M2 Pro Mac mini review - music STRESS test!

In this video, I try and break the base model M2 Pro Mac mini by running a stress test in Logic Pro. How good is the M2 Pro Mac mini for music production? Let’s find out!

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CHAPTERS
00:00 - Intro
01:17 - Making the track
03:00 - SaneBox
04:21 - The stress test
17:01 - Conclusion

[JustinFYI]

Ladies and gentlemen, the case is closed... the M2 Pro Mac mini can officially handle "loads and loads and loads of DX7's". And on that note, it's time I go and pick one up now for myself. Thanks as always, Mark!

[MarkEllisReviews]

IMPORTANT: I am fully aware of the issue with two or three plosives (mic pops) in this video. There are many things to think about when making these videos and that slipped through. Lesson learned, but I don’t need reminding about it every third comment 😉 Enjoy the content!

[DisconnectedAudio]

As a signed music producer and professional mastering engineer this video was fantastic. I only stumbled across your channel since I started looking to upgrade my studio computer and your content has been great but this video was exactly what I needed. I'd love to know how much swap memory was being used while stress testing. Thanks Mark, please keep going with this type of content.

[trevfisher]

When the M1 came out Present Day Production ran an even harder stress test than this and couldn't make it fall over. They used the basic 8GB and so I bought one. I bought the 2TB and 16GB version, it never breaks a sweat and never falls over. For years I swore I'd never have a Mac, I built my own PC's, this changed my mind. I'm running Reaper (I was a Cubase man since the Atari days but they took two years to release a silicone version). Mac's had the reputation as 'best computers for music' for two decades and it was never true, it is now.

[Meme_Mori]

It's more than enough for most people. I bought the 2021 14" 10 core, 16gb, 1tb model as I just wanted to be "safe" and make sure it met my music production needs. I now realise it was actually an "overkill" purchase in terms of music production ( for me anyway). What some have been able to squeeze out of the M1 and M2 (non pro models) is pretty amazing.
How times have changed!

[johnboychak]

To borrow one of your phrases, “I have no idea what any of that means” but I appreciate what is a real world example of stressing the M2. Good video!

[watchtheskies]

The M2 Pro is no doubt very impressive in this capacity, I noticed that you didn't duplicate the midi data along with those duplicate tracks? it's one thing to count how many virtual instruments and effects you can load into memory and another thing to actually trigger those virtual instruments all together at the same time, that's when the CPU really get stressed!

[kortevideos]

hiya - cool video. would have been nice to see the buffer size. also, when you add only instruments without midi data that doesnt add any cpu usage. keep up the good work!

[newmanh]

''how do we break it??'' that was so hilarious

[TheHealingGrid]

Thanks for this video, you’re the only person that’s tested this machine in the way that I wanted to see. I just ordered one of these m2 pro’s with the upgraded CPU, 32gb RAM + 2tb ssd. You are using similar software to me and I guess I may have over spec’d it. Oh well! Future proofed and all that jazz 🙃🌟

[irensaga]

Great video.

Not enough people are trying out this kind of thing on videos.

My M1 Air does a pretty good job of handling my messing about in Cubase, but I’m thinking about taking things up a notch. The Mini Pro might well be what I go for.

Cheers

[sonicindustries]

Excellent job Mark. I'm in the market for a couple of M2 mini's and being a heavy NI/Massive X user really wanted to see someone push it with multiple channels with said synth and.. you did exactly that! Outstanding.

[SiEffen]

Great to see a useful music-based review. Thanks!

[halcyo]

Thank you for doing a REALWORLD stress test (lots of different plugins and VI's)! Everyone else just takes one VI track and they multiply it like 100x. Music tracks obviously are not 100 tracks of the exact same thing.

[mramericanmuscle]

Exactly what I needed to find out before my 14 day return period is up on my m2 pro mac mini. I was thinking of returning it and ordering one with 32gb ram. But from videos I’ve seen this base unit seems to be optimized saving more ram that an m1 wouldn’t. thanks!!!

[DanielEscudeiroCE]

Incredible! Could you do this with VSt like Symphonic libraries?

[MarkEllisReviews]

What do you want me to do next with this music production series?

[Featherlightstudio]

Great video! While I REALLY wanted to like the M2 Pro Mini but, I ended up returning it and getting the M1Max Studio instead. There just wasn't enough difference in performance and the heat and fan noise working close to the computer with high track/Plugin counts was way to loud in a working recording studio.

[johnwade]

Most impressive - would love to see you trying out some orchestral templates

[nukenoly]

I ran a similar test on my base MacBook Air M1 running Logic and had a hard time killing it. Believe the hype. For music production any silicon Mac will do