Which Mac mini for Logic Pro plus UA, Waves, iZotope plugins

[jakey23]

Hi everyone,

Sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong place, but I figured what I'm looking for falls under 'buying advice.'

I have a 2019 16" MacBook Pro with a 2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel i7 processor, 16GB RAM, and 500GB SSD. Generally speaking—it's great. No real issues with daily use.

I've been spending more and more time using Logic, just as a hobby. But I've got a nice little bedroom setup going on—Universal Audio Apollo Solo with a UA Thunderbolt Octo-Core Accelerator, tons of UA, Waves, Arturia, and iZotope plugins. I don't usually run more than 12 tracks at a time on a project, but I do use these plug-ins (especially the UA ones) quite a bit—sometimes they show up on every track simultaneously, and there are always at least a few on the mix track. I should say that I never use the sampler on Logic—there may be a few MIDI-based tracks, but I'm mostly recording live instruments with the interface.

Unfortunately, this seems to be too much for my MacBook Pro. I can close out all other apps and still get a system overload notice on a Logic project. Freezing tracks helps, but it doesn't save the day every time. The CPU monitoring function in Logic generally shows one core hovering around 95% and then spiking here and there, which I assume is causing the system overload. I don't really know anything about computers, so I'm likely wrong about this. Logic apparently uses on average around 8.5 or 9GB of my RAM when it is open.

Anyway, since I'm consistently devoting quite a bit of time to this stuff, I would like to get a dedicated computer just for music work. The Mac mini looks great from a size and price perspective. My question is, should I go for a new M1 Mac with 16GB RAM, or do I go for the spec'd out 3.2 GHz 6-Core i7 Intel Mac mini with something like 32GB RAM?

Storage isn't that big of a deal for me, I haven't even filled 250GB on my MBP. The M1 compatibility issue isn't a problem—I can be patient while UA and others get their updates ready for M1. Graphics and stuff like that don't matter. I'm more concerned about performance for this specific case—Logic with lots of 3rd-party plug-ins, plus the ability to power my interface and maybe a MIDI controller. I just want something to run smoothly without the frequent system overload messages. I constantly read that more RAM = better performance for music production, but the M1 seems to be 'the way of the future' despite having a max 16GB RAM capacity. Tons of guys are singing the praises of M1 with Logic, despite the lower RAM capacity. So I don't really know!

Sorry for the book I've written here... any insight and guidance would be much appreciated.

-Jake

 

[Wando64]

With Logic is possible to overload any system if one is careless enough.
I am not suggesting that you are doing anything wrong, but it might be worthwhile to discuss your specific case in a dedicated Logic forum. There is probably a lot you can do to reduce your CPU usage without compromising on anything, or not much anyway. It is very easy to be wasteful in Logic if you just add stuff without consideration.

As for the specific of your hardware, your existing mbp is already quite powerful and should handle a lot.
I work with Logic and my MBP is considerably less powerful than yours. My use case is different from yours in that I mainly record audio tracks and I don’t use an obscene amount of plugins and or software instrument.
I don’t think the i7 Mini is going to be much of an improvement on what you already have.
I don’t have first hand experience with Logic on the M1, but I think it is early days still.

My suggestion is to take a good look at your Logic configuration (sample rate, etc…) and make sure you are not overdoing it (how important is latency to you? Reduce the sample rate as much as possible.), but also discuss your specific use case in a dedicated Logic forum.

EDIT:
I should point out that Sample Rate can have a dramatic impact on your CPU usage, it will NOT affect the quality of the output you produce. The only downside is that it will increase your monitoring latency, but you can (probably should anyway) use the Direct Monitoring setting offered by your audio interface.

 

[Boyd01]

If you want input from other Logic users, I'd suggest posting in our Digital Audio Forum:

Digital Audio

audio-oriented apps and techniques

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Dave Y]

Yes, the 2019 MBP should not be overloading with 12 tracks, especially when mostly audio and with extra UAD DSP for plug-ins. RAM would only be an issue if using large sampled virtual instruments. Some of the Izotope stuff is CPU-heavy though. If you have several native plug-ins on one track or bus, maybe that's the problem. Case of turning things off until you find the culprit(s).

If you went with a Mac mini then the M1 is more powerful and UAD stuff seems to be running fine already (check uadforum.com). But you might want to wait for announcement of new 14" and 16" MBPs and maybe an upgraded Mini – rumours suggest anywhere between WWDC next month and Oct/Nov.

 

[jakey23]

Hi guys,

Thanks for all of the advice. I'll make a similar post about my issue on the Digital Audio board here soon. I'll take a look at my settings a bit more so I can add some more detail to that post.

If I were to end up going for a Mac mini anyway, is the general consensus that the newer M1 is the better buy for what I'm looking for? Waiting until WWDC wouldn't be an issue for me. An upgraded Mini would be cool.

-Jake

 

[Wando64]

is the general consensus that the newer M1 is the better buy for what I'm looking for?

It is on paper, but I wouldn't be able to tell you how that translates to actual performance with Logic. Sometimes numbers on paper don't tell the full story.

In any case, regardless of whether you update or not, you should try to understand what is causing the problem in your projects.
It doesn't matter how powerful your Mac is, if something is using unnecessary CPU eventually you will struggle again. You are just giving yourself a little bit more of elbow room.