Best Mac for Music Production: How to Choose Apple Computer for Musicians? [Macbook for Audio Recording & Mixing]

Are you looking for the best Mac for music production? There are many different models that will do the trick, each with its own pros and cons.

MacBooks offer portability, for example, but desktops may be more powerful. And when you’re handling long, multi-track songs, the more RAM and processing speed you can get, the better. In addition, you’re probably looking for something affordable and good value for money.

The important thing is to weigh everything carefully before making a choice. So, let’s look at your options to see which Mac is best for your music-making needs—and your wallet!

Recommended system requirements for music making on a Mac

Recording and editing music can be highly demanding on your Mac. Every instrument and every track you load will eat into your RAM and test your processor. And, as you save more and more projects, your free disk space will shrink, too.

It’s easy to record audio on Mac. All Macs come with various pre-installed apps that can record audio, such as Voice Memos and QuickTime Player. However, we know that most musicians will want to use other software as well.

Therefore, your system requirements for music production will depend on what music software you’re using and the complexity of your projects. Ultimately, the faster your Mac is, the easier and quicker it will be to produce music, so the best Mac for music production will need to be pretty powerful.

Before purchasing a Mac for music production, consider any applications or external gear you’ll use. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do my music production applications or devices have minimum system requirements?
• Do my apps or devices support the Apple silicon chip?
• What version of macOS do I need?

Processor

Apple computers tend to have one of two types of processors:

• Intel Processor
• Apple silicon chip

The Apple silicon chip is the newer technology.

You could create music on an old MacBook with a dual-core i3 processor, but it’ll probably take a long time to do anything useful. If your budget is tight, that might be acceptable.

Otherwise, you should be looking at a Mac with one of Apple’s silicon chips. The older Intel chips are largely being phased out, and there’s little point investing in one right now.

Of course, there are also different types of Apple silicon chips:

• M1 series chips, introduced in 2020
• M2 series chips, introduced in 2022. If you’re buying a Mac now in 2024, you’re probably going to consider a model that runs an M2 chip.
• M3 series chips, announced towards the end of 2023. As of now, not that many Macs run these chips yet.

Each M-series has several different levels. We’ll look at the M2 chip here, as that’s what’s mostly available currently:

• Entry-level, called M2, is still incredibly powerful, especially compared to older processing systems. However, if you’re looking for the best Mac for music production, you may need a bit more power, depending on your needs. The M2 chip can have up to 24GB of RAM. It has 8 CPU cores and 10 GPU cores.
• Pro: more powerful than the entry-level chip, the Pro has 10-12 CPU cores and 16-19 GPU cores. It can have up to 32GB RAM.
• Max: with 12 CPU cores and 30-38 GPU cores, the Max is incredibly powerful. It can have up to 96GB RAM. Despite its power, it’s available in laptop form, in the MacBook Pro 14” and 16”.
• Ultra: the ultimate in Mac computing power consists of two Max chips connected. It has 24 CPU cores and 60-76 GPU cores. It can be configured to have up to an astonishing 192GB RAM. If your budget stretches, this is undoubtedly the best Mac processor for music production.

RAM

Next, you need to think about memory. This is important because music software has to hold a lot of temporary data in RAM so you can do things like previewing your tracks.

In the past, it was easily possible to upgrade RAM on a MacBook if you needed more memory. However, this is more difficult to do now, so you need to make sure that you have enough memory for your needs.

How much RAM you need depends on how long and complicated your projects are. The less RAM you have, the fewer tracks, voices, and effects your Mac can handle.

For simple projects, 8GB may be enough RAM for music production. This is fine for casual use and for things like podcast recordings. Once you build up longer, more complicated songs, you may find your Mac struggling.

So, for serious music production, you should be looking for at least 16GB of RAM. And if you’re a professional music production user, you could need more, like 64GB of RAM. Fortunately, Apple desktop computers and MacBooks have all this—and more!

Storage

Let’s talk about storage next. Of course, the amount of disk space you need depends on the size of the audio files you’ll be working on. Professional software can use hundreds of gigabytes of data. A good starting point is 256GB, but more is obviously better.

Most Macs these days use solid-state drives (SSDs) for storage. They’re faster and smaller than traditional hard disk drives (HDDs).

However, storage is one thing that we can still upgrade on a Mac. While it might not be possible to add more storage internally, external hard drives are a great solution for storing your songwriting and mixing projects.

Ports

If you’re creating music with your Mac, you’ll probably need to connect external devices.

Before deciding on the best Mac for music production, consider what devices and gear you’ll use. How many are there, and what ports do they need?

Some devices that you may need to connect include:

• Headphones
• Speakers
• An external hard drive
• Digital audio workstations
• Keyboard, mouse, and monitor
• A second monitor, if you’re looking for multiple-display support

MacBooks usually have fewer ports than Apple’s desktop computers. Many newer MacBooks only have two USB-C ports.

Some Mac computers have Thunderbolt ports. These look just like USB-C ports, and they generally do the same job—but faster. You can connect a USB-C device to a Thunderbolt port, and it’ll work well.

If you need more ports or different types of ports, you have several options:

• Purchase an adapter to adapt a USB-C port to another type
• Purchase a USB dock or hub to add space for additional ports

However, purchasing additional hardware is an additional cost, and if you’re using a MacBook, it may be less portable.

Multiple display support

Some people may want multiple display support. It might also be called multi-monitor or multi-display support.

Lots of musicians—and other Apple users—like using multiple displays to easily use several applications at the same time, compare data between windows, or just because it’s how they’ve always worked.

Many Macs make multiple display support easy—however, it’s not always this easy. MacBooks running the M1 or M2 chip may not support running multiple displays straight out of the box. If the best MacBook for making music, in your opinion, involves multiple displays, you may need to install additional apps. In addition, if your MacBook only has a couple of ports, you might need to use a hub or dock to connect more external devices.

Best Apple desktop computers for music production

Some musicians use Windows computers for their music production—and it’s largely a matter of personal preference. To be honest, both platforms can be great for music. However, if you’re just starting out, you’ll find Macs make music production much easier to get into.

For a start, Windows users need to install various drivers for their sound card and any other music hardware they’d like to use, such as MIDI controllers. Macs require fewer steps because most of the drivers you need will already be installed.

And while Windows doesn’t come with any native music software, macOS includes GarageBand, Apple’s free digital audio workstation (DAW). That means you can pretty much just plug in your instruments and start recording and editing immediately.

So, if you’ve decided that you want a Mac for making music, here are our recommendations:

1. Best budget-friendly Apple computer

We can’t deny that money is a factor in most people's choice of computer. While you want something powerful to help you make great music, you also want something affordable. Unless you’re already a successful recording artist, we know it’s important to save money where possible.

So, if you’re an aspiring songwriter, student, or hobby musician, here’s our top choice of budget-friendly Mac for music production:

Mac mini M2

The Mac mini M2 is a great choice for budget-conscious users looking for the best Mac for music production.

When you purchase the Mac mini M2, you’ll receive the computer and its power lead. You can purchase a keyboard, mouse, and monitor separately—or use ones you already have to keep the costs down further.

It’s definitely the most affordable desktop Mac computer, especially if you choose a version with lower RAM and storage.

There are lots of different memory and storage options available. The entry-level models start at 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. However, if you think that won’t be enough, you can choose from up to 24GB of RAM and 2TB of storage—although you’ll pay a much higher cost.

You can also choose between the Mac mini M2 or the Mac mini M2 Pro, which runs the M2 Pro processor instead of the standard M2. The Mac mini M2 Pro version is more expensive—double the price in some cases. However, if the extra processing power is important to you, this is an option. The Pro also includes two more USB-C ports.

Both versions have a decent number of ports—in addition to the USB-C ports, they also have two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, a headphone jack, and an Ethernet port. This should be enough to satisfy most musicians.

If you’re looking for multiple display support, the Mac mini M2 can handle two screens at a time, and the Pro can handle three.

The cooling fan runs quietly and won’t disturb your music-listening experience.

The Mac mini M2 supports macOS 13 Ventura and above.

We hope our guide helped you choose the proper Mac for music-making. Now go and grab your instrument or mic, plug it into your new Mac, and get rockin’!

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