# Which Mac OS you're on and how is your experience?



## Marsen (Jul 4, 2021)

I wonder, with the upcoming Monterey this fall, how you feel comfortable with your OS?
As Intel cpu users, should we upgrade to Big Sur before Monterey arrives?
I'm always late to the party (Mojave), as i learned to never change a running system.


----------



## Dewdman42 (Jul 4, 2021)

I am sticking on Catalina for quite a while.


----------



## JohnG (Jul 4, 2021)

Marsen said:


> i learned to never change a running system.


a good policy. Don't update OS unless you have no choice.


----------



## jcrosby (Jul 4, 2021)

Catalina. It's been surprisingly fine and plan on riding it out as long as I can...


----------



## kgdrum (Jul 4, 2021)

I’m parked in Mojave.


----------



## dynaminator (Jul 4, 2021)

Had to update from Mojave to Catalina so I could get latest update of Logic which I had to have for something else (I've forgotten, poss a Spitfire upgrade).


----------



## Dewdman42 (Jul 4, 2021)

its possible the next version of LogicPro will require BigSur...I hope not, but quite possible...I think a lot of people will not be on latest version of LogicPro for quite a while after that. Personally think there was a lot of change going on to BigSur and frankly a lot of the music community still hasn't been totally happy with it. My own midi controller stopped working due to lame USB2 drivers in BigSur.... for example... If we're lucky Apple will give us one more version of LogicPro on Catalina...but after that almost for sure will need to move beyond Catalina...but I personally think BigSur was problematic...and maybe Monterrey will be better and less bugs..or maybe not..nobody knows we shall see. Anyway, my 5,1 can't run either one...so I'm on Catalina until 2025 most likely.


----------



## ptram (Jul 4, 2021)

High Sierra is working fine, working well with 32-bit apps, and looking great with subpixel antialiasing on a 4K display. Shame I will have to upgrade if I want to run the next version of Dorico! :(

Paolo


----------



## nolotrippen (Jul 4, 2021)

Mojave's about as far as I want to go. Still like to play Left 4 Dead 2 and it looks like support for Mac gamings on Steam is…left for dead. DP10, Kontact 6, et. al. work just fine. Also don't want to subscribe to Adobe programs like Photoshop and my ancient CS5 still works


----------



## InLight-Tone (Jul 4, 2021)

I just recently built a new Hackintosh with Catalina and everything is great. Love this OS, Dark Mode, Sidecar etc. Big Sur seems a bit of a gamble I hear in rumblings.


----------



## Wunderhorn (Jul 4, 2021)

Mojave was the last one last one that felt somewhat dependable. I had to move to Catalina because the new computer did not support Mojave anymore and the problems never ended. Moved to Big Sur in hope for some magical change but it is not much better, but not worse either.

Not too happy with MacOS right now. What Apple needs to do is to have a separate OS for professional use that would allow for better optimization.
For example - and that is just a tiny little thing and I use it as an example - There is a background task for the news app running all the time. Even if you have never even opened that thing. On a professional workstation such a thing is unacceptable as you want to reduce and streamline everything as much as possible. As it is you cannot kill that daemon without some serious hacks.


----------



## storyteller (Jul 4, 2021)

Big Sur. My new Macs came with it so I thought I’d give it a shot while I was setting up. Some plugins still aren’t compatible and surprisingly may never be with Big Sur. But those werent high priorities for me and I went into the decision knowing it... For example some of my iZotope plugins won’t install (I’m looking at you Neutron Advanced 2 and Tonal Balance). Using backup copies of the plug-in results in blank GUIs.

@Wunderhorn - I like the idea of a separate, professional OS.


----------



## musicalweather (Jul 4, 2021)

Mojave. Too scared to update any further.


----------



## jbuhler (Jul 4, 2021)

I have two machines on Mojave and my main studio computer is on Catalina. Right now I’m in no hurry to update.


----------



## EgM (Jul 4, 2021)

My beautiful cheapo HP Prodesk 600 G2/64gb/2Tb-NVMe is parked on Mojave, oh wait...

I have two GPU-dead iMacs so it counts, lol

Experience on Mojave is super stable.


----------



## gives19 (Jul 4, 2021)

Runs great. Better than Mojave that I stayed on for at least a couple of years or whatever. I Did not update until 10.15.7 recently for Atmos and more stability for ProTools on the advise of colleagues that are pros that I trust. Both were super reliable, but Catlina seems even better. Running a full on MTRX fully loaded interface for Atmos, with a late 2013 Mac Pro with hardly any cpu footprint. At this point thing are super solid, so I am not really needing a new Mac Pro yet and will wait until the new ARM chip version of the Mac Pro comes out which will most likely be a lot cheaper with a better design not having to deal with Intel chipset.


----------



## jcrosby (Jul 4, 2021)

Wunderhorn said:


> Not too happy with MacOS right now. What Apple needs to do is to have a separate OS for professional use that would allow for better optimization.


I've actually submitted a macos feature request for this several times. Even if it falls on deaf ears I'll still die trying by re-submitting the request every few months.


----------



## Wunderhorn (Jul 4, 2021)

jcrosby said:


> I've actually submitted a macos feature request for this several times. Even if it falls on deaf ears I'll still die trying by re-submitting the request every few months.


A good thing to do, for sure. Even though I don't think they will give that a thought because it is a numbers game. There aren't enough professionals out there to warrant the extra costs. They make more money without it.

I mean, you can't even get the Mac Pro properly serviced. Most Apple stores are not equipped or have adequately trained personnel and you can't send it in either. Heard the story of the Apple technician who plugged a USB C cable to a power outlet thinking it was the power supply for the Mac Pro...? And now we want _what_ regarding the OS...?


----------



## Paulogic (Jul 4, 2021)

Catalina for now, because native on the Mini.
Would love BigSur as it works great on my Work-Mac but I don't know
if I want to take the risk. I could always upgrade after a full TimeM Backup.
I only use Cubase 10.5 pro, Kompl 12, Arturia V Coll 7, Falcon 2 and some smaller Kontakt libraries. No big templates nor compositions...


----------



## Simon Ravn (Jul 4, 2021)

I had been on Mojave forever. Then updated to Catalina. Haven't noticed any performance differences (or benefits). But if I want the most current version of Logic I need to be on Catalina. This has ruined at least one plugin though: Flux SPAT doesn't work anymore because of some OpenGL changes to Logic. That's a pity, but I'll live without it.


----------



## river angler (Jul 5, 2021)

Being very content professionally on a 2112 i7 MacBook Pro, I haven't even bothered to upgrade to Catalina (the last supported OS I am able to use on a 2012 MBP). Don't need the EDM type features of Logic 10.5 which would need Catalina to run it so am happy sticking to Logic 10.48 with High Sierra.

As far as updates to libraries are concerned they will continue to be supported for a while yet but to be honest I not only have all the libraries I need, there's nothing on my system that cries out for a developer fix in this regard either! My system works beyond "like clockwork" running super efficient as it has done since 2012 !... if it ain't broke don't fix it!

People talk so much about "being forced to upgrade" but as long as one has a smooth, ergonomic working system that doesn't prevent a composer from continuing to provide high fidelity recordings at broadcast quality I don't see the need to ever change the OS.

The day audio formats themselves change in a way that will no longer read on High Sierra would be the only thing that would force me to upgrade! ...and I can't see that ever happening!


----------



## el-bo (Jul 5, 2021)

Still with Mojave. No reason to change!


----------



## Nate Johnson (Jul 5, 2021)

IIRC, when I got my 2020 iMac, it came with Catalina. My original plan was to revert to Mojave....but I was too lazy to go through the motions, plus Logic required Catalina for its big update. Its been working flawlessly over here, even with gatekeeper disabled (there were a couple of third party plugins that didn't pass the download 'security' checkpoints that came with Catalina).

My system works, nothing is begging for an update to Big Sur, so I haven't. At some point I'm sure I will and.....it will be fine. Just like every version of MacOS I've ever run.


----------



## Alex Fraser (Jul 5, 2021)

Big Sur here. Works as well (for me) as any previous OS. I'll look at moving to Monterey 3-4 months post release.

I use a lot of iCloud/Apple-y software and services in my day-to-day and my plugin/library count is reasonably light by VIC standards. So the balance for me shifts towards being reasonably current. YMMV etc.


----------



## el-bo (Jul 5, 2021)

Dewdman42 said:


> its possible the next version of LogicPro will require BigSur...I hope not, but quite possible...I think a lot of people will not be on latest version of LogicPro for quite a while after that. Personally think there was a lot of change going on to BigSur and frankly a lot of the music community still hasn't been totally happy with it. My own midi controller stopped working due to lame USB2 drivers in BigSur.... for example... If we're lucky Apple will give us one more version of LogicPro on Catalina...but after that almost for sure will need to move beyond Catalina...but I personally think BigSur was problematic...and maybe Monterrey will be better and less bugs..or maybe not..nobody knows we shall see. Anyway, my 5,1 can't run either one...so I'm on Catalina until 2025 most likely.


Maybe the next Logic release is '11', and needs Monterey on M1


----------



## babylonwaves (Jul 5, 2021)

Recently I had to update from Catalina to Bug Sir for reasons unrelated to making music. I can't really support what others say, things just kept working fine. I keep my plug-ins updated anyway, so I didn't have to replace a lot of old stuff that stopped working.


----------



## PhilA (Jul 5, 2021)

I kept a list of everything I use day in day out and when it was all Big Sur compatible i took a backup and upgraded. Absolutely everything is working fine (well except for Steven Slate Drums 4, but I hadn’t used it in years anyway)


----------



## wayne_rowley (Jul 5, 2021)

Sticking with Catalina until I have a need to migrate. Looking at the UAD forums, Big Sur seems to be a ball-ache for UAD users - even on Intel system, with significant hoops needed to install it without frequent errors of 'driver not installed properly'.


----------



## PhilA (Jul 5, 2021)

wayne_rowley said:


> Sticking with Catalina until I have a need to migrate. Looking at the UAD forums, Big Sur seems to be a ball-ache for UAD users - even on Intel system, with significant hoops needed to install it without frequent errors of 'driver not installed properly'.


I can’t say I’ve had any issues at all with my UAD interfaces, not a single one on BigSur at all. Apollo working fine here


----------



## wayne_rowley (Jul 5, 2021)

PhilA said:


> I can’t say I’ve had any issues at all with my UAD interfaces, not a single one on BigSur at all. Apollo working fine here


That's good to hear. What version of Big Sur and the UAD driver are you on? Did you have to go through the SIP disable/enable when installing?


----------



## babylonwaves (Jul 5, 2021)

wayne_rowley said:


> That's good to hear. What version of Big Sur and the UAD driver are you on? Did you have to go through the SIP disable/enable when installing?


you don't have to do anything like this. just make sure that the kernel extension is not blocked.









macOS 11 Big Sur Compatibility Info


UA Compatibility with macOS 11 Big Sur Note: If using a different version of macOS, see the Latest OS Compatibility article. If using an Apple M1 (non-Intel) Mac, see the Apple Silicon M1 Compati...




help.uaudio.com


----------



## AndyP (Jul 5, 2021)

Mojave as long as possible. No issues, no need to go further for now.


----------



## wayne_rowley (Jul 5, 2021)

babylonwaves said:


> you don't have to do anything like this. just make sure that the kernel extension is not blocked.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Not working for a lot of users on the UAD forums. Steps needed seem to be:

1. Uninstall UAD and delete prefs.
2. Disable SIP (https://developer.apple.com/document...ity_protection)
3. Install 9.13.1 (be sure to Allow)
4. Update to the latest UAD (Allow again)
5. Re Enable SIP.





__





"Driver not installed correctly" Big Sure "Allow" option.


Hi, I recently got out of nowhere that box with red text saying "Driver not installed correctly". I managed to fix it but in a strange way every time I start up the Macbook again the same issue is at hand and I can fix it with the same solution. Is there a permanent solution or is it a Big Sure...



uadforum.com


----------



## jonnybutter (Jul 5, 2021)

Dewdman42 said:


> its possible the next version of LogicPro will require BigSur...I hope not, but quite possible...I think a lot of people will not be on latest version of LogicPro for quite a while after that. Personally think there was a lot of change going on to BigSur and frankly a lot of the music community still hasn't been totally happy with it. My own midi controller stopped working due to lame USB2 drivers in BigSur.... for example... If we're lucky Apple will give us one more version of LogicPro on Catalina...but after that almost for sure will need to move beyond Catalina...but I personally think BigSur was problematic...and maybe Monterrey will be better and less bugs..or maybe not..nobody knows we shall see. Anyway, my 5,1 can't run either one...so I'm on Catalina until 2025 most likely.


I recently got a Mac mini with the M1, preloaded with Big Sur, and it‘s a dog (Big Sur I mean). I’m not running Logic on that computer, just general stuff. OS is buggy as hell. Big thumbs down. Still running Mojave on my music computer. It’s not ideal for obvious reasons, and it a bit crashy, but am in no rush to deal with all the new problems Apple is foisting on us beyond that.


----------



## Kery Michael (Jul 5, 2021)

Big Sur. At first my projects were all randomly crashing and I was getting frustrated with it. But then I learned that NI Reaktor is not currently supported, then so that means Monark is not supported either. And I love that synth, it’s in most of my projects.

So no more Monark for me until that get that fixed. 😢

Edit: Reaktor is now compatible with Big Sur. I think this happened literally the day after I posted this.


----------



## PhilA (Jul 5, 2021)

wayne_rowley said:


> Not working for a lot of users on the UAD forums. Steps needed seem to be:
> 
> 1. Uninstall UAD and delete prefs.
> 2. Disable SIP (https://developer.apple.com/document...ity_protection)
> ...


All I can say is I’ve had zero issues. The Problem with the internet is ever time someone has a problem they post about it but if things are working 100% they don’t, so we do frequently get a skewed perception of the frequency of problems.
That yard forum post doesn’t have many responders tbh.


----------



## PhilA (Jul 5, 2021)

wayne_rowley said:


> That's good to hear. What version of Big Sur and the UAD driver are you on? Did you have to go through the SIP disable/enable when installing?


Sorry I’m away from home for a few days will post these details when I get back. I didn’t have to do anything with SIP though.


----------



## from_theashes (Jul 5, 2021)

I‘m still on Mojave too. Runs great and I‘m too scared to upgrade to Catalina xD


----------



## Jeremy Spencer (Jul 5, 2021)

Big Sur here. Came with my new iMac in April, so I was a little nervous. I can report that it has been solid, no issues.


----------



## synthnut1 (Jul 5, 2021)

I bought a new iMac running Catalina after starting to have problems with my pc that was running Windows 7 pro....I was not happy with all the button presses with all the new security issues involved in Catalina....Also not thrilled with only running newer higher bit rate programs....Now(6 mos later) I’m used to the iMac, and it’s running fast, and trouble free....I’m running both Kontakt 5 and 6, as well as Cubase 11 withe no issues...


----------

