Logic Pro on high-spec iPad Air or low-spec iPad Pro?

Hello Apple Community,

This question is about choice of hardware, specifically, M1 vs M2 for use with Logic Pro for iPad.

On the one hand, it’s always nice to have a ton of over-head, not just for the peace of mind factor but also to future-proof things and add to the resale value. On the other hand, I’m intending to keep whichever iPad I choose for the next 5 years but I still don’t want to waste money over-provisioning myself, like the person who buys a Ferrari to drive to the corner shop once a week to buy groceries when a 2nd hand Ford Lazer would have sufficed.

I currently have a 32GB base model iPad (8th gen), which I only use for Noteability, and a performance issue I run into on that is that I need to disable iCloud Photos, since my photo/video collection is about 275GB, and allowing the iPad just to download the nearly 40,000 thumbnails causes notability to run out of room. However, I’d like to run Logic Pro for iPad to capture short jams from my midi-controller keyboard, arrange, mix, master and release, so I’ll need to upgrade. I’d be connecting the keyboard via ultra-low latency MIDI-over-Bluetooth (WIDI Master, ~3ms latency). Monitoring via near fields / ‘phones through the USB-C out. I have 1.7TB of cloud storage to save projects in that I’m not working on actively.

I’ve quoted today’s models, however I’m aware that Apple are widely expected to announce a range of new iPads in March 2024, including a larger iPad Air (possibly 12.9 in. with an M2 chip) so I will hold off from purchase until then, however the basis of my dilemma will remain the same: CPU spec neither under or over provisioned.

If the new iPad Air does come with the M2 (or the option to have it), then this whole post becomes moot: I’ll simply buy the Air with the larger screen. But if it remains limited to the M1 chip, the question is, will that be enough? It’s a tough one to answer when I don’t know how complex my projects will become, though I can say with a high degree of confidence that probably not very as I am a novice to composition.

I’m not sure which choice would be the most economical whilst not hitting system overheads.

• iPad Pro 12.9-in. (6th gen), M2, 8GB RAM, 128GB, Bluetooth 5.3
• iPad Air 10.9”(5th gen), M1, 8GB RAM, 256GB, Bluetooth 5.0,

DAW will be Logic Pro for iPad as previously mentioned. I’m unsure at this stage about the extent to which I will use third party plug-ins and instruments. The Avoid system overloads in Logic Pro page says “System overloads can occur when your Mac doesn't have enough processing power to play back or record audio”, suggesting that my main concern is CPU utilisation.

Said page goes on to mention “make sure your Mac has enough RAM, especially if your projects usually include many plug-ins or multiple instances of the Sampler”. So RAM is also a factor, however I haven’t budgeted for the 1 or 2TB iPad Pro which have 16GB RAM, so I’m stuck with 8GB which ever way I go.

And lastly, I read that “If your projects include multiple instances of the Sampler, use a dedicated hard drive to store samples. Always use a dedicated drive if you use the Virtual Memory option with the Sampler”. So whichever iPad I buy, I’ll use a USB-C port replicator so that I can attach an external SSD and Audio-interface simultaneously. The Logic Pro Performance Meter monitors CPU, RAM and disk I/O, which suggests to me that the co-efficient on Disk I/O needs to be watched.

I’m not planning on doing multi-track Audio projects (though naturally I may convert the MIDI to audio to reduce system load from time to time, and certainly in the mix/master stage).

Other things I plan to do to reduce load per Apples “Avoid system overloads in Logic Pro…” page:

• Set the I/O buffer to 256 samples to reduce CPU load whilst minimising latency whilst recording.
• Set Process Buffer Range to Large
• Optimise multithreading for each use-case
• Choose only the parameters for for automation that the project is actually using
• Appropriate sample rate considering the anticipated format of the final product
• Use of send effects to use a single plug-in to process signals from multiple channels to reduce CPU load
• Use of audio/external midi tracks when mixing
• Use of freeze tracks for tracks with a lot of plug-ins
• Setting the number of voices used in a software instrument to the lowest number required
• Sampler virtual memory optimisation
• Alchemy optimisation
• Not planning on doing a whole heap of audio recording, so monitoring directly is not relevant

I’m especially interested to hear from people who are actually using Logic Pro for iPad as their main DAW.