Sascha Franck

The only thing I noticed is that I already need more ports. Getting along for now, but will order a larger one the next days and use this for traveling. Regarding anything else, this thing just delivers. I'm really having issues with Apples pricing ideas, but in case the thing won't break and stay alive without issues for the next 5 years, I think it'll be money well spent. Also quite happy I went with the 13" instead of the 15" (which was my first plan), the form factor is just perfect.

Fwiw, the little HUB I bought works as supposed. It's made by Hama and called "USB-C Multiport + HDMI, Ethernet". Might buy their bigger version, too, already running out of USB-A ports (but this one will be perfect for traveling).

Ok, first very, very rough tests. Logic Benchmark #2 from here: https://music-prod.com/logic-pro-benchmarks/ 128 tracks. Very good. My Mac Pro (see signature) does 92, which I was quite satisfied with already (never needed all the multithreading performance anyway). I was switching to the maximum number of cores in the preferences - and well, the E-cores are in fact in use. Possibly not just as much as they could be, though - but still, 128 tracks is more than what people got from M1/M2 machines and very likely more than what I may ever need. But now it comes. The very thing my MP was lacking off the most has been singlethread-"oomph". One of the reasons why I wanted to get a new computer, so I could always work at 32 samples buffersize and never worry. I was creating a little singlethread test that I think translates pretty well to real life experiences. Goes like: ES2 playing 3 voices (really doesn't matter, could've been anything to "trigger" the signal path) followed by Space Designer instances in each insert, using the factory default setting with the wet slider all the way down and the quality set to "low" (which allows for finer scaling). As each channel strip would only allow for 15 inserts, I'm running the channel strip output into bus 1, bus 1's output in bus 2 and so on, just to force serial (hence singlethreaded) processing (obviously, the track needs to be selected for that as well). I would then go through the various buffer sizes. On the Mac Pro that is. Because on the Macbook Air I had to take a break after 32 samples buffer size. Because, well, the MP got me 14 SD instances before crackles appeared. The MBA however managed to fo 50-51 perfectly flawless, at around 52-53 things started to feel a little laggy and at 54-55 crackles showed up. So, after that test I had to take a break to look for my jaw which was somewhere on the floor. I needed it for that big grin...

I just picked up my MBA and got a €30 HUB from the multimedia shop on the way back. HDMI, Ethernet, 3 x USB-A, 1 x USB-C /w power-thru. Will report whether it works well. There's one with more ports for roughly 90 bucks. The one you've linked to is way too expensive in case you don't need TB/USB-C outs.

From all I know (and obviously that's quite plausible) you can squeeze some more juice out of the Pros because of the fan. When reaching a certain CPU load, the MBA has no other way of dealing with it but to either just say "no" or throttle the CPU speed. The MBP then still has the fan available. Whether that difference is worth the extra money - not for me at least. I absolutely love the idea of a laptop with zero moving parts inside, especially as replacing the fan in my Macbook back then has turned into a major drama. And it'd be even more of a drama these days as you likely can't do it yourself at all anymore.

Fwiw, I just ordered a maxed out M3 MBA (13", 24GB, 2TB), once it'll be there and Logic is installed, I'll happily put it through it's paces, running the infamous Logic Benchmark (or rather version 2 of it) and report here. Got an extra test regarding single core performance, too (which the Logic Benchmark pretty much deliberately excludes), which would be the most important thing for me. The dealer at first told me I might've to wait for up to 4 weeks, but the latest information is that it could be here in 2-3 days already (I rather don't trust that, fingers crossed, though).

Space Designer Manager is a (non free) third party utility to create Space Desiger presets (along with the audio files) so you can access them from the preset menu or library tab easily. But you don't need it for a start. If you want a free, pretty much no fuss IR loader, you might want to check this: https://www.igniteamps.com/#nadir or this: https://lancasteraudio.com/shop/plugins/pulse/ They're basically pretty much the same (perhaps even using the same code base). Oh fwiw, those two allow you to mix and match 2 IRs at the same time, which you might find useful.

And btw, make sure to mute the dry output of SD.

As in routing them to a dedicated mixer channel? - Load it as a multichannel instrument (choose the best version for you, there's a bunch). - Right click onto a cell and look at the "output" options at the bottom of the appearing pulldown. - Expand the mixer tracks in Logic by clicking on the "+" button of the main Battery channel until you see all available channels. You can later on delete individual ones should you not need them.

As this is a Logic forum, how about Space Designer? In case you're dealing with many IRs, I highly recommend getting Space Designer Manager, though. Most excellent piece of utility software, creates SD presets out of wave-files so you can browse through all your IRs using Logic's library functionality.

No worries about that from my side at all. At least not for the stuff I'm doing atm. In general, I could keep using my MP until the end of times and wouldn't miss much (others than it not being able to run any up to date software). The only thing I sometimes wish for is more single-thread "oomph" - and the M3 should deliver that in spades, at least compared to this aging Xeon machine. And it wasn't ever much about that anyway. But I'm having quite some concerns about QA in Logic land (admittedly nothing new, at least not on my side). We shall see...

Fwiw, I ordered a MBA, so I can see for myself what's going on with the E-cores.

I did exactly nothing. As soon as a track is not in live mode anymore (hence not selected and/or record enabled), it automatically becomes "distributable". Since ages already. If you want, I can post a video. Or a GIF. Whatever.

I have absolutely no idea. That is simply not true. I tried with DOZENS of instrument and audio tracks - Logic splits them all onto two threads in playback mode (which is the relevant situation for the E-cores being able to work properly). Every single one of them without even just one exception. I have a very good idea what it looks like because I've seen it in person. And I've said so multiple times already.

Very unlikely. And even if it was like that, Logic seems incapable of doing so (see Reaper/Cubase). From all that I can see, Logic can split individual channel loads onto different threads in playback mode just fine. Nothing else is needed to "beam" a task from a P-core to (multiple, if needed) E-cores. And for the umpteenth time: With the M1 CPUs that just seems to work fine.