Best Mac for Music Production: Macs are popular with creative people. They work well, look good, and don’t get in the way of making art. They are a great choice for people who like to be creative with sound, and you can find them in many recording studios.
PCs can still be used, though. Think about what you need, both in terms of software and hardware, before making a final decision. There are more kinds of PCs to choose from, they start out cheaper, and a lot of people already know how Windows works.
But you’re reading this review because you’re thinking about buying a Mac, which is a great idea. The platform has a lot of software and add-ons, and the system works pretty well. They are also high quality and last a long time.
What kind of Mac should you choose? In this roundup, we only look at new Macs, but we look at all of them. At the moment, you get the most for your money with the iMac 27-inch and MacBook Pro 16-inch without sacrificing performance.
Both have good enough specs to make it easy to use music production software, and both have a lot of screen space so you can see what you’re doing as you scroll through all your tracks. They have enough ports for your accessories and enough storage space for the audio projects you are working on right now.
You might be happy with a different Mac, though. When it comes to making music, we’ll show you all your options and tell you what’s good and bad about each one.
Best Mac for Music Production
1. MacBook Air 13-inch
The youngest Mac that Apple makes is the 13-inch MacBook Air. It’s small and doesn’t cost much. Even though it doesn’t have the specs we recommend, a lot of audio software works with it. If your needs are simple, like recording a podcast or making simple music, the MacBook Air can do everything you need and is easy to move around with. Just add an app and a USB microphone.
At a glance:
- 8 GB of memory and 256 GB of SSD are used for storage. The 13.3-inch screen has a Retina display (512 GB is recommended), and the processor is an Apple M1 chip.
- There are two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports and a 3.5 mm jack for headphones.
2. MacBook Pro 13-inch
The 13-inch MacBook Pro is not much thicker than a MacBook Air, but it can do a lot more. Because you can change how it works, you don’t have to give up anything. It’s great that the battery can last for 20 hours. It’s a good choice for people who want more power than the Air but less portability than the 16-inch MacBook Pro.
At a glance:
- The 13-inch Retina screen has 256 GB or 512 GB SSD storage, 8 GB (up to 24 GB) of memory, and an Apple M2 processor.
- There is a 3.5 mm jack for headphones, and there are two Thunderbolt 4 ports.
3. iMac 21.5-inch
If you don’t have much space on your desk, a 21.5-inch iMac might be better for you than its 27-inch sibling. It has the same number of USB and USB-C ports on the back and many of the same configuration options, but you can’t push the specs quite as high.
You do get a smaller screen that will fit on a smaller desk, but you’d have to have very little space on your desk to choose this option. I find it much easier to work with audio when the screen is big, especially when there are a lot of tracks.
At a glance:
- The 21.5-inch screen has a 4K Retina display.
- Fusion Drive with 1 TB of storage and 8 GB of memory (recommended: 16 GB),
- The processor is an Intel Core i5 from the 8th generation that runs at 3.0 GHz and has 6 cores.
- The 3.5 mm headphone jack
