a bit of a bigger difference, 12 minutes to seven minutes. 51 00:05:43,800 --> 00:05:47,360 It's pretty rough, I would say, but the time difference is like a couple of minutes. 52 00:05:47,360 --> 00:05:51,680 It's not exactly close, but it's not exactly far. 53 00:05:51,680 --> 00:06:09,760 So back to Andrew. 54 00:06:09,760 --> 00:06:12,840 The issue for him was managing the buffer in Reason. 55 00:06:12,840 --> 00:06:16,960 To hear his multi-layered song, he needed a big buffer, which meant he can't play along 56 00:06:16,960 --> 00:06:24,480 with it. So is the new Mac any better? Like my old computer, once a song got bigger, I would have to be up to like 2,000 samples, 57 00:06:24,480 --> 00:06:31,360 which is like, it's very hard to record. 58 00:06:31,360 --> 00:06:40,160 So that's not too bad for only 512 samples. I was expecting it to like, like I was at 2,000, so I'm going to go up more samples. 59 00:06:40,160 --> 00:06:44,400 So it actually just got worse when I changed it to 1,000 samples for some reason. 60 00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:49,440 Yeah, maybe that's what I need to experiment with is lower. 61 00:06:49,960 --> 00:06:54,680 My DSP is at like max. That's very weird, right? 62 00:06:54,680 --> 00:06:58,720 It's getting worse and worse and worse. I think it'll get better now at 4,000. 63 00:06:58,720 --> 00:07:02,600 And like the new Mac book, I opened up a song and like immediately it wouldn't play until 64 00:07:02,600 --> 00:07:08,120 I had it at 4,000 samples. 65 00:07:08,120 --> 00:07:12,800 So how did you feel when the performance was not as good? Oh man, that was so disappointing. 66 00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:17,360 It felt awful. I was like, did I make a huge mistake here? 67 00:07:17,360 --> 00:07:22,480 It made me feel like I was an early adopter. 68 00:07:22,480 --> 00:07:25,520 It shows that the problem here is the software. 69 00:07:25,520 --> 00:07:29,920 In the digital audio workstation space, Reason is known for being a little behind. 70 00:07:29,920 --> 00:07:34,440 Their latest update, 12, now supports HD graphics for retina screens. 71 00:07:34,440 --> 00:07:42,480 Andrew, however, uses version 11. And while it should run on M1 through Rosetta, something is clearly getting lost in translation. 72 00:07:42,480 --> 00:07:50,160 And native M1 support looks a long way off. Despite the M1 being a part of the system requirements. 73 00:07:50,160 --> 00:07:56,000 So are you going to buy a Mac book? Yeah, I bought a Mac book and it just shipped last night. 74 00:07:56,000 --> 00:08:00,800 Oh, you just got it? And it just shipped last night and I got a UPS sticker on my door and I went and picked 75 00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:04,600 it up just before this interview. So you still went and got one anyway? 76 00:08:04,600 --> 00:08:09,080 I still got it anyways. Oh, you got a space gray one? 77 00:08:09,080 --> 00:08:15,440 It's space gray. What can I say? For me, I was motivated just because my computer was getting slow. 78 00:08:15,440 --> 00:08:20,080 And while I'm trying to work on these projects and I got 2,000 samples on my buffer size 79 00:08:20,080 --> 00:08:23,400 and then I upgraded, it doesn't even solve that problem. 80 00:08:23,400 --> 00:08:27,840 So now I'm actually in a funny position where I'm like, oh, maybe I would move to Ableton 81 00:08:27,840 --> 00:08:34,920 because I know it's going to perform way better. And that might be a mistake, but I'm motivated to make that mistake because I have this problem 82 00:08:34,920 --> 00:08:47,880 now. These powerful Apple Silicon Macs have brought loads of enthusiasm to the platform, especially 83 00:08:47,880 --> 00:08:52,680 from creative professionals like Hoffman and Andrew, both of whom really fell for the 84 00:08:52,680 --> 00:08:56,880 features, design and future of the new architecture. 85 00:08:56,880 --> 00:09:02,240 Enough even to put their money where their mouth is. 86 00:09:02,240 --> 00:09:07,360 But after the hardware transition comes the hard part, which is the software transition. 87 00:09:07,360 --> 00:09:12,920 There are loads of great chip features like the neural engine, the media engine and countless 88 00:09:12,920 --> 00:09:17,440 GPU cores for developers to take advantage of, but it's going to require lots of work 89 00:09:17,440 --> 00:09:22,920 to do so. Larger developers like the ones who make Ableton will get there faster. 90 00:09:22,920 --> 00:09:27,040 In fact, we saw them in the Apple Studio announcement. 91 00:09:27,040 --> 00:09:30,280 But it's harder for smaller developers like the one who makes Reason. 92 00:09:30,280 --> 00:09:35,200 And at a time when Apple's developer relationships are dropping towards all-time lows, this might 93 00:09:35,200 --> 00:09:39,080 be for users the biggest difficulty of this transition. 94 00:09:39,080 --> 00:09:44,480 Would I get one? Here's the deal. I'm saying that I love it because I didn't pay for it. 95 00:09:44,480 --> 00:09:47,560 If you don't need to upgrade, then just wait a bit. 96 00:09:47,560 --> 00:09:53,360 When you look at machine that's so small and you tell yourself that it's almost $4,000, 97 00:09:53,360 --> 00:09:58,960 you kind of start to think, is it justifiable because if I can't use it in a professional 98 00:09:59,040 --> 00:10:03,040 environment, then where am I going to use it? 99 00:10:03,040 --> 00:10:08,440 Thanks for testing out this Mac Address. I'll admit this wasn't quite the conclusion I was expecting when I set out to make this 100 00:10:08,440 --> 00:10:13,240 video, but if you think the Macbook Pro will make your computing faster, then give this 101 00:10:13,240 --> 00:10:22,120 a like. And if you're curious about the Mac Studio, then subscribe. Now in the comments, I'm curious about what apps you use that aren't quite Apple Silicon 102 00:10:22,120 --> 00:10:24,160 native yet, like Microsoft Teams.