There’s been a lot of discussion around the benefits of the new Silicon based Apple Mac computers for use as studio machines. The promise of more power, lower heat and noise can only be good news… if true.

However, because most of the applications we use for music and post production are not yet able to run native as Silicon apps we are only experiencing the Rosetta 2 version of the promise.

Well that was until this weekend. I was sent the beta versions of a DAW and all plugins to test, suffice to say the beta agreement means I can’t identify or speak about the software in any detail. That will come when the product is released. This meant that I was able, for the first time since the release of the new generation of Apple Macs, make a direct comparison between a DAW and plugins running on Intel, Rosetta 2 and Silicon.

The Rosetta Miracle

First the bad/good news for those who are currently running Apple applications via Rosetta 2 on a Silicon Mac. The performance you are getting may be the same, in many cases there’s an improvement. However, it must be added at this point that Rosetta 2 is a bloody miracle, effectively translating on the fly and not creating much of a performance hit for those who would have otherwise used an Intel machine. It is for this reason it is important to have all our software ported over to native Silicon as soon as possible, yes we can use them now, but we can’t really take advantage of the power.

I say bad/good news for this reason. When running the same session natively on Silicon it displayed a huge improvement. About half the CPU load, a third of the heat and because of the heat being greatly reduced almost zero fan noise. So if you’ve invested in a Silicon Mac and are currently enjoying the miracle that is Rosetta 2, let me say, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

What Price Power?

Which leads me to a question… in creating Silicon, has Apple effectively cut the cost of buying a studio computer?

Up until now, and for as long as I can remember, buying a studio computer has been an arms race. Get the biggest, most powerful computer money can buy and hope it delivers. Buying computers for intensive tasks like recording and mixing audio has always been that way, it can get expensive, especially if you buy an Apple computer.

It is for this reason that many have decided to take the Windows and Hackintosh routes, compared to an Apple computer you get more stuff for your money. That’s always been the received wisdom and in many cases it’s a fair point.

However, when you suddenly find that a fully loaded Intel i9 MacBook Pro costing £3000 is beaten by an entry level M1 MacBook Pro costing £1500 then Apple has your attention. And when I say beaten, I mean in every metric that matters in a studio, CPU load, heat and noise. If this is what Apple can do with their first entry-level Silicon Macs then what are the second generation more powerful machines going to be like? Furthermore, if I can get an Apple computer costing £1500 to perform better than one costing £3000, this has to be good news.

The first M1 is not really suitable for a lot of professional tasks, but just imagine when we have next-generation machines with more memory, more ports and the other things we need… it’s very exciting.

Until now, we’ve not been able to measure Apples with Apples (pun intended). Rosetta is a bridge, but now I have a fully native DAW setup I’ve been able to compare the same application and plugins and the same session, on a native Intel and native Silicon machine, and the numbers are of WTF! levels.

Comparing Apples With Apples

Since the release of Apple Silicon, it’s been clear the technology is very different so it’s safe to say that it would be foolish to try and compare the cost of building an Intel based machine with a Silicon based Apple Mac. It would be as silly as trying to compare the cost of building a fridge and a shed. They may both be boxes with stuff inside them, but that’s where the comparison ends. That’s going to set those who love to throw specs in the computer pissing contests an almost impossible task. It won’t stop them, but it would be foolish. Up until now everything was comparing Intel with Intel, or perhaps some CPU variant, you get the point. We need to make a shift in our thinking about what specs a powerful computer needs to have… it’s quite hard to get used to. It was easy in the old world order, chip spec, clock speed, amount of RAM… just put two machines side by side and test them. Now we can’t do that.

Owning both the aforementioned machines, and having spent twice the amount on one than the other, my head is telling me the fully loaded Intel should be better, it has more of the good stuff inside it, I’m thinking. Data doesn’t lie, the machine costing half as much is as good, and in early tests, a lot better. And it costs a lot less!

In a recent article Three Things Every Good DAW Should Have In 2021 we wrote about the three challenges any DAW must overcome; latency, power and workflow. Having seen the kind of sessions that can be run at 16 sample buffers when running on a Silicon Mac natively, some of these challenges are being overcome on a machine our head us telling is shouldn’t be able to do.

One Company Could Ruin This…

However, before I get too excited there is one possible problem ahead. Ironically the problem could be Apple. They have form when it comes to crippling computers with things like small hard drives, low capacity ram and not enough ports. They offer poor options and almost zero upgrade paths. So if anyone is going to f*ck this up then it will be Apple by design. I hope I’m wrong, the reports about the next generation of Apple Macs is encouraging, with the inclusion of more ports, the removal of the almost useless Touch Bar, and fingers crossed, decent memory and drive options. Will Apple learn their lesson? Only time will tell.

I think it’s important to include that last paragraph and earth this article. Apple have the ability to work technical miracles like Silicon. One can hope that if this miracle is the technical equivalent of turning water into wine that Apple don’t then p*ss in it.

Optimistic

With all that said, I was expecting to see some gains when I eventually got to compare Silicon with Intel on a level playing field. The numbers are frankly better than I expected.

Here’s hoping that Apple now gives studio owners a new generation of Macs that also have the other professional features to match. If that happens, then the cost of entry for a powerful studio computer will be a lot less than it is now… even with an Apple logo on it, now that’s something to mess with you head!

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels