the production thread

Henry

303abuser Can only assume that the Mac Minis are not going to have the M1 Pro chips. So maybe a separate release soon with something like M1X or whatever.

The new MacBooks, hardware-wise, is pretty much everything I need for music and photography. Going for the base MacBook 16 with 1TB of SSD is going to sting £2600 which is double what I was expecting to pay for the new Mini with 1TB and 16GB Ram.

Ableton 11 for Silicon is now well into beta, so hopefully should be coming early next year. Going to hang on for a bit until the new MacBooks have been in circulation for a while before jumping though.

303abuser

Henry i’ll probably end up getting the current m1 mini this week then. i was hoping to future proof a bit more, but it is what it is. i’m getting ableton crashes weekly and it’s taking forever to save/load projects, add that i’m maxed out on the buffer size to keep it from skipping and i have to bounce tracks to audio before i really want to, and i need to do it now.

i can get a decent spec’d mini and an ipad for $1000 less than the new mbps with the m1pro chip, so it’s not much of a decision.

Henry

Amps The only one I could see was a Max For Live device for $3.99. But you’ve probably seen this?

https://firedies.gumroad.com/l/osc4live

Amps

Henry Thanking you!

Henry

Yeah, I feel your pain. My iMac has been on its last legs for a while now. I did a few tweaks recently and I should be able to hang on for a few more months. Having to constantly freeze and bounce to audio probably would be the last straw for me too.
Apple are bastards for holding stuff back. A new Mac Mini with a M1X could be a few months away. Or it could be another year or so. You can pick up the M1 Minis on Apple’s Refub section for a hundred bucks off too. I’m sure it will last you a good few years.

303abuser

i’m sure it’ll be fine either way, just trying to save a bit of money. after using a 10 year old machine, any new hardware is going to be an impressive upgrade.

i think my problem with ableton is using to many plugins on return tracks. i’m using 7-8 returns with 2-10 plugins on each one, automating the sends, but automating the fx plus the return tracks themselves. that seems to be the final straw for my mac mini.

mono-stereo

303abuser I’m sure you’ll be suitable impressed with the M1. I’ve got one in a mbp, it’s fast.

303abuser

mono-stereo i expect that too. it’ll probably force an upgrade a couple of years earlier, but that’s not the end of the world. this mini will be dedicated to music production, which i’m sure will help as well.

apyssjw

One of the best things I ever did was buy a bespoke desktop that could handle an almost unlimited number of plug ins etc. Bouncing / freezing can work but is more often than not just a bit of a ballache if you keep having to do it.

Dave Clarke does some computer chat in this - He’s not the easiest listen, but least he respects leftfield!

Amps

How do you all not just get stuck making acid house and really stripped back techno? I’ve learnt some very simple synthesis and it’s all I ever want to do.

303abuser

a lol for that video.

i’m definitely heading more in that direction. i found minimal arrangements really difficult at first, always making everything too dense with too many layers. it’s starting to click for me and now i’m enjoying making tracks where the sounds actually have room to breathe.

Amps

303abuser I’ve been sat here for over 30 minutes just pleasuring myself with the sound of an LFO in Analog, it’s basically a dolphin channelling early Daft Punk, but it sounds boss.

303abuser

Amps i get lost like that with hardware jams. they’re going nowhere, but i really enjoy it. those small things are half the fun. wait until you discover putting an lfo on the lfo. 🤪

loopdokter

Amps I was going to say hold off on buying your soft synths and just use the ones bundled in Ableton. They basically have one for each type of synthesis, as well as sampling out there and you can learn them one by one.

Personally coming from a hardware background I’ve never much jived with the Ableton instruments, but they’re definitely more than competent. I even did a tutorial for you in Analog a while back on how to make FX sounds that I’ve been meaning to upload to YouTube but have just been too preoccupied with other stuff to edit it down and fix up a few issues.

303abuser

m1 mac mini ordered. i’ll report back when it’s working after my 9th trip to a store to buy another necessary adapter.

loopdokter

303abuser glad to be of assistance. I use it a lot on pads and leads to give them that wonky, modulated warble of bad tape. It’s a great plugin for making music for kids on drugs. 😆

303abuser

loopdokter it really is good. i use it all over the place, big fan of all the noise options too.

Amps

loopdokter Do it mate, it’s Analog that I have been playing about in.

Amps

Today I have mostly been sounding like, Fuck Buttons.

303abuser

if you’re in need of a reference plugin, i cannot recommend metric ab enough. $25 after discounts (today only) and i use this on every single track.

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/adptr_metricab.html

codes: METRICAB4999 and 25Kup0GfC36kjkj

use both codes, they can be used more than once, but the 2nd one expires today.

Amps

303abuser I can see how these would be really useful, but with it being such a simple thing, are there not good free ones knocking about?

apyssjw

303abuser Thanks for the heads up. I bought it yesterday evening, though your second code was ‘invalid’ - someone had probably nabbed it before me.

DAW only referencing has always been a bit of a faff / imprecise science so this looks like a useful tool.

Going back to a discussion we were having some time ago - this sort of tool, in conjunction with others, absolutely makes it possible to mix in headphones / imperfect environments.

The reddit audioproduction deals page also mentioned https://www.meldaproduction.com/MMultiAnalyzer - which I also wasn’t aware of, which colourcodes tracks showing you precisely how they overlap. That’s something I’ve long thought would be no brainer for native DAW EQ GUI’s - and would be a really useful learning tool.

Henry

303abuser Very much interested in buying this before my code expires. However…. Intel only for Mac. So will give this a miss as I don’t intend running Ableton via Rosetta 2.

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