Despite having only been released recently, there’s already an amazing Amazon Prime Day deal on the MacBook Neo. It’s down to just $549 in the Prime Day sale, which is spectacular value considering the performance it offers as a laptop for music production.

I recently gave it a solid four stars out of five in my MacBook Neo review for MusicRadar, and it genuinely surprised me with how ably it performs for music-making tasks, far outstripping what I expected for what is a budget Apple laptop in relative terms.

For me, the key takeaway from reviewing the Neo was that Apple machines are so powerful now that they needed to create a lower tier that is affordable for more people. Today’s MacBook Air M5 is as powerful as yesterday’s MacBook Pro, and thus, the MacBook Neo was born. It uses the same chip that’s found in the top-of-the-line iPhone 16, but that doesn’t mean it’s a slow coach.

From the moment I switched it on, I found the performance to be just as slick as that of my MacBook Pro M3, with it responding keenly to installing plugins, my DAW, and dragging over all my audio files from my external hard drive. I began using it with Logic, dragging in a shedload of audio tracks from a session I recently tracked at Spirit Studios with Josh from Squid Audio, and began by organising my tracks and adding in myriad busses to ensure that the session was neatly organised.

I then set about my usual mixing process, using oodles of spectral EQ, multi-band compression, de-noising treatments, and plenty of multi-band saturation to get the mix where I needed it to be. The MacBook Neo didn’t blink once in this entire process. From start to finished product, there was nary a hiccup in the entire process, which I have to admit was a complete surprise. Once I was done, with over 90 tracks and something in the region of 50 plugin instances, I was able to play back the entire track using the onboard audio driver at the lowest buffer setting, without any errors.

Now there are a few caveats here. First of all, I was using Logic, which is very well integrated into the Apple ecosystem, so it performs better than something like Pro Tools or Cubase does. Second, I only used stock plugins for the test so it can be recreated across multiple machines, which again are well-honed to ensure they perform at the optimum in Logic. This doesn’t mean it’d be rubbish with another DAW, just that the results you get might not be exactly the same as what I got. Also, if you’re using virtual instruments, then I imagine the track count would be a lot lower, as these are far more CPU-intensive.

I still think that the MacBook Neo is the best budget laptop for music production available right now, and with the extra £50 discount in the Prime Day sale, absolutely worth picking up if you need a machine that performs well without having to spend loads. In my experience, it massively outperforms Windows laptops at the same price, and for the student music producer or budding singer-songwriter, it’s a brilliant laptop to start your music-making journey on.

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What is it?

Probably the most recommended machine when it comes to PCs for music production, the Apple Mac Mini M4 is the latest version of an absolute studio powerhouse. Pretty much every professional studio I’ve worked in has something similar at its heart, whether it’s a Mac Mini or a Mac Studio, and particularly for home studios, the Mac Mini is a great value option.

There are a lot of options when it comes to ordering a Mac Mini, but for posterity, my review model features an M4 Pro chip, 24GB of Unified Memory, a 512GB SSD hard drive, and shipped with macOS Sequoia 15.1, which will set you back $1,399. Of course, you can spec yours much cheaper if you don’t feel you need the additional power, with the lowest model coming in at a very reasonable $799 with the standard M4 chip and 16GB of Unified Memory. You’ll need to factor in screen, mouse, and keyboard if you don’t already have these to hand.

Specs can go well beyond this, of course, and with everything maxed out, the Mac Mini comes in at a whopping $4,499, with the most powerful chip, 48GB of Unified Memory, 8 TB of storage, and a 10 Gigabit Ethernet port. Undoubtedly overkill for music production tasks, the ability to tweak for your particular use case, or to future-proof yourself, is a useful one.

On the front of the Mac Mini M4, you’ve got two USB-C ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack, while the rear displays three Thunderbolt 5 connections, an HDMI port, an Ethernet connection, and the figure-8 socket for the IEC C7 cable. It comes with one in the box, but it’s compatible with 3rd party cables, too. One thing to note is that, unlike Apple laptops, you can’t power the Mac Mini M4 with USB-C as stock, but some users have managed to mod it to do this.

On the underside of the Mac Mini is where you’ll find a fan, and the housing for this raises the aluminium body up from whatever surface you place it on in order to provide good airflow. It’s also where the power button is, rather awkwardly placed. If you’re installing this in a permanent space out of the way in your studio, then you’ll want to utilize the sleep mode versus shutting it down completely every night.

Performance

Taking it out of the box, my immediate impression is that it’s shockingly small. It’s like the smallest personal pizza box you’ve ever seen, with dimensions that make it more akin to something like an audio interface rather than a fully-fledged PC. It’s an impressive build, and like all Apple products, it features the aluminium unibody design that will be instantly familiar. It’s lightweight too, so you could use it on the go, with it weighing much less than my MacBook Pro M3.

One initial point of confusion is the location of the power button, which, it turns out, is on the bottom of the unit, and at the back to make it doubly hard to get to. It’s because the design has shrunk so much since the M2 version that the button had to be placed here, but it’s something to be aware of if you’re planning on hiding it away somewhere in the studio.

Loading up a project in Logic I’ve been working on, the Mac Mini M4 handles anything I throw at it with aplomb. Using the Core Audio with the buffer size on 32, it doesn’t even blink as I start loading up multi-band compression, spectral EQ, or quickly run the built-in stem splitter in Logic to separate the demo guitars from the drums. Everything loads up super quickly, making it an absolute pleasure to work in.

The track count runs to more than 90 by the time I’ve finished, including buses and sends, but I don’t see the CPU meter go higher than a quarter during this time. It plays back the whole thing without any issues, with around 70 plugins in the project. Granted, these were all Logic stock plugins, which are very well integrated, and of course, Logic itself works very well in macOS. That means it probably wouldn’t be this simple if you’re using a DAW like Pro Tools or Cubase.

I duplicate the project twice to stress test the Mac Mini M4 and see what it’s capable of. With 291 tracks running concurrently, the CPU meter shoots up, but it manages to play back the full duration of a four-and-a-half-minute song without any errors. You probably wouldn’t get this performance with this number of virtual instruments, but it speaks volumes that this is a very capable machine that will handle pretty much anything you throw at it. I can’t imagine many hitting this high a number of tracks in the real world unless you're scoring for film.

Verdict

With the latest M-chips, Apple is going from strength to strength in the music-making world. The Apple Mac Mini M4 is so insanely powerful that I could see it lasting a decade or more in home recording studios. Paired with a solid audio interface, you’ll have a very capable machine indeed, one that’s powerful enough to handle most tasks and stable enough to be used in a working environment.

You should consider your initial spec very carefully, though, because this isn’t an easily upgradeable machine. In particular, the hard drive size should be a concern, especially as OS updates often end up taking up more room, and you’ll likely be adding more plugins and programs as time goes on. You won’t feel a huge jump between the 16GB and 24GB RAM versions, but if you can, always go for the higher spec.

MusicRadar verdict: For me, the Apple Mac Mini M4 is a no-brainer for the producer or recording engineer who wants a permanent home setup. Its small size makes it well-suited to fitting into a variety of spaces, and the performance is simply superb, making it a very capable companion for music making. The only thing I didn’t like about it was the power button placement, but apart from that, there’s very little to complain about here.

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What is it?

There’s an issue with the latest line of Apple silicon processors in that they’ve gotten too powerful for their own good. The huge leap in processing power we've seen over the past few years means that a MacBook Air is now just as powerful as the MacBook Pros of yesteryear. Ever-increasing costs, driven by AI and geopolitics, mean the MacBook Air may no longer be the budget-friendly machine it once was for the cash-strapped modern musician. With that in mind, the low price of the Apple MacBook Neo makes total sense. But is it actually any good as a laptop for music production?

Priced at just $/£599 (or $/£499 for students), it’s significantly cheaper than any other MacBook the company offers. It doesn’t feature an ‘M’ chip, instead opting for the A18 Pro processor, which is similar to what you’d find in the iPhone 16 Plus. It’s got 8GB of Unified Memory, and isn’t configurable for larger sizes to help keep the costs down. You can, however, configure the SSD with options for 256 GB or 512 GB, adding an extra $/£100 to the price.

The display is a 13-inch liquid retina, with an impressive 500 nits of brightness. The keyboard isn’t backlit like you get on the other MacBooks, but on the face of it, the design looks largely similar. The multi-touch trackpad features here, too, with Touch ID for quick and easy signing in and out. It’s also got a 1080p web camera to ensure you’re looking your best in meetings and video calls.

Dual, side-firing speakers provide the onboard sound, and it also has dual microphones to ensure your voice is captured clearly. Connectivity is limited, with just two USB-C ports, one of which can only handle USB 2.0. It also has a 1/8-inch headphone jack, but most users will need to factor in the additional purchase of a USB hub, particularly if it proves powerful enough for music creation tasks.

Performance

My review model is in Citrus, which is certainly distinctive when I pull it out of the box. It feels very much like an Apple product, though, with the smooth aluminium body and rounded edges of their more expensive models. The logo on the back is more subtle than you get on other designs, with a shade slightly darker than the rest of the body, but still lightly debossed as you’d find on a MacBook Pro or Air.

Opening it up, the keyboard is also colour themed, looking like a sort of mint-green nestled in amongst the Citrus background. After installing some programs and downloading some project files to test with, I feel that while the keys and touchpad are not exactly the same as those on the MacBook Airs I’ve tested and my own MacBook Pro, it’s really not far off.

It’s the typical comfortable experience with short travel keys that feel smooth and precise, and the layout is exactly the same, so if you’re coming from another Apple machine you’ll be able to dive in straight away. The trackpad also offers a similarly precise experience, although on the Neo you only get a single press, not the double press 'Force Touch' offered on the more expensive models.

It’s plenty responsive though, and as I load up a Logic Pro project I’ve been working on, I find I can quickly and accurately get around the session without having to adapt coming from my own MacBook Pro. It’s a pretty seamless experience moving from one to the other, although I’m sure users will miss the light-up keys when working in low light.

Getting stuck into my project, it’s around 90 tracks of recorded audio, including busses and aux sends, which is a reasonable amount for a modern rock production. Starting with my drums and working through the project while keeping an eye on the CPU monitor in Logic Pro, I can see it gradually starting to fill as I make my way through the mix, adding copious amounts of EQ, compression, and multi-band compression.

I started on about half battery, and after a couple of hours of tweaking, it had run down so completely that it switched itself off while I went to get a cup of tea. It’s a far cry from what I’m used to with my MacBook Pro, but then this is a machine that’s really designed for students or business owners sipping vanilla lattes in coffee shops.

With the charger plugged in and my mixing done, I’m at around 70 plugins and ready to commence some stress testing. Setting the sample rate to 32 and using the Core Audio device on the Neo, I play through the track with no issues. The CPU meter spikes between halfway and three-quarters full, but it gets through the entire song, which is around 5 minutes, without any issues. Duplicating the entire project and trying again, I hit my first snag.

As soon as it gets to the middle 8, which features lots of additional tracks for atmospherics, I get the dreaded system overload. It’s over 180 tracks and around 140 plugins, which is not too shabby at all considering this laptop is designed for light use. Removing tracks one by one, I get to 171 tracks before any errors occur during a full playthrough. It’s a remarkable performance for a budget laptop.

There are some caveats to this though, the first of which is that Logic is extremely well integrated into MacOS, so it will enjoy superior performance to other DAWs. I highly doubt I'd get the same performance with my usual Pro Tools. The second is that I only used stock plugins for my testing, and that more advanced programs will consume more CPU power, so your real-world performance may well differ from mine. AI tools, virtual instruments like synths and drum kits, are a lot more power-intensive, so those working exclusively in the box will probably find they hit a lower track count.

That said, if you’re a beginner or student, I think this is a great laptop to cut your teeth on. Adding an audio interface will give a slight performance improvement, perhaps even more so if it features DSP, and for simple demos and recordings, I see no reason you couldn’t use the MacBook Neo as a production machine. It’s not going to satisfy power users, but then it isn’t really designed for that, is it?

Verdict

I had high hopes for the MacBook Neo when it was first announced, and I’m very happy to say it does not disappoint. It’s really great value for money considering the amount of processing power you get, and for simpler recording tasks, it performs admirably. It’s lightweight, looks great, and has many of the features of the more advanced and costly MacBook Air, making it well worth considering if you want an Apple machine on a budget.

Of course, it won’t satisfy professional producers or those who need insane track counts and huge plugin numbers. It doesn’t have Thunderbolt, which limits connectivity with more advanced hardware, and some users will definitely feel limited with just two USB 3.2 and 2.0 connections.

MusicRadar verdict: For beginners and students on a budget, the MacBook Neo can absolutely do a job as a budget laptop for music production. It’s not going to set the world of the professional musician on fire, but for those taking their first steps into the world of music creation, there’s no reason this can’t be your first laptop to start building up from.

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Specs

There’s a very common saying in the pro audio world that not backing up your files is a mistake you’ll only make once. Whether you’ve got ten years of unfinished songs on your external hard drive or you’re just putting the finishing touches on an album for a rising artist, I've heard countless tales of storage devices breaking, corrupting, and being lost to the ether.

I know of several producers who have been close to completing projects for a big client, only to come to their computer the next day and find their hard drive has failed. Some of them have had to painstakingly recreate entire songs from scratch, or call the artist back in again to re-record, and this has had a knock-on effect on their work going forward. I myself lost around three years of music when a well-meaning relative decided to format and reinstall our home PC without letting me know first.

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So, if you want to avoid the agony of having to tell someone you lost all their data, or the pure pain of knowing all of your creations for the last few years are gone forever, it’s generally advised that you should follow the 3-2-1 rule when backing up your data. That means you should have three different copies of all your projects. This breaks down to two different media, for example, two external hard drives or a copy on a different computer, and one ‘off-site’ copy, like a cloud backup or a hard drive that isn’t connected to any network.

It’s World Backup Day today, the Amazon Big Spring Sale is in full flow, and we’re close to payday for most people. So, if you’re not already backing up your productions, then hopefully this is the kicker you need to start doing this essential piece of house cleaning. There are a lot of different hard drives available on Amazon, so I’ve done the hard work for you and found x deals on rock-solid drives that will suit any musician.

A few years ago, I decided to make the switch from a PC to a MacBook Pro for music production duties, and to be totally honest, I haven’t looked back. Despite its flaws, the MacBook is without a doubt the best laptop for music production by a country mile, and thus far I’ve found music-making on one an absolute joy.

If you’re thinking about taking the plunge yourself, Amazon has just given you the best excuse possible with some excellent discounts in its Big Spring Sale. There’s not a huge amount on offer, but what is there is definitely worth your while if you’re the creative sort. It includes the latest MacBook Pro M5, too, so if you’re looking for a top-tier machine, then this is a great chance to pick one up for less.

I’m not sure how long these deals will be around for, so if you’re in the market, now’s the time to pull the trigger. Here are the three best deals I spied on MacBooks that are perfect for music-makers.

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Is the new MacBook Neo powerful enough to be used for music production? That’s the question that’s been on the minds of bargain-hunting beatmakers since this $/£599 laptop was announced earlier this month, and with the machine now in the hands of customers, we’re starting to get some answers.

The headline is that, yes, you can indeed run music software on the MacBook Neo, and if your processor and RAM demands aren’t particularly intense, you should be able to do so pretty successfully.

Producer L Dre is one of several YouTubers who have been taking the machine for a spin. In his video, we see him firing up Ableton Live and making a beat using multiple instances of Arturia’s Analog Lab plugin.

“Who would have thought we'd be having full Ableton running on an iPhone chip? That's kind of crazy,” he says, as he layers up the synths. In fact, he manages to get at least 14 tracks running with no issues, and there are more than 20 Analog Labs doing their thing before the machine metaphorically falls over.

Given that the MacBook Neo does indeed contain an ‘iPhone chip’ – the A18 Pro from the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max – and contains just a potentially limiting 8GB of RAM, that’s pretty impressive.

How does the machine fare when running Apple’s own Logic Pro DAW, though? I’m a Music Mogul has been testing that particular combination, running a variety of the software’s more power-hungry features and then stacking up the tracks to find out where it tops out.

Unsurprisingly, the Mastering Assistant, Stem Splitter and Chord analysis features all took longer to do their thing on the Neo than the M5 Pro MacBook Pro that was being used for comparison purposes – significantly longer in the case of Stem Splitter – but they got there in the end. The difference in session export times, meanwhile, was negligible.

But what of those maximum track counts? Impressively, the MacBook Neo managed to play back around 150 tracks of audio and MIDI without falling over. That’s significantly fewer than the 920 that the M5 Pro laptop could deal with, but it’s worth asking yourself how many tracks you actually need?

The MacBook Neo’s limitations did become a little more apparent when running a multi-gigabyte Kontakt sampler instrument – around 20 of these could be stacked up, compared to 170 on the M5 Pro – and the processor-intensive Serum 2 soft synth plugin also pushed the budget laptop’s capabilities. It still managed to run 30 instances of the same preset while playing back a MIDI file, though, which will be more than enough for a lot of people.

In fact, the bottom line appears to be that, if you want an affordable laptop to start making music on, the MacBook Neo is going to do you just fine. Yes, it’s nowhere near as powerful as a MacBook Pro with an M5 Pro processor but, as I’m a Music Mogul points out, he’s been comparing a $5k laptop to a $599 one, so what did you expect?

The BBC has dipped into its archive once again to give us another fascinating look at how the relationship between computers and music was perceived in the late 20th century.

This time, the year is 1986, and we’re at Hugh Faringdon School in Reading to see how a computer – a Yamaha CX5M, unless we’re mistaken – was changing the way that music was being taught. The clip comes from BBC Two computing show Micro Live, which you may well remember if you’re over the age of 45, grew up in the UK, and spent a lot of time trying to learn BASIC in the mid-’80s.

The CX5M was a dedicated music computer that could have its sounds upgraded with cartridges, and could receive note data from a MIDI or QWERTY keyboard. In the video, we learn that Hugh Faringdon School is taking part in a research project in conjunction with Reading University, designed to discover “whether a music playing home computer is fit to join conventional musical instruments” in the classroom.

We get to sit in on a class being taught by music educator Clare Tester, who asks her students to come up with a 1-bar melody using just five notes: E, F, G, B and C. Most of them set to work on the school xylophones, but Mark gets to jam on a synth.

After hearing a few of the melodies, the students are asked to vote for their favourite. Mark’s gets the nod – possibly because it wasn’t played on a xylophone.

Armed with Mark’s melody, Clare shows us how it can be recorded into the CX5M, which is running some simple notation software. “When using the composing program, the computer will take in any number of up to eight parts that you program into it and then it will play it back for you,” she explains. There are 46 sounds, and basic editing facilities.

We see Mark painstakingly choosing his note values and playing his melody, which is layered with others to create a larger arrangement.

What do the students think of this new technology, though? “The computer's better because it can store things longer in its memory than we could,” says one, but not everyone’s convinced of the machine’s potential.

“It's a bit of a shortcut because [when] you're using, like, a guitar or a drum, you're playing it on a keyboard,” points out a different pupil. “I would prefer to learn how to play the instruments. I think it's better than actually playing it on a keyboard.”

Clare Tester also has a criticism or two: she bemoans the fact that the computer can’t display or print all eight of its parts alongside each other so that students can see how they interact. Tasker also suggests that, after a while, the novelty of having the machine started to wear off.

“When we first had the computer, we used it virtually non-stop,” she says. “But interestingly enough, they did begin to miss playing the music for themselves after a while, which meant that we came up with a balance of actually playing the instruments on top of the computer in the background.”

Our narrator, though – who we think is Micro Live presenter Fred Harris – is quick to extol the benefits of music technology, which have become more and more profound as it has developed.

“Until now, creativity has been stifled by the need to acquire playing skills,” he argues. “Now, using the computer, any child can play a piano, organ, trombone, or drums and express creative ideas.”

For the finale, we get to see the students performing their piece using a pioneering hybrid setup of computer, various percussion instruments, brass, woodwind and synthesizer. The big question, though, is if Clare Tester is sold on the idea of having the computer in her classroom going forward?

“I think an excellent way of assessing the success of any new teaching aid is to ask yourself the question, ‘Would I still use it if I had to carry it up three flights of stairs?’” she suggests. “With the music computer, the answer is definitely yes. It's added a completely new dimension to the teaching of music in this school.”

Cue the end-of-day bell. Case closed, class dismissed.

In the midst of a good number of other product announcements, Apple has unveiled the MacBook Neo, an affordable laptop that’s designed to compete with Chromebooks and cheap Windows machines and provide “the magic of the Mac at a breakthrough price”.

Prices start at an eye-catching $/£599 ($/£499 of you qualify for the education discount) and there are four colour options: Silver, Indigo, Blush and Citrus.

At first glance, arguably the most impressive thing about the MacBook Neo (aside from the low price) is that it doesn’t look like a budget laptop. It has an aluminium (as opposed to plastic) enclosure that should ensure that it feels like a ‘proper’ Apple product. However, rather than using one of the ‘M’ processors that you’ll find in all of the company’s other Macs, the Neo is being equipped with the A18 Pro, which made its debut in the iPhone 16 Pro in 2024.

While some will inevitably use this as a stick to beat Apple with (‘it’s just a phone in a laptop case,’ etc) and say that it should have used the M1 processor at least, there are already suggestions that the more modern and efficient A18 Pro could be at least on a par with that chip, which dates from 2020, and offer better performance in some areas.

What’s more, in comparison to the M1 MacBook Air, which the Neo is already being likened to, the new machine has some advantages. Battery life should be a bit better, the front-facing camera is slightly improved (1080p as opposed to 720p) and more modern WiFi and Bluetooth standards are supported.

In order to hit the low price point, though, Apple has scrimped in a few areas. RAM is locked at 8GB (there’s no option to upgrade this – either at the point of purchase or later on) and the base model has just 256GB of storage. There’s also a 512GB model, which adds Touch ID, too, and will set you back another $/£100, but there’s no option to have a backlit keyboard on either model.

On the connectivity side, musicians will definitely appreciate the 3.5mm headphone jack, but there are just two USB-C ports, neither of which has Thunderbolt capabilities (one is USB 3 and the other USB 2).

How will the MacBook Neo fare for music production, then? Obviously, we’re yet to test it (you can pre-order the machine now but it won’t be released until 11 March), but we have a hunch that it might just punch well above its 2.7 pound weight. Sure, it’s not going to have the processing grunt of the also-just-announced new MacBook Air M5 or MacBook Pro M5/M5 Pro Max, but as a starter machine for running GarageBand, for example, it might well do the job. Whisper it quietly, but a lot of musicians don’t actually need as much computing power as they think they do in order to fulfill their creative potential.

The counter argument to this is that, if money is tight, you’d be better off buying a reconditioned or ‘pre-loved’ MacBook that has better specs. We can see the logic here – particularly if you want to get best out of ‘Logic’ Pro, funnily enough – but it’s pretty obvious that buying second-hand is potentially going to get you more for your money than buying new – assuming your purchase is in good condition, works as intended and doesn’t break down after a year or two.

Thinking more big picture, it’s also interesting to draw a comparison between the MacBook Neo and the new iPad Air M4, as they have the same starting price. It’s indicative of how the computing market has changed that, here, the tablet has a more powerful processor than the laptop, but if you want an Apple machine purely for music production, the less powerful Neo might actually be a better bet.

Not only does it have the advantage of running MacOS, opening up a world of plugin possibilities that aren’t available on iPadOS, but it also comes with a keyboard and trackpad – extras that you’ll have to purchase separately if you buy an iPad, and at considerable cost if you want the official Apple variants.

Which leads us to think that, if you want to buy just one Apple device to make music on, and you need it to be portable – if you’re happy to stick to your studio, don’t forget about the fantastic Mac mini – the MacBook Neo would be a better choice.

We won’t know for sure, though, until we’ve tested one, which we’re hoping to do soon.

What is it?

It’s a bit of a left-field choice in a field dominated by MacBooks and the Mac Mini, but if you’re after a PC for music production, then you might well want to consider the convenience of the all-in-one Apple iMac M4. While admittedly not the first thing that comes to mind for musicians, as we’ll find out, it makes a rather stellar case for being the next centrepiece of your home studio.

The latest iMac design hasn’t changed all that much from the previous M-chip iterations, featuring a super-thin design attached to a stand. Essentially, it’s a 24-inch monitor with a computer built into it. It’s available in 7 colours, with my review model coming in a rather fetching pink number, and this is matched in the peripherals, which also feature pink accents, even down to the USB cables.

The 24-inch monitor delivers 4.5k performance, which means those waveforms will look crisper than ever, although it’s not as bright as the equivalent MacBook Pro with 500 nits to the Pro’s impressive 1000. Still, with over a billion colours, it’ll be absolutely fine for any music production needs, and you’ll still be able to watch your favourite shows on it with impressive clarity.

Aside from the base model which only features two Thunderbolt ports, all the other versions now have four Thunderbolt connections, perfect for pairing with a high-powered audio interface. Depending on which model you go for, these ports can support up to two external monitors at 6K, or one external monitor at 8K, should you wish to plug a large high-resolution screen in for those projects with massive track counts.

Apple’s Unified Memory is configurable from 16GB up to 32GB depending on how you spec it out, and storage space ranges from a 256GB SSD right through to a full 2TB. The 12MP webcam records in full 1080p, so you should look sharp as a tack when chatting to clients remotely, and while you wouldn’t want to mix on them, there’s a six-speaker system with force-cancelling woofers, which in plain English means two woofers firing away from one another in perfect unison to prevent unwanted vibrations.

Performance

Unboxing the Apple iMac M4 turns out to be a surprisingly laborious task, and the word over-designed comes to mind when I think of the box it comes in. Most people will only be doing this once, but I’m already dreading the thought of having to put my review model back inside when it comes to it.

Inside is a full-size Apple Magic keyboard with Touch ID and number pad (great for Pro Tools users), and a Magic Mouse. Both look rather striking with their usual white design offset by soft pink accents, with the keyboard having white keys and a coloured frame, while the mouse features the standard white top while being coloured pink on the underside.

Pulling the computer itself out of the box I wouldn’t call it lightweight, but it’s impressively skinny. I have an old Intel iMac at home and it’s much thinner than that. The attached stand manages to be quite skinny, but feels very solid once I place it on my desk. There’s a white bezel that runs all the way around the screen which runs counter to MacBooks which typically have a black bezel.

The power block has an Ethernet port built into it, and a pink cable that works similarly to the MagSafe charging cable you get on a MacBook. It’s quite a chunky thing, but the plug end clicks in satisfyingly and easily, feeling very robust once in place. In the box, there’s also a USB-C cable for charging the peripherals, coloured pink, of course.

Sitting the iMac on my desk and powering on, I’m greeted by the usual ultra-smooth Mac workflow. The screen is sharp yet has a silky glow to it, with the white bezel adding to the feeling of lightness. The Magic Keyboard keys are similarly soft, offering a very quiet typing experience that’s comfortable, although there are no legs to prop the keyboard higher up if that's your preference.

The Magic Mouse also feels fluid in use, adapting to your hand movements by zipping across the screen when you move quickly but staying steady when making incremental changes. It feels great and becomes an extension of my hand almost immediately, but I still can’t fathom that USB-C port placement. It means you can’t use it while it’s charging and for those running professional studios, the last thing you’d want is the inability to use your mouse while working with a client.

I also find myself getting frustrated with the scroll action, which I frequently set off accidentally as I go to click on things. Without a specific button to press on the mouse, it feels little too easy to set off without meaning to. As I go to click on something on screen, I instead end up scrolling down or up by mistake. Also by default there’s no right click enabled, so I have to press control and click, which doesn’t really work for my workflow. You can change this in System Settings though.

Downloading Pro Tools takes much longer than actually installing it, with the grunt of that M4 processor easily dispatching with such a simple task. With my DAW installed, I plug in my Audient iD4 MKII interface with my studio monitors and studio headphones to set about stress testing the Mac to see what it’s capable of with the D-Verb test.

This consists of playing a 1k sine wave for five minutes through a selection of audio tracks, each running 5 instances of the D-Verb reverb plugin on the insert. While this isn’t a realistic way people will be using their machines for production, it is a quick and easy test to see what a computer is capable of.

At the baseline level of 50 tracks, the iMac M4 barely got into its stride, hitting around 32% in the total system usage window in Pro Tools. Moving on up to 150 tracks, which is 750 instances of D-Verb I hit 40% of system usage, which is very impressive. Doubling that number to 300 and we start to see the needle moving higher, hitting around the 72% mark. Once I hit 400 tracks, which is a pretty astonishing 2,000 instances of D-Verb, it starts touching 90%.

With another 50 tracks added I finally get it to 100% capacity, which as it turns out is around the same as the MacBook Air M4 that I recently tested. It is a ridiculously high ceiling and as with all the Apple Silicon chip-equipped machines, more than enough performance for the vast majority of music producers.

Verdict

So is the Apple iMac M4 the right music-making machine for you? Well, it’s a bit of niche Mac for music production in my opinion. Yes, it has plenty of power for all your production tasks but buying a Mac Mini M4, a separate monitor, mouse, and keyboard will still be considerably cheaper than the iMac if you’re frugal with your choices of peripheral. The ability to separate your monitor and computer in the studio itself also makes this setup a lot more versatile.

If you’re short on space however, the iMac M4 would be a really good choice as it combines the two main elements into one. It is however, not as compact as a laptop, which then gives you the advantage of being able to take your music-making on the road with you. Depending on how you spec’d it, a MacBook could also be cheaper. It leaves the iMac in limbo a bit when it comes to music production, as I can’t really see it appealing to traditional recording studio work or the modern, mobile music maker.

MusicRadar verdict: While the Apple iMac M4 is more than powerful enough for the vast majority of music-making tasks, its form factor means that it sits in between the studio staple Mac Mini and a MacBook Pro or Air. For the majority of producers, the iMac probably isn’t the right choice, but for a specific bracket that work from a home studio and doesn’t need something mobile, it’s a fantastic way to save on space versus a traditional PC, and get an all-in-one workstation that looks and feels incredible.

Hands-on videos

David Lewis

SPACE DESIGN WAREHOUSE

Simple Alpaca

Alternatives

Specs

Apple certainly likes to make a big song and dance about its iPhone launches, but its new MacBooks and iPads are often announced almost apologetically, via website updates and press releases.

And so it is with the latest 14-inch MacBook Pro and iPad Pro, both of which contain the also-new M5 chip.

It’s a sign of the times that, first and foremost, Apple is talking up the AI capabilities of the M5. It offers a 10-core GPU architecture with a Neural Accelerator in each core - the end result, we’re assured, being that GPU-based AI workloads run “dramatically faster”, with four times the peak GPU compute performance of the M4.

The CPU, meanwhile, also has up to 10 cores (six efficiency cores and four performance cores), resulting in up to 15% faster multithreaded performance in comparison to the M4.

How much musicans will actually notice all of this is open to question. While heavyweight graphics users and AI aficionados may be drooling at these speed bumps, it remains to be seen how much of an impact they’ll have when you’re simply trying to make a tune in Logic Pro.

Apple certainly isn’t hanging about in fitting the M5 to its computing hardware, though - you’ll find it in both the 11- and 13-inch iPad Pros, with prices starting at $/£999 and $/£1,299 respectively.

In terms of cost, this makes it very much a laptop replacement device, but if you’d rather have the real deal, the entry-level M5 MacBook Pro 14-inch costs from $/£1,599. It’s worth noting that, despite having a lower processor number, the M4 Pro and M4 Max versions remain the flagships, offering more CPU and GPU cores.

The M5 chip has also been added to the upgraded Apple Vision Pro headset which, thanks to the new Dual Knit Band, promises to be more comfortable to wear. With prices starting at $3,499/£3,199, though, it’s still far from comfortable on your bank balance.

All the new products are available for pre-order now, with shipping starting on the 22 October. Find out more on the Apple website.

What is it?

It used to be that music-making machines were better left to the realms of desktops, because laptops simply didn’t provide enough horsepower for larger tasks. Thanks to the recent breakthroughs in neural processing chips though, laptops like the Apple MacBook Air M4 make a strong case for not just assisting you to make music on the move, but becoming the centre point of your studio entirely.

Priced at £/$1,399, the MacBook Air M4 15-inch makes a great case for being the most versatile music-making machine on the market right now. Its M4 chip delivers over 38,000,000,000,000 (that’s 38 trillion) operations per second, which means it will make mincemeat of projects with 50+ tracks and CPU-draining plugins. It also has a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) to assist with AI-specific tasks like stem separation and sample management.

16GB of unified memory might not sound like much if you’re used to needing as much RAM as possible, but the difference here is that unlike traditional builds, there’s no separate memory for the CPU and GPU, which is a big bottleneck when it comes to performance. Here, the RAM is shared between the CPU, NPU, and GPU, which results in a much more efficient and speedy performance, as there’s no duplication of data going back and forth. It also means lower latency because every component has access to the same information.

The MacBook Air M4 boasts up to 18 hours of battery life, which thanks to the efficiency of the combined CPU, GPU, NPU, and unified memory means you’ll be able to run off your charger for a lot longer. It’s lightweight at just 1.51kg too, so easy enough to pack into a backpack to take on the go with you. It includes a 35W dual USB-C port compact power adapter, and a USB-C to MagSafe 3 cable in the box.

Performance

Unboxing the MacBook Air M4 I’m immediately taken aback by the new Sky Blue finish, which is a bit more Ice Blue to my eye. It’s very close to the traditional silver of a MacBook, but in the right light, the blue tinge looks very evident. Like most MacBooks, the anodised aluminium finish makes it a fingerprint and dirt magnet versus a more traditional plastic laptop.

The last MacBook Air M1 that I tested was a lot different in its design, whereas here the Air is much more like its bigger sibling in the MacBook Pro, offering a rounder and blunter design. As my MacBook Air M1 had a habit of sliding around and feeling quite sharp with its slim aluminium edges, this design change is a welcome addition for me. Despite the slightly broader build it still feels very lightweight, easy to carry around with one hand and barely there when I chucked it into my backpack to take to the studio with me.

The backlit keyboard is the usual comfortable MacBook experience, and the only thing I can see that’s changed from previous iterations is that the mute function key now has a slash through the speaker icon, not that I ever had trouble differentiating them before. It feels wonderful to type on, with a soft feel that’s not as clacky as some keybeds can be. The backlighting also means you can work easily in the often dark, moody light of a studio, with it being bright enough to be easily visible but not so bright that it blinds you.

The Force Touch trackpad feels exactly the same as the one on my MacBook Pro M3, providing a responsive feel that’s really easy to get to grips with. I wouldn’t rely on it for precise editing, and it can be awkward when dragging tracks and WAVs around in the DAW, but these are natural disadvantages rather than anything Mac-specific. The single touch to click and two touches to right-click work spectacularly well, and in all my testing, they never failed to provide me with the correct response.

The glossy liquid retina display looks fantastic, even if you’re only looking at the rather dated GUI of Pro Tools. Colours are vivid, lines are crisp and clear, and it’s super bright when you max out the setting. Of course, I’m primarily testing it for music production, but if you are dabbling in video editing or just want to watch the next episode of Alien Earth, it’s very adept for visual media.

There are only two Thunderbolt 4 ports however, which means once you’ve got essentials like your external hard drive and audio interface plugged into it, there’s no more space for MIDI keyboards, charging devices, or any other peripherals you might need. This means that investing in a decent USB hub is a must. It does have a 3.5mm headphone output though, which when combined with the generous processing power means it's entirely possible to mix using the default playback device and a pair of studio headphones.

With my DAW of choice Pro Tools installed in rapid fashion, I set about testing the limits of the MacBook’s capabilities by running the tried and tested D-Verb test. I create a session at 48 kHz and 32-bit float, with the buffer size set to 64. I then generate a sine wave over five minutes, before recording it onto 50 tracks, each with 5 instances of D-Verb running on the default preset. As expected, the MacBook ate this test up with just a measly 33% of CPU use.

Next I up the stakes, adding 200 tracks each with 5 instances of D-Verb, which is 1,000 plugins running at the same time. The System Usage window displays a steady 50% all the way through the five-minute track, and monitoring through a pair of headphones I don't hear a single pop or crackle the entire time. Doubling the count, I start to see some signs of strain showing, with 400 tracks resulting in the CPU usage bar bouncing between 83 and 96%.

It was only once I got to 512 tracks, the limit of my Pro Tools Studio license, that I got it to throw an error. While the D-Verb test isn’t wholly representative of how any music-maker would use a PC or laptop, it is a quick and easy way to determine what any machine is capable of, and the result is that MacBook Air M4 is an absolute beast for music production.

Verdict

There’s a reason you see Apple machines in studios all across the world, and even prior to the developments in Silicon-based chips, Apple ruled the roost. With this latest wave of M4 chips, an already iron grasp on the music market will no doubt be strengthened. No longer the realm of musicians working exclusively in the box, a modern laptop could now become the centrepiece of a more traditional home studio, allowing you to take your projects and plugins wherever you go.

The MacBook Air M4 isn’t perfect, the lack of connectivity being a particularly big factor if you use a lot of peripherals. With the price of USB hubs being relatively low it’s not a huge barrier to music-making, although if you need additional Thunderbolt connectivity the price could potentially stack up. It’s also still not upgradeable, although an M4 chip will easily last you ten years at the current rate of advancement.

MusicRadar verdict: As far as modern music-making machines go, the Apple MacBook Air M4 is an amazing choice for any kind of musician or producer. It’s got more than enough power to keep you in business for at least the next 10 years, whether you’re crafting EDM in the box with a pair of headphones, or recording a full band with an audio interface and set of monitors.

Hands-on videos

Bjørnar Kibsgaard

Thozi

L.Dre

Alternatives

Specs

There are numerous reasons why you might want to stress test your laptop for music production. You might want to understand the limits of how many tracks or plugins you can run in a session, how long you can push the boundaries of your budget laptop before it overheats, or if you’re on a Windows laptop, test a recent upgrade.

As the most important component for music makers, your CPU has a large effect on a multitude of aspects of music production. Every plugin you use takes a little slice of your CPU power, and the heft of your CPU also affects the ability to run lower buffer sizes in your DAW, enabling lower latency performance, which is crucial in the recording phase.

One of my first jobs was working in a computer repair shop and while the majority of my time was spent dealing with software issues, quite often I’d have customers coming in to upgrade or overclock their machines, seeking better performance. It’s all well and good buying a new laptop, upgrading your RAM, or adding an external hard drive to enhance performance, but how do you actually know if these upgrades or new purchases are having a marked difference?

This is where testing comes into play. It’s a relatively simple process to undertake, and can be done with stock plugins or using stress testing software available for free, so all you need to test your laptop is a little bit of time. One thing to note is that if you’re performing this testing to see what impact an upgrade will have, make sure to do some baseline testing before you install your new RAM or SSD.

D-Verb Test

Whenever I’m reviewing a laptop I will perform the D-Verb test on it, as Pro Tools is my DAW of choice. You can do something similar in any DAW, but you may need to tweak a few things in order to perform this test. Many of the tools out there for stress testing are merely for the purpose of trying out overclocked components or fault-finding, so for me, there’s more value in a test that’s a little more in line with what musicians will be doing in the real world.

To start with, head to your Playback Engine in Pro Tools and make sure that 'Ignore Errors' is unchecked. You’ll then need to generate a sine wave utilising the signal generator in Pro Tools. To do this, you create a mono audio track, select five minutes on the timeline using the select tool, and then use the Audiosuite menu to render the signal. Once this is done, change the output of the track to Bus 1, then create a new audio track with its input as Bus 1.

Next, you need to add five instances of D-Verb to the audio track, then we can start duplicating. I recommend starting with 25-50 tracks initially, and you’ll need to make sure they’re all armed for recording, but don’t arm record your original track with the generated sine wave on it. Before you commence, make sure to open System Usage in the Windows menu so you can see what’s going on with your CPU during the test.

Once your tracks are armed make sure you turn your studio monitors and studio headphones down, then you just need to hit the record button. This will send your initially generated signal to all of the duplicated tracks, running it through all of the reverbs and recording it to track. Let it run for the full five minutes and listen back at low volume for any signs of crackles or pops. It’s pretty dull listening I’ll admit, but part of the test is the ability for your computer to run under load for a decent amount of time.

You can monitor what’s happening via the system usage window, which will let you know how much of the overall CPU is being used, as well as what the individual cores are doing. Provided your machine is able to handle it at 25-50 tracks, keep upping the stakes until you get Pro Tools to throw an error. On a recent MacBook M4, I got to over 400 tracks before I encountered my first error, which tells you what a modern laptop is capable of.

This test can be run on any DAW provided you don’t have a limited track count, and is a good way to see how much your computer can handle before you decide to take on a behemoth project. Pretty much every DAW has a tone generator built in, so whether you’re running in Ableton, FL Studio, Logic, or Studio One, you can perform the test. Any stock reverb will suffice, as most reverbs tend to be quite CPU-intensive. Most DAWs also allow you to monitor your system usage, you’ll just need to do a quick Google search on how exactly to do it in yours.

Stress Testing

If you've recently upgraded your machine or are trying to overclock to get more performance, I highly recommend using Prime95, which is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux machines. Originally designed to help find prime numbers, it’s become popular with those who build their own computers in recent years, providing a great benchmark to see how stable your computer is under heavy load.

The process of using it is very simple: just download the software, install it using administrator privileges, and when prompted, select the ‘Just stress testing’ option. The software will then run through a variety of tests and you’ll hear your fans fire up at certain points, as it also tests the cooling systems and power supplies in your computer.

You can run the test for any amount of time you like. The makers of Prime95 themselves recommend anywhere between 6-24 hours for optimal results, but if you don't have that amount of time you can run the test for however long you're typically using your computer. You can then check the results in the results.txt file that’ll be generated in the folder you extracted the program from.

One limitation of this test is that it’s primarily designed to detect faults, rather than simulate actual use. So if you own a newer laptop that is working fine you may not find out much doing it this way. If you’re overclocking your machine to extract more performance for your music-making however, or you’ve recently added more RAM, it’s a great way of seeing how much pressure you can put on your components and how stable the system is overall.

Conclusion

So there you have it, two relatively simple and free ways to see what your music-making machine is capable of. Of course, you can perform these tests on a desktop PC or even an iPad if that’s how you make your music, whether you’ve made a change recently, or you just want to find out just how far your computer can take your music production.

You probably don’t think too much about the hinge in your laptop, you know, the bit that allows the two sides of the machine to pivot open. Who does?

But did you know that a) Apple have been putting sensors in the hinges in their MacBook series since 2019 and b) you can transform the hinge into a creaking door, and even a theremin?

No? Well, one developer, Sam Henri Gold, a man who quite possibly has too much time on his hands, has been beavering away and has written some code that allows you to do just that. And, inevitably, he’s gone kind of viral with his discovery.

This is his creaking door MacBook…

Did you know your MacBook has a sensor that knows the exact angle of the screen hinge?It’s not exposed as a public API, but I figured out a way to read it and make it sound like an old wooden door.

— @samhenri.gold (@samhenri.gold.bsky.social) 2025-09-10T13:09:26.808Z

And then a little while later we got theremin mode. (Of course, the theremin, notoriously, is the only instrument you play by not touching and you’re adjusting the pitch here by moving the laptop. But anyway, it’s impressive, isn’t it?)

you know what? fuck it. theremin mode. github.com/samhenrigold...

— @samhenri.gold (@samhenri.gold.bsky.social) 2025-09-10T13:09:26.651Z

It seems that at present those two sounds are the only ones on offer. But clearly, there’s potential there to have as many sounds for opening your MacBook as there are ringtones.

If you are impressed (and, crucially, if you have a MacBook) you can pick up the code for the creaking door from GitHub, by clicking https://github.com/samhenrigold/LidAngleSensor.

And the one for the theremin at https://github.com/samhenrigold/LidAngleSensor/releases/tag/1.0.3.

Teenage Engineering has drawn its fair share of criticism over the years for the price of its products – many fans of the brand have felt priced out of purchasing desirable instruments like the OP-1 Field and OP-XY, and releasing a $1,599 flat-packed desk didn't exactly do the company any favours.

In it defence, though, it should be noted that the Swedish design wizards have released some affordable products. Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operator is surely one of the best-selling pieces of budget music gear in history: the PO-10 launched at $59 a decade ago and the price of all Pocket Operators has remained well under three figures since.

This year, the company is addressing its avaricious reputation with a series of attention-grabbing offers rolled out on a monthly basis under the banner of Flipped Out '25. This kicked off in June with the head-scratching decision to invite customers to pay what they want for the OP-1 Field, choosing a price from a given range that went from reasonable discount to daylight robbery.

Next up in Teenage Engineering's calendar of promotions isn't another discount – it's a giveaway. The company has designed a DIY computer case and is giving a limited amount away for free (excluding shipping) with a limit of one per customer. Named Computer-2, the case is a plastic successor to Computer-1, a build-your-own aluminium PC case released in 2021.

Computer-2 is a small form factor case built to house a mini-ITX motherboard, SFX power supply and dual-slot graphics card up to 180mm. Constructed from a single piece of semi-transparent foldable plastic, it features snap-in hooks and flexible living hinges for convenient, screw-free assembly and disassembly – a novel design indeed.

Why is Teenage Engineering giving Computer-2 away for free? Aside from the obvious explanation (marketing stunt) it seems that the design was something of an experiment: a statement on the company's website says that the project was inspired by the goal of designing "the cheapest computer case in the world".

"Our engineers worked day and night to really push the limits and they went beyond all expectations," the company says. "They engineered it all the way down to a cost of 0. Now, that's Teenage Engineering."

Sadly, it seems as if Computer-2 is already "sold out" in Teenage Engineering's online store, mere hours after launch. However, as we're based in the UK, it's still worth checking to see if stock is available in your location.

Find out more on Teenage Engineering's website.

Great news for electronic music makers of a retro persuasion, or simply those who are looking for something ‘new’ to try – the Commodore 64 is back.

Yes, no more trawling eBay and car boot sales for you. Now – courtesy of a reborn Commodore – you can purchase a perfect, new, improved 2025 incarnation of the best-selling home computer from 1982, and literally get back to the future.

The Commodore 64’s MOS Technology 6581 Sound Interface Device (better known as the SID chip) had a sound all of its own, breathing life into videogames and music programs and knocking the basic bleeps of its rival Sinclair ZX Spectrum into a cocked hat.

Musically the C64 certainly had the edge, and, armed with the new chip’s polyphonic power composers such as Chris Huelsbeck ran wild, creating genuine soundtracks for video games (do check out his legendary work on Turrican) for the first time.

Classic cuts

By today’s standards the SID was distinctly limited with just three voices, but four waveforms, and a multi-mode filter gave the C64 a sound all of its own. So much so that in the years following the C64’s physical demise (and the death of the entire Commodore computer in 1994) countless emulators and hardware spin-offs have popped up to satiate those wishing to recreate that distinctive genre-defining ‘chiptune’ C64 sound.

And what better way to get a SID as part of your set-up than inside an entire faithful recreation of the C64, warts and all, in 2025!

The rebirth of Commodore comes courtesy of YouTuber Christian Simpson who originally only sought a licence to create an emulation but ended up buying the entire Commodore brand, its logos and the rights to all of its creations.

And his first hardware off the block (alongside a raft of T-shirts, sweatshirts and other branded retro goods) is the new C64 available in Basic, Starlight, and Ultimate Founders Edition forms.

The company now intends to begin shipping their first hardware in October of 2025.

“We've been sleeping for 30 years. Please excuse us,” the company says on its ‘new’ website. “Now we're back, you know we had to start with the best-selling desktop computer of all time.”

The new computer features a modern AMD Xilinx Artix-7 processor running the show, alongside 128MB of DDR2 RAM and 16MB of flash memory – marked increase on the 64 KB of the original.

Rather than simply emulate the C64 in software, a programmable FPGA circuit replicates the full chipset meaning that original peripherals (should you still have some in a box in the attic) can plug in and work just as with the real thing.

In fact, the new Commodore promises that the new unit is compatible with “over 99%” of original soft- and hardware.

And while it sports a new, obligatory HDMI port for output, it still maintains the original cartridge slot and DIN-8 connectors. Plus – in a first for a C64 – USB ports A and C for the connection of keyboards and other modern hardware, alongside Wi-Fi and Ethernet.

It even comes with a USB stick containing 50 retro games and demos, including a whole new game in the Jupiter Lander series.

The Basic unit carefully copies the original beige of the original while the Starlight Edition features a transparent case with RGB lighting inside.

Top of the tree is the Founders Edition limited to a run of 6,400, which aims to copy the Golden Anniversary Edition, originally made by Commodore to celebrate the sale of its one millionth unit. This model features an amber-tinted case and gold-plated keys.

Prices are $299 for the Basic, £349 for the Starlight and $499 for the Founders Edition.

Find out more at the reborn Commodore.net.

There are sales and savings popping up everywhere at the moment, thanks to the Prime Day music deals. So if you’re on the hunt for a new laptop for music production, it’s a great time to strike while the iron’s a lot cheaper than usual.

As Prime Day is now nearly a Prime week, running from July 8th to the 11th, we can reasonably expect that this year will see more discounts than ever before, becoming an event more akin to a summer Black Friday than its origins as just a single day of deals. That means more prices being slashed, and more time to save big on the music gear you want.

• Shop all the Prime Day music deals at Amazon

I’m a laptop user who moves frequently between a proper analogue recording studio and my home studio, and my MacBook is my most prized possession. I spent a lot of time researching what to go for before I bought it, and in my job as a gear reviewer, I’ve reviewed a few laptops in my time. Add in an early stint as a young man working in a computer repair shop, and it’s fair to say I know a few things about computers.

Coupled with my job finding the best deals for musicians, I’ve elected to scour all the websites with major sales, including Amazon, to pick out the best deals for musicians looking to take the plunge.

Whether you’ve got a small budget or a large one I’ve picked out a selection of laptops that will cover all bases, and every single one is more than capable of handling the task of producing music. I’ve ordered them by price too, to make it easier to browse.

Top laptop deals

PRODUCER WEEK 2025: Equally adept at producing music for immersive headphone listening or ecstatic dancefloor exaltation, Matt Cutler is a staple of the UK electronic music scene.

In the years following his last album, 2016's Levitate, he’s switched labels, moving over to London-via-Berlin collective Greco-Roman, and developed a new approach that weaves dream-pop vocals into richly textured electronica, drawing inspiration from My Bloody Valentine and Cocteau Twins.

A few years back, Cutler joined us to talk through his creative process and studio set-up, giving us an insight into the ideas and instruments behind his latest record, Always Inside Your Head.

MusicRadar: When did you first get involved with music production?

Matt Cutler: “Well it definitely goes back a long way. I'd been messing around with toy keyboards and tape recorders from the age of about nine, but I honestly don't know if you could class what I was doing back then as 'music production'.

“I got a computer game called Music for the PlayStation in 1999 which was a super basic sequencer, and you could also write little tunes and stuff on it, so I guess that was my proper introduction to how electronic music was actually made.

“By 2001 my family had bought a PC and I quickly downloaded a demo of FL Studio, or Fruity Loops as it was known back then.

"It was pretty much the same set up as the Music game really, so I was able to hit the ground running and started obsessively making my own tunes straight away. Happy to say I'm still using FL Studio as the main brain of my studio all these years later.”

MR: When and how would you say you became successful, or at least able to make a living from music?

MC: “Well, in terms of 'success' I kinda felt that around 2002 or 2003. By that time I honestly started to feel like my tunes were getting somewhere. It started to become my favourite music, and I'd happily listen to whatever it was I'd just finished all day. That was a big aim when I started out.

“In terms of any kind of financial success, that wouldn't happen for a long time after. I quit my crappy part time job around 2010 and moved from my hometown of Nottingham to Manchester to take it up full time.

"Me and my mate had just set up the Magicwire label and put out the “Pineapple Crush” 12'', and that was the tune that finally seemed to click with people. Enough bookings for live and DJ sets were coming in, so I just ran with it and didn't look back.”

MR: What is your overall philosophy or approach when it comes to music (playing, recording, production)?

MC: “It's incredibly simple to be honest with you: just make the music you want to hear. Everything else is secondary to that. There is no greater feeling in my life than when a piece of music I'm working on starts to take shape.

“For me, I have to be totally moved by what I'm working on long before anyone else in the world hears it. If you're trying to make music for other people or to try and follow trends, I honestly don't think it lasts... I think the key to proper longevity seems to be: make the music that moves you most and all the other shit will follow.”

MR: Tell us about the rest of the gear in your studio.

MC: “To be honest, I've always kinda come from the laptop musician school of keeping it mostly in the box... so it's tons of plugins that I've collected for the best part of 20 years, and FL Studio.

“I'm looking around now though and amidst the absolute mess that is my studio I can see an old Yamaha DX7, mainly used for the Rhodes preset for when I've been trying to capture that ‘80s movie / Spielbergian vibe in my tracks... [laughs]

"Roland SH-01A, as I couldn't justify spending the money trying to get an original 101, but wanted to get those glorious lead sounds down. Novation Ultra Nova which has been good for live stuff, an old Akai MPC2000XL, Akai APC40, Akai MPX16, a battered Roland SP404 not used since the 'Lemurian' days, though, I do often think about bringing that back.

“Two Technics SL-1210MK7 turntables, two Pioneer 2000NXS2 CDJs going into a Pioneer DJM-850. A couple of Rode NT1A mics which I've used for literally every found sound / percussion or vocal recording on any of my tracks.

"M-Audio controller keyboard, two Adam A7X monitors going into a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 interface. A cheap bass guitar, an electric guitar... oh, and boxes of crappy little percussion instruments, shakers and bits of homemade things I can bash to make noise out of.”

MR: What are your favorite 5 plugins?

MC: “Honestly, I'd really rather prefer to keep specific plugins to myself as not to give TOO much away but I would say that a great deal of what I always use when I'm working on tunes are the FL stock plugins!

“EQ and reverb are by far my most used and I just know this stuff like the back of my hand. Sure there are tons of endlessly fancier plugins you could use but I really just want to stress that it's not what you use but how you use it... I've always kept it incredibly basic and those limitations have pushed me to be more and more creative over the years.”

MR: How does a track typically start structure wise and then progress?

MC: “Over the years it's changed so much, and will change generally from track to track these days, but I'd say that generally I'll start with chords. I'll try and lay down a progression that moves me and then let my brain respond to whatever the chords tell it to. Usually melodies will spring to mind from there and I'll start to jam those over the top.

“I'll chuck in a random drum break to guide all this usually and gradually build it up from there. I definitely feel like my major strength as an artist is the ability to respond to quite small or basic elements.

"Like, if I have some nice chords, I find it so easy to come up with the rest from there. It starts to snowball really quickly. It's just getting to that starting point that can be tricky.”

MR: How do you know when a track is finished or what advice do you have to complete a track?

MC: “The track is finished when I can listen to it without wanting to change anything. I often fall into the trap of finishing a track, exporting it and thinking I'm done with it only to then listen back the next day and realise there's slight tweaks needed - or sometimes whole changes!

“I guess I'm quite an impatient person so I always want to finish the track and move on to something new. What ends up happening is, I'll listen back to what I've done the next day and realise there's elements that could be better, then go back in and alter whatever it is that stuck out to me.

“It'd be much better to walk away from a track for a breather, when I think I'm done with it and go back the next day with fresh ears because I often end up with about 50 mixes of a track. Sometimes they come out quickly though, and they're always the ones I won’t touch afterwards. There's something about catching a vibe quickly and then moving on which has always appealed to me.”

MR: Talk us through one or two influences behind your last record.

MC: “Musically I wanted to capture the way Kevin Shields production on the My Bloody Valentine records, or the way Liz Fraser's voice glistens on the Cocteau Twins records, make me feel when I listen to them. So, it wasn't a case of trying to copy either band's music or trying to sound like them, but more a case of trying to capture the way they make me feel.

“So it was a case of listening deeply and learning about how I could apply that to what it is that I do. Tons of breakbeats, lush lead melodies and deep ambient textures... backed up with the most beautiful chords I could come up with, but with the addition of a big dose of hazy Kevin Shields-esque noise.

“A beautiful uneasiness to the tone and lush vocals that are much more about melody than specific meaning, so, using vocals more as an instrument - like another synth but a thousand times more organic.”

MR: How did the collaborations go?

MC: “Yeah, I knew this album had to have female vocals. The tracks that I was writing were kind of screaming it out to me. I was becoming obsessed with Cocteau Twins and Bilinda Butcher's vocals from My Bloody Valentine, and wanted to expand my sound to try and capture a similar feeling to what I was getting through that music.

“I mentioned this to my mate Chris and he played me a few tracks he'd made with a friend of his, Morgane Diet. I'd explained to him what I was going for and he basically said something like “yeah she's amazing, kind of like Bjork at times”, and the tracks he played me were lush. Her voice stood out as pretty much exactly what I was imagining.

“Cut to a few months later and he's put us in touch through email. I started sending her little chord progressions and basically asking her to sing what came to her... I wasn't too bothered about lyrics particularly, it was much more important to me to get a feeling in the melodies - words weren't important as I knew she could communicate so much more this way.

“She'd sent me back folders full of clips - melodies she'd sung over the chord progressions I'd given her. From there I'd build songs around them. It became like the world's most insane puzzle trying to piece together the best bits over what I was working on.

"The vocals really made me respond in totally different ways than I would have done just working on my own and it was so exciting as the tracks started to come together.”

MR: How are you planning to translate this project into a live setting?

MC: “This is what I'm heavily in the middle of right now. The first live show is on November the 28th at Village Underground. I'll be bringing Chris Boot with me, who I mentioned. He's an amazing drummer. We toured the last album, Levitate, together. We'll be meeting up soon to jam some ideas - it really breathes new life into the tunes to have his live drums going off next to me on stage. It makes me improvise in different ways as well, which is exciting.

“From my end I'm basically building this massive Ableton project which I'll be controlling with a couple of Akai MIDI controllers. I'll be triggering and tweaking MIDI chord progressions from the tracks with a couple of synths, I’m still not 100% sure which I'll be taking out yet.

“I'll have the SH-01 there to tweak lead melodies live, and will basically be triggering hundreds of clips in real time. I've remixed most of the tracks and have them totally broken into tiny bits and MIDI keys and stuff, so I'll basically be building tunes live on stage which is something I've always kind of wanted to do, but never found the best way of doing it.

“It's so exciting to see it coming together so I'm really looking forward to the show and to taking it on the road next year.”

MR: What is on your wishlist studio gear wise?

MC: “Honestly, I'm so content with my messy little set up. You could take everything away from me but leave the laptop and I'm confident I could make interesting music quite happily for the rest of my life. Having said that, If anyone wants to buy me a Yamaha CS80 or 70M I would not be complaining. The holy grail for me.”

MR: What would you like to see developed in terms of studio technology and why?

MC: “Some sort of Neuralink type shit, which would cut out the middle man of actual studio gear and mean you could just imagine tunes into existence. That's always been the dream for me. I mean, I'm quite lazy, so I guess it'd suit me, but it's more the fact that I reckon most of my music sounds better in my brain than the stuff I'm actually capable of producing.

“It's always been that way to be honest. I am getting closer to bridging the gap though. I think that technology is probably not as far off as you'd think. Next hundred years we'll see mad leaps like that I think. As long as we don't blow ourselves up in the meantime.”

MR: What advice can you offer others who are starting out in music production?

MC: “Going back to what I was talking about earlier, honestly, I'd just tell anyone starting out to just try and make the music they'd like to hear in the world. Try and imagine the best music in the world and then spend your life trying to be a good enough artist that you can bring it into existence.

“I think people need to find their own way when it comes to art though. I wouldn’t want to influence a younger artist and take them off a path more suited to them. Maybe my advice would be: don't listen to advice! Do what feels right and don't overthink.”

MR: What track by any other artist do you wish you had produced?

MC: “Great question. I have so many... Honey Power by My Bloody Valentine. Specifically the outro section that comes in after the track is over. I think that is the most perfect piece of music I've ever heard. Everything You Do Is A Balloon by Boards Of Canada is a pretty perfect track. I'd definitely feel pretty good having come up with that.”

MR: Finally, what else have you got planned for the future?

MC: “Getting the Village Underground live show done is the first mountain I have to climb, so at the moment I'm not seeing anything too far beyond that. I'd like to get back into making tracks though.

"I have a bunch of things I started I'd quite like to try and tie up. Also I'm toying with the idea of putting out an EP of straight-up club music to follow up the album, so ideally I'd like to get bang on that as quickly as possible.”

Lone's Always Inside Your Head is out now on Greco-Roman.

PRODUCER WEEK 2025: It’s a fairly safe bet that one of the reasons you’re reading this is because you are involved in recording. For the majority of us, that probably means recording at home. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a professional carving a career from music, or a weekend hobbyist.

Today, the same tech is available to all of us. Even on the most meagre of budgets. But how did we get to this amazing point of musical democratisation?

It's taken a few decades to arrive where we are today, with one of the major turning points in recording history being the arrival of multi-track technology. It can be pinned down to the moment when Ampex developed the concept of an 8-track tape system.

We are all familiar with the ability to record one instrument on top of another - and keep going until we run out of tracks. It all started there.

It's very much the philosophy we use today, but back in the mid-50s, being able to achieve this involved lots (and lots!) of magnetic tape, a reel-to-reel tape machine and a mere 8 tracks at a time.

Due to their size and cost, these machines were the sole preserve of recording studios. But as with all technology, it only took a few more years for the technology to become distilled into something which could be regarded as domestic level.

Tascam led the charge, developing cheaper alternatives during the 1970s, with the ultimate release of the TEAC 144 in 1979.

This offered the ability to record four distinct mono tracks, one after another, directly to the ever-popular audio cassette. It also gave rise to the trademarked (and soon to be a staple of any amateur music-maker’s lexicon) ‘Portastudio’ branding.

Despite other companies producing machines with a similar capability. The term became synonymous, much like Auto-Tune or Hoover!

Given the developmental nature of electronic music during the 70s, it won't come as a surprise to learn that there was plenty of ground being broken by a vast swathe of artists an innovators

One notable trailblazer was Jean-Michel Jarre, who made use of his kitchen in his Paris flat to accommodate much of the equipment used to make his early synth-dominated albums.

It's also worth noting that Jarre did not conform to the usual multi-tracking norms, making adroit use of the limited equipment that he had available to him at the time.

Apart from a small number of classic synthesisers and home organs, accompanied by some early sequencing technology (developed by friends and colleagues), he used four Revox tape machines, as a form of manual multi-track, playing back one machine, before playing another track live on top, while recording to another machine

Complex and time-consuming it was - but the imaginative results speak for themselves.

Meanwhile, in London, the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop was getting exceptionally experimental with tape, often manipulated by the use of razorblades - or stretching it around the studio.

This group of in-house engineers were tasked with designing soundscapes and eerie early electronic music for the BBC’s homespun sci-fi (including Doctor Who and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and were heavily influenced by the school of music described as Musique Concréte.

While not a home environment, the inventiveness of the early Radiophonic composers required no small part of ingenuity - and a rather unorthodox approach to creating music using technology.

The seeds of electronic music’s experimentalism - and the notion of the producer-as-creator- were being sown.

We’re jumping around in time a little here, but these disparate islands of innovation were all heading to the same unified end point in which we’re now living.

Thanks to the invention of the Tascam Portastudio, many guitarists and singer/songwriters found themselves in the enviable situation of being able to create demos at home, by plugging in a microphone and recording directly to cassette.

There was nothing to stop electronically minded musicians doing the same - but as synthesiser technology began to become more affordable, the very same electronic musicians wanted more…much more!

It would take the arrival of the sequencer to really allow synthesists to join together a series of notes in a row.

Early sequencers only allowed a small number of notes to be assembled, but with the switch to digital technology, more notes could be curated - provided you had the time and the inclination to input the data.

Roland produced some fine examples of this technology, such as the MC-8 and MC-4, during the late 70s and early 80s, but these devices were noted for their complexity in operation.

It had less do with playing notes, and far more to do with entering numbers.

They also commanded substantial price tags; a MC-8 would set you back a hefty $4795 in 1977.

This early sequencing technology was reliant upon CV/Gate, which is still a reliable (but fairly primitive) means of triggering notes and changing pitches using voltages.

Several manufacturers, spearheaded by Sequential and Roland, decided that a better system was necessary, allowing the interfacing of different brands and machines, so that synths, sequencers and drum machines could all play nicely together.

Committees and research groups were formed. Meetings were held. Coffee was drank.

After a considerable hiatus, the various bodies settled on the MIDI format. This would become a dominant force in home studio technology.

The Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI to its friends), adopted the form of a 5-pin DIN plug, which began to appear on a number of different machines.

At NAMM in 1983, Dave Smith of Sequential fame, connected a Sequential Prophet 600 synthesiser to a Roland Jupiter 6, and played notes on one, while triggering the other. Mouths were agape.

And so, the protocol known as MIDI received its first successful public demonstration.

It didn't take long for companies to realise the potential of MIDI, with new sequencers that could take advantage of the technology in a multi-channel capacity. But it was the release of the Atari ST computer in 1985 that arguably changed everything.

The Atari ST provided a blueprint for the ecosystem we swear by today.

The Atari ST was a humble home computer, more attuned to playing Space Invaders or word processing duties. Yet it was fatefully equipped with two sockets, which displayed the freshly minted acronym MIDI.

It didn't take very long for computer programmers to realise the potential of this relatively inexpensive machine.

They repurposed its more domestic intent to the task of making sweet, sweet music.

Computer music, you might say.

Steinberg was the first notable company to break cover; Pro-24 allowed the sequencing of up to 24 tracks, with the added bonus of on-screen editing.

Even with the Atari’s small computer display, it was still substantially larger than the tiny screens found on dedicated hardware sequencers. It soon became the must-have technology for bedroom and professional producers alike. The ultimate home music-maker’s hub.

The only snag with a MIDI set up of this kind, was that you needed synthesiser hardware to be triggered live by the Atari. This is where things became expensive.

Home recordists started filling out their makeshift studios from floor to ceiling with keyboard and rack-based synthesisers. Often met with a disapproving look from their other halves (or parents!).

But there were two other essential parts to this jigsaw which changed the musical landscape at the same time.

Sampling was starting to come of age, thanks to companies such as Akai.

While professionals had been using instruments such as the incredibly fashionable and expensive Fairlight CMI (a behemoth of a sampling workstation), bedroom producers were using Akai samplers to record and reproduce beats, alongside other sampled instrumentation.

As digital technology began to supplant the analog gear of old, that initial wave of synthesisers and drum machines were cast off.

But back then, music stores could barely give away this old technology, while the secondhand ads were littered with old drum machines that nobody wanted anymore.

Why would you want an analog drum machine, when the realistic sample-based digital machines were supposedly so much better?

Well, tell that to the bedroom producers who wanted to snaffle a bargain!

A number of machines became the must-have-cheap-accessories, and most of them were made by Roland. The TB-303 bassline synth, along with the TR-808 and 909, were adopted by the next generation, to form the sound of acid house, house, rap and R&B.

What's even more astonishing, is that the influence of these machines on production remains firmly in place today. The price of these classics surged - and a quick scan of the secondhand market reveals there's no sign of that abating.

It's a far cry from the time when we once saw TB-303s in the bargain bin, for less than fifty dollars! (Yep, that really happened!) If only we'd had our crystal ball to hand.

But despite the cherished status of these hardware classics, the dominos had already fallen. The switch to digital technology would have an exceptionally profound effect on bedroom music making.

As Atari dealt with financial struggles, musicians found themselves moving away from the platform, in favour of Windows based PCs, and - eventually - the creativity-angled Apple Mac.

The larger computer chassis also provided the means of employing PCI cards, equipped with audio inputs and outputs. What had been the preserve of the professional market, was now at the behest of the person on the street, at a fraction of the price.

With more advanced computers came the ability to mix and process audio within the computer itself, rather than the previously accepted standard of using a mixing desk with an effects unit.

Waves was the first company to explore this concept, through the release of their Q10 Equaliser in 1992, but it was Steinberg that standardised the tech, through the adoption of their first VST (Virtual Studio Technology) plugin, in 1996.

The floodgates were burst open, with Waves, Soundtoys, Native Instruments and more, all providing the means to adapt your audio within the computer, with the further concept of generating and playing synthetic or sampled sounds from within the computer too.

By the early 2000s, the DAW could easily handle samples and synth sounds internally, swiftly doing away with the need to buy additional expensive hardware. Although the arguments for whether hardware sounds better than plugins continues to rage.

Computers have now become smaller, interfacing simpler and speed faster…

So, where to next?

In a bizarre twist which could be likened to a completing of the circle, current trends are for the ‘clean’ signals (which we have lusted after for so many years) to become degraded and dirtier.

Companies such as Universal Audio can provide all the tools you need to revisit that flawed, compromised but cherished vintage sound, from mic-pre’s to tape machine simulators - and all within the DAW environment.

It’s like the mid-50s all over again!

Now you don't have to be so much of a bedroom producer, as a producer sat on a sofa with a laptop, or on the bus with your phone - if you prefer.

Home recording has no bounds, other than the imagination of the user pressing the buttons. For the price of a humble laptop, accompanied by any of the popular DAWs, you can turn out a track in an afternoon, and have it online before the end of the day!

Now that’s ‘real’ home recording, and there’s not a Fairlight in sight.

Apple did one of its ‘launch a few products without a keynote’ things yesterday, giving us refreshes of the MacBook Air, Mac Studio, iPad Air and standard iPad.

The physical appearances of all four products, it should be said, remain as they were, but inside it’s a different set of stories. In the case of the MacBook Air, this means an M4 chip and the option to include up to 32GB of RAM, up from the 24GB maximum of the previous M3 model.

Otherwise, it’s very much as you were, but the good news is that the 13-inch model now starts at $/£999 - $/£100 less than its predecessor - which is a nice surprise. The 15-inch model starts at $/£1,199, and both are available in sky blue, midnight, starlight, and silver finishes.

The new Mac Studio, meanwhile, is billed as “the most powerful Mac ever made,” this power coming from either the M4 Max or new M3 Ultra chip. Confusingly, it’s actually this new M3 processor that delivers the best performance: up to a 32-core CPU, 80-core GPU and 512GB RAM. You can also have up to 16TB of storage.

We’re not really going out on a limb when we say that a Mac Studio is overkill for the majority of bedroom musicians - for a more affordable desktop machine, check out the Mac mini - but if you do feel the need for a serious amount of speed, $1,999/£2,099 is the starting price.

Finally, those new iPads, starting with the new iPad Air, which comes equipped with an M3 processor as opposed to an M2. That’s not quite on a par with the M4 iPad Pro, but it does mean that the iPad Air (starting at $/£599 for the 11-inch model or $/£799 for the 13-inch model) sits in a nice middle ground between the new entry-level iPad, which has the somewhat dated A16 chip, and the top-end model.

One thing that storage-hungry musicians should note, though, is that at the iPad A16’s storage capacity now starts at 128GB rather than 64GB, which is possibly just as important as the processor upgrade if you want a current-gen iPad that you won’t fill up in a hurry but want to pay as little as possible for it ($349/£329, in this case).

All the new products can be pre-ordered now and will arrive in Apple Stores on 12 March.

• Our pick of the best Macs for music production
• And the best iPads for musicians and producers

I’ve been producing music for a long time, and I was always a die-hard PC user. My main recording PC has been going for a long time now and is finally starting to show its age. With the cost of upgrading my CPU, RAM, motherboard, and adding some more hard drive space, I’m starting to think it’s time to take advantage of the Black Friday MacBook deals and jump ship to the Apple bandwagon.

It’s not been an easy decision, but I feel like the timing is perfect for me to make my move. I’ve got my eye on a MacBook Pro M3, which combines the best in future-proofing, value for money, and the portability a laptop for music production provides. It’s a big change from my current PC, but here are the reasons that I’ve decided to switch allegiances.

1. Portability

Switching to a MacBook is going to allow me to make music anywhere, and in the modern age, this is a really useful function. Thanks to the Apple Silicon chips a laptop is now powerful enough to compete with a desktop, which means I can take my music-making anywhere. Armed with a compact audio interface I can even record on the go, which certainly makes my work trips a lot more interesting.

2. Efficiency

A MacBook with a Silicon chip is infinitely more powerful than my old Intel, and while there are Windows laptops with similar capabilities, there’s no doubt that for a lot of music-making tasks, the Mx chips are superior. The neural engine is great for audio tasks and it’s very energy efficient, meaning you can get better use out of your laptop when you’re on battery power.

3. Integration

I recently began studying a music production course and every studio is equipped with an Apple machine, which meant integrating with my Windows machine was essentially impossible. It’s not just my place of study though, every professional studio I’ve been into runs on the Apple OS, so ultimately if I want to be able to integrate with these places, then I need to be part of the Mac ecosystem.

4. Future-proofing

Even at this point, the M1 Apple chips are more than powerful enough for the majority of music production tasks. That means if I go for my favored MacBook Pro M3, I should be future-proofed for a good while yet. My Windows PC lasted me a long time, and with any luck my MacBook should do the same keeping me with plenty of processing power for at least the next ten years.

5. Connectivity

If you’ve ever been PC shopping with audio in mind, you might have noticed that not many PCs carry Thunderbolt natively. Plenty of laptops do however, which means you can use more powerful audio interfaces as part of your rig. As I like to do my work within the Universal Audio ecosystem, having Thunderbolt as part of my rig is a must-have, which is another tick in the box of an Apple machine.

6. Usability

Despite there being a slight bedding in period switching from Windows to Mac, overall I’ve found the Mac user experience to be super smooth when I used one for work a few years ago. For me, my chosen DAW Pro Tools just works better on a Mac and I’ve found that overall the experience is a lot less intrusive than Windows with fewer popups. Everything feels a little smoother and a little more creative-user friendly, particularly as the Mac built-in audio driver is far superior to its Windows equivalent.

Conclusion

Interestingly despite all the reasons listed here, it’s actually a pretty close call between the two. I very nearly decided to stick with PC but ultimately for my circumstances, the benefits outweighed the cons. I do understand this will be a matter of personal preference for most people, and that some might feel my reasons aren’t just, and that’s okay.

Ultimately the main kicker for me was that the wider recording industry uses Macs for the most part. Much like if you want to work in the industry you need to learn Pro Tools, your life will be a lot easier if you’re working on an Apple machine whether that’s collaborating with others or just giving yourself access to better monitoring and purpose-built rooms.

Black Friday MacBook deals

Having the very latest MacBook is all well and good, but it can cost you. Yes, you can save a packet if you shop the best Black Friday MacBook deals, but if you’re not bothered about having one of the latest M3 or M4 processors, there are even bigger bargains to be had.

Take this deal at Walmart, which brings the price of a MacBook Air M1 down to just $599. Now, we know what you’re thinking - didn’t this machine come out years ago? Well, yes, it was released in 2020, but such was the generational leap of Apple’s new Silicon technology back then that, even four years on, the M1 is a sterling performer.

“I’ve had my M1 Mac since 2020 and I still use it to review the latest plugins and DAWs without any problems,” says MusicRadar’s hi-tech managing editor Si Truss. “I haven’t even considered upgrading and don’t plan on doing so any time soon.”

Quite the recommendation, and one that we think will be endorsed by many M1-toting music producers. The MacBook in question has 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, so a portable SSD might be in order sooner rather than later, but this is undoubtedly a lot of computer for the money. You can even choose your colour: gold, silver or space grey.

I don't want to worry you (you know there's a but coming, don't you?), but (there it is) Cyber Monday could be your last best chance to snag a new MacBook at a heavily reduced price. And, not to worry you even more, but there's not much of Cyber Monday left.

Whether you're upgrading your existing music production MacBook or making the jump from Windows - don't worry, we're not going to start debating which is the best operating system here - some of the best deals on the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are still available, but they won't be around for much longer.

I’ve had more MacBooks through my door (and more DAWs on my MacBook - bad-dum tish!) than I care to remember, and that familiar ‘dong’ as I fire up a new model is as pleasing as it was when I bought my first iBook some time in the last century. And take it from me: that ‘brand-spanking laptop energy’ feels even more powerful when you’ve saved yourself a packet.

So what exactly is on offer? The new M4 MacBook Pro was released just a matter of weeks ago, complete with Apple’s latest generation of chips, but the incredible news that it’s already being discounted. Best Buy has the 14-inch model for just $1,499 in the US and, in the UK, the high-end M4 Pro model of the same size is discounted to £1,849 at Amazon.

Same goes for the MacBook Air: the new 13-inch and 15-inch models landed in March, just a few months ago, but there are bargains to be had on some of the slightly older models if you want them. You can bag a 2022 M2 model for as little as $799 from Best Buy if you’re in the US, which is a great buy.

In the UK, you can snaffle a 13-inch M3 Air for £949 and the 15-incher for £1,329, both courtesy of Amazon.

Check out all the current best deals below, and remember to keep checking back in case more come in.

Quick links

Best MacBook Pro deals

🇺🇸 US deals

🇬🇧 UK deals

Best MacBook Air deals

🇺🇸 US deals

🇬🇧 UK deals

It's Black Friday, which can only mean one thing. Well, it can mean a lot of things, obviously, but one of those things, undeniably, is MacBook deals.

We've picked out a selection of the best above, but if you're looking for a bonus deal, so to speak, how about this: a 13-inch MacBook Air for just $599! OK, it 'only' has an M1 chip in it and was released four years ago, but it's still a perfectly capable music-making machine that you won't max out in a hurry. US customers can grab it now at Walmart.

I've just found a killer deal on an M1 MacBook Air at Walmart. Sure, it's an old model, but I still stand by the performance, and it's one of the cheapest production-capable Macs you'll find online right now.

“I’ve had my M1 Mac since 2020 and I still use it to review the latest plugins and DAWs without any problems,” says MusicRadar’s hi-tech managing editor Si Truss. “I haven’t even considered upgrading and don’t plan on doing so any time soon.”

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch: Was $699, now $599 at Walmart
13" | M1 CPU | 8GB RAM | 256GB SSD
Yes, it was released in 2020, but this MacBook Air M1 is still a cracking laptop for music production, and at just $599, it's a total bargain. If this price is beaten this Cyber Weekend, we'd be very surprised.

Thinking of making the switch from PC to Mac for music production? Matt on the MusicRadar team has just done that. Here's why this die-hard PC user jumped ship.

"I used a PC to produce music for 15 years, here's 6 reasons I'm picking up a MacBook in the Black Friday sales"

So you've decided to buy a new MacBook - how about a nice set of AirPods to go with it. Again, now's the time to buy, as Apple's flagship AirPods Pro 2s are currently down pretty much to their lowest ever price.

In the US, these stellar earbuds regularly retail for $250, but Best Buy currently has them at just $160, saving you $90. And, in the UK, you can bag them for £179, down from £229 - again via Amazon.

I've mentioned a couple of times above that, if you buy a MacBook with just 256GB of storage, you might want to consider a portable SSD to bump up your capacity. In fact, even if go for a machine with 512GB or 1TB, you might still need more space.

If that's the case, consider this Black Friday deal on the 2TB version of SanDisk's popular Extreme portable external SSD. With up to 1050MB/s read speed and 1000MB/s write speed, it's a pacy little devil, and its rugged build means that it should be able to survive the inevitable bumps, scrapes and drops.

In the US, the SanDisk 2TB Extreme is down from $200 to $130 at Amazon, while in the UK, it's down to £110 to £156.88 from the same retailer. In both cases, it's a great saving on a high-quality bit of kit.

The bad news? The £849 deal on the M2 MacBook Air at Amazon looks like it's no longer available (we told you you needed to be quick). The good news? You can pick up the same machine, albeit with 8GB rather than 16GB of RAM, for £100 less! Yes, that's right: £749 is all you'll pay for this 2022 machine, which comes in a classy silver finish.

UPDATE: It looks like this deal is now done, too, which goes to show that you need to be quick if you want take advantage of these Cyber Weekend bargains!

Obviously, one of the great things about owning a MacBook is that it's portable, but if it's your main computer, the chances are that you're going to want to plug in an external display and use a separate mouse and keyboard. That's certainly my preferred setup, particularly if I know I'm going to sitting down to work or make music (which can also feel like work) for a long time.

While plenty of other decent options are also available, Apple sells its own 'Magic' mouse and keyboard, both of which will connect wirelessly to your MacBook. And, in the UK, Amazon is selling both of these at a decent discount: the Magic Mouse is down from £79 to £53, and the Magic Keyboard can be snaffled for £75, down from £99.

There are plenty of great MacBook deals around this Cyber Monday, as you now know, but you can also bag a bargain iPad if you're so inclined.

Possibly the most eye-catching deal is the one that's currently running on the entry-level 2022 10th gen model. It might be a couple of years old, but at just $279 in the US (Best Buy) and £289 in the UK (Amazon), it's definitely worth considering. The A14 processor still has plenty of poke, and while the 64GB of storage is a little limiting, that still leaves room for plenty of music-making apps.

We're getting towards the sharp end of Cyber Monday now, but some of the best deals are still there if you want them. Take this M3 MacBook Air at Best Buy that we've just found - very much a steal at just $899, which is $200 off the retail price.

It may have been announced in 1983, but it was in the mid-to-late ‘80s that MIDI really started to have an impact in bedroom music production circles. By then, we had the Atari ST, a computer with built-in MIDI ports, and software sequencers that were capable of taking advantage of them.

Plus, multitimbral synths were getting more affordable, so it was possible to buy just one keyboard and use it to create a complete arrangement.

Which brings us nicely to 1990, when MIDI music-making was established enough to warrant an appearance on BBC 2 - at the time, one of just four terrestrial TV channels in the UK.

In a segment presented by Kate Bellingham and recently posted to the BBC Archive YouTube channel, we see a digital musician, Clive Williamson, demonstrating how he uses just an Atari ST running C-Labs Notator - the forerunner to a little-known DAW called Logic - and a Roland D-10 (a cutdown version of the D-50) to create a new-agey piece that shows off the synth’s familiar ‘80s soundset. The show is called Techno, but the music definitely isn’t.

‘Electronic keyboards”’ like this, explains Bellingham, can be found in “any reasonable music shop,” while Williamson is billed as a man who “composes music and sells his own tapes”.

When asked by Bellingham if a great deal of musical expertise is required to make music using a setup like this, Williamson replies that precisely the opposite is true. “I love MIDI because you don’t have to have a great deal of knowledge - you just have ideas.”

Despite this being an explainer video, there’s some familiar confusion about where the sounds are being generated - at one point, Williamson mistakenly says that “the piano sound is coming from the computer”; he later gets it right when he says that “all these sounds we’re hearing are coming from one synthesizer” - but it’s towards the end that things really take a turn for the bizarre.

After explaining that MIDI enables you to use multiple digital instruments together, William pulls out his “digital horn” - something from the Casio DH range, we think - before inviting Bellingham to jam over his Notator tune on her oboe while he plays the flute, an instrument he was inspired to take up after getting into MIDI music making. Fellow Techno presenter Mat Irvine is also roped in to play MIDI guitar (used to trigger the strings, we think), and then the whole thing just ends as the camera pans out.

It’s all gold, and we can’t help but think that Williamson, Bellingham and Irvine’s trio was the inspiration for The xx, who formed some 15 years later.

If you’d told us a few years ago that iPad chip technology would end up ‘trickling down’ to the iMac - as opposed to the other way round - we wouldn’t have believed you, but that’s Apple in 2024 for you.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that the M4 chip that made its debut in the iPad Pro earlier this year - you know, the one that was going to render all your musical instruments irrelevant - has now been shunted across to the new iMac. This comes in 8-core and 10-core flavours (both CPU and GPU), and with a starting spec of 16GB RAM and 256GB of storage (you can go up to 32GB RAM and 2TB storage).

You can choose from seven colour options, and either two or four Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports. There’s a 24-inch, 4.5K Retina display with a nano-texture glass option for those that both want and can afford it.

Unsurprisingly, the new M4 iMac supports Apple Intelligence, the new suite of AI features that’s available from today. This includes writing tools, an enhanced Siri experience, smart image editing and more.

Where the iMac M4 differs from the latest iPad Pro, of course, is in its operating system: macOS rather than iPadOS. As we all know, the former remains far more flexible than the latter if you’re a musician, being capable of running full desktop DAWs and standard VST/AU plugins.

The M4 iMac is available for pre-order from today, with prices starting at $1,299/£1,299. Find out more on the Apple website.

When it comes to performing live electronic music, contemporary artists have more options available to them than ever before: with such a vast array of synths, samplers, sequencers and controllers available, it might seem a little uninspired, even lazy, to bring nothing but a laptop on stage.

Don't say that to Autechre, though. In a recent interview with Metal Magazine, the revered electronic duo offered a blunt response to those who would criticise their laptop-centric performances. When asked for their thoughts on "laptop music", Autechre's Sean Booth said: "I'm not going to be like, 'oh, I can't use a laptop because some fucking weird reason'. Are you mad? 

"Literally somebody's handed you this multi-tool that you can do fucking anything with and you're going to be like, 'no, I want to play a keyboard because I'm a musician,'" he continued. "I'm not checking my emails on stage [laughs]. It's just all about fucking appearances. It is just a fucking sick tool."

Autechre are known for immersive live performances that put themselves and the audience in complete darkness, in which they improvise a continuous, hours-long set of new material, experimenting in real-time in front of their fans.

Rather than ripping synth solos or triggering pre-recorded clips in Ableton, though, the duo makes use of the visual programming language Max/MSP, which they use to design synths, sequencers and effects from scratch in code, creating complex patches that can then be utilized as instruments in their live shows. 

Aside from two laptops running Max/MSP, Autechre's minimal live set-up features nothing more than an iPad, two basic MIDI controllers and an audio recorder for capturing the performance.

In 2016, Autechre told Resident Advisor they were so immersed in Max/MSP that they hadn’t bought any new equipment in five years. “I just use Max/MSP now, because in Max I can generally build the thing I need, and if I don't know how to do that it'll generally be worthwhile learning,” Booth said. “So rather than spend my money on equipment, I spend my money - as time - in learning how to build stuff.”

Those who level criticisms against laptop-centred performances do so for a number of reasons - chiefly, that it gives the impression that an artist is simply hitting play on a pre-recorded set, rather than crafting the music live and on-the-fly. This is a fundamental misunderstanding, though; as Booth says, laptops are incredibly powerful tools for live performance and improvisation.

The heart of the issue, as Booth says, is all about appearances. Many of us expect a performance to feature a visual element, and watching someone stare at a laptop screen doesn't exactly foster a meaningful connection between a performer and their audience. This has never been Autechre's vibe, though: performing in complete darkness, they instead choose to focus the audience's attention completely on the listening experience.

"I personally don’t like screens very much," Booth says. "If I'm playing on stage, I don't want a bunch of people who are just kind of looking at an object that's over there, where that becomes the object of their attention."

"[A screen] is flat, isn't it?," adds Rob Brown. "It doesn't surround you. Music's different because it's everywhere. So it's just kind of the space that you're in. So you become enveloped by it."

"I think honestly that the brain just gives it more processing over to the audio side when there isn't any visual information, that manifests as a kind of synaesthesia where I start to see this out," Booth says. "I'm hoping that some members of the audience get to experience something a bit like that when they're there.

"It's easy for people to become attached to the two things at once, seeing and hearing. And it literally can, like you said, borrow a load of resources emotionally and mentally, metaphysically. You're going to be transformed slightly. I'm sure everyone has, at some point, closed their eyes and simply listened to music, but maybe doing it with other people is the weird bit. 3,000 people all in the dark."

Read the full interview at Metal Magazine's website.

We’re sad to announce that Computer Music's most recent issue will be the final issue of the magazine.

First launched in 1998, Computer Music’s existence was spurred by the giddy excitement about the music production power of desktop computers, then becoming an increasingly popular presence in homes around the world.

The momentum built further by the snowballing of home computing, the speed-up of processors and the swelling interest in creating and producing music at home, Computer Music magazine soon became a must-buy for many.

Over its subsequent 25-year lifespan, Computer Music charted the development and evolution of software music-making from its humble beginnings to its omnipresent current state. It inspired many notable artists and producers to pursue their passions and armed its readers with a huge array of free software – most notably the Plugin Suite, an arsenal of tools that stands among the greatest free gifts a print magazine has ever given its audience.

Editor Andy Price said of the closure "Back when we first started, computer music-making was still something of a novel new approach for the aspiring producer. This magazine saw the echoes of today's software-dominated landscape in those pioneering early programs. We weren't wrong, were we?"

He said, "I can't help but wonder how much music Computer Music has had a hand in bringing to life over the years. What a magazine."

Sadly, the cost of print has increased substantially in recent years, and it became clear that the best strategy was to consolidate Computer Music's content and spirit into MusicRadar.com, alongside our sister title, Future Music. Meaning that Computer Music's expert opinion and knowledge will continue to live online.

If you are a subscriber to Computer Music, please don’t worry – our subscriptions team will be in touch with you directly to confirm that you will be refunded the remainder of your subscription term within 7-10 days of this final issue.

All that remains is to thank the many brilliant writers, photographers, interviewees, advertisers, former editors and staff who made Computer Music what it was.

For a long time, the MacBook Pro was the undisputed king of portable music production but with the introduction of the game-changing Apple silicon chips, its reign at the top is now under threat. The MacBook Air M3 is not only more than powerful enough to handle most production tasks, it’s also considerably cheaper with a tasty discount in the Amazon Big Deal Days event.

The new Apple silicon chips in the MacBook Air perform admirably at a multitude of production tasks, whether you’re working on the go or need a hub for your home studio. It’s slim, lightweight, ultra-quiet, and has more than enough power to run huge projects. With a MacBook Air M3, the only limitation will be the number of inputs on your audio interface. There are currently two models on sale at Amazon, but with the event ending soon, you’ll need to move quickly to snap one up.

I’ve been debating between a MacBook Air and a Pro for my next laptop for music production, and despite initially being set on a Pro, I’m starting to err toward the side of the Air. The gulf in performance really isn’t that huge and as someone who mainly does home production with a touch of studio work, I don’t necessarily need all the extra features and power the MacBook Pro offers.

In our recent Apple MacBook Air 15-inch M3 review we noted it was right on the heels of the MacBook Pro in terms of performance, and of course, it’s much cheaper too. It means you really need to consider it as a contender for your next machine, particularly if budget is an issue. Rather than getting an older MacBook Pro M2 or M1, you could get an Air M3 and get that top level of performance and a newer machine.

A MacBook Air is much better for traveling thanks to its super light weight and ultra-skinny design. That means it will fit into a backpack leaving plenty of room for your headphones and audio interface. You’ll hardly feel it when you’re carrying it around. As with all MacBooks, it’s nice and sturdy too, so you don’t have to treat it with kid gloves when you’re engineering a busy session.

I’ll admit it, I used to be a PC guy through and through. But the deeper I got into music-making, the more I came across Apple machines and the more my perspective changed on just how adept they are as laptops for music production. Yes, they’re expensive, but ultimately most musicians come to a point where the usability and versatility far outweigh that initially steep price point.

If, like me, you’ve baulked at the price of a MacBook for your musical endeavors, then the Amazon Prime Day music deals are the place to shop for you. I’ve spotted an absolutely incredible deal on a 2023 MacBook Pro M2, with a massive $569 reduction for Prime Day.

This model is compact, powerful, and the 14-inch screen is plenty for music-making. If you do want to use it in a more permanent setup, there’s bags of connectivity too, with three Thunderbolt 4 connections and a dedicated HDMI out for connecting a second screen.

• In the UK? Don't miss out:
• Shop MacBook Pro deals at Amazon
• Shop MacBook Air deals at Amazon
• Shop Mac Mini deals at Amazon
• Shop iPad deals at Amazon

Check more great Apple deals

Of course, with Prime Day being a huge opportunity to grab a deal on a variety of Apple machines, it’s not just the MacBook Pro which is available with a discount. You may want something for a more permanent setup like the Mac Mini, or you’d prefer a more compact and portable option in the MacBook Air. Whichever it is, I’ve hunted down the very best deals available for Prime Day on a variety of Apple music-making machines that’ll suit any musician's needs. 

Shop more Prime Day deals

• 🇺🇸 The best deals on Amazon US
• 5 months Amazon Music Unlimited for free
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• Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 32% off
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• D'Addario Circuit Breaker Cable save $22

• Best non-Amazon sales
• Fender: 10% off American Ultras
• Fender Play: 50% off annual subscription
• Guitar Center: Major Strat deals
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• Sweetwater: Up to 65% flash sale
• Plugin Boutique: 66% off Amplitube

With more and more musicians leading busy lives and often writing and composing on the go, ASUS has come up with what could be the most robust laptop yet, one specifically designed for creators that work in the harshest of environments.

In the run up to Computex, the long running tech trade show which returns in early June, it's teased a new line of Pro Art laptops which it claims is “built to military grade standards" designed to handle “extreme conditions and outdoor environments.”

Perfect for if you’re halfway up a mountain in a snowstorm and fancy finishing off that tune that’s been nagging you for weeks. Or if inspiration suddenly strikes in the most unlikely of places.

The All Terrain laptop is built to military standards - we're talking MIL-STD 810 certified, which is official US Department of Defense grading - and is capable of withstanding all sorts of challenging environments, whether that be 15,000ft altitude, high temperatures, high humidity or your most brutal beats.

It’s equipped with a powerful next-generation AI engine that’s “especially customised for outdoor and on-the-go creators.” The low battery life and its light weight sound useful too.

ASUS is launching the range in an array of different forms, including clamshell, convertible and tablet. More details will be revealed at their launch event that streams live from Computex on Monday 3rd June. 

MacBook Air M3 (2024): What is it?

In this Apple MacBook Air M3 2024 review, we not only line up Apple's newest laptop against the older (but still available) 13-inch Air M2, but also compare and contrast it with the latest MacBook Pros. And the all-new Air M3 might just be the best laptop in terms of sheer power bang per buck that you can buy for music production right now.

Apple has now updated all of its laptops to the latest M3 range of chips. Only the Air is also still available with the older M2 processor, and we’d be surprised if the company's desktop machines – the mini, Studio and Pro – don’t all get an M3 makeover soon, with only the latest iMac currently boasting an M3 chip.

The Air M3 on test here is available in two sizes: 13-inch (actually 13.6-inch) and 15-inch (15.3-inch). We couldn’t resist the temptation to get one in for an all-new test, even though we have been happily using a 13-inch Air M2 for music production for the last 18 months and – if we’re honest – haven’t properly maxed out that machine yet.

But as much as we love the design and grunt of our existing Air M2 – and yes, it is still available, and at a slightly discounted price – we did start to get frustrated after using it for a while, mostly by the screen size, which turned out to be, for us anyway, just that bit too small.

Using its 13-inch display with Logic, for example, just felt a little too confined in terms of what we can see on screen (although not so bad in Ableton Live, weirdly) so being able to get the larger 15-inch screen on the new M3 Air was the first tempter (a 15-inch M2 MacBook Air was launched in 2023, but wasn't available when the 13-inch M2 arrived in 2022, and now seems to have been discontinued). But an increase in promised power – Apple says the M3 chip is anything up to 60% faster than an M1 – sealed the deal.

MacBook Air M3 15" (2024): Performance & verdict

Setting up joy

As with the M2, setting up the Air M3 is a breeze; a two to three hour Time Machine backup soon had it set up identically to our old Air M2. The design feels as sleek as ever, but the biggest impact when we first set up was made by that larger screen real estate. We didn’t realise quite how restrictive the 13-inch M2 was until seeing Logic on the larger screen. Even though it’s less than a couple of inches bigger, it just feels more open, and you’re able to work without so much window closing and adjusting.

After an annoying hurdle, both Logic and Live transferred well to the M3. Logic just would not open at first – in fact we were constantly told to put it in the bin – but eventually, after much Googling, we made a quick security adjustment in System Preferences and it worked. Live then booted up, no problem.

We’ve been aware of some macOS Sonoma plugin issues – particularly with some iLok-based ones – since the operating system's release. Finger’s crossed, we haven’t had too many problems as we write this, but more on this later. The big question, though, is what will this latest M3 chip bring to the performance party?

Performance stats (and lots of them)

For this review, we were lucky that we had our old M2 Air still up and running with an identical setup and specs (24GB RAM, 1TB hard drive), with both Logic and Live running. We conducted the test just after time machining – if that is indeed a phrase – the M2 to the M3, so the two couldn’t be closer together, the only difference between them being the M processor, so a perfect time to test the performance gap between the two generations.

We started with our, shall we say, less scientific music production based tests - just loading up the same Logic projects on both the M2 and M2 Airs to see how quickly they booted up. Both were lightning fast - once, of course, we'd sorted out the inevitable plugins that the newer processor wouldn’t load. Not much in it, it to be honest, as both machines load a typical project in 4-6 seconds.

Slightly more scientific were our ‘bounce a project down to a stereo file’ tests, and it’s here that more noticeable differences started to appear. The M2 completed a typical track bounce in 27.54 seconds, while the M3 completed the same project in 23.82 seconds, so around 14% quicker.

Getting more scientific

Much more scientific were the performance tests we carried out when reviewing the M2 Air, where we used benchmark Logic and Ableton Live projects from music-prod.com. So for this test, we also downloaded the latest benchmark projects from the site to load into both M2 and M3 Airs.

Here, you make sure that you quit all other applications and set the audio preferences for each machine to be identical. Then you simply keep adding the same track within the benchmark project on both the Air M2 and M3 until (in Logic’s case) it states 'System Overload', and in Live’s case the audio starts breaking up. And here’s where things started to get really interesting.

In Ableton Live we were able to open 142 tracks on the Air M2 and 177 tracks on the Air M3, an uplift of around 25%. As impressive as this was, in Logic the results were even more dramatic. The track count for the M2 was 80 and for the M3 108, an uplift of 35%. That means that, based on our tests the M3 is even faster than the 30% that Apple claims.

Of course, there could be other factors at play here here – Logic has certainly been optimised for Apple machines so it should be the slickest of applications. But the test here is relative, remember, and with identical systems bar the CPU, that 35% really is just showing the difference between them.

But just for extra peace of mind, we have also included more standard benchmark test results in this review. Or, OK, more accurately, someone else’s. As well as our own tests, Geekbench is our standard for getting our Mac reference data, so we checked its findings - gathered by way of data from many computer users - to see if their latest Air M3 figures backed up our findings.

If the geeks say so…

Currently on Geekbench, the Air M2 has a single core rating of 2593, and a multicore rating of 9650. (These figures are based on the computer performing light tasks with a single processor core and heavier ones with multi cores, and the higher the numbers are, the faster the machine/processor.)

Unfortunately, at the time of writing the official M3 Air results were not in on the Geekbench list, but our sister site TechRadar has reported results from Notebookcheck that suggest the single core ratings of the M3 Air will be 3157 (nearly 22% up on the M2), while the multi-core score will be 12,020 (over 24% up). While not as high as our music based results, they certainly get close.

Either way, you are looking at around a 25% uplift of power between the M2 and M3 Air when you combine our tests with Geekbench’s stats. When we reviewed the original M2, we found that it was between 8 and 10% more powerful than an M1; add on the M3 power from this test and we’re not quite hitting the 60% uplift that Apple claims for the M3 over an M1, but it’s still impressive.

Other considerations

If we have thrown too many stats at you, then apologies, but what this all means is that the M3 Air is an impressive performer. TechRadar even suggests that its multicore stats are right up there with the standard M3 MacBook Pro (as you might expect, given the same processor in each machine) so we're starting to be able to draw some clear conclusions.

This equivalent M3 MacBook Pro costs £200 more but has a smaller 14-inch screen, albeit with a better quality display. To our mind the cheaper Air M3 is a better buy for music because it nearly matches the power and that bigger screen will make a difference. Similarly, we’d also recommend buying the Air M3 over the still available Air M2 – you can pay as little as £100 for the same spec’d M3 over the M2, but get the large uplift in power.

Perhaps the bigger question is whether you should consider upgrading either an M1 or M2 Mac to the M3, as we have. Whichever way you look at it, the M3 is a powerful Air, but you are paying a lot for the extra power (although of course, you can trade in your existing Mac).

We’re certainly noticing a difference in our music production with the M3 Air, but have to add that that is largely down to the extra screen real-estate; from now on, we’ll definitely use a larger screen laptop for music production, so the Air M3 15-inch wins out on that score.

Another happy side-effect that we got from testing the M3 directly alongside the 13-inch M2 with our Live and Logic projects, is that we found out that the M3 sounds way better through its own speakers. While we’d never recommend mixing using Apple speakers, if this kind of playback is important to you, perhaps just for general music listening, then the larger M3 model sounds distinctly better – with a lot more bass – than the 13-inch Air M2.

Negatives? Well, apparently Apple has given these new Airs a coat of something to stop them marking with fingerprints and so on. Unfortunately, after a week, our new machine is covered in the usual marks and as dirty as ever, so we have to report that whatever Apple is using, it doesn't seem to be helping that much.

Overall conclusions

But that is one of just a few negatives to report. Overall, we’re pretty stunned that Apple has managed to get so much oomph out of the M3 Air compared to the M2, and that these chips are accelerating so much and so fast. Combine the performance with the quiet Air operation, the sleek design and larger screen, and we think the 15-inch Air M3 is currently the laptop to beat for mobile music production. It's a match for (and cheaper than) the lower-end MacBook Pro, and certainly delivers bang for buck compared to even the more powerful models.

As we said earlier, the new M3 comes with Sonoma built in, and this latest macOS is still doing its typical ‘new operating system thing’ with some manufacturer's plugins (ie,they don’t work). Of course this isn't just an Air M3 issue, and many plugins do run fine under this latest OS. We haven’t checked every plugin on our system – and seem to be doing better than many users in terms of our compatibility issues – but Sweetwater has a decent guide, including details on many plugin manufacturers and their compatibility, so you should check the latest news on your favourite plugins there before upgrading.

As ever, plugin manufacturers have to play catch up with Apple, but once they do, the M3 Air will be a mighty music production platform to run them on.

MusicRadar verdict: The MacBook Air M3 might not look like much of an upgrade over the M2, but for music production it makes a surprisingly powerful leap, and the extra screen real estate provided by the 15-inch model is essential.

• Our pick of the best Macs for music production

MacBook Air M3 (2024): Hands-on demos

"Get the cheaper M2 if you don't need the power"

"Apple nailed it"

"The M3 MacBook Air is the BEST MAC for EVERYBODY!"

MacBook Air M3 (2024): Specifications

• CPU: Apple M3
• Graphics: Apple M3
• RAM: 8GB – 24GB
• Screen: 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display (2880 x1864)
• Storage: 256GB – 2TB SSD
• Dimensions: 34.04 x 23.76 x 1.15cm
• Weight: 1.51kg
• Contact: Apple

Looking for more great new gear? Get all our round-up, news, features, tutorials, tips and more at our Gear Expo hub page.

To be honest, we weren’t really expecting much in the way of Cyber Monday deals on the new M3 MacBook Pro models - let’s not forget that they were announced less than a month ago - but competition for your laptop dollar/pound has never been fiercer, which means that retailers are offering discounts left, right and centre.

And the good news is that not even the very latest MacBook Pro has escaped the price-trimming scythe, so if you want a powerful Apple music-making machine that should be good for several years into the future, read on.

Predictably enough, Apple claims that M3 chip can deliver “dramatically increased performance”, thanks in part to the fact that the chips are built using 3-nanometer process technology. For the uninitiated - which is probably most of us - this means that more transistors can be packed into a smaller space, improving speed and efficiency. So now you know.

There’s lots of talk about M3’s new GPU, which offers dynamic caching, mesh shading, and hardware-accelerated ray tracing, while faster performance cores should mean that you can use more tracks, effects and instruments in your DAW projects. The M3 Max offers support for up to 128GB of memory, too, if you’re prepared to pay for it.

The M3 chip comes in three configurations - standard, Pro and Max - and is available in both the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros. Here are the best deals around right now...

• Want a different model? Check out the best Cyber Monday MacBook deals

Apple MacBook Pro M3 US deals

Apple MacBook Pro M3 UK deals

There weren’t any unexpected tricks at Apple’s Halloween-themed event, but it did offer some treats - particularly if you’re in the market for a new Mac. Not only did the company unveil its new M3 range of processors - M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max - but it also announced that it’s putting them in updated versions of the MacBook Pro and iMac.

Predictably enough, Apple claims that M3 can deliver “dramatically increased performance”, thanks in part to the fact that the chips are built using 3-nanometer process technology. For the uninitiated - which is probably most of us - this means that more transistors can be packed into a smaller space, improving speed and efficiency. So now you know.

• Best Mac for music production: the best Apple machines for your music-making needs

There’s lots of talk about M3’s new GPU, which offers dynamic caching, mesh shading, and hardware-accelerated ray tracing, while faster performance cores should mean that you can use more tracks, effects and instruments in your DAW projects. The M3 Max offers support for up to 128GB of memory, too, if you’re prepared to pay for it.

• Explore this year's best Black Friday MacBook deals

As of now, you can spec any one of the three new M3 chips in your new 14- or 16-inch MacBook Pro, though the iMac only gets the ‘standard’ M3. Prices start at $1,599/£1,699 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, $2,499/£2,599 for the 16-inch MacBook Pro and $1,299/£1,399 for the 24-inch iMac. 

All the new Macs can be ordered now and will be available from 7 November. Find out more on the Apple website. 

Apple’s MacBook Pro is undoubtedly one of the best music-making laptops you can buy right now, but if you were thinking of waiting for the Black Friday music deals to land before making a purchase, we have news that might make you pull the trigger sooner - way sooner, in fact!

Today is the second day of Amazon's two-day Prime event, which sees the prices of everything from electric guitars to air fryers getting slashed left, right and centre - and of course, that includes the legendary MacBook Pro. 

Right now you can bag the MacBook Pro 14" (M2 Pro/512GB) for only $1,899, saving yourself a healthy $100. This model is one of our favourites for music production, and you can read more about why we love it so much in our 4.5-star MacBook Pro M2 review. There's also a sizable discount to be had on the MacBook Pro 16" (M2 Pro/512GB), which is down to a respectable $2,299 - saving you a cool $200! 

If you're in the UK, you can still get in on the Prime Day action, as the MacBook Pro 13 (M2) is down to only £1,199 from £1,349 and you can save a mega £169.03 off the 14-inch version of the MacBook Pro at Very.

So, if you’re looking for a snazzy new laptop that’ll comfortably run the latest DAWs and plugins (or be powerful enough to edit your latest guitar vlog or tour diary), check these latest offers below and be sure to visit our Prime Day music deals page for more amazing offers.

• Explore this year's best Black Friday MacBook deals

US MacBook deals

UK MacBook deals

More great sales from around the internet 

• Guitar Center: Big money off touring essentials
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• Positive Grid: 25% off Spark amp bundles
• Sweetwater: Big savings on demo gear
• Thomann: Hot deals on Harley Benton
• Waves: All plugins just $29.99

Well, that was a lot. Apple’s WWDC23 keynote delivered a whole raft of new products, with the Apple Vision Pro ‘spatial computer’ inevitably garnering most of the headlines.

Take off the reality augmenting/distorting goggles, though, and there was plenty for Mac-based music makers to ponder, notably the arrival of the 15-inch MacBook Air and an upgraded Mac Studio.

There’s also the new Mac Pro, a computer so powerful that some kind of ‘do you really need this?’ licence should be required if you want to buy it.

The 15-inch MacBook Air is - you guessed it - a larger version of Apple’s entry-level laptop. Its Liquid Retina display actually measures 15.3 inches, and there’s an M2 processor inside. As with the smaller model, there’s no fan, which ensures silent operation, and we’re promised up to 18 hours of battery life. Prices start at $1,299/£1,399, and you can pre-order now for delivery on 13 June.

It’s also worth noting that prices for the 13-inch MacBook Air with M2 now start at $1,099/£1,149, which is $100/£100 less than before. The M1 model is still available, too, starting at $999/£999.

• Our pick of this year's best Black Friday MacBook deals, updated live

The upgraded Mac Studio, meanwhile, is now available with the new M2 Ultra chip, which Apple says is the largest and most capable it has ever created. This supports up to 192GB of RAM - 50 percent more than the M1 Ultra. You’ll also find this chip in the new Mac Pro, which becomes the final Mac to make the move to Apple Silicon.

Prices for the Mac Studio with M2 Ultra start at $3,999/£4,199, while the base price for the Mac Pro is $6,999/£7,199 (both available 13 June). In all honesty, though, this is far more computer than the vast majority of home studio owners will need; if you’re in the market for a Mac Studio, a better and more affordable bet would be the M2 Max model, which starts at $1,099/£2,099.

Apple also previewed new versions of all its operating systems, starting with macOS Sonoma. This promises more ways to personalise with widgets and new screen savers, updates to Safari and video conferencing, and an optimised gaming experience. It’ll be available later this year alongside iOS 17, iPadOS 17, watchOS 10 and tvOS 17.

You can find out more about all the new releases on the Apple website.

Apple Mac mini M2: What is it?

Apple’s Mac mini has really come of age in recent years, and like much of the Mac product line, the arrival of Apple Silicon has dramatically enhanced its performance. It makes it potentially one of the best value options if you're looking for a PC for music production in a more permanent set up.

With Apple now going full tilt with its latest M2 processor rollout, the Mac mini, much like the MacBook Pro, is having a full-on refresh. 

The result is not only more choice (with two main types of Mac mini now available), but also specs that in many cases are indistinguishable from the new MacBook Pros. 

The two different designs are built around the M2 and M2 Pro processors (note there’s no M2 Max option), and both include two USB-A ports, Ethernet, HDMI, headphone output, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. 

Where they differ is the number of Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C USB 4) ports – two for the M2 and four for the M2 Pro. The M2 model is an 8-core CPU/10-core GPU design with a choice of memory (8, 16, 24GB) and storage (256, 512GB, 1T, 2T). The M2 Pro model is either a 10-core CPU, 16-core GPU or 12-core CPU, 19-core GPU design with a choice of memory (16, 32GB) and storage (512GB, 1, 2, 4, 8TB). 

All versions have a 16-core Neural Engine and all versions can have a 10 Gigabit Ethernet configuration (£100 extra). There are some other differences between the M2 and M2 Pro models, including multiple screen capability (2 vs 3), HDMI type (2 vs 2.1) and weight (1.18kg vs 1.28kg). 

As we’ve come to expect from Apple Silicon devices, the system-on-chip (SoC) design and hard-wired SSD means none of the Mac mini is upgradeable. What’s more, this means you have many available spec options to choose from and a wide range of prices. 

To put this into context the absolute minimum base model (M2 8-core/10-core, 8GB memory, 256GB storage) is £649. Whereas the fully-maxed M2 Pro model (M2 Pro, 12-core/19-core, 32GB memory, 8TB storage, 10 Gigabit Ethernet) is a whopping £4,599, although the 8TB storage option makes up an astonishing £2,400 of this price. 

For review, we have the faster M2 Pro (12-core CPU, 19-core GPU) with 32GB memory, 1TB storage and the faster 10Gb/s Ethernet. This costs £2,399 – wow.

All the connectivity mentioned above along with the power button and fan vent is hidden around the back. The only thing on the front is a tiny power indicator. This looks incredibly slick, although from a functional perspective fumbling around the back to plug up a regular USB stick is a bit of a pain. 

You can of course use those seriously dated USB-A ports for keyboard and mouse, but Apple’s Bluetooth options deliver a less cluttered desktop. For screen connection you can use one of the USB-C ports or the HDMI port, and much like the MacBook Pro, the DisplayPort-capable ports allow additional screen connectivity as mentioned above. 

The Mac mini comes preinstalled with Mac OS 13 Ventura and this is the minimum supported OS. For music production, it’s very important to check that any plugins or apps you want to use support this OS and Apple Silicon.

Apple extras

With the Mac mini, unlike a MacBook, you need to budget for a few extras, as the box literally includes the Mac mini and its power lead. The most obvious is the screen, and there are plenty of very respectable non-Apple options out there.

However, Apple sent us the Studio Display, its glorious 27” 5K Retina unit with pixel doubling, regular and nano-texture glass options and integrated 12MP camera. One of its coolest additional features is the 6-speaker Atmos capable sound with force-cancelling woofers. 

Nevertheless, at £1,499 upwards this is a luxury few will opt for. You may also have to factor in a mouse and keyboard, and the going rate for the cheapest Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboard is currently £79 and £99, respectively.

Apple Mac mini M2: Performance and verdict

To see how the Mac mini performed and to compare it to both the new MacBook Pro and last year’s Mac Studio, both of which we have tried, we ran very similar tests. 

These use Logic Pro X and its stock plugins, thus avoiding any OS support issues. On this occasion within Logic, the processing option is switched to ‘12 threads’ rather than ‘automatic’ and the buffer size set to 256 samples. 

The first test uses multiple tracks loaded with the Alchemy synth playing a series of 5-note chords. The review Mac mini managed 68 tracks consistently. The second test uses multiple audio tracks each playing the same snippet of audio and each with Logic Pro’s ChromaVerb inserted. 

The Mac mini managed 385 tracks consistently. These results are slightly lower than the M2 MacBook Pro we tried, which had the same processor. We don’t know the exact reason for this, but it could possibly be the additional hit of running an external screen. 

Interestingly, the difference affects the synth performance most, and the reverb performance is almost the same. To confuse matters slightly, the Geekbench 5 score (single-core 1964, multi-core 14995) was virtually identical to the MacBook Pro M2 we tested.

Either way, this is amazing performance, particularly for the single core, and much like the MacBook Pro, the cooling fan didn’t budge during our tests. What’s more, although we didn’t have them side by side to compare, when reasonably idle we would say the Mac mini fan is noticeably quieter than the Mac Studio, which makes it ideal for music users.

Once upon a time, the Mac mini was the slimmed down, and dare we say it, affordable Mac option, and if the spec of the latest M2 base model fulfils your needs, then at £649 that’s still the case. 

However, you can now supersize the spec of your Mac mini into something altogether different. Mac mini XL or Mac maxi might be a better description. 

Inevitably, this all comes at a price and much like the M2 MacBook Pro, that price rises sharply as you bump up the spec of the memory and storage. 

Even so, and despite the non-upgradable design, there can be no denying that the new Mac mini offers excellent performance

MusicRadar verdict: With a wealth of configuration options and prices to tempt everyone from entry-level dabblers to power users, the Mac mini has come of age.

• Our pick of the best Macs for music production

Apple Mac mini M2: The web says

"The entry-level Mac Mini is both impressively powerful and shockingly affordable making it arguably the best value computer on the market right now, but the price of spec upgrades makes more powerful models less appealing."
Tech Advisor

Apple Mac mini M2: Hands-on demos

Apple

GregsGadgets

Marques Brownlee

ZONEofTECH

Apple Mac mini M2: Specifications

• Review unit: Apple M2 Pro chip
• 12-core CPU – 8 performance cores
• 4 efficiency cores
• 19-core GPU
• 16-core Neural Engine
• 32GB Unified Memory, 200GB/s memory bandwidth
• 1TB SSD storage
• I/O: Headphone output
• 4 USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports
• 2 USB-A ports
• 1 HDMI port
• 1 Gigabit Ethernet port
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.3
• Wi-Fi 6E
• Size: 197 x 197 x 36mm
• Weight: 1.28kg
• PRICING: M2 from £649, M2 Pro from £1,399, As reviewed – £2,399.
• CONTACT: Apple

Microsoft has long played second fiddle to the popular music production tools of the Apple ecosystem. The Microsoft Surface Pro 9 is a crossover of laptop and tablet with some serious firepower under the hood, offering something uniquely different from a MacBook Pro, but can it compete with the king of music production? Let’s find out!

It’s often said that the Mac ecosystem is where it’s at when it comes to the best laptops for music production, and it’s a given when you go into a pro studio that you’ll find one of Apple’s machines somewhere, such is their adaptability when it comes to hardware integration. Yet there are still loads of Windows users out there who get by just fine. 

Whether it’s cost-savvy producers who want to spend less or just those who are tired of not being able to use their plugins after an update, there’s certainly an argument to be made that nowadays you don’t have to be loyal to a particular operating system to make great music.

Microsoft Surface Pro 9 review: Features

The Microsoft Surface Pro 9 is a powerful beast with a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-1265U processor offering some serious heft for running CPU-intensive projects. It’s packing 16GB of RAM, more than enough for music production, and it also has a removable, 256GB SSD drive for lightning-fast loading with plenty of room for all of those VSTs and plugins. It’s a comforting spec, and certainly enough to deal with anything your average producer is likely to throw at it.

The screen is 13” with a healthy 120hz refresh rate for crystal clear and smooth performance. It’s also removable from the keyboard, which means it can act as a tablet when you need it to. A kickstand at the back allows it to stand freely without the keyboard as well as hiding the removable panel for changing out the absolutely tiny solid-state drive. Two USB-C slots on the left side allow you to connect external devices, with your charger going on the right. On the top are your power/lock button and volume controls, much like those you’d find on the side of your smartphone.

Both keyboard and the unit itself are available in a variety of different colors if you want to personalize your Surface, and we should note that whilst we’ve received the full package for the purposes of our review, the Surface Pro keyboard and Surface Pen 2 are both optional extras that will take the total price of the unit above $/£1,500.

Microsoft Surface Pro 9 review: Looks & feel

It’s a little bulkier than our MacBook Pro, but not by much. The kickstand works nicely when you’re at a desk, allowing you to easily change the angle of the screen. It feels slightly strange at first having the keyboard weighing much less than the screen and also makes it slightly awkward to open as the keyboard is magnetized to the screen. 

Microsoft included an accessibility kit in the box for us, and the additional tab to lift up the screen makes it a lot easier to open up. Although it’s a rarity nowadays when actually using it on your lap, the top-heaviness of the unit makes it feel pretty unstable, and we certainly wouldn’t be comfortable using it that way on public transport.

The keyboard is super lightweight and is magnetized to stay shut against the screen when you're carrying it. Our ‘Sapphire’ keyboard is constructed using a ‘partially bio-based Alcantara material’, containing 12% renewable content derived from sugarcane waste. It makes the whole unit look and feel like a fancy notebook when closed up, soft and fibrous to the touch. Our version also includes the Surface Pen, which utilizes haptic feedback to deliver a tactile experience and certainly piques our interest as to whether or not it could serve as a useful tool for automation lanes.

Microsoft Surface Pro 9 review: Performance

Having never used Windows 11 before, we were curious to see the differences between it and the omnipresent Windows 10 we’re so used to. It’s not that much of a change, to be honest. The start menu has become more centralized, and extra options have been hidden from your right click, but the changes feel very minimal and aesthetic rather than anything completely radical. As a lifelong Windows user, you won’t find anything too surprising here.

Moving our version of Pro Tools over and installing our audio drivers is a seamless process, sped up no doubt by the fat spec of the Surface Pro 9. One thing we take an instant dislike to is the abrasive notification system, but these are easily switched off in the side menu. 

There’s a greater integration with One Drive than we’re used to as well, which leads to some initial confusion as we try to work out where exactly all of our files are being saved. It makes finding our multi-tracks a bit of a pain, but we eventually work it out and get our project up and running.

The first thing we have to do is find the DPI scaling option because our Pro Tools windows end up being microscopic thanks to the high-resolution screen. With that check box ticked, our audio drivers installed, and our audio interface hooked up via the USB-C to USB-A converter that came with our smartphone, we load our project files and commence with some quick mixing.

The laptop pad feels nice, and although it’s not as smooth as the one on our MacBook, you get a lot of fine control over it which makes small adjustments like adding 0.5dB of gain to a track really easy. There’s none of that sausage-finger feeling you get from some other trackpads here.

Going for a stress test on the system, we start duplicating our 39-track project with plugins to see how much it can take. Of course with these kinds of tests, it’s important to note that your audio driver and interface also play a part here, but it’s still a good metric to see the overall performance of the machine. With our buffer set at 64, we hit the 200+ track mark before a little fan in the machine fires up to warn us that things are getting heated. 

Upping that to 260 we start to get some clicks and pops warning us that the system is getting overloaded. Considering it’s at the minimum ASIO buffer size we’re pretty impressed with it. There’s clearly plenty of power here for some vast projects and whilst you could certainly get away with more on a high-powered desktop, these are liable to cost significantly more.

Microsoft Surface Pro 9 review: Touch functionality

A few things that we were excited to try and implement into our workflow were the Surface Pen and the touchscreen functionality. Drawing your automation lanes feels like it would be a lot easier than using the mouse, but alas we found the overall experience to be more clunky than ground-breaking. With the laptop upright, it’s hard to get the precision you need without accidentally hitting the screen and inadvertently moving the pointer. 

With the bright idea to lie it flat like a piece of paper, we tried the same thing, but as a messy writer who regularly smudges their ink, it was a similarly clunky feeling. Perhaps someone with more dexterity or experience using a digital pen might fare better, but we just couldn’t get to grips with it.

It was the same experience with the touchscreen. With its ten-point multi-touch, it seemed like those old-school analog desk fadeouts were finally a possibility in the box without drawing loads of different automation lanes - but it was a case of ideas above our station. Not because the Surface Pro 9 isn’t capable of it, but just because Pro Tools itself doesn’t support such multi-touch functionality. 

The Surface excels for regular touchscreen operations and is great for just hitting something quickly without reaching for the mouse or trackpad, but the screen just doesn’t have the fine, incremental dexterity required to perform such operations as live fade-outs. As it’s not running on a traditional tablet OS we couldn’t use it with Avid Control either, so no way to integrate it with our existing setup and use it as a second screen for our mix window.

Microsoft Surface Pro 9 review: Battery life & other functions

Moving onto things more laptop specific, the battery life is rated for around 15 hours, and we hit around the 12-hour mark before we had to charge, which included some mixing of audio, live streaming of video, and a few other tasks you'd typically undertake on a day-to-day basis like document editing and web browsing. 

The built-in speakers sound decent and carry some volume. You certainly won’t be mixing on them, but they’ll do the job if you need a break to watch some Netflix, or test how your mix translates on consumer-grade speakers. They claim to be 'Dolby Atmos', but to our ears, they sounded a little tinny in the high end and lacked the body delivered by larger speakers. Fine for regular listening, but not impressive enough to make you ditch your studio monitors.

If you’re a remote worker you’ll appreciate the high-quality camera. It’s really clear and tracks your head movement well, great for impressing potential clients with your hi-res safari background or just making your bandmates giggle with your strawberry head filter whilst you discuss your latest single-release campaign. 

Microsoft Surface Pro 9 review: Verdict

So how does it stack up against others in this field? Well when you add in all the additional extras, it actually costs around the same money as a similarly specced MacBook Pro. Considering that many users go to Windows machines to spend less, it’s a tad disappointing that Microsoft isn’t able to keep the cost down. There’s a caveat here though, because let's face it if you’re looking for something with this kind of spec, then you’re obviously willing to spend some serious money for a serious machine.

Looking at it from a pure performance perspective, the Surface Pro 9 is a high-powered laptop/tablet that will easily handle any task a music producer throws at it. We came across zero issues in terms of compatibility or errors in our tests, and it’s got a hefty CPU and a healthy complement of RAM to manage huge projects with ease, delivering reliable performance consistently. 

Considering that the vast majority of plugins appear to have zero compatibility issues with the latest edition of Windows 11, it may be tempting for some users to migrate in order to get the best performance right now. Surface Pro 9 users certainly won't have to live in fear of bricking their workflow whilst waiting for software developers to play catch up with the latest update.

Microsoft Surface Pro 9 review: Specs

Key features: 12th Gen Intel Core i7-1255U processor, Intel Iris Xe Graphics, 16GB LPDDR5 RAM, 256GB removable SSD, 13” PixelSense Flow Display (120Hz) with 10-point multi-touch, Surface Pro Signature Keyboard – Sapphire, Surface Slim Pen 2, 2x USB-C ports
Contact: Microsoft

Apple MacBook Pro M2: What is it?

Apple’s M series processors have revitalised its Mac range. The performance leap has been more than impressive and although the non-upgradeable system on chip (SoC) design, which includes CPU, GPU and RAM, raised a few eyebrows, in Apple’s universe smaller and slicker are big drivers. 

Here we have the new 14” MacBook Pro in silver (space grey is also an option), which along with the new 16” model joins the existing 13” M2 MacBook Pro to create a trio of pro-targeted M2-equipped devices. 

While the 13” is limited to the original M2 processor, the 14” and 16” both offer the latest M2 Pro or M2 Max SoC designs and this means more CPU and GPU cores. The M2 Pro CPU/GPU options are 10-core/16-core and 12-core/19-core, with the M2 Max offering 12-core/30-core and 12-core/38-core. 

All feature a 16-core Neural Engine. Oddly, you can spec all four in the 14” model but only the three fastest in the 16” model. Further options include memory (16, 32, 64, 96GB) and storage (512GB, 1, 2, 4, 8TB), although not all selections are available for all CPUs. 

That’s clearly a bewildering array of options and prices. As a guide the base 14” (M2 Pro 10/16, 16GB, 512GB) is £2,149 and the fully maxed 16” (M2 Max 12/38, 96GB, 8TB) is an eye-watering £6,749, although to be fair £2,200 of that is the 8TB storage. Our middle-of-the-range review unit (14” M2 Pro, 12-core/19-core processor, 32GB RAM and 2TB storage) is a not inconsiderable £3,499.

• Explore this year's best Black Friday MacBook deals

Apple’s laptops are well engineered, beautiful devices that perform very well. The review model is reasonably light (1.6kg) and has a beautiful 14.2” Liquid Retina XDR display. This has a native resolution of 3024x1964, which is a real life equivalent of 1512x982 when you factor in pixel doubling. For added screen real estate you can activate a higher resolution option (1800x1169), which we found surprisingly workable given the tiny text sizing. 

This model includes three Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports (two on the left, one on the right). The right side also includes an HDMI output and SDXC card slot. The left side includes a 3.5mm headphone output and the latest MagSafe 3 port. The included PSU can use the included MagSafe lead or a regular USB-C lead to power any of the USB-C ports. Battery life is quoted as up to 12 hours for wireless web use and up to 18 hours if watching Apple TV.

In addition to Thunderbolt 4, the USB-C ports support USB 4 (up to 40GB/s) and also DisplayPort, An M2 Pro-equipped machine can support up to two additional monitors and the M2 Max up to four additional monitors. Further onboard features include a backlit Magic keyboard, Force Touch trackpad, Touch ID button, a 1080p FaceTime HD camera and an integrated three-mic array. 

You also get the six-speaker sound with force-cancelling woofers. These sound pretty good for a laptop and also support Spatial Audio for Dolby Atmos content, although you’ll need to position your chin over the trackpad to really get the full effect of the spatial audio.

Apple MacBook Pro M2: Performance and verdict

Having been very impressed by the Mac Studio when we tested it last year, we were interested to see how this MacBook Pro would compare. 

We ran the same tests using Logic Pro X and its stock plugins. We also set Logic’s processing option to ‘12 threads’ rather than ‘automatic’.

The first test uses multiple instances of the Alchemy synth playing a series of five-note chords. The MacBook Pro managed 78 tracks consistently, so playing constantly on a looped basis without any overloading. This is only a few less than the 85 tracks the Mac Studio (M1 Max, 10-core CPU/24-core GPU, 32GB memory) achieved. 

The second test uses Logic Pro’s ChromaVerb inserted on multiple audio tracks processing a snippet of audio. Once again this needs to be stable over continuous looping. The MacBook Pro managed 389 tracks, not far from the Mac Studio (418 tracks). 

We also ran Geekbench. The scores (1,961 single core, 14,907 multi-core) are faster than the M1 Max Mac Studio we tried. The MacBook Pro had at the time we tested it the fastest single core performance in the Mac Geekbench Chart, just above the latest M2 Pro Mac mini. What’s more, although the metal case was warm the fans did not start up during any of our tests – great news for music users.

M1 vs M2

What is the actual difference between the various versions of Apple’s M series processors? Although the underlying 5nm architecture is similar, the M2 chips have way more transistors than their M1 predecessors and this delivers a significant performance boost. 

Apple claims this gives the M2 Pro 20% faster CPU, 30% faster GPU and 40% faster Neural Engine performance than the M1 Pro. Nevertheless, the current top-end M2 Max still only has 12 CPU cores and 38 GPU cores, with a maximum memory option of 96GB. Compare that to the M1 Ultra’s 20-core CPU and 48-core GPU with 128GB memory and at the time of writing the M1 Ultra is still top of the tree for multi-core performance.

Verdict

Apple’s failure to incorporate Face ID into these flagship laptops is baffling. Equally confusing is that their Touch Bar is only available on the 13” MacBook Pro. You might also wonder why Apple has yet to pursue full touchscreen functionality. But these wider points aside, our review 14” MacBook Pro is likely the most powerful laptop we’ve ever used, and it’s not even close to being a maximum spec machine. Impressive stuff. 

MusicRadar verdict: Beyond the base model the price quickly creeps up, but there’s no denying the latest MacBook Pro delivers incredible performance.

• Our pick of the best Macs for music production

Apple MacBook Pro M2: The web says

"The new MacBook Pro is hands-down the world's fastest 14-inch laptop with Apple's M2 Pro and M2 Max chips. Epic battery life makes it nearly perfect for creative pros."
Tom's Guide

Apple MacBook Pro M2: Hands-on demos

Apple

The Everyday Dad

Max Tech

Apple MacBook Pro M2: Specifications

• Key features (as tested) 
• Apple M2 Pro chip
• 12-core CPU – 8 performance cores, 4 efficiency cores
• 19-core GPU
• 16-core Neural Engine
• 32GB Unified Memory, 200GB/s memory bandwidth
• 2TB SSD storage
• 14.2” Liquid Retina XDR display
• Dimensions: 312.6 x 221.2 x 15.5mm. 
• Weight: 1.60kg. 
• Price: £3,499.
• CONTACT: Apple 

Apple has unveiled M2 Pro and M2 Max, its latest ‘systems on a chip’, and brought them to the Mac mini and both the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro.

An evolution of the standard M2 chip, the M2 Pro features up to 12 CPU cores and up to 19 GPU cores, and can accommodate up to 32GB of RAM. CPU performance is said to be up to 20 percent faster than the 10-core CPU in the M1 Pro chip, and graphics speeds up to 30 percent faster.

M2 Max also has a 12-core GPU, but ups the ante by offering a GPU with up to 38 cores, along with a larger L2 cache. What’s more, you can equip it with up to 96GB of memory.

One of the first products to host the M2 Pro is the updated Mac mini, which is also available with a standard M2 chip for the first time. Prices start at $599/£649, though you can’t get an M2 Pro-powered machine for less than $1,299/£1,399, and there’s no M2 Max option.

The M2 Mac mini supports up to two displays, while the M2 Pro model can run up to three.

• Our pick of this year's best Black Friday MacBook deals, updated live

The same can’t be said of the revised 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, which can now be spec’d with either M2 Pro or M2 Max chips. Prices start at $1,999/£2,149 and $2,499/£2,699 for the 14- and 16-inch models respectively, while the cheapest M2 Max machines will set you back $3,099/£3,349 or $3,499/£3,749, depending on which size you go for.

The new MacBook Pros are also notable for offering up 22 hours of battery life - the longest ever in an Apple laptop, we’re told - and support displays of up to 8k via “advanced” HDMI. There’s WFi 6E support, too.

All the new Macs can be ordered from today and will be available from 24 January. Find out more on the Apple website.

Practically every element of Top Gun: Maverick feels precision-tooled to press a certain generation’s nostalgia buttons, but one person who wasn’t brought back from the first film was Steve Stevens, the man who originally played the soaring guitar part on Harold Faltermeyer’s Top Gun Anthem.

Instead, the iconic melody was piloted on some parts of the soundtrack by a relative newcomer, 21-year-old session guitarist Lexii Lynn Frazier, who got the call at the last minute and was asked if she could turn round a recording in a matter of hours. “They were asking a couple people and no-one could do it,” Frazier told Guitar World. 

Having accepted the gig, Frazier hit her first problem when she received the score. “At the time, I couldn’t read music,” she says. “Because I’m self-taught, I’ve done everything by ear since I was little. I literally was on Google: one page with Google and one page with the score, just going back and forth teaching myself how to read music. It took way longer than it should have, so I learned my lesson and started learning how to read music after that.”

Frazier’s cause wasn’t helped by the fact that she’d never seen Top Gun, and because this all took place during lockdown, she was stuck at home and not able to go to a studio.

“We did it during the pandemic and I recorded on my laptop, an old MacBook Air,” she confirms. “I sent it in and didn’t hear anything until like a week before the movie came out!”

Despite a certain amount of nervousness - “I was like, ‘God, I hope it was OK!’” - Frazier’s recording worked out just fine, but the guitarist is modest when comparing her version to the original.

“I had heard the Anthem before because I love Billy Idol, so I know of Steve Stevens,” she says. “I’ve seen a lot of comments saying the original is the best, and they’re right! The original is always going to be the best, but I’m excited and I’m happy that I got to pay tribute, because Steve is awesome.”

You can hear Lexi's playing on the first track of the Top Gun Maverick soundtrack (Main Titles). The soundtrack also features guitar from Stuart Thomas, who played on album closer Top Gun Anthem, and can also be heard on Lady Gaga track Hold My Hand.

Top Gun: Maverick Blu-ray is available on Blu-Ray now.

Armin van Buuren is back with a new track called Computers Take Over The World, which muses on the idea that technology might one day make the Dutch EDM superstar’s role redundant. Welcome to our world, pal.

For some, the idea of being enslaved by AI overlords is pretty chilling, but we’re told that this is “a light-hearted way of poking fun at how reliant the world has become on technology”. Indeed, the press release for the track implies that, these days, it’s easy to create a club banger, noting that all you need is “a beat, you need a clap, put in some hats, and you need some bass!”

If that doesn’t quite make sense, perhaps it’s because, in keeping with the ‘technology is coming for us’ theme, all promotional assets for Computers Take Over The World, including said press release, were co-created using AI technology, based on prompts given to the relevant tools. So, the artwork and music video had a robot’s hand in them, too.

What’s more, the track’s vocals were created by a computer, with Armin van Buuren (or possibly an AI bot) commenting: “The lyrics for Computers Take over The World were actually created by playing around with the voice assistant on my laptop. I was amused by how things would sound when read by that robotic voice and thought it would be fun to create a silly song about how computers can do almost anything nowadays." 

Of course, no matter how clever computers get, they’ll never have a heart and soul or be capable of experiencing what many would consider to be real, human emotion. As such, we find them strangely relatable.

With its call for racial unity, Janet Jackson’s 1989 single Rhythm Nation - produced by Jam & Lewis - carries a powerful lyrical message, but it turns out that it was one of its frequencies that had the biggest impact on a number of Windows laptops.

Writing on the company’s development blog, Microsoft software engineer Raymond Chen has revealed that a colleague in Windows XP product support shared with him that a “major computer manufacturer” discovered that, when played, the song’s video would crash not only one of their own laptops, but also some of their competitors’.

In fact, it even transpired that playing the Rhythm Nation video on one laptop could cause a nearby laptop to crash if it was susceptible to the problem.

Explaining the phenomenon, Chen says: “It turns out that the song contained one of the natural resonant frequencies for the model of 5400rpm laptop hard drives that they and other manufacturers used.

“The manufacturer worked around the problem by adding a custom filter in the audio pipeline that detected and removed the offending frequencies during audio playback.

“And I’m sure they put a digital version of a “Do not remove” sticker on that audio filter. (Though I’m worried that in the many years since the workaround was added, nobody remembers why it’s there. Hopefully, their laptops are not still carrying this audio filter to protect against damage to a model of hard drive they are no longer using.)”

Sadly we don’t know which manufacturers and laptops were affected by this decidedly niche problem, but if you have an old Windows XP machine kicking around, feel free to fire up the Rhythm Nation video and try and recreate it…

MacBook Air M2 (2022): What is it?

In this Apple MacBook Air M2 2022 review we discover a machine that delivers the battery life, speakers, power and, importantly, the silence you need for both music production and listening. You'll be paying for it, of course, but the Apple MacBook Air M2 is also one of the most elegant and refined pieces of Apple technology ever created and what we've been waiting for after over two decades of laptop music creation. 

Quiet, powerful and no nonsense, it will handle your music production needs with no fuss or bother. And it looks amazing. 

• Explore this year's best Black Friday MacBook deals

MacBook Air M2 (2022): Performance & verdict

Unboxing to Logic in no time

We admit it, yes, but hands down, unboxing an Apple product is one of the most joyous experiences in life. It is such an 'event', though, that the initial unveiling almost always outshines the end result where you end up using your brand new and much costlier Apple (iPhone/iPad/laptop/desktop) in the same old way that you used your old one - inefficiently, with all the baggage and the same old apps. 

But that's perhaps not the case with Apple's new MacBook Air M2 2022 reviewed here. Right from transferring your old Time Machine data to it (a less than 50-minute task by Bluetooth) to making music and listening to the results, this feels - finally - like a new chapter of Apple use, and one that will drag your laptop music making to another level.

After that migration from our old M1 Mac Mini, we have Logic and Ableton Live up and running and playing old songs in no time. One or two downloads and a restart later and all of our plugins are there. And they are there fast. Sure, this isn't so much to do with the MacBook Air, per se - more an easy path created by Apple - but we feel it should be more hassle… just because it usually is.

Real world use

But what about actual real-life, day-to-day use? Like many, we have become bigger laptop fans thanks mostly to extended lockdowns, working from home and needing a computer to be portable and used in all sorts of traditional and not so traditional ways. (Yes, lying down and writing reviews with one on our chest is one well-used scenario we're not particularly proud of.) 

This is probably why we've been so looking forward to getting the new MacBook Air. At just 1.24kg, it's Apple's lightest machine and also its thinnest, just 11.3mm deep. You can hold it with two fingers (please don't, use at least three) and the all-new colours will have you showing off even more (we opted for the light gold Starlight, although the Midnight finish was also a tempter).

And not only does Air M2 fit into our lazy new post COVID world, it has many musical extras. The sound emanating from its four speakers (which also support Spatial Audio) is so much better than a small form device like this should be capable of. You're not going to be using it for detailed mastering, granted, but it's almost good enough to mix with and very decent just for music listening. And for more detailed mixing and mastering, just plug in some decent studio headphones - yes there is an actual wired headphone socket - and you have the perfect lightweight mobile studio.

Don't get carried away

Before you think we're being too gushing, there are negatives, so we'll get those out of the way now. The battery life is good, although at a quoted 18 hours, it's not quite up there with the 20 hours you get on a new M2 13-inch MacBook Pro (which we'll compare and contrast more with later). You also only get two Thunderbolt USB 4 ports on the Macbook Air compared to three on the 2021 MacBook Pro. These support Thunderbolt 3, USB 4 and USB 3.1 gen 2 so will connect a decent number of quality audio interfaces, but if you want more than a monitor and said interface connected, you might need to think a little outside the (small) box. That all said, and as we hinted above, this is possibly the one laptop where connecting an audio interface might not be your first priority, as it handles both listening to music and (light) mixing so well. 

And it's silent

But here's the best bit. Some have said that not having a fan to cool it down is a big disadvantage when you compare this MacBook Air to the latest MacBook Pro. As music producers we'd disagree, to a point anyway, and say that having no fan is an advantage. For the first three days or so of using the MacBook Air M2 in our tests, there was something missing: the noise we've become so used to hearing when using a standard Apple laptop. With no fan, the MacBook Air music making and listening experience is that of pure silence, and more akin to using an iPad than any previous laptop. And going back to our 'work' MacBook Pro to write this review, we were almost insulted when its fan started whirring into action. Indeed we're not sure that returning to such a fan-based machine for music is now a viable option. 

Does the new Air get hot though? Apple says that it doesn't need a fan as the new M2 chip is efficient and fast enough not to require one but the machine does warm up. Not spectacularly so - and as you will see, we did push the machine to its limits - and not as much as our Pro does. It also has bigger padded feet that allow greater circulation beneath and some heat to dissipate when the Air is placed on a desktop.

It's quick, of course

So what about performance? How does the new M2 MacBook Air compare to that old M1 Mac Mini we have? And is it really worth the eye-watering £2k+ we spent on it?

First we did some tests using the same Logic project on both machines. We loaded up this identical song from scratch on both systems and the M1 booted up and loaded the song in 12.26 seconds while the M2 did it in a significantly less 10.75 seconds. When we then bounced the same track to audio, there was much less in it with the M1 doing the job in 18.95 seconds and M2 creating the stereo file in 18.17 seconds. 

These were pretty inclusive results, so we then turned to some more trusted tests and downloaded the Logic benchmark project from logicprohelp.com and music-prod.com. With this, you load up the project and then add tracks on until 'System Overload' is achieved. Our M1 got to 92 tracks before continuously falling over, whereas the MacBook Air M2 got to 100. So there's not a lot in it, to be honest, but you can say it's an 8% uplift for the M2 over the M1. 

Neither of these track figures were particularly in line with music-prod.com's other Mac model findings (we'd have expected higher Logic track counts for both M1 and M2), so we also downloaded the similar Ableton Live benchmark project and redid the test. Here the M1 scored a track count of 136 while the M2 scored 148 before the audio broke up. These are much more indicative of previous Mac model findings on the site, and again show an 8% performance uplift for the M2. 

But while this uplift in performance isn't huge between the M1 and M2, just wait and see what happened when we turned to a much older 2017 iMac (with an Intel core i5 processor) and did the same Logic benchmark test. It struggled to get to 34 tracks, a third of those handled by the new M2, so if nothing else, our tests prove how much both the M1 and M2 chips have moved processing on from the good old Intel days!

A Pro price

Of course the M2 MacBook Air is expensive, so much so that we now have to bring Apple's latest 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro into the buying equation. The base model Air M2 starts at £1,249 while the same MacBook Pro M2 is just £100 more. And our test model Air M2 (24GB RAM and 1TB drive) costs £2,149 – that's exactly the same as the same-spec'd 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro. 

And if you go down the MacBook Pro route you also get some performance advantages, although these are not perhaps as big as you might expect given the 'Pro' name. Our sister site Tom's Guide has tested the M2 MacBook Air directly with the equivalent M2 MacBook Pro across a variety of areas including video editing, gaming and disk read and write speeds. They conclude that the Air “can clearly hold its own against the MacBook Pro M2 when it comes to overall performance and tasks like photo editing can meet or beat the Pro M2 on graphics and gaming. However, the MacBook Pro M2 delivered stronger video encoding and video editing performance. And the Pro M2 far outlasted the Air in our battery life testing.”

But while the M2 13-inch MacBook Pro just beats the M2 Air on performance, it's also a slightly thicker and weightier laptop with a tad smaller screen, not to mention an old design compared to the new, slicker Air. The Air also has a better 1080p FaceTime HD camera and screen resolution (with  'Liquid' added to its Retina credentials). Other differences that may or may not be positives or negatives for you: the Pro gives you the infamous touch bar (something we are very happy to do without) and the fan (something we are even happier to do without, having now experienced the sound of silence for this test). All things considered, we'd definitely rather opt for an M2 MacBook Air over a 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro.

So can we conclude that we'd choose the new M2 MacBook Air over just about any other laptop for music production? Almost. There is just one other option to consider and that's the older M1 MacBook Air. It still packs a great punch and if our M1 v M2 audio tests are anything to go by, will give you almost as much power for quite a bit less cash. Indeed, an M1 Air souped up to a similar spec to our test machine would cost you over £500 less, so we have to throw that in for you as it's still a great option for music making. That said, compared to the new M2, the M1 Air does have a memory ceiling of (but a still very usable) 16GB, a slightly smaller and less pimped-up screen, and a lower-rent FaceTime camera. Whether those matter to you, only you can decide.

For us, we think the M2 MacBook Air is beautiful, powerful and just about the best silent laptop you can buy for music production. One final footnote is that several sites have reported that the base model Air M2 (with a 256GB drive) is one to avoid as it suffers from the same speed problem as the M2 MacBook Pro 256GB (because of its chip configuration), so make sure you spec yours up to at least 512GB. Otherwise, we can safely say that, after making music on laptops for more than 20 years, the Air M2 is the music production laptop we've been waiting for.

• Our pick of the best Macs for music production

MacBook Air M2 (2022): Hands-on demos

MacBook Air M2 v MacBook Air M1

MacBook Air M2 review

Is the M2 MacBook Air good for music production?

MacBook Air M2 (2022): Specifications

• CPU: Apple M2
• Graphics: Apple M2
• RAM: 8GB – 24GB
• Screen: 13.6” Liquid Retina (2560 x1664)
• Storage: 256GB – 2TB SSD
• Dimensions: 30.41 x 21.5 x 1.13cm
• Weight: 1.24kg
• Contact: Apple

Apple has unveiled new versions of its two most affordable and popular laptops, the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro. The Air has been completely redesigned, and both machines contain the new M2 processor.

M2 is, unsurprisingly, the successor to M1, the chip that made its debut in the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro and Mac mini back in 2020. It offers an 8-core CPU and promises advancements in both performance and efficiency cores, while the GPU now has ten cores (as opposed to eight in the M1).

There’s support for more memory, too - up to 24GB as opposed to 16GB in the M1 - along with a next-gen media engine and a ProRes video engine.

What should be pointed out is that M2 is very much the successor to the standard M1 chip, and not a replacement for the M1 Pro, Max and Ultra chips that can be found in the larger MacBook Pros and the Mac Studio. Presumably, we can expect supercharged versions of the M2 in due course.

The new MacBook Air is just 11.3mm thin and weighs 2.7 pounds. It has an all-aluminium unibody and a silent, fanless design. Technical enhancements include a larger 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display, a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, a four-speaker sound system, up to 18 hours of battery life, and the return of MagSafe charging. It’s available in four finishes: silver, space grey, midnight, and starlight.

• Explore this year's best Black Friday MacBook deals

Apple claims that, for intensive workloads such as editing complex timelines in Final Cut Pro, the new MacBook Air is almost 40 percent faster than its M1 predecessor. It also offers multiple charging options - you can choose a 35W adapter that comes with two USB-C ports, making it possible to charge two devices simultaneously, or the 67W USB-C power adapter, which can charge the laptop up to 50% in 30 minutes.

The M2 13-inch MacBook Pro retains the form factor of the M1 model, which means the Touch Bar is still onboard. In performance terms, the main benefit in comparison to the MacBook Air is that there’s an active cooling system that’s designed to help sustain “pro performance” if you push the machine hard.

Prices for the new laptops start at $1,199/£1,249 for the MacBook Air and $1,299/£1,349 for the 13-inch MacBook Pro. Find out more on the Apple website.

The heart of any recording setup is the computer. At the end of the day, you can have the best audio interface, studio monitors and plugins, but if your laptop isn’t up to scratch, you’ll never be able to take advantage of all your fancy music-related tech. That’s why we get very excited when we see discounts on laptops, and Memorial Day is the perfect time to grab a deal. Right now, Dell is offering up to $500 off in their summer sale, with plenty of highly spec’d laptops that are perfect for home recording. 

This sale has something for everyone, from lightweight, portable options to larger format towers. Now, when it comes to finding the best computer for music production, you’ll want to pay close attention to a few details in the specifications - mainly the RAM and hard drive space. Luckily there are few options in this Dell sale that fit the bill for a great home studio machine. Take the XPS 17, for example, which boasts an 11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H processor, 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of hard drive space - and better yet, you can save a mind-blowing $850 off the price! 

At the other end of the price spectrum, you’ll find the Inspiron 15 3000, which has 8GB of RAM, an 11th Gen Intel Core i3-1115G4 processor and 256 GB of storage. Coming in at $229.99, this is a brilliant laptop for those looking to take their first steps into the world of recording music at home.

Obviously, there are many more options available with various different specs and configurations, so have a browse through the sale and see what machine will work for you and be sure to check out our guide to the best Memorial Day music sales for more bargains.

Looking for more studio essentials? Our buyer's guides are here to help 

• Produce for less with the best budget studio monitors
• The best studio headphones for music production
• Find your voice with the best vocal mics
• Check out the best samplers
• On a budget? These are the best budget PCs for music production

If you’d have told someone 20 years ago that you could carry an entire music studio on a phone, or that some of the biggest recordings of this era were made using little more than some readily available, inexpensive software, then you’d have probably attracted some funny looks. But the best budget PCs for music production - both desktop and laptop - can serve up enough power and performance to enable anyone, of any skill level, to start music production.

In this guide, we’ll show you some of the best budget PCs for music production, as well as offer advice on the things to look for when you start your buying journey. You can find comprehensive buying advice at the bottom of this guide.

Best budget PC for music production: Our top picks

As it turns out, there are plenty of options for anyone looking for a budget PC on which they can record and produce music. We’re seeing more and more ‘mini’ PCs enter the market, boasting enough power to suit many music applications, and we were so impressed with the Geekom Mini IT8 that we’d happily recommend it as a portable, powerful option to consider. Elsewhere, the Dell Inspiron 15 is still a sound choice, even after all these years, balancing price and performance into a single, well-crafted package.

Best budget PC for music production: Product guide

There’s a growing market for these tiny desktop PCs, and on paper it’s not hard to see why. At around the size of roughly five pieces of bread stacked on top of one another, the Geekom Mini IT8 has near-perfect spec for any budget-conscious producer. 16GB of RAM means you can manage some pretty hefty sessions, while 256GB solid-state storage (expandable up to 1TB) is superb for the price.

We’d perhaps have reservations about how it would cope under serious duress; a sad fact about PCs is that processors under serious pressure produce serious heat, and therefore require cooling. But at this price, and with this level of portability, it may be the perfect machine for anyone starting their music production journey.

Many a producer has started their career tinkering with a Dell Inspiron 15. The Inspiron hits that classic sweet spot of price and performance, and is arguably the best choice for cost-conscious producers looking to get a machine that will grow with them as they progress.

The baseline model, with 8GB RAM and Ryzen 5 CPU will be fine for most, but if you can afford the bump up to 16GB of RAM or the superior Ryzen 7 processor then we’d advise you do just that. Either way, you could do a lot worse than the Inspiron.

While there are other options on this list that have more power, there aren’t many that will be as simple to use, and as nice to interact with, as the Microsoft Surface Laptop Go. As a step above the base Surface Go range, the Surface Laptop Go features a familiar interface and is simple to use. Performance isn’t the best, but for simple beat-making or on-the-go recording, it’s a solid option.

Admittedly, it’s only really able to call itself a ‘budget’ music production PC if you go for the base spec; add in extra RAM or storage to make it more capable as a production machine and the price soon adds up. But overall, it’s a solid option we could see appealing to either older or younger users who don’t want the faff of using a machine that requires constant tinkering with in order to extract its best performance.

While it won’t win any design awards, or become the centrepiece of your chic new studio space, the HP Essential Tower is a highly capable, very well-priced PC that will serve you well for basic music tasks.

The Essential Tower has 8GB of RAM, which is fine for most tasks you’ll throw at it, while there are plenty of USB ports and even an SD card slot on the front to allow for additional storage. It might not be pretty, but we can see it being more than capable enough for plenty of people. Oh, and the addition of a mouse and keyboard in the bundle means you’ll only need a monitor to be up and running.

If the new PC in your life is meant to serve multiple purposes, i.e. home-working, internet browsing or video calls, yet needs to be capable of a sneaky Maschine session as well, then the Lenovo IdeaCentre is a decent option. It boasts a sensible spec-sheet for the price and features a nice, clean design too, so it won’t look out of place in a home office set-up.

It’s not the most powerful beast, for sure, but if you’re only dabbling with music-making then it’s a great option.

Another old favourite, the Acer Aspire range of desktop PCs are mass-produced, sure, but have been propping up the production escapades of budding producers for years now. Simple and familiar enough to use, but with enough grunt to handle most tasks in a production environment, the Aspire is a solid choice for most.

The base model comes with 8GB DDR4 RAM but is user-expandable up to 32GB, so you could quite feasibly give it a big boost if you’re finding it sluggish.

As with others on the list, you’ll see there’s a trend away from the monolithic mega-sized desktops of the past. As the technology has developed, manufacturers have been able to shrink their offer to deliver the power you’ll need in a box big enough to act as a stand for your monitor. The Acer Revo RN96 is one example, packing enough RAM (with space for more) and a decent amount of storage into a relatively small desktop unit.

Admittedly, the Intel i3 CPU isn’t exactly a speed merchant, but will be enough to keep up with most tasks you can throw at it.

Huawei’s Matebook laptops are seen in some circles as cost-effective MacBook competition, so we were expecting big things from the Huawei MateStation. Despite the daft name, it largely lives up to its billing as a solid entry-level PC for music production thanks to sufficient RAM, a sensible CPU and plenty of connectivity options.

It’s also nicely designed and compact, unlike some desktop PCs, meaning it won’t dominate a small studio space. Would be nice to have the option of user-upgradeable RAM, but the 8GB on offer will be fine for anyone starting out in production.

Best budget PC for music production: Buying advice

What to consider when buying a budget music production PC

When you are looking to buy a budget PC to produce music on, you need to be aware of a few key specifications you should be looking out for. Don’t be distracted by flashy RGB lights, or a 4K screen; with music production, it’s all about performance and storage. Performance comes in the form of how long it takes to export an audio file, or how long you’ll be waiting for a plugin to load. Storage, on the other hand, is arguably more important as it dictates how quickly your PC can write your tracks ‘to tape’ and then, subsequently, how quickly it can re-access that audio when it needs to.

RAM requirements

Breaking it down a bit; your PC’s RAM is the short-term memory of your computer. On it, the audio you’re using in a session is stored so your digital audio workstation (DAW) can access it quickly. The bigger the RAM, the larger and more complex the DAW sessions you can run. At the budget end of the price spectrum, you should be looking for upwards of 8GB as a minimum, although with some PCs you may be able to upgrade this yourself. In our experience, upgrading the RAM is the simplest and quickest way to breathe new life into an ageing production machine too.

Storage

Storage also refers to the storage volume. It used to be every PC had a hard disc drive (HDD) although these are being succeeded by faster – albeit more expensive – solid-state drives (SSD). These drives offer much faster data transfer rates and, with no moving parts to break, are more reliable than the older models. If you can get a PC with an SSD within your budget, you should.

Connectivity

It’s important also to consider the connectivity available to you with your PC. While many older peripherals, like USB MIDI keyboards and controllers, still rely on older USB ports, there’s a growing trend towards employing USB-C connectors.

In this guide, we’ve tried to offer up some suggestions of great affordable PCs for music production, including both laptops and desktops. In keeping with the budget tag, there may be compromises in some places, but overall any of the machines here will do a sterling job of getting you recording, editing and mixing in no time at all.

Find out more about how we test music gear and services at MusicRadar.

Related buying guides

• Want something portable? Try the best budget laptops for music production
• These are the best audio interfaces
• The best budget studio monitors

If you're looking to upgrade your music-making machine, the new M1 MacBook Pros offer great performance, power and speed. It's even possible to pick one up with a discount - we've hunted down some of the very best MacBook Pro M1 deals online right now.

The Apple Macbook Pro M1 marked the single biggest evolution in the Cupertino firm’s pro laptop range since its launch, so much so that it went straight into our round-up of the best laptops for music production. By integrating Apple’s new in-house ‘system on a chip’, it states these new machines perform nearly three times faster than before, and with a longer battery life to boot. That kind of performance doesn’t come cheap though, unless you can find some sort of a deal. 

With faster performance, longer battery life and the high levels of design and usability we’ve come to expect, there’s good reason why this new breed of laptop has proven so popular, particularly among musicians. In addition to the deals below, in this guide we’ll explain more about what the improvements are, and the effect they have on everyday computing.

• Explore this year's best Black Friday MacBook deals
• Read more: Apple MacBook Pro M1 13-inch review
• Skip to: Apple MacBook Pro M1 14- and 16-inch review
• Spend less with the best budget laptops for music production

Best MacBook Pro M1 deals

To look at the Apple MacBook Pro M1, you’d be forgiven for asking what was different. Certainly, on the exterior, this is the same design Apple has favoured in its Pro line-up for some time now. But it’s when you look under the hood, so to speak, that things start becoming wildly different. Where previous generations relied on Intel chips with separate graphics, now Apple has combined everything together into one with its new, internally-developed M1 chip. This, it claims, delivers far superior performance and better battery life, with everything having been optimised to within an inch of its life. 

For musicians, and particularly Logic Pro X users, this is a big deal. All those processes, renders, bounces and plugins can now function much more snappily, meaning you’ll spend less time watching progress bars and more time recording musical bars. While early on there have been slight hitches with compatibility from third party software brands, many more are now coming on board and – for those that aren’t – Mac OS’ Rosetta software does a great job of bridging that gap.

The MacBook Pro M1 still boasts a superb Retina display, while even the maligned Touch Bar is slowly growing in utility. If there is one downside it’s that Apple still thinks two USB 4/Thunderbolt ports are an acceptable number in 2021, but thankfully we’re all pretty accepting of dongles nowadays. 

Apple’s move to using its own in-house chip is a bold one. For years, the Apple/Intel combination has provided users with a gold-standard computing experience, so Apple must be confident this new system is better. In our experience, performance and battery life do seem noticeably improved from previous generations, so there are reasons to be optimistic. Add in fact the M1 chip also opens the possibility of using certain iOS apps on the system, and you can begin to see how the music-making experience can only ever be going to some exciting places now.

Best Prime Day MacBook Pro M1 deals: Alternatives

If you’re set on sticking with Mac OS but the Apple MacBook Pro M1 is out of your price bracket, we would happily recommend the MacBook Air M1. While it won’t cope with processor intensive applications in the same way the Pro will, the Air represents a great all-rounder that will be more than enough for most people. Or, if you’re unsure about how the M1 chip will affect your system and workflow, Apple still offers the MacBook Pro with an Intel configuration. From a Windows perspective, it’s hard to look beyond the ever-impressive Dell XPS 13 which is as close to the Apple experience as a Windows machine will ever be, at least from a design perspective.

Apple’s new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros might be relatively new, but that hasn't stopped a few places knocking decent money off them for the sharp-eyed bargain hunters. With President's Day upon us that's exactly what Amazon has done, knocking $200 off a pair of MacBook Pros bearing the new M1 Pro chip.

• Explore more of the best President’s Day music deals

Both models feature the all-new design, Apple's supercharged M1 Pro chip and ideal specs for processor-heavy musical applications. These new MacBook also takes pride of place at the top of our best laptops for music production buyer's guide.

The Touch Bar is no longer present - we can’t say we’re sad to see it go - and there’s enhanced connectivity that includes three ThunderBolt 4 ports, an SDXC card slot, an HDMI port and a headphone jack that now supports high-impedance headphones.

As predicted, the MagSafe power cable connector has returned, and the fast charge feature means that you can juice up to 50% in 30 minutes.

Other features include a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, an improved array of mics, and a “high-fidelity” six-speaker sound system that promises 80 percent more bass than the one it replaces. Spatial Audio playback is supported, too.

They might not have the top-of-the-range M1 Max processor in them, but these machines hit an excellent sweet spot that balances price and performance, and with these discounts, they look even better. Want to know more? Read our latest MacBook Pro 14-inch review.

President's Day sales around the web

• Guitar Center: Up to 35% off a range of guitars, amps and FX
• Musician's Friend: Up to 40% off everything you need to make music 
• Adorama: Big President's Day savings on guitars
• Fender Play: 50% off with code guitarworld50
• Truefire: Save 30% on guitar lessons with code GWTF50
• Positive Grid: Bag $40 off the Spark amp and 50% off BIAS software
• IK Multimedia: Explore mega President's Day discounts

Dell XPS 13 9310 OLED review: What is it?

If you are looking for a laptop for music production, you are clearly not short of options. In the past, the majority of creatives would have made a beeline for Apple’s MacBook range, mainly because there were so few viable options running Windows. That has changed of late, with laptops at all ends of the budget scale that can happily run a large multitrack DAW session with ease. At the top of the tree, however, is the Dell XPS range. Here, we are reviewing a specific model from the range, namely the Dell XPS 13 OLED (or Dell XPS 13 9310 OLED to give it the full name), which - on paper at least - matches most of what’s good about its Apple counterparts. 

Straight out of the box you can tell this is a premium laptop. It features a machined aluminium shell, with carbon fibre across the keyboard and trackpad, and hardened Gorilla Glass on the screen. And what a screen it is too. With a near bezel-less InfinityEdge viewing area, everything you look at here is going to pop. Colours are vivid, as you’d expect from an OLED, and it all adds to the feeling you’re working with something special. For musicians and producers, there’s a lot of processing power on offer thanks to its 11th generation Intel i7 processor, and if you buy through Dell it can be configured to include up to 32GB of RAM and up to 2TB of solid-state storage. So there’s a lot to like here, with a price tag to match. Let’s explore its performance.

• Shop all the best Dell Black Friday deals

Dell XPS 13 9310 OLED review: Performance & verdict

At upwards of $/£1,499, it’s reasonable to expect the Dell XPS 13 OLED to perform as well as it looks. With its 11th-gen Intel i7 and plenty of onboard RAM, we found it breezed through pretty much anything we could throw at it. We started by firing up our trusty demo Ableton Live session - 128 tracks of MIDI, audio and plugins, designed to push any laptop to its limit - and found it coped admirably. From grabbing audio samples off the SSD, to bouncing and rendering audio, the XPS 13 gave us no issues on the performance front. This is made even more impressive when you consider it’s not a dedicated music production laptop, per se.

The XPS has only two Thunderbolt 4 ports which seems to be the norm nowadays, rightly or wrongly. The fact you’ll need one of them for charging it means the now-mandatory external USB hub will be required by most. There’s also a single 3.5mm in/out audio jack, and a micro SD slot, and that’s as far as physical connectivity goes with the XPS. The built-in speakers are decent enough for a laptop and produce enough bass that watching films on it is passable. We did however find the trackpad a touch on the small side, particularly now we’re used to the much larger offer found on current MacBooks. Face Unlock and a fingerprint scanner are nice touches from a security perspective though, because nobody likes typing out passwords these days right?

There are some other points we’d draw your attention to if you are considering buying an XPS 13 OLED. It’s hardly scientific, but the fact you can open and close the laptop with one hand highlights the overall high levels of build quality. These are well-constructed laptops, with thought that has evidently gone into the design over and above making them look pretty. Of course, they do look pretty too. Coming in either black or white on the inside - we’d opt for white, given the choice - the flash of carbon fibre which houses the keyboard and trackpad is elegant and doesn’t attract thumb or fingerprints as some other laptops do. It’s also very light in weight, so if your usual workflow doesn’t involve staying stationary then we’d have no concerns about throwing it in a bag. 

The Dell XPS 13 OLED manages to pull off two distinct feats. It has that killer industrial design down to a tee, marrying up slick looks with some nice engineering to make it both light and able to handle the rigours of daily life. It then backs that up with enough power on tap to suit even the most demanding of production workflows. 

If we were being honest, there are probably other laptops out there that would offer better pound for pound performance for the price, but then you’d lose out on the other benefits that come with the XPS, like the fact that it’s so darn nice to interact with. In summary, if music and audio production isn’t the only thing you’ll be using it for, and you’re looking for a top-tier, premium laptop that you’ll never get tired of using, then the Dell XPS 13 OLED is a very exciting proposition indeed. 

Dell XPS 13 9310 OLED review: Hands-on demos

Mark Guim

MobileTechReview

Andrew Mark David

Dell XPS 13 9310 OLED review: Specification

• Processor: 11th-gen Intel i7
• Memory: Up to 32GB
• Storage: Up to 2TB SSD
• Screen: 13.4” OLED 3.5K InfinityEdge Touch
• Video: Intel Iris Xe
• Colours: Platinum exterior/black interior, Frost exterior/arctic white interior
• Contact: Dell

Choosing a new laptop for making music is a massive decision, with so many options available it can be one of the more confusing - and expensive - purchases you'll make when it comes to music gear. Plus it's one you're going to have to live with for potentially years until your next upgrade. With all of us feeling the pinch at the moment, the opportunity to save cash is a welcome one, particularly when it comes to our hobbies, which is why the current Dell laptop sale is music to our ears.

In our guide to the best laptops for music production we heartily recommend the Dell XPS 13 (and it's larger 15-inch counterpart) as super capable machines for music production needs, and a great alternative to Apple's MacBook Pro.

• Shop the full laptop sale (US)
• Shop the full laptop sale (UK)
• Shop all the best Dell Black Friday deals

President's Day is on the horizon (landing on Monday 21 February), but Dell has jumped the gun with its own sale offering some phenomenal price reductions and great deals on XPS 13 and 15 laptop models. What's more, any purchase is eligible for free shipping.

We've sifted through the sale to find the most music-friendly specs being discounted right now.

Dell deals (US)

Dell deals (UK)

Related buyer's guides

• Best budget laptops for music production
• Best PCs for music production
• Best computer monitors for music production

You’d be hard pressed to find a British citizen who hasn’t had the soaring hook from John Newman’s chart-topping “Love Me Again” etched into their musical subconscious - a pop radio staple, the track launched Newman’s career into the stratosphere, and was swiftly followed up by collaborations with Rudimental and Calvin Harris.

Fast forward to 2022 and Newman’s returned to music with a new focus, shifting his sights away from the Northern Soul influence that defined his early sound and setting them squarely on the dancefloor. 

After going back to basics and putting together club-focused beats and instrumentals in his room on his laptop, he’s built a new home studio, recorded a new single - “Waiting For A Lifetime” - and developed a new live set-up that sees him mixing and triggering beats live while belting out the electrifying vocal lines he's best known for.

We caught up with John to hear more about his new musical direction, and he was kind enough to drop five pieces of advice drawn from his time spent behind the boards and behind the mic. 

When did you start making music, and how did you first get started?

“When I was a little kid, about five years old, my grandad gave me a really battered old Casio keyboard and I started making music on that. I had a computer and I just started recording. The music gear I had was very minimal - I got Fruity Loops out of a cereal box and started using that, I think originally it was on my Playstation, before the computer. My brother inspired me a lot, he went to music college, but I was mainly inspired by dance music as a kid.”

Tell us about your studio/set-up. 

“My studio is now in my home, which is a new thing. I’ve only just built it myself which is something I’m very proud of, and I love it very much. It’s in my garage so I’ve added two huge screens which I can put window scenes on so I feel like I’m in different environments to inspire me. 

“I’ve got some hardware gear in here, I’ve got various synths - some old battered synths, and I’ve got a Korg M1, which is my greatest synth, which sounds really stupid. I’ve got a Novation Bass Station, I’ve got a Prophet and an old Moog. I run everything MIDI-controlled from my DAW so I can use all the outboards within the box. I’ve got various guitars kicking around. 

“My main new feature is my Pioneer set-up, it’s a DJ set-up that I run everything through so that I can sample on my DJS-1000 and use the effects, then send it all back to the computer. I think it’s really good to use that sort of stuff because people are familiar with the filters.”

What DAW (or DAWs) do you use, and why did you choose it?

“I use Logic as a DAW, I’ve always used Logic since being a young kid. I don’t know why I started using it, but now I use it and I’ve never changed because I like its simplicity and its slickness.”

What one piece of gear in your studio could you not do without, and why? 

“I’ve got a TC Helicon VoiceLive in my rack, the reason I couldn’t live without it is because it’s really inspiring when you go into a writers block or production block, it always opens up a new thing with all the harmonies. The other thing I couldn’t do without is obviously my Pioneer set-up because it helps me translate music into a live environment.”

What's the latest addition to your studio?

“I think the latest addition was actually the Mellotron plugin by G-Force. I used it on my first album and didn’t have it for ages so I’ve just got that back and I love it so much. It gives this vintage warm sound to every little thing you add to the track.”

What do you think makes you unique as a producer and musician?

“I think what makes my new era unique is trying to bring back all these influences that inspired me so much, that relate to great euphoric moments in my life with dance music, and to put them back onto the listener. I love energy, and I think it’s really important to keep energy high at all times. 

"I think I bring that energy and I think that’s something that makes me unique, especially in a world where it does feel like everything is going more downbeat. I put so much energy into it and my soul and love for it is something that I’m so passionate about and hopefully that can’t be replicated.”

John Newman's 5 things I've learned about music production

1. It shouldn't be complicated

“My biggest songs have all been written and demo produced within a matter of hours. Although I am a big believer in taking time and blocking out pressure to finish tracks, when it comes to producing, I also believe it shouldn't be overly complicated at any point and purely what feels right at the time.”

2. Make it live

“Talking of pressure and vibe, I am always so inspired by how my music will feel when I play it live and how it will move people. As soon as I feel pressure or problems building when producing, I add a reverb to the master channel and add a crowd loop, and chuck some huge DJ festival footage on the TV. It brings me so many new ideas every time and keeps the energy high.”

3. Don't start with the final coat

“When you first open that project I feel the worst thing you can do is to instantly focus on adding EQs and compressors to sound and trying to get it on the radio that minute. I always say every painting has to be sketched first and it may take thousands of sketches before you even start painting your greatest piece of art.”

4. Buy a Shure SM7B

“I wrote Blame with Calvin Harris with only my laptop in front of me. I recorded the vocals with the laptop mic and it stayed on the record for around 6 months, the idea was there and the vibe was right. I generally don't use my [KMR Audio] Flea 47 until the final cut on a record. I feel like the rough vocal shows whether the actual song is strong enough but also allows you not to rely on the vocal for the production to be the best it can be.”

5. Pioneer the FX

“In my studio, I have my DAW routed to run into my Pioneer DJM 900NXS mixer, also allowing me to use my DJS1000 for creative sampling. However, the main purpose is to use Pioneer's effects - they are familiar, you have heard them all on your greatest nights. In all honesty, it takes hours to map out and automate DK-like effects in your software, just use the best sounding ones out there at your fingertips, I love moving around the room to get hands-on too.”

John Newman's Waiting For A Lifetime is out now.