Ben, I am about to upgrade - and jump ship from PC - and invest in an M4 Max Studio. I will be a tracking studio so mixing and mastering aren’t paramount. Was thinking of bumping cores and to 1TB SSD but after reading your post am wondering if I should just start with the base 512 / P cores? And use externals as you and others are doing?

Tell you what; coming from windose, I think the best thing you can do is save your cash and get something really basic. Try it out, and get familiar with macOS, and check out how the performance is with your needs. CPU, GPU, memory, disk, amount of ports. A basic mac mini M2, M3 will do fine for this initial phase.

This can be very cheap, and you can keep your PC setup while preparing the transition to mac, and get a better feel for what configuration your first big mac investment should have.

Just a thought.

Anyway, I'd actually recommend getting a large internal drive if you can (1TB), since managing storage on mac can take some time to get into, coming from Win.

I kinda like this idea… and it frees up my funds for the Duesenberg my wife is forbidding me from buying LOL! Yes literally this evening an M1 with 16G and 512 popped up for $300 on marketplace.

Go for it!
You'll love it.

A new M4 might still be the better buy at $600 if you get no discounts.

Apart from being faster it will have much longer OS support than the M1, arriving at a monthly cost that is probably similar.

Side issue - just ordered the 32” BenQ monitor

Should be very nice and a step up from the 27” monitor I have now…

I am complete hahaha 😂

I've had the BenQ PD3200U since a few years ago. I bought it to have a good photo editing monitor as it came with 'factory color calibration'. It simply means it's manually calibrated, and a custom color profile sits on the monitor, and shows up automatically in sys.settings/displays.

Very happy with it. I can't get it to more than 30Hz, so it's not for gaming and such.

Yeah, I have probably the model one or two before that one... and it's a great monitor sitting atop on a table above my mbp....

as @ Ben Jenssen said, it's not probably the best for videogaming, but I'm using it for audio work, and it's just fine... (and I inherited it from a photoshop aficionado myself....)

enjoy.

Thanx guys - my wife gets the HP Z27 - we have a M1 MacBook Air with a broken screen… going to make a nice little computer station for her… really looking forward to the bigger screen

Only wrinkle Today Samsung released the S8 37” but I think that it is too big??!?! Not sure. I pull the monitor right behind the keyboard - up close

Often time don’t use glasses - when I need to see small things- put them on

Finally, Samsung is also launching the 37-inch ViewFinity S8 monitor ($599.99), which makes it the largest 16:9 4K Samsung monitor to date. The screen is approximately 34 percent larger than the previous generation, and it features a 4K display and HDR10.

Should I cancel the BenQ????

Your thoughts……

Cancelled it - will probably get the Samsung

Biggest difference: size and nits BenQ 600 nits and Samsung 350 nits

I certainly wouldn't consider myself anyone to give advice on a monitor purchase in this regard, (as I said, the 32" BenQ I'm using right now in a temporary location was a "hand me down" so....)...

and I do not know what your wife intends on doing with the machine.

However, it was my impression that more nits was better then less... but the important of that would depend I imagine on scenario of use...

but again, I'm far from a monitor expert, as I could give an s about it as long as I can see the information I need with clarity, and while I work on scoring to picture here and there (more there over the last decade), I haven't had a problem with whatever I am using... and since I'm not much of a gamer these days... I just... you know what I mean....

Whatever non retina monitor will have a resolution issue: using it in 4k you will have the system text too small, using it in 2k is fine, but due to the dpi values the text will be grainy. A workaround is to install BetterDisplay which makes the outlines a little more defined (hidpi mode). You can find the trial here: https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay

Yes, I’m running my HP at about 2K resolution setting now. I’ve tried the 4K setting, but it was minuscule the text and menus and everything.

Yes. I run my 32" Benq at 2K (1920x1080) and it looks great. No "grainy text" at all. Lightroom and Photoshop looks great, and Protools too.

Yes - I have been considering. My friends that have base M4 are impressed running Logic. B&H is running some discounts. If I went that route I’d probably just bump up the SSD. Still frees up the funds for the guitar LOL. The new MacBook Air looks good too.

All,

This is such a long thread, and I have been trying to find what I’m looking for, but hoping you could help me.

I’ve been using a 2018 Mac mini 3Ghz, 6 core I5, lots of ram. CPU gets high, so I thought I’d grab an M4 Mini. Now the CPU is low, but I’m getting strange spikes, sometimes CPU and sometimes Disk. Help!?!?!

DAW is Studio One, and I have tried pulling down plug ins, to almost none, trying to eliminate the issue.

I appreciate any advice.

Mark

Are you having any issues?
Are you just seeing this in activity monitor?
How did you set up your new mac; by transferring from a backup of your 2018 intel?

Yes, I migrated over from my 2018 and strange spikes out of nowhere, and can’t seem to pin point why. I expected smooth sailing. Songs are on the same SSD, and it’s plugged into a Thunderbolt port, although I tried. USB as well.

I just don’t know what to do. I opened support ticket with PreSonus, and might call Apple as well.

Thanks for asking!

Where are you seeing these spikes?
What DAW are you using?

Hi,

I mentioned it above, Studio One is the DAW, and I’m seeing some disc spikes, and sometimes out of the blue cpu spikes as well.

Thanks for the responses.

Did you do a fresh install or migration of the old computer?

As I believe you can show monitor options in macOS that includes HiDPI resolutions, just click the show all resolutions, what does BetterDisplay offer beyond this? I have used it before, but didn't find any use for it, as I was hoping virtual screens would work out for me (it didn't).

Migration was done.

Thanks for asking

I’m not passing the buck here but first try presonus and then Apple. Apple has fantastic technicians that will help you with your problems. They can call you and take over your screen and go into various settings to fix your computer.

Spikes according to what monitoring?

Do you have any actual problems that you would notice without that monitor?

Migrating from intel to apple silicon probably brought over lots of stuff that is now running in Rosetta2. Not a problem as such, but a slight pessimation.

Hi,

Audio monitoring - when the meter jumps, there's loud noises, and sometimes it's like a glitch / stutter.

And you might be on to something, and I'm not sure the best way to move forward.

Appreciate the input!

Honestly, I'm gonna second what @ uOpt is saying or hinting at here....

In the last year I made the intel to apple silicon jump myself, and while I knew it was gonna take longer, and a bit of a pita, and whatnot.... I'm certainly glad I did so from a clean install and not a migration (other then things like iCloud stuff and whatnot), as there is all sorts of junk left behind you don't need on an m chipped machine coming from an intel.... from old deprecated code to dead ends to whatever....

I know it's not what you want to hear, but I would honestly just rebuild the system and clean install your apps and whatnot, port over what you need... as presets and whatnot and different things might/should/could be fine...


but in the long run you are going to be a lot happier, see better performance, and have far less hassle, and experience better performance imaginably than doing a migration over chip change iterations you know?

I was fortunate enough to have the time to do so, and I imagine it would suck if I had to flip it around and working by tomorrow,... but I cleaned out so much crap I didn't need and found better tools to replace ones perhaps left behind etc etc....

I hear you -

I still have my previous computer intact, so I might wipe the new one start over, see what happens. Fresh install of everything, it'll just take a bunch of time - but might be worth it.

Thanks

Always do a fresh install it's good housekeeping and you can always decide what gets installed as you may have some outdated stuff or pluigins you don't use / want anymore.