MacBook Pro M2 - Logic, fractal users

Luth2000

Inspired
I’m thinking of buying a new laptop for work travel (non-music work), and have an older iMac still running for my home studio. If I go for the fastest newest M2Pro 32gb ram I’m assuming I’ll be well set with computing power. Im fairly addicted to the 27” screen on my iMac, so would prob run external monitor off the MacBook when at home. So, how many of you have a setup like this, and testimonials, regrets, accessories etc. would be appreciated.

thanks! Luther
 
I have an M2 Pro/32 GB/12 core attached to a large display monitor (MacMini, not MBP). It's a great combination of performance and efficiency cores for music production. The cpu performance is stellar, it's dead silent in the studio even under a load, and the price is a damn good value. The M1 and the M1 Studio were impressive, but the M2 Pro really hits a sweet spot for music production.
 
I have a M1 Max MacBook Pro. Pretty fully specced, all the GPUs, all the CPUs, 64GB RAM, and 4tb of storage.

Works great. Easy recommendation. No software issues, the best Mac I've ever owned (and I've owned a lot).

I do web design/web development for day job, play guitar on the side with the Axe FX and do some recording work at home too. No issues. Have only ended up using swap a couple times, but I can say I'm consistently using 48-56gb of RAM, so not sure I could get by as well with 32 and wouldn't want to bother anymore.

As far as monitors — and keep in mind, I said I'm a designer — I use Apple's Studio Display. Again, I've owned a lot of monitors. The Retina display is not a joke. If you don't like seeing pixels, and you appreciate colour accuracy (not an easy thing to get with an LED of any kind), this is a good one. It also gets you a couple extra USB ports. If I had a bit more desk space, I'd consider buying another one of these for the extra real estate. Wouldn't hesitate. Great build quality.

The USB ports are my only gripe. There are simply not enough. I've got 5 things plugged in right now, and I'm out of ports. I've got a couple things unplugged. Any time I need to charge something at my desk, something else needs to get unplugged. It's annoying and silly. But assuming you aren't plugging in 10,000 things all the time, you'll be fine.

Apple is making real corkers right now. These things are all great.
 
Thanks for all the replies! Here are a few more questions:

I currently have a Late 2013 iMac, 3.5 Quad Core i7, 32 gb ram; 1TB internal SSD, 2 additional external 1TB SSDs. Catalina 10.15.7

Running Logic Pro X version - 10.6.3

Can I and would you recommend using the iMac 27" monitor off of a new M2 MacBookPro?

If I'm going to buy a new monitor, I'd probably want to increase size (why not?) but desk space can't exceed a width of more than 33". That new 5,000.00 is way too much for me from Apple, what are other recommended decent quality 32" monitors? (Glenn what is "Mac mini monitor?").

Rookie question - does the laptop have to be open to run (At home I'd use bluetooth keyboard and trackpad).

I'm thinking of ordering an M2 with 4 TB SSD internally - comments on that approach? (I'm running Spectrasonics, east west, and other storage hungry software).

I've read about opening older versions of Logic Pro projects on a the newest version - anything notable to warn me against?

And if you are willing, share your best multi port solutions for plugging in USB devices (2 Fractals, Yamaha controller, USB Mic, hard drives, etc.)

Thanks for all our wisdom and experience,
Luther
 
I use an LG curved 34", 3440x1440. Consider the pixel pitch carefully. For music production, more pixels isn't always better since you might be sitting farther away from the monitor than the typical computer user.

If you have an external monitor connected, the MBP is smart enough to stay awake when it's closed.

If you'll be taking the MBP away from the studio frequently to do music production, then it might make sense to use the internal drive for your sample libraries so you don't have to drag along an external drive. Otherwise, you'll get better performance, you'll save some money, it's easier to upgrade/replace, and it's more convenient to manage sample libraries on an external drive.

I'm not aware of any problems opening older Logic projects. Even if you decide to turn off Rosetta mode, Logic is capable of running Intel-only plugins.
 
I have Mini M2 Pro and I've been loving it. But word on caution on displays ....make sure to research right type of display as Mac is goofy with scaling. I dont' have the info on hand but around month or two ago I was looking at displays for my new mini...I thought 4K was the way to go. Long story short. It. wasn't . at least not for me. IMO 4k is useless at native resolution. Unless you're going to double it as a way to watch tv/movies. For general computer stuff...4K is just not readable. In some of the research I had done came across few vids /articles stating there is a sweet spot for resolution to screen size. I forget what it is now. But i think 1440p is near perfect. I had a 4k samsung 32" and had nothing but issues...samsung finally issued me refund after a lot of back n forth...and i ended up with a 34" 21:9 ratio samsung. Its more like 2K resolution. I love this monitor way better

handy article here : https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/
I found this YT vid helpful also which mentions the article:
 
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Yeah, I was going to say something similar to @Chewie5150, but I've had this debate with so many people for so many years that it doesn't seem worth mentioning. macOS' scaling is odd from a Windows perspective, but that's because Windows method of scaling is about pixels, not point sizes, which is (in my opinion) the wrong way to do it.

The Mac scales things based on points. Their Studio Display and Pro Display XDR as essentially doubling the visible resolution by quadrupling the pixel count, then rendering everything at the same size as before.

This is a common approach in phones and tablets, and it's why we talk about how we can't see pixels anymore on those devices. Apple pioneered this approach, and others followed suit in phones, which is why a high-resolution phone doesn't result in tiny type or iconography. 16pts renders as 16pts no matter the actual resolution of the device.

Where macOS gets weird (and iPhones too) is when your resolution doesn't exactly double or triple the point resolution. In phone land, if it renders at 375pts, but your screen is 900px, 375 doesn't divide evenly, so artifacts occur.

The same is true of monitors.

PC monitors are uniquely suited for games, but not necessarily well-suited for the things a lot of Mac users care about (predictable results in graphic and web design, accurate colour, etc). For audio folks, a lot of that doesn't matter, but those graphics users are a big part of the Mac market.

Anyway, FWIW, the Studio Display is a huge step up even if you'd like something bigger, precisely because I can't see pixels anymore. Buy once, cry once, and all that. If you need more space, as ridiculous as this sounds, 2 Studio Displays is an expensive idea — but not a bad one.
 
I'm not sure why scaling is such a big deal or point of contention...you just pick the one that looks right to you. I think that the levels that Apple provides from the default menu aren't granular enough for me...I wanted to be in-between with my 27" 4K (which is the same monitor I used on my PC).

Fortunately, there are others available, just not shown by default: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-your-displays-resolution-mchl86d72b76/mac

I ended up using 3008x1692 on a 27" monitor (I keep thinking about 3200x1800). 2560x1440 (which was one of the thumbnail choices) made things way too big...it probably would have looked "right" to me on a 24" monitor or so (FWIW, 1920x1080 is unusable to me over about 18").

FWIW, I still think Linux handled scaling (and sub-pixel font rendering) better back in 2010ish than Windows or MacOS does now, probably because I used a really tweak-able window manager rather than Gnome or KDE. (ETA: I don't think Gnome is usable below 4K because of how stupidly huge all the UI elements are....I also really freaking hate it.) But, the big ones have mostly caught up (and not being limited to 30Hz because the HDMI spec didn't go higher...that's nice...but that was a hardware thing...never paid more than $400 for a display).

Studio Displays don't make any sense to me. They're LG panels. They're good LG panels, the controller/firmware is optimized for vibrant colors and some features, and they're using slightly brighter backlights. But, they're not particularly special to me.

I'm very close to trying out a 55-60" TV as my primary monitor. It should look really good a step or two closer to native 4K. And they're down to like $300 if you don't need anything super-fancy. (ETA: I'd also put it a good bit farther away from me; my hesitation is actually about how it'll affect room reflections more than anything to do with the display itself.)
 
I'm not sure why scaling is such a big deal or point of contention...you just pick the one that looks right to you. I think that the levels that Apple provides from the default menu aren't granular enough for me...I wanted to be in-between with my 27" 4K (which is the same monitor I used on my PC).

Fortunately, there are others available, just not shown by default: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-your-displays-resolution-mchl86d72b76/mac
In this case, if you change the resolution the way you are, the scaling is no longer what it is outside the box. The Studio Display only has 2X scaling when using the default resolution.

This is one of those things where either you see it or you don’t. I notice it and it drives me crazy when it’s not a 2x or 3x DPI screen. My wife isn’t bothered by it on desktop monitors, but prefers 2x scaling on laptops. It’s just a personal preference. But you can’t know what you like until you understand what the options are and why they’re that way.

Studio Displays don't make any sense to me. They're LG panels. They're good LG panels, the controller/firmware is optimized for vibrant colors and some features, and they're using slightly brighter backlights. But, they're not particularly special to me.

Compared to the two LG Ultrafines I went through before the Studio Display, the SD’s build quality is noticeably improved. Colours are noticeably better on my SD too; I suspect that Apple has a lower tolerance for colour inaccuracy. And those were the only other 5k monitors at the time, so it’s not like there were a lot of options in the market.

You really buy a SD for 3 reasons (instead of something else):

1. Ease of use with a Mac
2. “Retina” resolution and colour accuracy. While the colours are saturated and vibrant, they’re not vibrant the way a TV is at Best Buy. They’re accurate enough that when a client sends me a Pantone book and a couple print samples, they’re very close to what I see on the monitor — without calibration. Every Dell, HP, Acer (etc) monitor I’ve ever used has been washed out and low contrast by comparison, with a lot of variability from one panel to the next. Is the SD’s panel special? Nope. Is it excellent and consistent from one to the next? Yes. *
3. Build quality

* footnote to add: I have a lot of friends in media production, and at a certain level, that’s a different ball game. Film colorists are using way more expensive, calibrated monitors in a dark box (literally) on their desk. Like the monitor has horse blinders. In the photography world, you can spend more money on very fancy displays. They look great when you print photos, but photos you make with them tend to look weird on digital media, like Instagram. The beauty of the SD is that it strikes a nice balance: I know how it’s going to look on Instagram and I’m confident this is a mostly accurate representation of what I’ll see in print. Ben-Q has a couple monitors that match this, but I haven’t seen anybody else strike the right balance. Those Ben-Q monitors are only 4k, though.

Sorry, everybody. I have thoughts on screens, and I think we accept garbage for screens these days. I would also never use a TV as a monitor, because rhe DPI is too low, and at monitor distances I would see pixels.

Call me picky, snobby, or obnoxious all you like. I know what I like and I know why I like it!

Edit: sorry, one last thing that strikes me as important: one detail about the way macOS does scaling that’s very nice is the sub pixel antialiasing. There was a debate a few years ago about whether Apple even uses it anymore. My understanding (although I may be wrong these days) is that, with a high-DPI display, Apple doesn’t even need it anymore. That’s because the Studio Display, when rendered at its default resolution of 2560 points wide, actually has four sub pixels for each of those points. That allows the details of lettering to be rendered much more accurately, rendering sun pixel antialiasing moot. This is not the case in other scaling systems, which is part of the reason that running a non-default resolution on a Studio Display or XDR is somewhat odd. (I think they enable antialiasing for lower resolution monitors, but I really don’t know anymore off the top of my head. This was a big topic in the Mac community around 2016 or 2017.)
 
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Sorry, everybody. I have thoughts on screens, and I think we accept garbage for screens these days. I would also never use a TV as a monitor, because rhe DPI is too low, and at monitor distances I would see pixels.

Call me picky, snobby, or obnoxious all you like. I know what I like and I know why I like it!

I wouldn't call you that. What you're saying makes perfect sense for you. However, I would point out that you have different requirements for a monitor than most people who are using a monitor primarily for music production. While you may never use a TV monitor, there are countless music studios around the world that do exactly that. For music production, where you're often sitting relatively far from the monitor and where the graphics are a relatively low priority, the DPI of a TV monitor can be an excellent choice because of the readability it gives you across a desk with a control surface.

For the OP, as I mentioned above, I would recommend finding a monitor size, resolution and PPI that fits your needs. Then use it at native resolution. No DAW handles scaling perfectly, especially with plugins, so do what you can to avoid that headache.
 
Absolutely, you’re spot on. My situation is unique here. It’s also dependent on the person and their visual acuity. My whole point, although probably made far too eagerly (I am excitable), is that it’s worth understanding the options so you can pick the trade off that works best for you and your own visual preferences.
 
Sorry, everybody. I have thoughts on screens, and I think we accept garbage for screens these days. I would also never use a TV as a monitor, because rhe DPI is too low, and at monitor distances I would see pixels.

DPI is just a factor of resolution and size. A 40" 4K at just above arms length works for me. It was roughly equivalent to having 4 20" 1920x1080 displays at about arms length, but with no bezels between them. It's good enough. The only reason I moved away from it was that it started humming after several years, and actual 4K monitors came down in price enough that I was willing to try one.

A 55-60" just farther away from me than my speakers should look about the same, IIRC (I did the math at some point).

sub pixel antialiasing

I hadn't realized they did that. I wonder if more modern HDMI/DP actually let the OS know the physical arrangement of sub-pixels on the screen. Linux started doing that at least by 2011, but you had to tell X Windows what arrangement your monitor used.

If macOS only does sub-pixel font rendering with the studio display, that's both a good reason for the studio display and a reason to be mad at Apple for still voluntarily being over 10 years behind Linux just to get people to buy their (IMHO overpriced) stuff.

(If you haven't figured it out yet, I hate Apple as a company. But, I also hate Microsoft and a bunch of others...if I actually boycotted every company I hated, I wouldn't be able to use computers.)

Absolutely, you’re spot on. My situation is unique here. It’s also dependent on the person and their visual acuity. My whole point, although probably made far too eagerly (I am excitable), is that it’s worth understanding the options so you can pick the trade off that works best for you and your own visual preferences.
Agreed, completely.

I put up with a 30Hz monitor for a few years because the trade-offs were worth it. I have no problem looking at every website at ~133% and having my terminal emulator showing ~22pt fonts....the smaller UI elements (buttons, window borders, etc.) and bigger space to put things in is worth a lot more to me than the scaling being simpler. There are artifacts I can see, but I don't notice them nearly as much as wasting less space and having more of it to work with. FWIW, when I had the 4K TV...I didn't actually use scaling except on websites. I just used big fonts. It's simpler that way.

2x scaling on a 5K display makes everything take up too much space. Like I said, 2560x1440 makes everything too big on a 27" display. It looks more right on like a 24" display...but at this point 24" screens are too small to be a primary for me.

Part of the reason I want to try another big TV...is that I probably wouldn't have to use scaling.
 
You do you, my friend! I can’t stand two things: visible pixels and fan noise. I have learned I will spend exorbitant amounts to avoid either.
 
You do you, my friend! I can’t stand two things: visible pixels and fan noise. I have learned I will spend exorbitant amounts to avoid either.

I actually agree with both of those.

Fan noise is easy to deal with...high quality fans (I like Noctua and BeQuiet in the PC world) with soft (isolating) rubber mounts, several of them, with fan control software that spins them as slowly as possible for the temperatures you're wiling to accept, and a mesh style case with plenty of airflow....it seems counterintuitive, but it works out great. A couple years ago, I switched my PC from air cooling to a 3x120 AIO water cooler for the CPU mostly so I could run 3 fans slower than the 2 that were on the air cooler. And I never heard the computer in practice (that was actually true with the air cooler too, but I could just barely hear it sometimes). FWIW, my new mini is also functionally silent unless I go out of my way to over-work it. They're not different (at least in that regard) in practice....the limits of the PC are just lower because it's 5 years old.

Just out of curiosity, do you know your visual acuity?

20/20 vision would mean a 27" 5K screen becomes "retina" at just under 1' 5", so that part makes sense if it's on your desk. My 27" 4K just (barely) makes it where I have it with my slightly worse than 20/20 vision. That 40" 4K TV also wound up with just-invisible pixels the way I had that desk set up (it was about a 3' viewing distance).

A 55" 4K would be "retina" for 20/20 vision at a little over 3' 8". My theoretical maximum ~6 foot viewing distance would mean that pixels would be just visible with 20/20 vision with a 92" 4K screen. But, my speakers would cover it up unless I put it way too high. They're about 66" apart, and that screen would be 80" wide.

There's no way I'd see pixels on a 55" 4K screen where I'd put it. I would only need it to be 2560x1440 for the pixels to be invisible...but the UI elements (buttons, etc.) would be way too big for my preference. MacOS and Windows both make them far too big...they just waste space.

If I could scale only fonts, I would almost prefer that.

This isn't the most useful calculator I've seen, but it works. The "visual acuity distance" is the only relevant metric for this...it's the distance at which 20/20 vision can "just barely" see pixels. If you don't want to see pixels, sit farther away than that distance.

https://stari.co/tv-monitor-viewing-distance-calculator
 
I have seen this and I love this stuff! My vision isn’t quite perfect up close, but I have glasses that make it so. I also have astigmatism in one eye, which the glasses again correct for. In my 20/20 days, I could still somewhat discern the pixels on a Retina iPad or the LG Ultrafine. My vision isn’t quite bad enough to be labeled worse than 20/20, but it’s just worse enough that the prescription is necessary for office tasks, and I can no longer see pixels on the Studio Display at roughly 18” - 24” (depending on the day or work) from my face, even with glasses.

I also know from tests that I test very high on colour accuracy, so I can tell from a glance when white balance is off on a screen and the like. Our TV in our home theatre is 1% too green or so, for example. I can see it. It’s very slight. But I can live with that margin of error.

I also like the calculators that let you calculate how much of your field of vision a screen occupies based on distance and screen size. I find I want more coverage of the field of vision than most. I’m the guy that sits in the 5th row of a theatre. I just like the immersion.

I agree with you that font scaling instead of UI scaling would be awesome. I can’t speak for other platforms, but I wonder if the font size accessibility settings in macOS might help. Does Linux have something similar?
 
I have seen this and I love this stuff! My vision isn’t quite perfect up close, but I have glasses that make it so. I also have astigmatism in one eye, which the glasses again correct for. In my 20/20 days, I could still somewhat discern the pixels on a Retina iPad or the LG Ultrafine. My vision isn’t quite bad enough to be labeled worse than 20/20, but it’s just worse enough that the prescription is necessary for office tasks, and I can no longer see pixels on the Studio Display at roughly 18” - 24” (depending on the day or work) from my face, even with glasses.

We're almost in the same boat. I guess different glitches bother us differently. Whatever glitches the Studio Display fixes...they're not worth the price to me. Not by a long shot.

I also know from tests that I test very high on colour accuracy, so I can tell from a glance when white balance is off on a screen and the like. Our TV in our home theatre is 1% too green or so, for example. I can see it. It’s very slight. But I can live with that margin of error.

I actually do too. It just doesn't really bother me. It kinda did when I did photography as a hobby. But, it was such a PITA to get prints to come out right anyway that the screen was secondary to finding someone who would let me use the machine myself and do a bunch of test prints (which I did). And I had to do that even with a calibrated (in the room) screen, so...it didn't end up bothering me in the long run.

I also like the calculators that let you calculate how much of your field of vision a screen occupies based on distance and screen size. I find I want more coverage of the field of vision than most. I’m the guy that sits in the 5th row of a theatre. I just like the immersion.

I had to sit in the front row of a 3D screening of harry potter 7 part 2. That....might have been one of the most immersive movies of my life. I was also really happy that I bought 2D glasses off Amazon before that. They work the same as 3D glasses except the polarizers are the same...so you see basically the normal movie instead of the 3D garbage that always makes me sick and looks wrong.

Random immersion question (and for someone else with an astigmatism)....do you like curved displays? I can't stand them. Everything just looks so freaking wrong to me.

I agree with you that font scaling instead of UI scaling would be awesome. I can’t speak for other platforms, but I wonder if the font size accessibility settings in macOS might help. Does Linux have something similar?

Kind of....it depends on whether each application actually respects xrdb and .Xresources and how it does it.

For the ones that do, yes, you can set the font face/size/weight/etc. (even per-application). The icons on buttons scale with the system setting...so at no scaling, some of them can look really small. If buttons in an application have an icon and text, they can look really broken when only one of them scales, especially if it doesn't draw extra space for the bigger text to fit into. I wish I still had some screenshots lying around to show how weird it could get.

But....during that part of my life 95% of what I was doing was either in a terminal or a web browser (the same is pretty much true today outside of music things...I use remote computers more than my own for everything but music). It just kinda worked out. I let the browser scale each page to like 133 or 150% (depending on how it was made), leave all of it's buttons tiny (I still mostly use the keyboard to control a web browser), and it read the xrdb settings so menus, favorites, etc. not only had my preferred font size but also my favorite font face (yes, I have a favorite font). The terminal just displayed my favorite monospace font at the size I wanted, and every GUI-thing was hidden except for a very narrow border around the window that indicated which one had keyboard focus.
 
Busy tonight, so can’t type much, but I will say curved displays are the friggin worst. Ban them all!

Quick edit to add that I also have several favourite typefaces! I love that!
 
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I have a 32 inch 4k monitor at 4k and love it. I do cmd + safari a bit but it’s all good. I think for 4k you need at the minimum a 32 inch monitor. AND you need a good one hint hint…I had a Dell ultrasharp and sent it back for this one:

Amazon product ASIN B07K8877Y5
 
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