# Apple m1 macs with 16gb ram handling - Anyone tried?



## gsilbers

Here is the only video or info on handlign ram i could find. 

He loads 64 instruments but the trick seems to be to reduce the prebuffer settings 
so the instruments run more from disk. 

but im still wondering about just loading a lot of instruments. I dont play so many at once
but love to have them loaded in a medium sized template. 

Anyone else have the m1 macs to talk about the ram situation? 
The other threads here and elsehwere focus on the cpu which seems amazing. 
My worry is more about 16gb, but since its more about this new unified ram im undure about. 

IF anyone is loading a lot of kontakt libraries using the "update sample pool" and if so will the ram start getting
constraint by larger projects where more and more ram startes getting used. or will the DFD work wonders?


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## gsilbers

Anyone have the new macs?


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## samphony

Yes me. I’ve run a couple tests in January between an i7 mini 64gb and m1 mini. Working on a feature. 

The m1 mini won hands down. 

I sent back the m1 as it was 16gb 256gb ssd only and replaced it with 16gb 1tb ssd!

The i7 mini got sold yesterday as it didn’t met my expectations. 

I’ll try doing a large track count session in the next days on one m1 mini and probably add 1-3 more down the line as VEP servers. All neatly stacked into a Sonnet RackMac mini 1U



RackMac mini 1U Rack Enclosure for Mac mini - Sonnet



So powerful and portable. 

The single core speed alone is worth getting a new m1 mac. I’ve upgraded from a 6,1 Mac Pro 128GB RAM. No regrets. 

I’ll also get whatever new Apple Silicon mac is next as it can only get more powerful down the line.


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## Alex Fraser

samphony said:


> Yes me. I’ve run a couple tests in January between an i7 mini 64gb and m1 mini. Working on a feature.
> 
> The m1 mini won hands down.
> 
> I sent back the m1 as it was 16gb 256gb ssd only and replaced it with 16gb 1tb ssd!
> 
> The i7 mini got sold yesterday as it didn’t met my expectations.
> 
> I’ll try doing a large track count session in the next days on one m1 mini and probably add 1-3 more down the line as VEP servers. All neatly stacked into a Sonnet RackMac mini 1U
> 
> 
> 
> RackMac mini 1U Rack Enclosure for Mac mini - Sonnet
> 
> 
> 
> So powerful and portable.
> 
> The single core speed alone is worth getting a new m1 mac. I’ve upgraded from a 6,1 Mac Pro 128GB RAM. No regrets.
> 
> I’ll also get whatever new Apple Silicon mac is next as it can only get more powerful down the line.


Thanks for this. Unless I’ve misunderstood ..you’ve gone from 128gb of ram to 16gb?

The whole ram thing I think is the biggest question mark over AS. With non-audio pros seemingly very happy with a 16gb/M1 combo, I’m wondering how much interest Apple will have in stuffing the mid-tier models with memory.


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## Markrs

Alex Fraser said:


> Thanks for this. Unless I’ve misunderstood ..you’ve gone from 128gb of ram to 16gb?


That is what I noticed as well. I have heard the memory management is better with the M1 but I never really understood what that meant in regards to performance as most YouTube demos have tested CPU rather than memory.


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## JEPA

So, investing in two Mac mini’s M1 would be a fair solution (with VEPro)??


samphony said:


> Yes me. I’ve run a couple tests in January between an i7 mini 64gb and m1 mini. Working on a feature.
> 
> The m1 mini won hands down.
> 
> I sent back the m1 as it was 16gb 256gb ssd only and replaced it with 16gb 1tb ssd!
> 
> The i7 mini got sold yesterday as it didn’t met my expectations.
> 
> I’ll try doing a large track count session in the next days on one m1 mini and probably add 1-3 more down the line as VEP servers. All neatly stacked into a Sonnet RackMac mini 1U
> 
> 
> 
> RackMac mini 1U Rack Enclosure for Mac mini - Sonnet
> 
> 
> 
> So powerful and portable.
> 
> The single core speed alone is worth getting a new m1 mac. I’ve upgraded from a 6,1 Mac Pro 128GB RAM. No regrets.
> 
> I’ll also get whatever new Apple Silicon mac is next as it can only get more powerful down the line.


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## samphony

I think the m1 is proof of concept that you cannot relate 16gb on m1 to 16gb on intel. 

I’ll report my findings and yes m1 minis and Airs seems to be a great vep workflow setup. And everything is insanely fast and snappy. 

Imagine once everything is AS native.


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## samphony

Also keep in mind we’re trying to write awesome music and not show off how much RAM or samples we have, right!

The more tech gets out of the way and just works the better.


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## Alex Fraser

samphony said:


> Also keep in mind we’re trying to write awesome music and not show off how much RAM or samples we have, right!
> 
> The more tech gets out of the way and just works the better.


Amen to that. Good points. Thanks, Samphony. I look forward to your findings!


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## IFM

Alex Fraser said:


> Thanks for this. Unless I’ve misunderstood ..you’ve gone from 128gb of ram to 16gb?


What he was saying was 128GB SSD drive, not RAM. Both had 16GB of RAM.


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## Alex Fraser

IFM said:


> What he was saying was 128GB SSD drive, not RAM. Both had 16GB of RAM.


Later on in the post, an "upgrade" from a MacPro with 128gb is mentioned. That's where the query comes from. 👍


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## IFM

Alex Fraser said:


> Later on in the post, an "upgrade" from a MacPro with 128gb is mentioned. That's where the query comes from. 👍


Ah gotcha.


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## samphony

IFM said:


> What he was saying was 128GB SSD drive, not RAM. Both had 16GB of RAM.


Nope. The mac pro had 128gb RAM and a 2TB internal SSD


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## gsilbers

samphony said:


> Yes me. I’ve run a couple tests in January between an i7 mini 64gb and m1 mini. Working on a feature.
> 
> The m1 mini won hands down.
> 
> I sent back the m1 as it was 16gb 256gb ssd only and replaced it with 16gb 1tb ssd!
> 
> The i7 mini got sold yesterday as it didn’t met my expectations.
> 
> I’ll try doing a large track count session in the next days on one m1 mini and probably add 1-3 more down the line as VEP servers. All neatly stacked into a Sonnet RackMac mini 1U
> 
> 
> 
> RackMac mini 1U Rack Enclosure for Mac mini - Sonnet
> 
> 
> 
> So powerful and portable.
> 
> The single core speed alone is worth getting a new m1 mac. I’ve upgraded from a 6,1 Mac Pro 128GB RAM. No regrets.
> 
> I’ll also get whatever new Apple Silicon mac is next as it can only get more powerful down the line.



Yes the comparison from m1 to intel 1:1 seems to me the most confusing in terms of ram. 
instruments in templates still need to be loaded in ram, correct?
But even orchestral libraries with the core articulations under “update sample pool” would require decent amount of ram and ram overhead to perform in a project mid way through it. Even if direct from disk happens faster.

Also, why get the Mac mini w sonet portable and not the MacBook Pro?
I thought both where the same performance wise.


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## samphony

gsilbers said:


> Yes the comparison from m1 to intel 1:1 seems to me the most confusing in terms of ram.
> instruments in templates still need to be loaded in ram, correct?
> But even orchestral libraries with the core articulations under “update sample pool” would require decent amount of ram and ram overhead to perform in a project mid way through it. Even if direct from disk happens faster.
> 
> Also, why get the Mac mini w sonet portable and not the MacBook Pro?
> I thought both where the same performance wise.



I’ve got the mini as it natively supports two displays. But startech offers usb to two DisplayPorts adapter so yes I’ll probably grab a MacBook Air or whatever Apple offers next. 

Also the sonnet setup is for the Studio.


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## IFM

samphony said:


> Nope. The mac pro had 128gb RAM and a 2TB internal SSD


Yes I got that earlier. I missed it.


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## gsilbers

samphony said:


> I’ve got the mini as it natively supports two displays. But startech offers usb to two DisplayPorts adapter so yes I’ll probably grab a MacBook Air or whatever Apple offers next.
> 
> Also the sonnet setup is for the Studio.



ah good to know. I missed that in the overall info of the release.


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## tabulius

samphony said:


> I’ll try doing a large track count session in the next days on one m1 mini and probably add 1-3 more down the line as VEP servers. All neatly stacked into a Sonnet RackMac mini 1U
> 
> 
> 
> RackMac mini 1U Rack Enclosure for Mac mini - Sonnet
> 
> 
> 
> So powerful and portable.


Ok, if Apple releases M1X or MXX-something Mac Mini at some point with bigger ram support, this sort of 1U closure sounds really good to me. I wouldn't mind to get a 12-16-core, 64Gb-128Gb Mac Mini Pro in a 1U package. Other side of the rack could be used for additional ssd enclosure, if only one Mini would be installed. Oh well, my inner nerd can only dream.

But for me 16Gb of ram just isn't future proof.


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## kclements

samphony said:


> Yes me. I’ve run a couple tests in January between an i7 mini 64gb and m1 mini. Working on a feature.
> 
> The m1 mini won hands down.
> 
> I sent back the m1 as it was 16gb 256gb ssd only and replaced it with 16gb 1tb ssd!
> 
> The i7 mini got sold yesterday as it didn’t met my expectations.
> 
> I’ll try doing a large track count session in the next days on one m1 mini and probably add 1-3 more down the line as VEP servers. All neatly stacked into a Sonnet RackMac mini 1U
> 
> 
> 
> RackMac mini 1U Rack Enclosure for Mac mini - Sonnet
> 
> 
> 
> So powerful and portable.
> 
> The single core speed alone is worth getting a new m1 mac. I’ve upgraded from a 6,1 Mac Pro 128GB RAM. No regrets.
> 
> I’ll also get whatever new Apple Silicon mac is next as it can only get more powerful down the line.


So wait, just so I am clear. You are saying a M1 mini with 16gb competes with a 6,1 MP with 128GB? Running the same high track count orchestral VI on both machines, and the M1 keeps up? That is crazy. I know the 6,1's were not known for their audio prowess, but still. 

So, going from my 5,1 MP with 64GB ram to a M1 will be a rather large upgrade. Time to head over the EBAY.


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## Dewdman42

The technical challenge that Apple has to deliver on is how to support more memory. They decided to release another round of Intel MacPros, and my theory is that this is one of the primary reasons why. The M1 architecture specifically has the RAM built into the CPU itself and consolidated in the way that the CPU handles things computationally. That's part of why it gets the incredible performance that it does. But ironically, that is what makes it very difficult and perhaps expensive, to make a version with more RAM than they have delivered already.

I am confident they are working on something...but I am also confident that this is not an easy challenge and it may be some time before we see an ARM Mac with tons of memory available....and/or it would not surprise me if they build some kind of hybrid Arm macrpro that uses the M1 memory architecture and then you can use some additional RAM...but.....the additional RAM might slow the performance back down to what we normally see in Intel Macs anyway...because it won't be consolidated into the CPU...which is the huge part of the secret sauce to the M1's performance results.

The current gen M1 is great for consumers, its plenty of memory and super fast in that architecture, makes less heat, all the rest. But making a true high performance machine with lots of RAM, etc...on that same platform is not so easy. Its part of why we don't see it yet.


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## kclements

I agree with you. But, I also think we are at a new dawn of CPU/Memory thinking. Just as we no longer think about MegaPixels in Cameras I think we are heading towards the day when we won't be talking about RAM as a separate thing. We never talk about RAM in our iPads or phones.

If they are able to make a SoC that is so tightly integrated with the RAM and hard drive (what we used to call virtual memory - remember those apps) that it is able to swap out what it needs without us knowing, maybe the days of "how much ram do I need to run xx..." will be over. It's not going to happen tomorrow of course. But I see a day not too far off where RAM talk is a thing of the past.


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## tabulius

Yeah, I'm afraid that if and when they can pile all that ram in there, the prices start to be more of the Apple standard - 1000-dollars-for-a-stand level.


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## JEPA

kclements said:


> So wait, just so I am clear. You are saying a M1 mini with 16gb competes with a 6,1 MP with 128GB? Running the same high track count orchestral VI on both machines, and the M1 keeps up?


@samphony is this true?


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## Alex Fraser

There are a few YouTube vids kicking around where folks have traded new MacPros for M1 minis. Quite the thing. I’m not sure that audio folks would get the same benefit, which is why this thread caught my attention.


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## Dewdman42

I think for audio people like us, people are going to find, for a while, that if they want to use ARM Mac in the near term, they will need to use VePro setups, with another intel Mac/PC running somewhere using all the ram they tend to need, while keeping their main desktop with as little ram usage as possible, since it would be a 16gb M1 of some kind.

that's a possible solution for sure, hopefully only an interim solution; in order to buy a new desktop if you're in need of that.

Another factor are other things like audio interfaces. Anyone that relied on PCIe based interfaces of any kind or had tons of SSD storage space, etc.. Any kind of M1 replacement will involve figuring how how to accommodate those things, which might mean buying new external hardware in many cases. That's all fine and good, but then when Apple finally releases a new ARM macPro, that has PCI slots and all ways to mount SSD's inside...then perhaps they would have preferred to have that. But if if if, we don't know what Apple is going to release. Its a wait and see moment.

The vast majority of apple users do not need tons of SSD storage space, they don't need tons of ram, they don't even really need the speed of the M1 either...but they will definitely appreciate longer battery life, lower temps...and video performance, since a lot of typical users do play games and watch movies, etc. The M1 excels at all of those things....its going to be a huge smash hit for Apple...but its yet to be seen how well it will accommodate the kind of stuff we on this forum use our Macs for.


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## kclements

Dewdman42 said:


> The vast majority of apple users do not need tons of SSD storage space, they don't need tons of ram, they don't even really need the speed of the M1 either...but they will definitely appreciate longer battery life, lower temps...and video performance, since a lot of typical users do play games and watch movies, etc. The M1 excels at all of those things....its going to be a huge smash hit for Apple...but its yet to be seen how well it will accommodate the kind of stuff we on this forum use our Macs for.


This is exactly right.


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## mscp

I can't wait to get my hands on the next gen mac mini - hopefully with 32gb ram or more, and a more powerful chip.


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## JEPA

Phil81 said:


> I can't wait to get my hands on the next gen mac mini - hopefully with 32gb ram or more, and a more powerful chip.


when would you expect to have access to the next mini? Are we talking 2022?


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## mscp

JEPA said:


> when would you expect to have access to the next mini? Are we talking 2022?


Not sure. They should take their time though.


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## kclements

I’m guessing the entire line will go AS before any revisions to existing products come out. Seems like iMacs would be next.


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## gsilbers

I might get the macbook m1 just to try. i think there is a return window. maybe make a video as well


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## Vik

samphony said:


> he mac pro had 128gb RAM and a 2TB internal SSD


Hi S! Have you been using the mini with memory intensive libraries (like eg. Berlin Strings) across than more than just a few tracks? I've already come across what seems like no-nonsense rumours about twice the performance in multi core benchmarks tests for the M1X processor (compared with the current M1) and support for 32 gb RAM. 

Even a 10 year old Mac can run a number of advanced orchestral tracks with much less than 128 gb, and Apple hasn't suggested anywhere that one can do whatever one wants with only 16 gb on their ARM processors. So I'm really curious about how far you have gone in testing that M1 mini with demanding orchestral libraries


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## RSK

I bought an M1 MacBook Air with 16G and 2Tb. I have Pro Tools, Logic, and a bunch of different libraries. Let's design a test and I'll be happy to run it this weekend.


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## gsilbers

RSK said:


> I bought an M1 MacBook Air with 16G and 2Tb. I have Pro Tools, Logic, and a bunch of different libraries. Let's design a test and I'll be happy to run it this weekend.



well, how big are your templates with it? 
do u load the common core orchestral articulations w/o issue?


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## jtnyc

The question of using ram intensive sample libraries has not really been addressed in this thread. Samphony said he used it on a feature. Were you mixing audio or were you composing with sample libraries? If it’s the latter, we’re you running a large template? Was it larger then 16 gigs of ram? This is the key question. Unless there is some special magic happening with these new chips I would still think that ram is ram. People have speculated that it somehow handles things differently, but no one has definitively stated that they can load and run a template that used to require 64 gigs of memory with the 16 gigs in the M1. I’m sure it’s faster, but that doesn’t equal being able o somehow handle what used to require 4 times as much ram. 
Im sure the M1 Mini’s single core performance smokes the Intel Mini, but what about large templates that require lots of ram?


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## gsilbers

jtnyc said:


> The question of using ram intensive sample libraries has not really been addressed in this thread. Samphony said he used it on a feature. Were you mixing audio or were you composing with sample libraries? If it’s the latter, we’re you running a large template? Was it larger then 16 gigs of ram? This is the key question. Unless there is some special magic happening with these new chips I would still think that ram is ram. People have speculated that it somehow handles things differently, but no one has definitively stated that they can load and run a template that used to require 64 gigs of memory with the 16 gigs in the M1. I’m sure it’s faster, but that doesn’t equal being able o somehow handle what used to require 4 times as much ram.
> Im sure the M1 Mini’s single core performance smokes the Intel Mini, but what about large templates that require lots of ram?



I thought the same, but my curiosity peaked with the sounds and gear video where he changed the preload buffer so it streams faster from disk. Plus kontakt lets you do the update sample pool that would load practically 0mb of ram. 
My assumption would be that yes coudl load large templates and run somewhat fine if its just a few instruments at once... but once the project grows larger then ram would hit a limit. 

I saw the benchmarks for the m1x and indeed its 32gb. but being released in november, im guessing to match the release dates of the iphones and do a yearly update and have 2-3 year leases. 

Since its 32gb and i doubt we will get 64 and over anytime soon, maybe the 16gb is enough for me if i pair it with my mac mini intel 64gb or my i7 128gb ram slave.


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## samphony

I was using it on a feature as composer. I was definitely loading more than 16gb as I had a lot of kontakt instances running in Logic and software like video slave, VEP running in parallel. 

I also paired it with the i7 but found the workflow just using the M1 alone enough. 

I didn’t use a 1000 track orchestral template. But we can test that and see what this machine is capable of. 

The tests I did when the machine arrived was to load 1 instance of kontakt with all spitfire chamber strings performance patches set to omni and playing fast lines. No pops no crackles. Neither my vader 12core nor the i7 mini could handle that. 

Also the i7 mini struggled to playback 1 instance of Heavyocity Acsend not so the m1. And everything I’m using is running through Rosetta 2 even Logic except Audio Finder. 

I was also considering getting a 2019 mac pro or an AMD 5950x pc build but the mini did everything I needed it to do so far. This can change if any coming project is demanding that. If the rumors are true of a coming Apple Silicon chip with multicore capabilities similiar to a 16 core Mac Pro 7,1 then again I see no need to go back to intel macs. 

I think some of you especially the ones who are still using their 5,1 tower having a hard time to transition away from a setup where most of the stuff you need lives inside that computer. I totally understand that as I went through that transition in 2013. 

So yes it is easier for me to consider a mini or MacBook as everything else is racked up and connected to the machine with 1-3 cables.


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## samphony

Vik said:


> Even a 10 year old Mac can run a number of advanced orchestral tracks with much less than 128 gb, and Apple hasn't suggested anywhere that one can do whatever one wants with only 16 gb on their ARM processors. So I'm really curious about how far you have gone in testing that M1 mini with demanding orchestral libraries



Maybe we can create some test projects?
I’m pretty sure that the mini can’t handle everything!

But it feels a little bit like the transition from horse to car. 

I could’ve never imagined that 1 mini or a MacBook Air and 1-2 minis could be the answer to my needs. We will see.


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## RSK

gsilbers said:


> well, how big are your templates with it?
> do u load the common core orchestral articulations w/o issue?


I use legato, longs, and shorts for each instrument. For example, on woodwinds I use Spitfire for solos and a2, VSL for a3, and each instance has legato, longs, and shorts. As a result I have 53 tracks of woodwinds. That's not a huge template compared to some I've seen, but it's not small either.

I usually have everything turned off and load instruments as needed. Just now I loaded everything one at a time. Pro Tools complained that physical memory was running low but never stopped opening tracks; I now have everything open and am able to play any track.

From this experiment it would seem that the Mac is indeed "borrowing" the SSD to use as memory. This isn't a new technique; in the past we called it "paging." It's just that paging makes a lot more sense when the hard drive is solid state.


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## Loïc D

That sounds impressive!
Can’t wait for the MBP 15”.
My pile of cash is ready, hurry up Apple!


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## JEPA

...waiting impatiently for these tests...


RSK said:


> I use legato, longs, and shorts for each instrument. For example, on woodwinds I use Spitfire for solos and a2, VSL for a3, and each instance has legato, longs, and shorts. As a result I have 53 tracks of woodwinds. That's not a huge template compared to some I've seen, but it's not small either.
> 
> I usually have everything turned off and load instruments as needed. Just now I loaded everything one at a time. Pro Tools complained that physical memory was running low but never stopped opening tracks; I now have everything open and am able to play any track.
> 
> From this experiment it would seem that the Mac is indeed "borrowing" the SSD to use as memory. This isn't a new technique; in the past we called it "paging." It's just that paging makes a lot more sense when the hard drive is solid state.


sorry for the trouble, could you please make a short Quicktime video of this test, if you find some time? We will be very grateful! Thanks in advance, and if not, don't worry, thank you anyway!


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## wayne_rowley

I get the excitement and curiosity about these new AS Macs. They really are great, and a sign of great things to come. I love my M1 Air (not used for music). 

But 16GB is still 16GB. No matter how efficient the new platform is, I'm not going to try to squeeze a quart into a pint pot!

The criteria for me moving my Intel Mini with 32GB of RAM to AS is simple:

- Support for 32GB+ of RAM
- Full native AS versions of all my audio software and hardware drivers

Until then I'll wait patiently. 

Wayne


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## SupremeFist

RSK said:


> I usually have everything turned off and load instruments as needed. Just now I loaded everything one at a time. Pro Tools complained that physical memory was running low but never stopped opening tracks; I now have everything open and am able to play any track.



And how many of those tracks can it play back simultaneously once there is midi in them?


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## kclements

RSK said:


> I use legato, longs, and shorts for each instrument. For example, on woodwinds I use Spitfire for solos and a2, VSL for a3, and each instance has legato, longs, and shorts. As a result I have 53 tracks of woodwinds. That's not a huge template compared to some I've seen, but it's not small either.
> 
> I usually have everything turned off and load instruments as needed. Just now I loaded everything one at a time. Pro Tools complained that physical memory was running low but never stopped opening tracks; I now have everything open and am able to play any track.
> 
> From this experiment it would seem that the Mac is indeed "borrowing" the SSD to use as memory. This isn't a new technique; in the past we called it "paging." It's just that paging makes a lot more sense when the hard drive is solid state.


 
That sounds great. So you are able to record midi on all those tracks and have it playback (as opposed to just arming a track and playing it live)?


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## Alex Fraser

I can offer up my 2019 MbP with 16gb as a rough "control" for comparison.
This machine can load the entire BBCSO Core (all instruments, all articulations), providing the SF player settings are set to lean on SSD streaming.

Dense arrangement playback is possible (with the occasional complaint from the Mac.) So I'd hope the M1 would go further than this.

I don't think anyone expects a 16gb M1 to replace a like-for-like RAM heavy MacPro workflow, for example, but I reckon an efficient "disabled track" setup might be in the remit of the new machines.


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## kclements

wayne_rowley said:


> But 16GB is still 16GB. No matter how efficient the new platform is, I'm not going to try to squeeze a quart into a pint pot!


This _may_ be true. But first, we are talking electrons and not physical items, so your analogy doesn't quite hold up 

I say the may be true because we _might_ be at a new dawn of thinking about these things. If the SoC is so good at stealing from SSD space for RAM that you don't notice, then you could have unlimited RAM - only limited to your SSD space. If this is true, imagine you could have a fairly cheap SSD drive that you don't store anything on. All of a sudden you have 2TB or RAM! 

IF (and I don't know the answer to this - but I would be this is where we are going) the SoC sees the entire computer as one big unit and not as CPU, RAM, GPU, SSD..., RAM becomes an outdated concept. We audio guys buy a Mac with 2TB memory and add more SSDs as we need to. Average users buy a Mac with 256GB of storage and do their business.


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## MartinH.

kclements said:


> This _may_ be true. But first, we are talking electrons and not physical items, so your analogy doesn't quite hold up


I thought electric charges are very specifically _physical_ items. What else would they be? And a bit is still a bit, even with an M1 processor pushing those bits around...





kclements said:


> I say the may be true because we _might_ be at a new dawn of thinking about these things. If the SoC is so good at stealing from SSD space for RAM that you don't notice, then you could have unlimited RAM - only limited to your SSD space. If this is true, imagine you could have a fairly cheap SSD drive that you don't store anything on. All of a sudden you have 2TB or RAM!


Actually... I wonder if this isn't possible already with NVMe m2 SSDs and virtual memory. Has anyone ever tried that for sample playback? I'd have a good laugh if this works fine (aside from burning through the lifetime writecycles of the SSD at a rapid rate) and just no one ever tried to do it.


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## RSK




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## RSK

There's no doubt the M1 is definitely using the SSD, as you can see above. Pro Tools is using almost 36G of memory despite the fact that the laptop only has 16.

However, now that I have everything loaded I do notice that the machine is a bit slower. Sometimes when clicking on a menu item I get the beachball for a few seconds until it works.

I can't run any midi right now because I'm working my day job, but this afternoon that can happen.


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## sourcefor

I have a MacBook Air M1 8gb RAM 512GB SSD and a 16" MacBook Pro i9 64GB RAM 2TB SSD. I was able to get 60 tracks with ALCHEMY, Space Designer, Delay Designer and PHAT FX on each track to run on the MacBook Air and 70 Tracks to run on the 16" MacBook Pro, if this means anything, I think its pretty amazing for a base model computer!


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## RSK

MartinH. said:


> I thought electric charges are very specifically _physical_ items. What else would they be? And a bit is still a bit, even with an M1 processor pushing those bits around...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually... I wonder if this isn't possible already with NVMe m2 SSDs and virtual memory. Has anyone ever tried that for sample playback? I'd have a good laugh if this works fine (aside from burning through the lifetime writecycles of the SSD at a rapid rate) and just no one ever tried to do it.


My understanding is that write is vastly worse when it comes to SSD lifecycle than read. If that's the case it shouldn't be a big issue.


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## SupremeFist

MartinH. said:


> I thought electric charges are very specifically _physical_ items. What else would they be? And a bit is still a bit, even with an M1 processor pushing those bits around...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually... I wonder if this isn't possible already with NVMe m2 SSDs and virtual memory. Has anyone ever tried that for sample playback? I'd have a good laugh if this works fine (aside from burning through the lifetime writecycles of the SSD at a rapid rate) and just no one ever tried to do it.


There are reports that the M1s are really caning their SSDs with swap in ordinary use, and some are worried this will shorten their lifespans.


----------



## RSK

SupremeFist said:


> There are reports that the M1s are really caning their SSDs with swap in ordinary use, and some are worried this will shorten their lifespans.


I've read those as well, but frankly that's a tempest in a teacup until someone establishes what WILL happen versus what MIGHT happen. MacWorld did a piece on it that explains why I'm not too concerned:









How worried should you be about your M1 Mac’s SSD lifespan?


Users are concerned over SSD lifespan with the M1 swapping from memory under heavy loads. It's not something to ignore, but the fact is, SSDs last a lot longer than most people think.




www.macworld.com


----------



## IFM

I'm also excited to see how these (and the future M1s) perform once others become Native such as Cubase and all the VI's that we use. Loving my M1 MBA but have not bothered trying any music apps on it.


----------



## gsilbers

Alex Fraser said:


> I can offer up my 2019 MbP with 16gb as a rough "control" for comparison.
> This machine can load the entire BBCSO Core (all instruments, all articulations), providing the SF player settings are set to lean on SSD streaming.
> 
> Dense arrangement playback is possible (with the occasional complaint from the Mac.) So I'd hope the M1 would go further than this.
> 
> I don't think anyone expects a 16gb M1 to replace a like-for-like RAM heavy MacPro workflow, for example, but I reckon an efficient "disabled track" setup might be in the remit of the new machines.




kontakt has the update sample feature so it loads the instrument but without loading ram and loads only when the sample is pressed and only loads that specific sample. With fast memory/direct from disk, it might be enough (?) 


this doesn’t seem to be understood on the post I’m seeing from those who have it. Or it works differently and I’m not understanding. 


that’s one way I see the 16gb maca might being able to load an entire orchestra.
It would be loading each instrument, selecting update sample pool and load the next.
The playing or sequencing enough to see how it performs. 

Not sure if Apple keeps that memory like w intel and my high sierra. In windows systems the ram loads and unloads real-time. My mac keeps that ram loaded or allocated in case it’s needed later.


----------



## RSK




----------



## RSK

I went into Kontakt and reduced the preload buffer to 6k from 60k. I also reduced the max voices on each instance down to 64 (from 256 or 512). Pro Tools uses a little less memory this way, but more importantly the memory pressure went down. Getting a lot fewer spinning beach balls now.


----------



## FrankieD

I also have a Macbook Pro M1 with 16GB of ram and a 1TB hard drive. It wasn't really that expensive. It runs a lot cooler than my Intel based Macbook pro.


----------



## RSK




----------



## RSK

Purging samples did not have the expected result. Memory pressure went down noticeably, but memory used by Pro Tools did not. 

When I have purged samples before, there was a significant latency the first time any given key was pressed. I didn't experience that this time around, which makes me think maybe purging isn't working for some reason.


----------



## Dewdman42

It could end up that a pair of M1x minis with 32gb each and vepro on one of them will turn out to be awesome setup for many, though that gets into macpro price level, but doesn’t take a big case either. Downside would be limited internal storage and if you’re like me with pci audio which connects to my mixer, still may not be optimal but I suspect a lot of people will be able to get a lot done with just an M1x and 32gb, and even more with two of them, presuming you have already or are willing to buy new TB3 gear for everything else like external storage and audio. Perhaps Ethernet based audio is option too, like rednet, etc. None of that is cheap though, holding for now.

But honestly an awful lot of people will be able to do plenty of music on 32gb if that really comes. 

My yardstick for when to move to ARM is going to be when I see apple release a proper ARM based macpro. That’s when I will know it has come of age. Also I expect that not long after that the intel will become increasingly difficult as software vendors transition to ARM and they will one by one cease support on intel. Some new products won’t even bother building for intel at some point. That is still a long ways off but at some point when we see apple cease all intel production for good, the writing will be on the wall for better or worse and software will landslide in that direction. 

I’m waiting until then to buy ARM. Knock on wood, maybe at some point I’ll get one of these M1x to experiment with when they come out, never know.


----------



## robgb

Tech experts on several sites have suggested that, in the future, RAM will not even be a consideration when buying a computer. I've got an M1 air coming soon, and will be anxious to test it out.


----------



## Dewdman42

RSK said:


> Purging samples did not have the expected result. Memory pressure went down noticeably, but memory used by Pro Tools did not.
> 
> When I have purged samples before, there was a significant latency the first time any given key was pressed. I didn't experience that this time around, which makes me think maybe purging isn't working for some reason.



Create the project, purge the samples, save the project, quit protools and then reload the project that has config of purged samples


----------



## gsilbers

RSK said:


> Purging samples did not have the expected result. Memory pressure went down noticeably, but memory used by Pro Tools did not.
> 
> When I have purged samples before, there was a significant latency the first time any given key was pressed. I didn't experience that this time around, which makes me think maybe purging isn't working for some reason.


interesting thanks for checking.


----------



## gsilbers

Dewdman42 said:


> Create the project, purge the samples, save the project, quit protools and then reload the project that has config of purged samples



yeah, its like this for mac pro on sierra at least. mac keeps that ram around just in case you want it back or something.


----------



## Dewdman42

robgb said:


> Tech experts on several sites have suggested that, in the future, RAM will not even be a consideration when buying a computer. I've got an M1 air coming soon, and will be anxious to test it out.



What is their reasoning for why? I only see that as possible if they manage to fit like a terabyte on a single chip for cheap, then nibody will care. As long as it’s expensive then people will be trying to get the price down with smallest memory possible and manufacturers have no incentive to make it that cheap. I’ll believe that when I see it.

Also apple’s M1 architecture is really a change with memory in the chip. Huge performance comes from that, and that is NOT cheap at all to make in larger memory configs.

What I think is that the vast majority of consumers do not need more then 16gb that is built into the M1. So yea the vast majority will not be asking about it, it will just work. Power users such as us, though, may confront some challenges with most hardware coming under spec in terms of ram storage.

I personally think it’s a mistake to think we can stream our way out of it


----------



## Dewdman42

gsilbers said:


> yeah, its like this for mac pro on sierra at least. mac keeps that ram around just in case you want it back or something.



It’s protools that is doing it. Logicpro has the same problem. Vepro releases the memory FWIW


----------



## Vik

Dewdman42 said:


> My yardstick for when to move to ARM is going to be when I see apple release a proper ARM based macpro.


For those who didn't know: the current MacBook Air is already way ahead if the lates 24 core Mac Pro (single core performance). And they're probably not that far from releasing 32 gb Macs.

Apple could have made minis today which performance as well as the best iMacs, and there's a reason why they didn't do that. That reason could be that it could kill some of the iMac, iMac Pro and Mac Pro sales. Maybe they'll stay away from launching the best minis they can for the same reason?







M1X benchmarks, again: https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu-apple_m1x-1898


----------



## Dewdman42

Since you quoted me, that wasn’t my point. My point is that they have not released a proper macpro yet, simple as that. It doesn’t matter if the mini can out bench mark the $15,000 macpro according to you, there are numerous other reasons people need a macpro besides raw number crunching.

As i said, my yardstick for “when” to move to arm will be when apple drops all intel’s completely, including the macpro line. Not a minute sooner for me. Even if I end up buying some kind of mini at that time, I will still wait until then.


----------



## gsilbers

Vik said:


> For those who didn't know: the current MacBook Air is already way ahead if the lates 24 core Mac Pro (single core performance). And they're probably not that far from releasing 32 gb Macs.
> 
> Apple could have made minis today which performance as well as the best iMacs, and there's a reason why they didn't do that. That reason could be that it could kill some of the iMac, iMac Pro and Mac Pro sales. Maybe they'll stay away from launching the best minis they can for the same reason?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> M1X benchmarks, again: https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu-apple_m1x-1898





I was surprised when i fugured this out. but its about apple getting people into "leasing" their hardware. And they have november as the yearly update cycle. Same as their iPhone. 
Like a car model you switch every year for the new model and update the lease. keep paying monthly the same or a bit more every time. its basically subscirption for hardware. 

you would think why get a new iphone or new computer every year... but ive met plenty in the normal corporate crowd thats a normal affair. I mean, they are not buying that new string sample library, right? what else are they goona spend all that money 

yes, that macbook look nice. i have the 64gb ram mini. technically a new macbook m1 and that mini might be more powerful than my Mac Pro 5,1 and 128gb ram slave. (if i figure out the ram). 
Plus... no fan noise. these two desktops sound like a vacuum had propellers and will take off shortly.


----------



## gsilbers

RSK said:


> Purging samples did not have the expected result. Memory pressure went down noticeably, but memory used by Pro Tools did not.
> 
> When I have purged samples before, there was a significant latency the first time any given key was pressed. I didn't experience that this time around, which makes me think maybe purging isn't working for some reason.



seem ill have to keep quoting you before this thread derails into apples consumer philosophy and existensialism 

But still curious, you have pro tools loading kontakt and says 30gb of ram. thats you loading a whole bunch of sample libraries? are those the woodwinds you mentioned? 64 instruments total?


----------



## robgb

Dewdman42 said:


> What is their reasoning for why?


Because it will be so integrated into the chip that it will no longer be a selling point, and the efficiency of chip based memory handling will be revolutionary.


----------



## robgb

gsilbers said:


> But still curious, you have pro tools loading kontakt and says 30gb of ram. thats you loading a whole bunch of sample libraries? are those the woodwinds you mentioned? 64 instruments total?


I'm also curious to know how much of that is Pro Tools' own use of memory. With a full orchestral template and dozens of instances of Kontakt, Reaper itself shows only about 5 gigs of memory use.


----------



## MartinH.

Dewdman42 said:


> It could end up that a pair of M1x minis with 32gb each and vepro on one of them will turn out to be awesome setup for many, though that gets into macpro price level, but doesn’t take a big case either.





Dewdman42 said:


> But honestly an awful lot of people will be able to do plenty of music on 32gb if that really comes.



What's the benefit to just having a Mac with 64GB Ram? Running Vepro because those tiny M1s don't have enough Ram sounds like a huge downside that should more than make up for whatever advantage they may have over a single current gen Intel Mac with enough Ram.


----------



## Dewdman42

I agree. For now.


----------



## RSK

gsilbers said:


> seem ill have to keep quoting you before this thread derails into apples consumer philosophy and existensialism
> 
> But still curious, you have pro tools loading kontakt and says 30gb of ram. thats you loading a whole bunch of sample libraries? are those the woodwinds you mentioned? 64 instruments total?


Woodwinds - 53 (Spitfire Symphonic, VSL)
Brass - 74 (CineBrass Pro & Sonore, Berlin Brass)
Perc - 16 (Spitfire Percussion and Albion One)
PBH - 8 (Various)
Strings - 46 (VSL Synchron Pro, Spitfire Symphonic and Chamber)

Total Instrument Tracks: 197
Total Kontakt Instances: 33
Total Stems: 13
Total Reverb Tracks: 16


----------



## samphony

I had no time to setup a test yet. I’ll see if there is some next week. 

One thing for sure you have to run everything from the internal storage to get the best performance. I have the feeling that 16gb RAM is like cache and the 1tb ssd is like RAM. If thats true we are indeed experiencing a transition period like when we went from AKAI S950 or Roland 760 to a powerful computer. 

I was able do a quick Logic cpu benchmark test using the Morgonaut test project. She showed that the amd TR 3970x can run 600 tracks. My m1 mini was able to playback 110. But all these tests don’t really show what it is like running a real project. And it doesn’t proof RAM usage either.


----------



## RSK

Dewdman42 said:


> Create the project, purge the samples, save the project, quit protools and then reload the project that has config of purged samples


I'll do you one better; I restarted the machine after purging the samples.


----------



## samphony

RSK said:


> Woodwinds - 53 (Spitfire Symphonic, VSL)
> Brass - 74 (CineBrass Pro & Sonore, Berlin Brass)
> Perc - 16 (Spitfire Percussion and Albion One)
> PBH - 8 (Various)
> Strings - 46 (VSL Synchron Pro, Spitfire Symphonic and Chamber)
> 
> Total Instrument Tracks: 197
> Total Kontakt Instances: 33
> Total Stems: 13
> Total Reverb Tracks: 16



And all this with software that is running through Rosetta 2. that is just crazy.


----------



## samphony

MartinH. said:


> What's the benefit to just having a Mac with 64GB Ram? Running Vepro because those tiny M1s don't have enough Ram sounds like a huge downside that should more than make up for whatever advantage they may have over a single current gen Intel Mac with enough Ram.



Again the whole RAM argument which is still relevant to x86 doesn’t hold up to the m1 architecture.


----------



## RSK

samphony said:


> And all this with software that is running through Rosetta 2. that is just crazy.


Indeed. Now that Pro Tools is ARM compatible I am anxiously awaiting Native Instruments to be.


----------



## samphony

RSK said:


> Now that Pro Tools is ARM compatible


Since when? AFAIK it is only big sur compatible but still running through Rosetta 2?!?


----------



## gsilbers

RSK said:


> Woodwinds - 53 (Spitfire Symphonic, VSL)
> Brass - 74 (CineBrass Pro & Sonore, Berlin Brass)
> Perc - 16 (Spitfire Percussion and Albion One)
> PBH - 8 (Various)
> Strings - 46 (VSL Synchron Pro, Spitfire Symphonic and Chamber)
> 
> Total Instrument Tracks: 197
> Total Kontakt Instances: 33
> Total Stems: 13
> Total Reverb Tracks: 16


That’s amazing. A lot more than I thought.


----------



## RSK

Finally got around to midi. I recorded myself playing a C major scale up and down four times. So far I've got a piccolo, flute section, oboe section, cor anglais, clarinets, bassoons a2, horns a4, three trumpets, three trombones, a tuba, strings 1 section, strings 2 section, violas, cellli, and basses. All of them are sections except for the piccolo.

The plan now is to replace the brass sections with Berlin's individual horns and trumpets.


----------



## RSK

samphony said:


> Since when? AFAIK it is only big sur compatible but still running through Rosetta 2?!?


Oops, you are correct.


----------



## SupremeFist

RSK said:


> Finally got around to midi. I recorded myself playing a C major scale up and down four times. So far I've got a piccolo, flute section, oboe section, cor anglais, clarinets, bassoons a2, horns a4, three trumpets, three trombones, a tuba, strings 1 section, strings 2 section, violas, cellli, and basses. All of them are sections except for the piccolo.
> 
> The plan now is to replace the brass sections with Berlin's individual horns and trumpets.


Cool, that's easily replicable on a 16Gb Intel machine.


----------



## Dewdman42

samphony said:


> Again the whole RAM argument which is still relevant to x86 doesn’t hold up to the m1 architecture.



I don't agree with this at all. 

The main advantage of the M1 architecture is that several components such as GPU, memory, etc are built directly into the CPU and they share the same centralized memory. Because of this the data doesn't have to be moved around between components so much. Each of those components simply read from the same memory bank.

Conversely, in our Intel boxes, data has to actually be copied from this thing to that thing. The biggest example of that is video. Our system is constantly shoveling frames of video from the main memory, into the GPU's memory. The GPU itself then reads from its own memory to display the actual video. The M1 doesn't have to do that shoveling operation, the GPU just reads it straight from the same built in RAM. This is actually a big deal. Its not that the M1 is necessarily that much faster at actually calculating stuff in the CPU....its more that it has significantly reduced that amount of internal data transferring that needs to take place between components.

The downside of this architecture is that as of now, 16gb is the limit of ram....and it will be expensive and challenging to increase that size.

meanwhile you're talking about streaming from SSD instead of reading from RAM. SSD is faster then HDD, but its still orders of magnitude slower then reading from memory...and it requires data to funnel through the CPU, etc..and essentially represents a bottleneck of data transferring that will get in the way of the CPU running optimally. I think if you try to do heavy streaming with an M1 you'll negate much of its performance advantage. You'd still definitely be better off using an Intel with many cores and tons of ram, then doing that...presuming price is no object.

As I said already, most consumers will not run into any problems because they don't have needs to use large amounts of memory. But we will. Streaming from SSD is NOT an improvement. That is a hack-around the fact that the M1 doesn't have enough memory, and you can expect performance to suffer. Its a compromise which may or may not work out for everyone.

DDR5 memory is just around the corner, I saw an article the other day saying the possibility may be there to see 1TB of ram in two chips before too long. If its fast enough to address load-times, then that will be the future....not SSD streaming; though Apple users may be forced to stream until apple releases a proper big memory machine.

Perhaps eventually SSD tech and RAM tech will converge and we'll up with storage that is so fast as to be as good as RAM...with tons of it....enough to literally run your sample libraries directly from the storage without even using separate RAM, etc...but we are a long ways away from that right now.


----------



## Vik

samphony said:


> One thing for sure you have to run everything from the internal storage to get the best performance.


My main internal SSD in my 5,1 Mac gives me just over 500mb/sec (read), but aren't new external drives offering more than five times that with Thunderbolt 3?


----------



## RSK

RSK said:


> Finally got around to midi. I recorded myself playing a C major scale up and down four times. So far I've got a piccolo, flute section, oboe section, cor anglais, clarinets, bassoons a2, horns a4, three trumpets, three trombones, a tuba, strings 1 section, strings 2 section, violas, cellli, and basses. All of them are sections except for the piccolo.
> 
> The plan now is to replace the brass sections with Berlin's individual horns and trumpets.


Replacing the trumpet and horn sections with individual tracks from Berlin was successful. Any thoughts on what should be next?


----------



## RSK

Changed the test a little to more reflect my workflow; rather than having all tracks active, only tracks with midi are active.

Replicated all tracks so that shorts and longs are playing simultaneously. I'm now up to 45 tracks, all sections of the orchestra playing longs and shorts simultaneously, with the brass section all being individual instruments in Berlin (also playing longs and shorts simultaneously).

RAM is still maxed but CPU is low.


----------



## robgb

RSK said:


> Changed the test a little to more reflect my workflow; rather than having all tracks active, only tracks with midi are active.
> 
> Replicated all tracks so that shorts and longs are playing simultaneously. I'm now up to 45 tracks, all sections of the orchestra playing longs and shorts simultaneously, with the brass section all being individual instruments in Berlin (also playing longs and shorts simultaneously).
> 
> RAM is still maxed but CPU is low.


How much Swap is being used?


----------



## RSK




----------



## RSK

I'm gonna call it a night with this testing. The point is, this thing blows away the previous generation MacBook Air by such a long margin it's not even funny. It's more than capable of what I want a laptop to do even in Rosetta mode, so once these apps go native ARM it will be even more so.


----------



## MartinH.

samphony said:


> Again the whole RAM argument which is still relevant to x86 doesn’t hold up to the m1 architecture.


The SSD they use seems to be _very_ fast, which is cool, but it's barely one order of magnitude faster than what M2 SSDs in modern intel systems can do. Keep in mind you only have that tiny soldered on internal SSD with those speeds, in an intel system you could have several much bigger SSDs that maybe only offer like 1/5th or so of the bandwidth, but they can actually fit a big sample library collection on there, which the m1 macs can't.





Dewdman42 said:


> Perhaps eventually SSD tech and RAM tech will converge and we'll up with storage that is so fast as to be as good as RAM...with tons of it....enough to literally run your sample libraries directly from the storage without even using separate RAM, etc...but we are a long ways away from that right now.


Is this such a long way out though? I want to know what kind of read/write bandwidth we'd actually need on an SSD to effectively be able to treat it as fully viable RAM for sample streaming purposes. During normal playback, you're streaming the sample at a fixed speed, past a certain point being able to stream more samples doesn't yield a benefit because the CPU starts bottlenecking the playback. I'm just really curious where roughly this threshold lies, but I can't find out how to test or measure this. My gut feeling is that highend M2s might actually be fast enough already, at lest if the concurrence of parallel reads or the overhead from swapping to virtual memory doesn't choke down the bandwidth too much. Wouldn't surprise me if no one ever tried this, because people with highend M2's and the mainboards that can use them to their full potential probably aren't also using only 16GB of Ram, because there's no good reason to do that.


----------



## Dewdman42

well also consider...part of the problem is not the speed of the SSD...its simply that the sample data will be transferred over and over and over again from the SSD into the CPU via the ram... it has to be "transferred". Transferred over and over again for every note played.

When its sitting in RAM, then kontakt just reads it right from the consolidate memory. 

Realize that when data is "streamed" from the SSD, it still has to funnel through some normal RAM buffers, etc.. it doesn't just feed directly to the CPU. It feeds from the SSD to some buffer in RAM and then the the CPU operates on that buffer...then throws it away and streams another buffer full from the SSD into memory and operates on that, etc... 

By having it on SSD, you're massively increasing the amount of data shoveling that has to happen to transfer it from SSD to RAM to cpu. That would be a reduced M1 performance EVEN IF the SSD could perform as fast as RAM...which it can't come even close.


----------



## Dewdman42

To put the speed difference in perspective, the M1 MB air SSD supposedly gets roughly 2 GB/sec of data transfer.

DDR5 RAM, gets 57.6 GB/sec on a single channel and motherboards may use up to 8 channels, getting 460 GB/sec data transfer.

That's about double the rate of DDR4, the current tech... but still....its hundreds of times faster then the M1's SSD.

And also those rates are typically talking about sustained transfer speeds. The _latency _for accessing memory locations within memory compared to SSD will have a much bigger disparity then that; if you tried to write software that accessed the SSD directly like memory....the latency would be horrendous compared to RAM. The CPU fundamentally has to operate its calculations on RAM for any reasonable performance.

Streaming is a form of shuffling data from SSD into RAM, temporarily, so that you don't have to use as much RAM to hold it all...but ultimately...you're increasing a lot of overhead moving the data around when you do that...which is not the M1-way!

Maybe somehow in the future the tech with memory and/or SSD, flash or other forms of storage will converge a bit. RAM will become easier to have large amounts of it, and perhaps RAM could become non-volatile while also being fast. Then you'd load up your RAM once a month or once a year or whatever...and it would just all be loaded and fast. While longer term storage are really relegated to holding larger amounts of data that you don't always access immediately. Maybe it could someday converge where we can just have 100TB of non-volatile ram that is faster then ever! But we are a long long ways away from that today.


----------



## RSK

MartinH. said:


> Keep in mind you only have that tiny soldered on internal SSD with those speeds, in an intel system you could have several much bigger SSDs that maybe only offer like 1/5th or so of the bandwidth, but they can actually fit a big sample library collection on there, which the m1 macs can't.


My MB Air has all these on its SSD. Don't really think I need much more.


----------



## RSK

MartinH. said:


> Is this such a long way out though? I want to know what kind of read/write bandwidth we'd actually need on an SSD to effectively be able to treat it as fully viable RAM for sample streaming purposes.


And this is the real point. I don't need an Aston Martin to get to work, I just need something that will be fast enough. Anything above that is superfluous.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

RSK said:


> And this is the real point. I don't need an Aston Martin to get to work, I just need something that will be fast enough. Anything above that is superfluous.



Obligatory car analogies tend to break down very quickly when it comes to computer performance.

The issue is getting to work without the car sputtering as soon as you start it up. It's software that determines the driving experience.

But I'm with you on the specs. Who cares how fast the car goes if its wheels are square and your driver's license has been suspended for writing stupid shit like I am on VI-Control.


----------



## Alex Fraser

RSK said:


> And this is the real point. I don't need an Aston Martin to get to work, I just need something that will be fast enough. Anything above that is superfluous.


Thanks for taking the time to test, RSK. The memory pressure pattern looks similar to heavy ram use on my 16g MpB.


----------



## RSK

Nick Batzdorf said:


> But I'm with you on the specs. Who cares how fast the car goes if its wheels are square and your driver's license has been suspended for writing stupid shit like I am on VI-Control.


It's rare that I laugh out loud at something online, but that did it.

That said, you're talking to someone who used to run Logic (not Pro) on a G4 with an external "spinning rust" hard drive. Today's SSDs are more than capable of what we need if we configure the software correctly.


----------



## JohnG

I am excited to replace my feeble laptop with one of these (maybe in six months?) but to try to write full symphonic / hybrid score with it? I mean, pardon me but that seems bonkers. 

My old Mac Pro had 64GB of RAM, along with over 150 on satellite PCs. The new Mac has over 300 GB on it. Obviously, that is pretty heavy metal, but even so, the idea of trying to do this on 16 would only work if there is an SSD that is far, far faster than anything I have (including NVMe and PCIe drives). I get that everything is consolidated so it moves a lot faster, but still.

It would be fine for sketching and getting ideas down -- some of the examples people give are pretty impressive. But for major game or movie stuff, I think we are miles off.

Besides, I just bought a computer and that MUST have been a good decision!!


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

RSK said:


> It's rare that I laugh out loud at something online, but that did it.
> 
> That said, you're talking to someone who used to run Logic (not Pro) on a G4 with an external "spinning rust" hard drive. Today's SSDs are more than capable of what we need if we configure the software correctly.


Oh, there's no question that even half-speed SATA 2 drives (as in my 5,1 Mac Pro's bus) work really well for streaming samples.

The question is whether they're a substitute for RAM, and the answer - he says, not having tried an M1 - is almost certainly no.


----------



## RSK

JohnG said:


> I am excited to replace my feeble laptop with one of these


...which is exactly what I just did. Did I suggest one should try to score the next blockbuster on a MacBook Air?

I put it through its paces and published the results. Everyone can do with that as they will.


----------



## gsilbers

RSK said:


> ...which is exactly what I just did. Did I suggest one should try to score the next blockbuster on a MacBook Air?
> 
> I put it through its paces and published the results. Everyone can do with that as they will.



Thanks again.

It’s still great to see the performance.

even with the next 32gb ram it’ll be difficult to do a full score or large project but in other cases it could be about 90% of what music producers need 

But I think I can connect via Ethernet my 128gb ram sample pc and wel, maybe it can do a full score 

maybe. It would be until we see Hans zimmer with his MacBook on a jet saying he scored all of his new movie using his laptop 

My mac mini i7 is already running around circles my old Mac Pro.

and of these m1 are better then it’ll be a lot of fun using it for smaller productions or sketching.


----------



## robgb

Hey, maybe limitations are good. Composers being forced to simplify their arrangements might not be a bad thing. Just sayin'.


----------



## samphony

@JohnG 

Im pretty sure you could write your next blockbuster with 2-3 minis or 1 Air as sequencer and 2 minis as vep servers. But if you’re looking for a single computer solution I believe you’ve already have a great 7,1 for that!


----------



## JohnG

samphony said:


> @JohnG
> 
> Im pretty sure you could write your next blockbuster with 2-3 minis or 1 Air as sequencer and 2 minis as vep servers. But if you’re looking for a single computer solution I believe you’ve already have a great 7,1 for that!


You could well be right about the three-computer setup. Makes sense. 

I was responding to my perception that some people were hoping the M1 setup could magically allow a laptop to do what a full set of computers is currently doing.

Maybe that day is not too far off? But I think not quite yet.


----------



## erodred

Apologies, if I hijacked this thread, been wondering about this because I have a beastly AMD Ryzen 3 computer with 128gb of ram and 2TB of samples but really missing how easy logic was for this sort of thing (I am still a beginner and was swapping between cubase and studio one - with the latter being cheaper so stuck with it, but still thinking about Logic.... A LOT). 

It seems someone may use the 16gb as a stand alone for a small/medium template but need a slave for a larger template. Would the 8gb be sufficient just as the master in this situation? And was VEP solid on M1?


----------



## gsilbers

erodred said:


> Apologies, if I hijacked this thread, been wondering about this because I have a beastly AMD Ryzen 3 computer with 128gb of ram and 2TB of samples but really missing how easy logic was for this sort of thing (I am still a beginner and was swapping between cubase and studio one - with the latter being cheaper so stuck with it, but still thinking about Logic.... A LOT).
> 
> It seems someone may use the 16gb as a stand alone for a small/medium template but need a slave for a larger template. Would the 8gb be sufficient just as the master in this situation? And was VEP solid on M1?



amount of tracks, effects processor and software instruments still use
Ram. So 16gb would still be better.
But if price is an issue just get the laptop educational refurbished


----------



## Jett Hitt

erodred said:


> Apologies, if I hijacked this thread, been wondering about this because I have a beastly AMD Ryzen 3 computer with 128gb of ram and 2TB of samples but really missing how easy logic was for this sort of thing (I am still a beginner and was swapping between cubase and studio one - with the latter being cheaper so stuck with it, but still thinking about Logic.... A LOT).
> 
> It seems someone may use the 16gb as a stand alone for a small/medium template but need a slave for a larger template. Would the 8gb be sufficient just as the master in this situation? And was VEP solid on M1?


I would never get the 8GB when $200 more will get the 16GB. I have a Mac Pro 5,1 sitting here with 64GB of Ram (which I may increase to 128). I am seriously considering slaving it and getting the 16GB M1. It seems like the most logical option since all I really need is extra RAM. I admit that I am waiting to see someone else try it, and I want to see what else Apple offers this year.


----------



## rougue

Haven't read all the comments, and only just got my M1 Air [16Gb]. 

I loaded just *one* heavy library into Kontakt inside Cubase Elements 11 (Rosetta mode). It was stuttering.

Then i tried the same in Logic (in silicon mode) and it was fine.

TBH, it is a great computer, but i dont think it lives up to the extreme hype (yet).


----------



## rougue

samphony said:


> I’ve got the mini as it natively supports two displays. But startech offers usb to two DisplayPorts adapter so yes I’ll probably grab a MacBook Air or whatever Apple offers next.
> 
> Also the sonnet setup is for the Studio.


There is also the "plugable" USB 4k adaptor. Which is cheaper and works well.


----------



## erodred

rougue said:


> Haven't read all the comments, and only just got my M1 Air [16Gb].
> 
> I loaded just *one* heavy library into Kontakt inside Cubase Elements 11 (Rosetta mode). It was stuttering.
> 
> Then i tried the same in Logic (in silicon mode) and it was fine.
> 
> TBH, it is a great computer, but i dont think it lives up to the extreme hype (yet).


So it sounds like it is very dependant. Thank you for sharing this!


----------



## rougue

BTW, I often get this warning with my 16Gb M1.

Only Chrome, Eclipse IDE and Logic (no Kontakt, just Superior drummer and basic Logic Instruments) running.


----------



## gzapper

rougue said:


> BTW, I often get this warning with my 16Gb M1.
> 
> Only Chrome, Eclipse IDE and Logic (no Kontakt, just Superior drummer and basic Logic Instruments) running.


Hmm, sounds like the solution is to quit CleanMyMac and let the thing run and see how it does.


----------



## rougue

gzapper said:


> Hmm, sounds like the solution is to quit CleanMyMac and let the thing run and see how it does.


Yeah, it still runs ok. Just a cautionary message from CleanMyMac which can be ignored (and probably consumes a fair bit of RAM itself).


----------



## synthetic

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Oh, there's no question that even half-speed SATA 2 drives (as in my 5,1 Mac Pro's bus) work really well for streaming samples. The question is whether they're a substitute for RAM, and the answer - he says, not having tried an M1 - is almost certainly no.


Or, possibly, the storage and RAM built into the M1 chip are so fast that it removes the need for big RAM buffers. 

I built a Windows VEP machine with 128GB of RAM, and that was a mistake. I've never gotten the machine to use that much memory, but I also put a very fast drive inside (Intel 750 PCI RAID.) So as storage gets quicker it removes the need for large RAM buffers. RAM isn't a fact of life, it's a solution to slow storage. I don't know if we're there yet, but we'll get there someday soon. The other factor in steaming samples is processor speed, and apparently these are very fast. 

I'll be updating my '08 Mac Pro tower to a M1 Mac Pro when they're available (and Cubase, etc. starts supporting them.)


----------



## Dewdman42

synthetic said:


> Or, possibly, the storage and RAM built into the M1 chip are so fast that it removes the need for big RAM buffers



It doesn’t work that way. We are decades away of removing the need for ram, if ever




> So as storage gets quicker it removes the need for large RAM buffers. RAM isn't a fact of life, it's a solution to slow storage.



No ram is absolutely a fact of life. CPU’s operate on ram. Period. Everything that “streams” from ssd on your pc has to be temporarily loaded into ram where the cpu operates on it. Not just as a “buffer” but as a fundamental way that CPU’s and software work.

I would state things exactly the opposite, SSD’s only exist because ram isn’t big enough. Also ssd’s preserve data when the power turns off.



> I don't know if we're there yet, but we'll get there someday soon.



SSD’s are not even remotely close to being fast enough to eliminate ram entirely. Decades away, if ever.

Now it very well May be that you can build a big pc Monster that is able to stream so well that you don’t find yourself using the 128gb of ram and that’s fine but you are stressing the entire system more then if you turn off streaming and just use all that glorious ram you have. That machine will support more tracks and deeper dsp processing for plugins when streaming is reduced to as close to zero as possible. You have the ram so use it!!

The thing about the M1 is that a huge part of the reason for its reported performance has to do with operating DIRECTLY out of ram as much as possible, even more then your pc because of the consolidated chip. Which is really cool. It’s designed to focus MORE on pure ram use. The only problem is that it only has 16gb of it. If you then start streaming things more to get around that limitation, a huge part of the M1 performance advantage becomes moot


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

synthetic said:


> Or, possibly, the storage and RAM built into the M1 chip are so fast that it removes the need for big RAM buffers.


SSDs reduce the size of the buffers you need with spinning drives, and this may reduce it further. I don't have an M1 to try, but that's my guess.

In any case, 16GB seems like not enough.


----------



## gzapper

Dewdman42 said:


> It doesn’t work that way. We are decades away of removing the need for ram, if ever


Really, what do you base this opinion on?

Do you know of limits inherent in the UMA they are using?

I'd say we are very close judging by comments here and videos on youtube.
There are people running templates with 16+ gigs of samples running on memory swap already, and that's running almost everything in Rosetta. Its hard to say how flawlessly they are running based on what I've seen, but they are running.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

Pregnant/not pregnant, works flawlessly/useless.


----------



## Dewdman42

gzapper said:


> Dewdman42 said:
> 
> 
> 
> It doesn’t work that way. We are decades away of removing the need for ram, if ever
> 
> 
> 
> Really, what do you base this opinion on?
Click to expand...


Is that a serious question? 



gzapper said:


> Do you know of limits inherent in the UMA they are using?



do you? Educate us.




> I'd say we are very close judging by comments here and videos on youtube.
> There are people running templates with 16+ gigs of samples running on memory swap already, and that's running almost everything in Rosetta. Its hard to say how flawlessly they are running based on what I've seen, but they are running.



I have never seen any report or video of anyone running a larger DAW template heavy in sample instruments. if you know about such reports please point us to them, I'm sure many people would like to see this. I am very doubtful about it. My only point is that the M1's entire performance advantage is based on reducing as much as possible the amount of data that has to be moved around inside the system. It puts the data in RAM and leaves it there to compute on it without moving it around. That's the whole point of the M1. That's how it achieves remarkable benchmarks. But unfortunately, if you stream a lot of samples...you will be losing that advantage.

A computer is not a tape machine. The music doesn't just stream into Kontakt like audio hardware. The computer has to compute.....out of RAM. period. If you put the data in RAM and leave it there, the M1 would continue to show its rocket ship performance mainly because its also keeping video and other things in RAM also. 

However, as soon as you have to start shuffling the data around in the computer (which is what you do when you stream), then you lose at least some of that M1 advantage. With heavy streaming, I would expect its performance to be more similar to what you would see from many typical Intel computers with 16gb of memory in it at that point. Slowed down by that bottleneck of SSD streaming. Probably good enough for smaller projects, but at some point...it will be just like everything else...and some point beyond that it might even break down....because for larger DAW projects.....16gb is really not enough...even with streaming...

streaming is a compromise. Listen, it still may be a worthwhile compromise... Who wants to wait around for 64gb of samples to load into RAM every time you load a project? There is a convenience factor to using streaming also. And in some cases it can make up for lack of RAM. But its still a compromise... you will have lower track counts due to bottlenecks in processing that will be introduced... I use a little streaming even though I have 128gb of ram, so that I don't have to wait as long to load projects. But it also hinders performance, so if I were going to do a really big project...with lots of tracks...I'd probably reduce the streaming...so that more of my RAM is used and my machine will run more optimally.

I think some people seem to think this new M1 is just manna from heaven....and its cool tech, but people need to realize that if you start streaming, you are going to run into a lot of same bottlenecks that we have been dealing with for years.... especially if you're talking about trying to cram a few hundred tracks of orchestral sample instruments into 16gb of ram.


----------



## samphony

I’ve just received an email from Apple market research regarding my M1 macs. Very interesting questions and it’s the first time I’ve received such email. 

They asked about ports, multiple displays, how it is used.


----------



## Tronam

samphony said:


> I’ve just received an email from Apple market research regarding my M1 macs. Very interesting questions and it’s the first time I’ve received such email.
> 
> They asked about ports, multiple displays, how it is used.


I'm glad to see that. They've been listening to users a lot more over the past couple of years after eating some humble pie with the cylinder Mac Pro and controversial 2016 MacBook Pro redesigns.


----------



## gzapper

Dewdman42 said:


> Is that a serious question?
> 
> do you? Educate us.
> 
> I have never seen any report or video of anyone running a larger DAW template heavy in sample instruments. if you know about such reports please point us to them, I'm sure many people would like to see this. I am very doubtful about it. My only point is that the M1's entire performance advantage is based on reducing as much as possible the amount of data that has to be moved around inside the system. It puts the data in RAM and leaves it there to compute on it without moving it around. That's the whole point of the M1. That's how it achieves remarkable benchmarks. But unfortunately, if you stream a lot of samples...you will be losing that advantage.
> 
> A computer is not a tape machine. The music doesn't just stream into Kontakt like audio hardware. The computer has to compute.....out of RAM. period. If you put the data in RAM and leave it there, the M1 would continue to show its rocket ship performance mainly because its also keeping video and other things in RAM also.


Ok, I'll admit that you are right on one point, a computer is not a tape machine.
Otherwise, I don't see anything other than your opinions in that post.

I'm not an expert on this subject, nor have I played one on tv or at home. But the more informed articles I've read raise interesting points about the M1's new UMA and its effect on memory. Those articles, which you can google yourself, seem to support the findings here by actual M1 users like RSK, and the couple of people I know who have already migrated to the M1. Only one of those is a bigger template user, and he's just getting it setup so I don't have much in the way of detailed reports from him yet. 

From what I've read the UMA is drastically more efficient than the separate memory for RAM and GPU previously used. That appears to be paying off in offsetting memory swap efficiency. Even RSK's post on the previous pages here showing a protools session running with 23 Gigs of memory is pretty impressive, more so since we know all the apps are still running in Rosetta. 

But more importantly, Apple is very quiet about this subject and everyone is just making claims, so I'd have to take RSK's real world examples (which is still only a 23 gig session and not a 64 gig or higher) over your opinions on tape machines and streaming music into Kontakt.

Nick B is right on the money here and this is likely not to be a binary pregnant/not pregnant thing.
M1's with lower ram appear to drastically over perform compared to our previous experience with intel and AMD chips, which tend to crap out when you get even close to using all RAM. So I'm not going to buy a 16 gig M1, but based on the reports here, I'd buy a 32 gig M1 as soon as they come out as its likely to for my needs. Maybe I'd still use it with my VEP pc or maybe it'll run on its own, but I expect it'll kick my current mac in the arse.

Until then the 'computer can just compute'.


----------



## Dewdman42

gzapper said:


> and the couple of people I know who have already migrated to the M1. Only one of those is a bigger template user, and he's just getting it setup so I don't have much in the way of detailed reports from him yet.



let us know when he has accomplished his "bigger template"



> From what I've read the UMA is drastically more efficient than the separate memory for RAM and GPU previously used. That appears to be paying off in offsetting memory swap efficiency.



That's my whole point! The UMA is drastically more efficient. That is really _the reason_ for M1's performance. Its not necessarily because the actual CPU clock speed or instruction set is so much drastically better. 

Also, the UMA is not drastically faster then any other RAM in your intel machines. That's not what makes it more efficient. what makes it more efficient is the architecture whereby the data doesn't have to be moved around so much. As I explained earlier in this thread, normally data is being copied from RAM to GPU, constantly, for example. With UMA, that data doesn't have to be moved. The GPU is built into the M1 and just reads the data directly from the RAM itself while rendering pixels to your screen. That's an over-simplification...but the point is..this efficiency is not because the RAM or CPU are faster. Its because they are architected in a way to reduce the amount of data that normally would have to be moved around between seperate components in the computer. It reduces how often we even have to care if its faster or not.

However, when you start streaming a lot from SSD, the UMA will not help you one iota.... It will be the same bottleneck you have in your intel mini's that only have 16gb of ram.

Sure there could still be some advantage that at least the M1 video will be more efficient then an intel mini...but the system will be highly impacted by the limits of shoveling data back and forth between UMA and SSD.... 

Sorry if you don't like my opinion, but until I see otherwise, that's what it is.



> But more importantly, Apple is very quiet about this subject and everyone is just making claims, so I'd have to take RSK's real world examples (which is still only a 23 gig session and not a 64 gig or higher)



real world reports are where the rubber hits the road. I haven't seen it yet. I'll believe it when I see it.

This is not meant to slam the M1 tech!! Its great tech. I can't wait to see that tech with more memory (and PCI slots and storage bays). For now, these starter machines are just that...consumer oriented...and I think under powered for the kind of stuff we do here, might be ok for smaller projects. This is the future for Apple so we are all watching it closely to see when its ready.




> So I'm not going to buy a 16 gig M1, but based on the reports here, I'd buy a 32 gig M1 as soon as they come out as its likely to for my needs.



where have you seen a report that there is a 32gb M1 coming out? I looked around the other day and could find no confirmed report whatsoever that the M1 or M1X will have 32gb of ram. That would make a huge difference for this crowd if it did though!!


----------



## Tronam

It's not just the UMA. It is also one of the first 5nm SoCs on the market allowing for high transistor density in a thermal envelope previously unheard of at these clock speeds and since Apple doesn't need to cater to the general purpose computing market, they can incorporate various custom accelerator blocks to speed up all sorts of processing tasks. This is also one of the reasons why Rosetta performs so well, because the hardware and software were optimized together.

What impresses me most about the M1 is not that it's the fastest processor on the market, because we know that's not true, but the fact that it's pulling this off at a fraction of the power consumption. The GPU alone is only running on a mere 6-10 watts, even under full load.


----------



## Dewdman42

all good points..but still it won't make up for the lack of memory. The lack of memory, if impacted with heavy swapping...will be the bottleneck regardless of how cool the M1 is.


----------



## cuttime

Another possible side effect of excessive swapping (apologies if I've missed other posts about this):








Report: macOS 11.4 update fixes M1 Mac SSD wear reporting issue


A data reporting error made it seems like M1 Macs were performing too many writes on the SSD.




www.macworld.com


----------



## Tronam

Dewdman42 said:


> all good points..but still it won't make up for the lack of memory. The lack of memory, if impacted with heavy swapping...will be the bottleneck regardless of how cool the M1 is.


Yeah, the more memory the better because it'll always be faster than even the quickest SSD. The 16GB has been fine for how I tend to write, building up from scratch, but for those with massive default templates I'd probably want to wait for larger memory configurations, especially since it seems like Rosetta adds some additional memory overhead. We also can't forget that the GPU has to share that memory as well.


----------



## gzapper

cuttime said:


> Another possible side effect of excessive swapping (apologies if I've missed other posts about this):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Report: macOS 11.4 update fixes M1 Mac SSD wear reporting issue
> 
> 
> A data reporting error made it seems like M1 Macs were performing too many writes on the SSD.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.macworld.com


I think that's been covered here before and it looks like its not a real concern. The drives can handle that kind of usage.


----------



## gzapper

Tronam said:


> It's not just the UMA. It is also one of the first 5nm SoCs on the market allowing for high transistor density in a thermal envelope previously unheard of at these clock speeds and since Apple doesn't need to cater to the general purpose computing market, they can incorporate various custom accelerator blocks to speed up all sorts of processing tasks. This is also one of the reasons why Rosetta performs so well, because the hardware and software were optimized together.
> 
> What impresses me most about the M1 is not that it's the fastest processor on the market, because we know that's not true, but the fact that it's pulling this off at a fraction of the power consumption. The GPU alone is only running on a mere 6-10 watts, even under full load.


Yes, from all reports it lets laptops run cool and way long on battery, with such low power consumption. Given the power needed for a serious pc and gpu, this is a major and under valued feature. All that with an integral neural net and gpu that appears to be way more efficient for their OS on the same chip and power supply.

Still, what's impressing me is that this is the first version of this chip, enough so that they put it only on their lowest end machines and its still outperforming almost all their intel models. They have announced a plan to replace all chips within a couple of years so you have to know that they have a roadmap and timeline already. The price for a low end M1 Mac Mini is now about the same as just buying an upper intel chip by itself. Cheaper, faster, lower power, while running through Rosetta. Not bad for a first generation. 

I can't imagine investing in another intel box for a long time.


----------



## Tronam

cuttime said:


> Another possible side effect of excessive swapping (apologies if I've missed other posts about this):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Report: macOS 11.4 update fixes M1 Mac SSD wear reporting issue
> 
> 
> A data reporting error made it seems like M1 Macs were performing too many writes on the SSD.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.macworld.com


The Constant Geekery YouTube channel has been doing a great job of covering this SSD discussion in a non-sensationalist way. They even set up a detailed survey where users can upload usage data and the preliminary results have been interesting, albeit based on only 1500ish submissions so far. One shocking(not!) revelation was that the 16GB model tends to write to swap about half as much as the 8GB model. Another common factor was Google Chrome. Unlike Safari it buffers video streaming to disk, which can easily result in 100s of GBs written per day. It also seems that well optimized native apps generate far less writes to disk. Perhaps Rosetta in general is a contributing factor.


----------



## gzapper

Dewdman42 said:


> all good points..but still it won't make up for the lack of memory. The lack of memory, if impacted with heavy swapping...will be the bottleneck regardless of how cool the M1 is.


Totally true with all intel and AMD chips to the present.
But the M1 appears to perform much better while swapping.
Its not worth trying on an intel but seems passable on an M1 from existing reports here on this board.
Unless you think RSK has been lying to everyone....


----------



## samphony

I’ll have some time off away from deadlines tomorrow and hope to do some tests and report them here. I don’t believe that evil Apple released these macs to force all of us into forced obsolescence within the next 6 months. My nerdy alternate self tells me these machines where released to create a disruption and show a glimpse of what is and will be possible with this architecture. 

As I said before if apple releases a higher end M(whatever) NeXT  
I’ll adopting that right away. These machines are to me like switching from HDs to SSD back in 2009 (Mac Pros 4,1)


----------



## Dewdman42

gzapper said:


> Totally true with all intel and AMD chips to the present.
> But the M1 appears to perform much better while swapping.


The M1 will be similarly impacted if there is not enough memory. Anyway, buy one and let us know how it goes!


----------



## Vik

There are many claims out there about the next Apple ARM chips are having 12 cores, support up to 32 gb RAM, come in new iMacs which are 24" and 31,5" and will be announced or released in June. Here's one of the sites quoting that rumour:








New 24-inch and 31.5-inch M1 iMac models will be ready for launch by June 2021


Earlier this week, Apple discontinued Intel-iMac Pro models amid the rumors of the upcoming Apple Silicon iMac. Regarding new M1 iMacs, leaker @LeaksApplePro




www.ithinkdiff.com




Too bad that Apple seems to want to reservere the fastest processors in 'non-Mac Pro' Macs for the iMacs. Maybe they'll change that, and launch minis with iMac specs.


----------



## gzapper

Dewdman42 said:


> The M1 will be similarly impacted if there is not enough memory. Anyway, buy one and let us know how it goes!


I don't know why you keep claiming this when there are videos and reports here saying otherwise. I'm not saying you can run a full 64 or 128 gig template, but it looks like the M1 is fast enough to be able to directly stream from disk, not just ram. Here's a guy streaming 64 Kontakt patches from disk, not RAM and his M1 says its only running at 50% cpu.


----------



## Alex Fraser

It’s possibly still too early to find out the ultimate ability of these machines to “do an orchestra?”

AFAIK, Kontakt is still intel only and the Spitfire Player only exists in bleeding edge beta on Apple Silicon.

I think it’s already clear though, that unless you’re loading up mic after mic or running a huge template, you can do work on these machines, which is encouraging. At least we know Apple haven’t dropped the ball.


----------



## RSK

Alex Fraser said:


> It’s possibly still too early to find out the ultimate ability of these machines to “do an orchestra?”
> 
> AFAIK, Kontakt is still intel only and the Spitfire Player only exists in bleeding edge beta on Apple Silicon.
> 
> I think it’s already clear though, that unless you’re loading up mic after mic or running a huge template, you can do work on these machines, which is encouraging. At least we know Apple haven’t dropped the ball.


Both Kontakt and Spitfire run just fine in Rosetta. If you're going to use them in Logic you have to make sure Logic is also running in Rosetta, but other than that caveat it all works well.

I am looking forward to all of our software being written for M1; it will be interesting to see how much of a performance gain we get from not having a translator in the process.


----------



## colony nofi

I only just found out fabfilter plugs all support the M1 natively. (As of dec 2020 even!). Once izotope manages to get their products working on M1 (natively or even rosetta) I think we will have enough parts of our standard plugin set to do a trial run with one of these machines being an audio editing workstation (for sound post!). I've already successfully run some pretty big TV (5.1) mixes on one, but a bunch of the plugins wouldn't load so I just skipped over them. It seemed to handle the large sessions really easily. It bodes well for the future. Indeed, it seemed to run all the bussing even better than the mac pro (trashcans) that the session was originally made on.


----------



## Soundbed

Wow, I still haven’t seen the “tests” I was hoping to see, where an M1 with 16GB of RAM sputters to a halt with a “large” orchestral session that would normally use a “lot” more RAM on a Mac with an Intel chip.

Or even an M1 16GB Mac with a “large” VEP slave and oodles of RAM, running smoothly together.

Am I going to be *forced* to buy one to try this?


----------



## mscp

colony nofi said:


> I only just found out fabfilter plugs all support the M1 natively. (As of dec 2020 even!). Once izotope manages to get their products working on M1 (natively or even rosetta) I think we will have enough parts of our standard plugin set to do a trial run with one of these machines being an audio editing workstation (for sound post!). I've already successfully run some pretty big TV (5.1) mixes on one, but a bunch of the plugins wouldn't load so I just skipped over them. It seemed to handle the large sessions really easily. It bodes well for the future. Indeed, it seemed to run all the bussing even better than the mac pro (trashcans) that the session was originally made on.


How many 5.1 tracks were in the session with the M1? Were they audio or MIDI (VEP)?


----------



## Tronam

Soundbed said:


> Wow, I still haven’t seen the “tests” I was hoping to see, where an M1 with 16GB of RAM sputters to a halt with a “large” orchestral session that would normally use a “lot” more RAM on a Mac with an Intel chip.
> 
> Or even an M1 16GB Mac with a “large” VEP slave and oodles of RAM, running smoothly together.
> 
> Am I going to be *forced* to buy one to try this?


It’s probably because most folks with that heavy of an orchestral setup/template wouldn’t really be interested in an entry level laptop in the first place. They’re probably holding out for the higher end systems.


----------



## Soundbed

Tronam said:


> It’s probably because most folks with that heavy of an orchestral setup/template wouldn’t really be interested in an entry level laptop in the first place. They’re probably holding out for the higher end systems.


Yeah. I guess I'd need to get my own Mini to satisfy my curiosity.


----------



## rnb_2

RSK said:


> Both Kontakt and Spitfire run just fine in Rosetta. If you're going to use them in Logic you have to make sure Logic is also running in Rosetta, but other than that caveat it all works well.
> 
> I am looking forward to all of our software being written for M1; it will be interesting to see how much of a performance gain we get from not having a translator in the process.


You don't have to run Logic in Rosetta to run Kontakt or Spitfire - both run just fine with Logic in M1-native mode. The one limitation is that Intel midi FX plugins (like Scaler/Orb/etc) don't seem to work with Logic in Native mode - they just don't do anything - so you do have to run in Rosetta mode for those.


----------



## Vik

Soundbed said:


> Am I going to be *forced* to buy one to try this?


Why not go for the upcoming iPad Pro instead? It's probably gong to be just as good as a M1 Mac, and I'd be surprised if it won't run Logic, and have options for connecting external drives and all that. Who knows, maybe it will have more power than the current Ma Macs.


----------



## rnb_2

Vik said:


> Why not go for the upcoming iPad Pro instead? It's probably gong to be just as good as a M1 Mac, and I'd be surprised if it won't run Logic, and have options for connecting external drives and all that. Who knows, maybe it will have more power than the current Ma Macs.


I think we'll have to wait about 24 hours to find out if this is actually an option.


----------



## mscp

I'd like to own a Mac Mini if it can handle around 300ish 5.1 audio tracks and a 2 dozen bus tracks for FX on Pro Tools.


----------



## Vik

rnb_2 said:


> I think we'll have to wait about 24 hours to find out if this is actually an option.


Sure, but I'll user the word 'when' instead of 'if'. It could happen at the Apple event tomorrow, and if not, it will happen later. 

OTOH, they could also sell Mac minis with iMac specs, for a much lower price than the iMacs of course, but have decided not to do that, so it's also a question about how far they will go in competing with /outpricing their own (more pricey) products.


----------



## Tronam

I tend to get the best overall performance and stability when running Logic in Rosetta mode, but 3rd party developer progress has been really impressive so far (this extensive M1 Native List keeps growing by the day). The main holdup right now is devs that use iLok for their copy protection. Because of PACE's sluggishness about half of my plugins still aren't native and even if their plugins are ready to go, without native iLok support they can't release them.


----------



## Tronam

Vik said:


> Why not go for the upcoming iPad Pro instead? It's probably gong to be just as good as a M1 Mac, and I'd be surprised if it won't run Logic, and have options for connecting external drives and all that. Who knows, maybe it will have more power than the current Ma Macs.


The iPad Pros have been head-scratchingly overpowered for such a long time now. I would definitely like to see Apple finally released some truly "pro" level apps to take advantage of their capabilities like Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro. If only Aperture could be resurrected (sigh).


----------



## gsilbers

I ended up getting the MacBook Air 16gb ram. I taped a 8tb ssd to the back cover. And have so many libraries at my disposal.

I realized I don’t stream that many samples all at once.
But if I need any then I do need them to go fast. 
bo matter if it’s my 1tb Of sfx for movies or spitfire chamber strings.
Or a hiphop hat loop.

I gave up on the idea of moving to laptop once the i9 MacBook intel 64gb ram was such a let down w noise and heat.

I’m sure Apple will pull off the m1 equivalent. But now I just need something to replace my old 2012 
That the USB ports fails, pad doesn’t work and it cannot do more than 4 tracks at once.

if there is any test anyone would like to do let me know. 
I’ll see if I can load a crap load of Kontakt samples in update sample pool and play them one at a time and loop to see how far it can go and this new memory swap thing.


----------



## Jett Hitt

gsilbers said:


> if there is any test anyone would like to do let me know.
> I’ll see if I can load a crap load of Kontakt samples in update sample pool and play them one at a time and loop to see how far it can go and this new memory swap thing.


It would be super helpful to know how many Kontakt tracks you could run. And Spitfire player and SINE if possible.


----------



## el-bo

Vik said:


> I'd be surprised if it won't run Logic, and have options for connecting external drives and all that.


Really?


----------



## el-bo

gsilbers said:


> I taped a 8tb ssd to the back cover.


That's so ghetto


----------



## gsilbers

el-bo said:


> That's so ghetto


Funny enough I got the idea a while back from random Afro jack video


----------



## Soundbed

gsilbers said:


> I ended up getting the MacBook Air 16gb ram. I taped a 8tb ssd to the back cover. And have so many libraries at my disposal.
> 
> if there is any test anyone would like to do let me know.
> I’ll see if I can load a crap load of Kontakt samples in update sample pool and play them one at a time and loop to see how far it can go and this new memory swap thing.


Yes, I want to see a ton of Kontakt libraries available to play and record MIDI. If you have them all in Update Sample Pool, I guess I’m curious about how many notes it takes to fill (what remains of the) 16GB lol!

Can you have 20 notes each of 

WINDS x5 x2 x2
p,f,o,cl,b longs & shorts, ens & solo

BRASS x5 x2 x2
t,fh,tb,basstb or euph,tuba longs & shorts, ens & solo

Harp

PERC x5
Cym,snare,toms,bd,aux

STRINGS x5 x2 x2
v1 v2 vla vc cb longs and shorts, ensembles and soloists/fc


----------



## gsilbers

Jett Hitt said:


> It would be super helpful to know how many Kontakt tracks you could run. And Spitfire player and SINE if possible.





Soundbed said:


> Yes, I want to see a ton of Kontakt libraries available to play and record MIDI. If you have them all in Update Sample Pool, I guess I’m curious about how many notes it takes to fill (what remains of the) 16GB lol!
> 
> Can you have 20 notes each of
> 
> WINDS x5 x2 x2
> p,f,o,cl,b longs & shorts, ens & solo
> 
> BRASS x5 x2 x2
> t,fh,tb,basstb or euph,tuba longs & shorts, ens & solo
> 
> Harp
> 
> PERC x5
> Cym,snare,toms,bd,aux
> 
> STRINGS x5 x2 x2
> v1 v2 vla vc cb longs and shorts, ensembles and soloists/fc



I was able to load like 50-70 instruments maybe more. It was into ram using the update sample pool. 9gb of stuff. mostly cinesamples, albion, symphobia and few others. 

I had issues with some random things like Kontakt not updated library location.
I used an old multi so it wasn’t that smooth sailing locating libraries.
Basically i have to trouble shoot some issues.

so far the memory swap was working. Ram load remain about the same 9gb no matter what I threw at it. never got a ram notice or error. 

the bottle neck is due to streaming from one disk so much stuff at once. My ssd sata is 6g/s so i heard crackling and stopped at around 20 or so instruments playing at once and each playing 20 note blocks. somtimes before getting there. it wasnt that consistent. 

the guy from sounds and gear seems to had better luxk than me with 64 at once but playing one note.

For now the test didnt go that well as i expected. Much better than my old 2012 macbook of course. 
But between some issues with kontakt, streaming, drive and random things my test wasnt that helpfull this time. 
Ill try later some other tests to see.


----------



## colony nofi

Phil81 said:


> How many 5.1 tracks were in the session with the M1? Were they audio or MIDI (VEP)?


Its was a post production mix session - so no midi
All audio is mono or stereo to start with - about 200 tracks.
And then its just routing / mixing to 5.1 stems (32 odd groups, most of them 5.1)


----------



## colony nofi

gsilbers said:


> Funny enough I got the idea a while back from random Afro jack video


This kinda looks ideal - even if its only USB 3.2
It'll probably do most of the things composers need... and you can put an NVME drive in it (which will maybe be ok for samples... but if not, sure - tape it to the back of the screen!!!!)

(16" version coming out in about a week... old 13" version here is out of stock / I'm guessing it might be being updated too?!)









LINEDOCK 13


The LINEDOCK 13" is a MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13 docking station that features 8+ hours of battery life, 100W power delivery, and 9 additional ports.




linedock.co


----------



## colony nofi

gsilbers said:


> I ended up getting the MacBook Air 16gb ram. I taped a 8tb ssd to the back cover. And have so many libraries at my disposal.
> 
> I realized I don’t stream that many samples all at once.
> But if I need any then I do need them to go fast.
> bo matter if it’s my 1tb Of sfx for movies or spitfire chamber strings.
> Or a hiphop hat loop.
> 
> I gave up on the idea of moving to laptop once the i9 MacBook intel 64gb ram was such a let down w noise and heat.
> 
> I’m sure Apple will pull off the m1 equivalent. But now I just need something to replace my old 2012
> That the USB ports fails, pad doesn’t work and it cannot do more than 4 tracks at once.
> 
> if there is any test anyone would like to do let me know.
> I’ll see if I can load a crap load of Kontakt samples in update sample pool and play them one at a time and loop to see how far it can go and this new memory swap thing.


Which external 8TB drive did you end up with? Sabrent Rocket?


----------



## gsilbers

colony nofi said:


> Which external 8TB drive did you end up with? Sabrent Rocket?


Samsung 8tb ssd w omrico usbc case.


----------



## gsilbers

colony nofi said:


> This kinda looks ideal - even if its only USB 3.2
> It'll probably do most of the things composers need... and you can put an NVME drive in it (which will maybe be ok for samples... but if not, sure - tape it to the back of the screen!!!!)
> 
> (16" version coming out in about a week... old 13" version here is out of stock / I'm guessing it might be being updated too?!)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> LINEDOCK 13
> 
> 
> The LINEDOCK 13" is a MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13 docking station that features 8+ hours of battery life, 100W power delivery, and 9 additional ports.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> linedock.co



today is the Apple event let’s see what comes up.

that under thing is cool.


----------



## Soundbed

gsilbers said:


> I was able to load like 50-70 instruments maybe more. It was into ram using the update sample pool. 9gb of stuff. mostly cinesamples, albion, symphobia and few others.
> 
> I had issues with some random things like Kontakt not updated library location.
> I used an old multi so it wasn’t that smooth sailing locating libraries.
> Basically i have to trouble shoot some issues.
> 
> so far the memory swap was working. Ram load remain about the same 9gb no matter what I threw at it. never got a ram notice or error.
> 
> the bottle neck is due to streaming from one disk so much stuff at once. My ssd sata is 6g/s so i heard crackling and stopped at around 20 or so instruments playing at once and each playing 20 note blocks. somtimes before getting there. it wasnt that consistent.
> 
> the guy from sounds and gear seems to had better luxk than me with 64 at once but playing one note.
> 
> For now the test didnt go that well as i expected. Much better than my old 2012 macbook of course.
> But between some issues with kontakt, streaming, drive and random things my test wasnt that helpfull this time.
> Ill try later some other tests to see.


Ok interesting! Thanks! Which DAW? My Intel i9 mid 2018 MacBook Pro with 32GB RAM and USB 3.2 ~ 6GB/s external SSDs in enclosures (Samsung and Crucial) “should” have been able to pull that session off in S1 depending on buffer etc. settings.

I actually spread my sample drives across 4 external 1TB SSDs and have a few samples on the internal MBP drive to. It’s all running through one OWC dock TB first then to a Juiced (brand) hub to each of the external sample drives in enclosures.

I also drive 2 external 1080 monitors via the OWC dock and some adapters. My intel MBP has an upgraded graphics and 16” screen.

The current trade in value of my (originally) ~$3500 MBP (which was a sale price when I got it) is about $1300 at Apple, the same price as the M1 MBP 13” today with only 16GB RAM, or, one of the 16GB Minis w/1TB iirc.

Obv doesn’t seem worth trading in my Intel MBP but I was looking to let my poor laptop sleep a bit more, and extend its life maybe, by getting a Mini to be the master for an old Hackintosh I built in 2012 as a VEP slave.


----------



## Soundbed

Vik said:


> Why not go for the upcoming iPad Pro instead? It's probably gong to be just as good as a M1 Mac, and I'd be surprised if it won't run Logic, and have options for connecting external drives and all that. Who knows, maybe it will have more power than the current Ma Macs.


Interesting thoughts but I’m not a Logic user. I didn’t want to come to terms with all the modal windows last I tried it. I switched from PT to S1 when I couldn’t get the lite version of Cubase to authorize to demo it, and now I’m finally comfortable with S1.


----------



## gsilbers

Soundbed said:


> Ok interesting! Thanks! Which DAW? My Intel i9 mid 2018 MacBook Pro with 32GB RAM and USB 3.2 ~ 6GB/s external SSDs in enclosures (Samsung and Crucial) “should” have been able to pull that session off in S1 depending on buffer etc. settings.
> 
> I actually spread my sample drives across 4 external 1TB SSDs and have a few samples on the internal MBP drive to. It’s all running through one OWC dock TB first then to a Juiced (brand) hub to each of the external sample drives in enclosures.
> 
> I also drive 2 external 1080 monitors via the OWC dock and some adapters. My intel MBP has an upgraded graphics and 16” screen.
> 
> The current trade in value of my (originally) ~$3500 MBP (which was a sale price when I got it) is about $1300 at Apple, the same price as the M1 MBP 13” today with only 16GB RAM, or, one of the 16GB Minis w/1TB iirc.
> 
> Obv doesn’t seem worth trading in my Intel MBP but I was looking to let my poor laptop sleep a bit more, and extend its life maybe, by getting a Mini to be the master for an old Hackintosh I built in 2012 as a VEP slave.


Logic

I used to have the i9 w 64gn ram but the heat and fan where out of this world so I sold it.

the Mac mini intel w 64gb is now my main computer.
It’s great.
Not sure the MacBook will run so many different things but haven’t looked into it.

for a main pc maybe waiting for the 14 inch in fall will workz

Also the few tests i did w large ram count seem to screw up and make the MacBook buggy.
But it could also be something in my system, sample le and test method.


----------



## Soundbed

gsilbers said:


> Logic
> 
> I used to have the i9 w 64gn ram but the heat and fan where out of this world so I sold it.
> 
> the Mac mini intel w 64gb is now my main computer.
> It’s great.
> Not sure the MacBook will run so many different things but haven’t looked into it.
> 
> for a main pc maybe waiting for the 14 inch in fall will workz
> 
> Also the few tests i did w large ram count seem to screw up and make the MacBook buggy.
> But it could also be something in my system, sample le and test method.


thanks we are on same page.

"the heat and fan where out of this world" no kidding, this is one reason I am looking to "save" it. it's pretty darn powerful and I got it pre-covid so I was planning on taking it traveling LOTS (my wife started a business planning trips just before covid19) instead it sits in my studio as my main rig working in the day and backing up to the internet at night ... its still warm in the mornings. i tend to have lots to back up because i'm downloading many GB per week for projects.

thanks again for the test and hope you can get those bugs ironed out!

eventually an M1 mini in the studio and m1 laptop might be ideal for me.


----------



## gsilbers

Soundbed said:


> thanks we are on same page.
> 
> "the heat and fan where out of this world" no kidding, this is one reason I am looking to "save" it. it's pretty darn powerful and I got it pre-covid so I was planning on taking it traveling LOTS (my wife started a business planning trips just before covid19) instead it sits in my studio as my main rig working in the day and backing up to the internet at night ... its still warm in the mornings. i tend to have lots to back up because i'm downloading many GB per week for projects.
> 
> thanks again for the test and hope you can get those bugs ironed out!
> 
> eventually an M1 mini in the studio and m1 laptop might be ideal for me.



yep same boat. 

appple rumors seem to indicate some sort of mac cube. which would be ideal. more ram, more hd space and ports. 

One thought i had was getting the m1 mac mini and pair it up with my mac mini 64gb. or get another mini 64gb and have a combined 128gb of ram in a mac cube form factor 

The big question now is that m1x and if it will go beyond 16 or 32gb of ram. since apple does consumer stuff they might not consider 64gb ram and above a priority.


----------



## rnb_2

If you want something a bit more elegant than tape, OWC's Envoy Express Thunderbolt 3 enclosure comes with a plastic bracket with an adhesive back to mount it on a laptop (or the back of an iMac, etc).


----------



## mscp

colony nofi said:


> Its was a post production mix session - so no midi
> All audio is mono or stereo to start with - about 200 tracks.
> And then its just routing / mixing to 5.1 stems (32 odd groups, most of them 5.1)


Not bad. Was it pretty quiet the whole time?


----------



## Vik




----------



## mscp

Vik said:


>





Vik said:


>



Basically, a Mac Mini with a built-in display...


----------



## Vik

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> Wait, if I am understanding this thread correctly, the new M1 iMac announced today is rumored to be configurable to 32Gb of RAM, but I do not see that actually written in the articles linked here, nor in Apples website.


I belive that the M1 is limited to 16 gb RAM, and the rumoured M1X hasn't been released, so – 32gb was probably only a rumour.


----------



## Alex Fraser

Yeah, new iMac tops out at 16gb ram.


----------



## SupremeFist

Alex Fraser said:


> Yeah, new iMac tops out at 16gb ram.


I just chatted with a product specialist on the store and he confirmed this.


----------



## colony nofi

Treat as a grain of salt. I've had a birdie whisper last week that we won't see another chip until WWDC, and that will only be an announcement. 

There's some betting on M1X being shown at WWDC - and that *isn't* considered a new chip but just an extension of the current chip. All signposts lead to M2 including the new Arm9 architecture - and that truly interesting pro machines will not be seen before M2.

None of that is terribly surprising to me.

What was a LOVELY surprise was mac mini being able to be ordered with 10GbE from today. This is brilliant news. One less thunderbolt device.


----------



## Soundbed

gsilbers said:


> yep same boat.
> 
> appple rumors seem to indicate some sort of mac cube. which would be ideal. more ram, more hd space and ports.
> 
> One thought i had was getting the m1 mac mini and pair it up with my mac mini 64gb. or get another mini 64gb and have a combined 128gb of ram in a mac cube form factor
> 
> The big question now is that m1x and if it will go beyond 16 or 32gb of ram. since apple does consumer stuff they might not consider 64gb ram and above a priority.


I think I would be 'ok' with 32GB ram per machine, I think. (?)

I'm not currently using ~1500 track templates personally, at most "large" to me is more like 150 tracks.

and even then, some tracks are audio, by the time i get too deep into the composition.

re: the intel ... seeing the m1, i don't know if i want another intel. unless they, too, offer a big leap forward in efficiency... the fan is running on my mbp right now, for no "obvious" reason


----------



## mscp

Soundbed said:


> I think I would be 'ok' with 32GB ram per machine, I think. (?)
> 
> I'm not currently using ~1500 track templates personally, at most "large" to me is more like 150 tracks.
> 
> and even then, some tracks are audio, by the time i get too deep into the composition.
> 
> re: the intel ... seeing the m1, i don't know if i want another intel. unless they, too, offer a big leap forward in efficiency... the fan is running on my mbp right now, for no "obvious" reason



They won't. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/i...unprecedented-manufacturing-issues-2020-07-23


----------



## Dajusch

colony nofi said:


> What was a LOVELY surprise was mac mini being able to be ordered with 10GbE from today. This is brilliant news. One less thunderbolt device.


May I ask, what ethernetstorage u are using? Looking for inspiration to free up thunderbolt ports.


----------



## Tronam

Intel needs to swallow their pride, eat a huge slice of humble pie and stop doing business like it's still 2010. They have to diversify their fabrication plants and stop clinging so desperately to x86.


----------



## Vik

gsilbers said:


> My ssd sata is 6g/s so i heard crackling and stopped at around 20 or so instruments playing at once and each playing 20 note blocks. somtimes before getting there.


Hi! 6g/s....? Confused... is it on this list?
https://ssd.userbenchmark.com


----------



## gsilbers

Vik said:


> Hi! 6g/s....? Confused... is it on this list?
> https://ssd.userbenchmark.com


yeah.. the normal evo.
that's how they sell it:

Included contents: 2.5 inches (7 millimeter) SATA 3 (6 GB/S) SSD & user manual (All other cables, screws, brackets not included);



but its 300/500mb per seconds on my test. 


more info I found: 

The SATA-III connection is a 6.0 Gb/s (small b) which is bits. When converted into bytes (big B) there is a ratio of 8 bits to a byte. So:

6 Gb = 6000 Mb = 750MB (roughly speaking)


(I didn't get that speed though).


----------



## colony nofi

Dajusch said:


> May I ask, what ethernetstorage u are using? Looking for inspiration to free up thunderbolt ports.


Completely custom server. We are testing a small embedded Xeon based system (8 core 16 threads and 64GB ram) using Micron 9300 U.2 NVME SSDs as the storage. This is *not* to store VI's or Samples. Just projects and their associated videos. Oh - and also serve our own custom sound fx libs.

Needs to work for 4 workstations currently, and looking into what it will take to have a few more using the same storage. 

Currently testing truenas. We've hit a few roadblocks along the way and have shelved the project for a few weeks just because of other priorities. But confident we'll have a working system up and running soon. Still to also figure out snapshot backups, plus offsite and cloud based backups for this system.


----------



## colony nofi

gsilbers said:


> yeah.. the normal evo.
> that's how they sell it:
> 
> Included contents: 2.5 inches (7 millimeter) SATA 3 (6 GB/S) SSD & user manual (All other cables, screws, brackets not included);
> 
> 
> 
> but its 300/500mb per seconds on my test.
> 
> 
> more info I found:
> 
> The SATA-III connection is a 6.0 Gb/s (small b) which is bits. When converted into bytes (big B) there is a ratio of 8 bits to a byte. So:
> 
> 6 Gb = 6000 Mb = 750MB (roughly speaking)
> 
> 
> (I didn't get that speed though).



Who wants a little bit of a deep dive?

SATA3 bandwidth is INDEED 6gb/s. However, it has a 20% overhead because of 8b/10b encoding.





8b/10b encoding - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org




So that leaves 4.8gb/s
Which is 600MB/s
(You are right about big B = bytes, little b=bits)

Now, the highest recorded speeds for reading a SATA III drive of any type are not 600MB/s, but instead are 560MB/s. So where's this other 40MB/s going? 

Without getting too nerdy, its overheads for data transport. Protocol overheads. Small amounts of latency in "waiting for things to happen"... AHCI commands (although these *may not* contribute to the overhead - I need to go back and do some reading) etc etc

Another fun fact that contributes to the real world speed max of 560MB/s is that even though a SATAII link is two links (one up, one back) they are in fact each bi-directional, and some info is sent back up the down pipe. So - you need to "wait" for the return on the pipe you are dealing with (input or output).

A good little slide presentation on SATA III 


And if you really want to get into the weeds, there's this mindshare doc on the protocol which is extremely well writen.


https://www.mindshare.com/files/ebooks/SATA%20Storage%20Technology.pdf



Finally, you can always throw a few bucks SATA orgs way and grab the specification yourself...





Purchase SATA Specification | SATA-IO







sata-io.org





Anyway. Long story short. The absolute MAX speed you will see for transfers using SATA III is 560MB/s.


----------



## Vik

RSK said:


> Woodwinds - 53 (Spitfire Symphonic, VSL)
> Brass - 74 (CineBrass Pro & Sonore, Berlin Brass)
> Perc - 16 (Spitfire Percussion and Albion One)
> PBH - 8 (Various)
> Strings - 46 (VSL Synchron Pro, Spitfire Symphonic and Chamber)
> 
> Total Instrument Tracks: 197
> Total Kontakt Instances: 33
> Total Stems: 13
> Total Reverb Tracks: 16


Did you check how many tracks you reliably can play back _when recording a new track_?

I just created a poll about this topic, btw, here:





Poll: How many pro* orchestral tracks can you reliably run on your M1 Studio, Max or Pro during record?


Hi, M1 Mac-owners. How many simultaneous, professional* orchestral tracks can you run on your M1 Mac during record? I'm thinking of libraries like SCS, SSS, MSS, CSS, Berlin Strings etc .– not simple freebies/basic orchestral sampler based tracks that come with your DAW (not all freebies or...




vi-control.net


----------



## Vik

Soundbed said:


> Am I going to be *forced* to buy one to try this?


Absolutely!


----------



## Vik

Have any of you checked how long it takes to freeze a memory hungry VI track on an m1 Mac compared with using an Intel Mac?


----------



## Soundbed

Vik said:


> Absolutely!


M2 will be shipping in July. I guess I can wait. https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Te...-to-M1-chip-goes-into-mass-production-for-Mac


----------



## Soundbed

Soundbed said:


> M2 will be shipping in July. I guess I can wait. https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Te...-to-M1-chip-goes-into-mass-production-for-Mac


Although...


----------



## Manaberry

I'm getting a Mac Mini M1 16GB next week, just to try if my setup idea works (still a nerd, after all. I cannot resist).
I'm planning to use my 18c PC as a DSP machine with Audio Gridder and VEP, using a super-fast network between the two machines.

If you want me to try some specific things, feel free to ask! (I'm using, PT Pro, Cubase 11 Pro, Dorico 3)


----------



## Soundbed

Manaberry said:


> I'm getting a Mac Mini M1 16GB next week, just to try if my setup idea works (still a nerd, after all. I cannot resist).
> I'm planning to use my 18c PC as a DSP machine with Audio Gridder and VEP, using a super-fast network between the two machines.
> 
> If you want me to try some specific things, feel free to ask! (I'm using, PT Pro, Cubase 11 Pro, Dorico 3)


Same request as before?


----------



## Soundbed

If you’re curious about M1X versus M2 — this video helps explain. I initially watched it with the sound off, reading captions, and I think I prefer it that way.  Something about his voice / inflections raises my heart rate.


----------



## Jett Hitt

Soundbed said:


> Something about his voice / inflections raises my heart rate.


LMFAO I couldn't agree more. Several of those Mac review guys have voices that really grate on me. My least favorite is Matt Talks Tech, who sounds like his privates are in a vice.


----------



## Vik

I've seen (the beginning of) too many videos from YouTube 'gurus' which claim to both know what happens with M1X and M2 – and _when_ it will happen. Some of them claim, in the title, to know the release date of some upcoming chip – but when I listen to what they have to say, there's just a lot of general talk which IMO lasts too long.
Reading text is more useful than YouTube-videos in many cases, and then we don't get the ads and the begging for likes and subscriptions either, and we can search the page for keywords if we want to. Besides, when a new M-chip from Apple is out, there will be at least one (long) thread about it on VI-C anyway!


----------



## rnb_2

Soundbed said:


> If you’re curious about M1X versus M2 — this video helps explain. I initially watched it with the sound off, reading captions, and I think I prefer it that way.  Something about his voice / inflections raises my heart rate.



I've been listening to Apple-centric podcasts for a decade+, and have heard Rene many, many times over the years (as a guest on other peoples' shows) - his voice never struck me as particularly notable most of the time, though he does have a distinctive cadence. Occasionally, something will give away that he's Canadian, though  He knows his stuff and is pretty well-respected, in any case.


----------



## clonewar

Manaberry said:


> I'm getting a Mac Mini M1 16GB next week, just to try if my setup idea works (still a nerd, after all. I cannot resist).
> I'm planning to use my 18c PC as a DSP machine with Audio Gridder and VEP, using a super-fast network between the two machines.
> 
> If you want me to try some specific things, feel free to ask! (I'm using, PT Pro, Cubase 11 Pro, Dorico 3)


Is the VE Pro plugin working on M1 Macs?

Edit.. I’m guessing it’ll work under Rosetta if the DAW (like Cubase) is also running under Rosetta?


----------



## Jett Hitt

clonewar said:


> Is the VE Pro plugin working on M1 Macs?
> 
> Edit.. I’m guessing it’ll work under Rosetta if the DAW (like Cubase) is also running under Rosetta?


Surprisingly, I haven't found anyone who has tried this. I have been thinking about slaving my 5,1 for the RAM, but I can't find anyone who has successfully done this.


----------



## Manaberry

I will try this for sure.


----------



## davidson

Soundbed said:


> I initially watched it with the sound off, reading captions, and I think I prefer it that way.  Something about his voice / inflections raises my heart rate.


Are you American by any chance? I find that being british, there are currently some brits doing product walkthroughs and youtube videos that i just can't watch. I can't do it. Their delivery makes me want to pull my own fingernails out. I can't think of a single american equivalent and maybe that's because the vast majority of my americanisms come from watching tv etc anyway, so it gives them free reign to talk and act however they like.


----------



## clonewar

Manaberry said:


> I will try this for sure.


Thanks, do you have Logic to test on too?


----------



## samphony

clonewar said:


> Is the VE Pro plugin working on M1 Macs?
> 
> Edit.. I’m guessing it’ll work under Rosetta if the DAW (like Cubase) is also running under Rosetta?



That’s how it works! At least that how I use it.


----------



## clonewar

samphony said:


> That’s how it works! At least that how I use it.


Nice! What DAW are you running on your M1 Mac? Any issues with VEP or does it run smoothly?


----------



## samphony

clonewar said:


> Nice! What DAW are you running on your M1 Mac? Any issues with VEP or does it run smoothly?


It runs better than on my i7. 
I’m using Logic Pro, Studio One and Pro Tools Ultimate. 

Logic and Studio One are running great. 
With Pro Tools I’m getting that memory low popup sometimes but it runs great too. 

I haven’t been an early adopter for many many years. 

I hope to be able to contribute to my earlier statement what is possible and what not. 

I’m just too busy right now. Hope that changes next weekend.


----------



## khollister

Curiosity (and a 2017 MBP that is starting to show problems) got the best of me - I have a 13" MBP M1 with 16GB/1TB being delivered shortly today. Also got a Caldigit dock to manage the limited ports. This will not be my main machine, but a travel companion. I'll report back with some impressions, although I will not be trying to run big orchestral templates, so no help there.

Other than Logic, Fabfilter (which I don't own) and the U-he betas, is there any other native stuff yet?


----------



## khollister

Well, it looks like Dune 3 and The Legend have native versions as well.


----------



## IgneousOne

I must say I'm tempted by the upcoming imac 24. I've been looking to get a new music PC, but was unsure about the cooling requirements of the AMD 5000 series. I had been advised to get AIO coolers and motherboards (X570) with chipset fans on - both of which I'm not keen on, from a noise point of view.

The all in one pretty powerful imac may be an option (for me) - 16GB or not.
EDIT: particularly from the point of view of the system being quiet.


----------



## mscp

IgneousOne said:


> I must say I'm tempted by the upcoming imac 24. I've been looking to get a new music PC, but was unsure about the cooling requirements of the AMD 5000 series. I had been advised to get AIO coolers and motherboards (X570) with chipset fans on - both of which I'm not keen on, from a noise point of view.
> 
> The all in one pretty powerful imac may be an option (for me) - 16GB or not.
> EDIT: particularly from the point of view of the system being quiet.


You should be fine if you're not a heavy user.


----------



## IgneousOne

'Heavy usage' being - out of curiosity ? (from a musical point of view)


----------



## mscp

IgneousOne said:


> 'Heavy usage' being - out of curiosity ? (from a musical point of view)


large template sessions ridden with inserts.


----------



## clonewar

samphony said:


> It runs better than on my i7.
> I’m using Logic Pro, Studio One and Pro Tools Ultimate.
> 
> Logic and Studio One are running great.
> With Pro Tools I’m getting that memory low popup sometimes but it runs great too.
> 
> I haven’t been an early adopter for many many years.
> 
> I hope to be able to contribute to my earlier statement what is possible and what not.
> 
> I’m just too busy right now. Hope that changes next weekend.


Thanks, sounds promising! I'm not generally an early adopter either, but am very tempted to pick up an M1 Mini to play around. Would you say that it's ready for prime-time yet as a DAW system if you're hosting instruments on slaves?


----------



## Vik

I'm kind if surprised. It's May, and M1 Macs have been shipping since when... January? ...and had a very good reputation since the earliest user reports for it's performance etc. Still, there are hardly anyone who seem to have experimented with loading one sampled VI-instrument at a time, using different sample libraries presets/samples on each of the tracks, to check how many tracks that could be played back before there were any issues.


----------



## rnb_2

Vik said:


> I'm kind if surprised. It's May, and M1 Macs have been shipping since when... January? ...and had a very good reputation since the earliest user reports for it's performance etc. Still, there are hardly anyone who seem to have experimented with loading one sampled VI-instrument at a time, using different sample libraries presets/samples on each of the tracks, to check how many tracks that could be played back before there were any issues.


November, actually. I’d put it this way: those that are buying M1s (myself included) largely don’t have the skills/training/high-end libraries to do a useful test, while those that have those things aren’t buying M1s.


----------



## Composer 2021

I tried to load BBCSO Core on 16 GB of Window RAM and it didn't even get close to allowing all articulations. If the M1 can load the entire thing at once (the library is 30+ GB) then I would be impressed. But it seems impossible.


----------



## rnb_2

Composer 2021 said:


> I tried to load BBCSO Core on 16 GB of Window RAM and it didn't even get close to allowing all articulations. If the M1 can load the entire thing at once (the library is 30+ GB) then I would be impressed. But it seems impossible.


Yeah, I think you need at least 32GB for Core, so I wouldn't recommend going to an M1.


----------



## khollister

If


Composer 2021 said:


> I tried to load BBCSO Core on 16 GB of Window RAM and it didn't even get close to allowing all articulations. If the M1 can load the entire thing at once (the library is 30+ GB) then I would be impressed. But it seems impossible.


If you intend to spin up all the articulations on all the instruments at once and write for a full orchestra with all tracks as MIDI, 16GB is going to be pretty hopeless I think. If you are looking at a more stripped down orchestration and/or willing to bounce/freeze tracks to unload RAM, then it's doable. If you are a big template guy, you are likely to be dissapointed with the current M1's.

I just got my 16GB/1TB M1 MBP and have it loaded with Logic, Omnisphere/Keyscape/Trillian, Diva, Repro, Dune 3, Legend, Kontakt, a selection of Kontakt libraries as well as the Valhalla stuff, the NI effects & U-he Colour Copy. Using a Babyface Pro, Caldigit dock, T5 drive for samples, couple of Eventide H9's, a travel case of eurorack gear and a Keystep as a travel rig (car & RV travel, not flying commercial travel).

The little 13" M1 is brilliant. Diva, Dune and Omni all play with substantially less indicated CPU load in Logic than even my iMac Pro, let alone my 2017 16" MBP! Kontakt is a little more uneven - some libs are better, some a bit worse. Even with all the cores above 50-60%, the CPU temp never gets past about 60C (often much less), the bottom of the case is just slightly elevated in temp, and no fan is audible. On the 2017, the fans are roaring, the case is hot and the CPU is at 90C+.

The battery life is also amazing compared to my old MBP.

Considering the Spectrasonics and NI stuff is not native (I'm running Native betas of the U-he and Valhalla stuff, DUNE3 and Legend are already native), this is an amazing solution for a mobile rig or a composer working primarily with audio, electronic music or more sparse orchestral arrangements.

I wouldn't use this as my only rig, but it is fantastic if you are not trying to run a full template or score a Mahler-sized orchestra with everything as live MIDI.


----------



## mat1

khollister said:


> I wouldn't use this as my only rig, but it is fantastic if you are not trying to run a full template or score a Mahler-sized orchestra with everything as live MIDI.


Would you be up for doing a Kontakt stress test on it with libraries on the internal?

It would be interesting to know how far it can be pushed.


----------



## Manaberry

Just received the Mac Mini. Loaded my template. Instruments are hosted on my PC with VEP. With just one instance activated over 17 from my 1700 tracks template, the meter is already too damn high at 128.


----------



## khollister

mat1 said:


> Would you be up for doing a Kontakt stress test on it with libraries on the internal?
> 
> It would be interesting to know how far it can be pushed.


I'm trying to get ready for an extended trip in a couple weeks and don't have the time. I still have a lot of work to get this rig ready for travel.

Apple has a 14 day return period, just buy one and try it yourself. If you're not happy with the results, return it.


----------



## khollister

Manaberry said:


> Just received the Mac Mini. Loaded my template. Instruments are hosted on my PC with VEP. With just one instance activated over 17 from my 1700 tracks template, the meter is already too damn high at 128.


I have to believe that is either a Cubase and/or VEP problem with Rosetta. I may install Cubase 11 and see what happens on my MBP.


----------



## Manaberry

khollister said:


> I have to believe that is either a Cubase and/or VEP problem with Rosetta. I may install Cubase 11 and see what happens on my MBP.


Using Audio Gridder seems to affect the performance in the same way. Empty project, 3/4 Audio Gridder instruments, already at 25%.

Something's wrong.


----------



## khollister

Manaberry said:


> Using Audio Gridder seems to affect the performance in the same way. Empty project, 3/4 Audio Gridder instruments, already at 25%.
> 
> Something's wrong.


what happens if you just create some tracks in Cubase with local VST's? Is this the latest C11 update - they just "certified" Cubase on M1 with Rosetta?


----------



## Manaberry

Not yet. I will try this later this week. Gotta work :D


----------



## mscp

Just received the Mac Mini. Loaded my template. Instruments are hosted on my PC with VEP. With just one instance activated over 17 from my 1700 tracks template, the meter is already too damn high at 128.


Manaberry said:


>


That makes so much sense.


----------



## Manaberry

Phil81 said:


> Just received the Mac Mini. Loaded my template. Instruments are hosted on my PC with VEP. With just one instance activated over 17 from my 1700 tracks template, the meter is already too damn high at 128.
> 
> That makes so much sense.


More than the 3 tracks-only project that goes crazy as well, yup.


----------



## mscp

Manaberry said:


> More than the 3 tracks-only project that goes crazy as well, yup.


I think there are a lot of misconception of what Mac Minis are for. (Still)

For heavy duty work - just get a Mac Pro. Or build a great PC. Either way - it will be equally expensive.


----------



## Manaberry

Phil81 said:


> I think there are a lot of misconception of what Mac Minis are for. (Still)
> 
> For heavy duty work - just get a Mac Pro. Or build a great PC. Either way - it will be equally expensive.



I got the PC already. I was just curious to see how the Mac Mini could handle audio stream from it through ethernet and... It cannot handle that much for now. Even a few tracks cannot make it on Cubase. 

However, Pro Tools Ultimate runs very well with a decent-sized mix project (a hundred plugins, 80+ tracks/aux).


----------



## mscp

Manaberry said:


> I got the PC already. I was just curious to see how the Mac Mini could handle audio stream from it through ethernet and... It cannot handle that much for now. Even a few tracks cannot make it on Cubase.
> 
> However, Pro Tools Ultimate runs very well with a decent-sized mix project (a hundred plugins, 80+ tracks/aux).


Yeah. I’d definitely use the Mac Mini for a stereo music production that doesn’t exceed the amount of tracks a modern MBP (150ish tracks) can handle, but I find it very hard to believe that the Mac Mini will ever be able to handle large projects—otherwise a Mac Pro would become less and less attractive to a lot of the small suites out there. Apple is, at the end of the day, a business.

I’m also a PC user but own a few Macs too. Love them both.


----------



## Manaberry

Yeah... I was just tired of missing some Mac-only plugins and software (Atmos stuff, LUNA, Wholegrain, that poor UAD/WDM relationship, etc...)

I'm going to dig a little bit more to see how it goes. I just cannot afford an expensive mac. That's all.


----------



## mscp

Manaberry said:


> Yeah... I was just tired of missing some Mac-only plugins and software (Atmos stuff, LUNA, Wholegrain, that poor UAD/WDM relationship, etc...)
> 
> I'm going to dig a little bit more to see how it goes. I just cannot afford an expensive mac. That's all.


What are you missing in terms of Atmos? I haven't really missed anything (I'm on Nuendo). What kind of issues are you having with UAD on Windows? Maybe I can offer some help?


----------



## InLight-Tone

I'd like to see the performance of locally loaded Cubase instrument tracks, no VEP...


----------



## Tronam

khollister said:


> Other than Logic, Fabfilter (which I don't own) and the U-he betas, is there any other native stuff yet?


More than you might think. So far the best and most up-to-date resource I’ve come across is this comprehensive list of daws, effects and instruments with version numbers indicating when they went fully native: https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=556728
Whoever continually maintains that post is the OCD hero of the year.


----------



## zimm83

Does someone know if KONTAKT in Standalone mode does use all the 8 cores of the M1 or only one ?
Would be cool to be able to use all 8 cores instead of one because of the standalone mode . Thanks.


----------



## pcarrilho

So i did a stress test on my Macbook air M1, loading for than 20Gb of instruments (using EW OPUS) (my mackbook air has 16Gb).

I posted here:






First tests with my new Mac Book Air M1


Hi guys. Yesterday i bought a new Macbook Air, 16GB Ram and 500 Gb DISK. This computer will be essentially for my work related to sound design, production of samples libs, music for video games and even some soundtracks for TV. The intention is not to use it for large orchestrations, where a...




vi-control.net


----------



## Soundbed

pcarrilho said:


> So i did a stress test on my Macbook air M1, loading for than 20Gb of instruments (using EW OPUS) (my mackbook air has 16Gb).
> 
> I posted here:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> First tests with my new Mac Book Air M1
> 
> 
> Hi guys. Yesterday i bought a new Macbook Air, 16GB Ram and 500 Gb DISK. This computer will be essentially for my work related to sound design, production of samples libs, music for video games and even some soundtracks for TV. The intention is not to use it for large orchestrations, where a...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> vi-control.net


Thanks, good to know you can ‘use’ more than 20Gb of RAM when you only have 16Gb on the machine.


----------



## Soundbed

I’ll try to stress test mine a bit more tomorrow, with more instances of Kontakt and Sine.


----------



## Loïc D

Interesting.
I’ll be looking at your next stress test with great care.
Could you tell us how much RAM your project takes?


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

Soundbed said:


> ’ll try to stress test mine a bit more tomorrow


What's running in emulation and what's native Apple Silicon?


----------



## jcrosby

Soundbed said:


> I’ll try to stress test mine a bit more tomorrow, with more instances of Kontakt and Sine.



Curious to see what you think. I'm assuming you're running your DAW in rosetta mode? And if so, wondering if the instrument count in rosetta mode seems more or less the same performance as an i9 MBP... Keeping my fingers crossed that they release a new MBP before releasing a new version of maOS.

BTW I had the same battery swelling issue on my 2018 MBP. It's a common issue unfortunately.


----------



## lpr

Waiting for the M1X to drop before I jump into the Mac world. Never had Mac before but I'm done supporting Windows. It's clearly inferior. I am a Linux lover but for music it's not workable for me.


----------



## Soundbed

Loïc D said:


> Interesting.
> I’ll be looking at your next stress test with great care.
> Could you tell us how much RAM your project takes?


Is there an easy way to determine that? Quick answer is I don’t know. I purged all my Kontakt instances. There was crackling and CPU spikes if I didn’t. This machine takes a different working approach. It recovers easily. Meaning if it has issues temporarily it somehow seems to work them out quickly. So my approach to working with it has to change.


----------



## Soundbed

jcrosby said:


> Curious to see what you think. I'm assuming you're running your DAW in rosetta mode? And if so, wondering if the instrument count in rosetta mode seems more or less the same performance as an i9 MBP... Keeping my fingers crossed that they release a new MBP before releasing a new version of maOS.
> 
> BTW I had the same battery swelling issue on my 2018 MBP. It's a common issue unfortunately.


How do I tell what is or is not running Rosetta? (I can Google it also, but I don’t know yet.) I know I installed it early on with a quick click so I’m sure some/most is running Rosetta.

As far as getting “the same” performance I’m quickly learning that might not be the goal. If you want to work — get work done — I’m learning to adapt my approach.

Anything the CPU can handle well, throw at it.

That means SINE works great especially with limited articulations and mic positions loaded.

I’ll try to edit a video together showing 20 instances of 1 articulation and limited mic positions in SINE running flawlessly and then 5 instances of Kontakt with all articulations (can’t be “unloaded” I don’t think) and multiple mic positions come in and crackle.

In other words the variables are complex to juggle.

Some of it might be complicated Kontakt scripting … but it also might be the aging Kontakt architecture — who knows? (Not me…yet. I’m 3 days into this.)

Either way if you’re trying to get work done you’ll quickly ditch what doesn’t work and find what does; which might not be exactly what worked on an older RAM endowed i9 system.


----------



## jcrosby

Soundbed said:


> How do I tell what is or is not running Rosetta? (I can Google it also, but I don’t know yet.) I know I installed it early on with a quick click so I’m sure some/most is running Rosetta.
> 
> As far as getting “the same” performance I’m quickly learning that might not be the goal. If you want to work — get work done — I’m learning to adapt my approach.
> 
> Anything the CPU can handle well, throw at it.
> 
> That means SINE works great especially with limited articulations and mic positions loaded.
> 
> I’ll try to edit a video together showing 20 instances of 1 articulation and limited mic positions in SINE running flawlessly and then 5 instances of Kontakt with all articulations (can’t be “unloaded” I don’t think) and multiple mic positions come in and crackle.
> 
> In other words the variables are complex to juggle.
> 
> Some of it might be complicated Kontakt scripting … but it also might be the aging Kontakt architecture — who knows? (Not me…yet. I’m 3 days into this.)
> 
> Either way if you’re trying to get work done you’ll quickly ditch what doesn’t work and find what does; which might not be exactly what worked on an older RAM endowed i9 system.


Honestly??? I don't know! I've stuck to 10.15 and an intel mac for a reason. Rosetta's like a riddle that no one seems to know the answer to. My guess is - if you're running any plugins that aren't native M1 than your DAW launches in rosetta mode. But TBH? I don't really know...

Rosetta seems like its a bit of a black box that isn't necessarily obvious, even if someone's used macs for quite some time.... Drats


----------



## Soundbed

jcrosby said:


> Honestly??? I don't know! I've stuck to 10.15 and an intel mac for a reason. Rosetta's like a riddle that no one seems to know the answer to. My guess is - if you're running any plugins that aren't native M1 than your DAW launches in rosetta mode. But TBH? I don't really know...
> 
> Rosetta seems like its a bit of a black box that isn't necessarily obvious, even if someone's used macs for quite some time.... Drats


Ha! Okay no worries. We can assume Rosetta for now. I think people who are not willing to change workflow will wait for more RAM. Personally I am interested in the “convert to audio” workflow because the drive and CPU are so fast it’s easy “enough” to keep writing with 16GB of sounds in RAM at any given time … I don’t “need” and entire project in RAM all at once …


----------



## Al Maurice

M1 seems to handle its resources more effectively than an equivalent Intel chip.

So in essence in the vast majority of cases, the fact Rosetta intervenes probably '...won't be that noticeable. In the cases some obscure library, OS or machine language instruction is interjected it might struggle more....' -- but whether we can believe the marketing, purely based on a few simple demos is another matter.

Once more apps and plugins are ported over to native code, then I would have thought that's probably the time, when we can judge whether M1 spec handles intensive applications of music production to a satisfactory level. Until then I would say 'the jury is out on this one'.


----------



## Sovereign

Have you tried reducing/experimenting with the Kontakt DFD sample buffer just to see how low you can go?


----------



## fretti

Soundbed said:


> How do I tell what is or is not running Rosetta? (I can Google it also, but I don’t know yet.) I know I installed it early on with a quick click so I’m sure some/most is running Rosetta.





Nick Batzdorf said:


> What's running in emulation and what's native Apple Silicon?


Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding was that if Logic (or any other DAW) runs in Rosetta all plug-ins are as well and not running in native silicon; would have to test it later but I think before clicking the "run in rosetta" box for Logic I was not able to open some (most?) plugins that are not standard Logic/Apple plugins


----------



## Soundbed

Sovereign said:


> Have you tried reducing/experimenting with the Kontakt DFD sample buffer just to see how low you can go?


Ooh I hadn’t remembered that trick yet. I will try to check it out.


----------



## RixMusik

_*EDIT: the below is incorrect. I mistakenly thought that the VSL instruments were taking up all the RAM. It was some Cinematic instruments instead. So, using VSL Synchron Special Editions, I am able to load an impressive 20-30 instruments. There may be some tweaks that allow even more.*_

16GB M1 2TB MBP = *Can't handle more than about 10 instruments* from VSL Synchronised Special Edition, loaded in VE Pro 7, using MIR Pro :(

64GB i9 2TB MPB (previous machine) = Easily handles 40 instruments with the above settings.

Don't believe the hype Apple and the YouTubers say about the Unified Memory. They're not professional composers of orchestral based music for film and media. *It's fast, but very limited in depth: can't handle many high-end virtual instruments*. Mem pressure gets overloaded.


----------



## Manaberry

I've also tried the Mini M1, for a week, before sending it back. If you like stability, compatibility and performance efficiency, just wait.
It's far from being good enough when you work as a pro.


----------



## Vik

RixMusik said:


> 16GB M1 2TB MBP = *Can't handle more than about 10 instruments* from VSL Synchronised Special Edition, loaded in VE Pro 7, using MIR Pro :(
> 
> 64GB i9 2TB MPB (previous machine) = Easily handles 40 instruments with the above settings.
> 
> Don't believe the hype Apple and the YouTubers say about the Unified Memory. They're not professional composers of orchestral based music for film and media. *It's fast, but very limited in depth: can't handle many high-end virtual instruments*.


Unless the Synchron player / VE Pro now is M1 native, we don't know much about how the M1 MBP handles such situations – other than under Rosetta. And even if they would be M1 native, 64 gb makes a lot of difference compared with 16 gb.


----------



## rnb_2

fretti said:


> Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding was that if Logic (or any other DAW) runs in Rosetta all plug-ins are as well and not running in native silicon; would have to test it later but I think before clicking the "run in rosetta" box for Logic I was not able to open some (most?) plugins that are not standard Logic/Apple plugins


This wasn't my experience with Logic from day 1 on the M1 Mac mini - just about every plugin loaded in Logic via the Rosetta2 bridge with Logic running in native mode. For a while, MidiFX plugins (like Scaler 2, etc) loaded but didn't actually function, but that was fixed in a more recent update to Logic.


----------



## Soundbed

Al Maurice said:


> M1 seems to handle its resources more effectively than an equivalent Intel chip.


I agree but it also seems easy to push it to the "crackling" point with more than 20 modern orchestral sample instruments playing monophonically.



Loïc D said:


> Could you tell us how much RAM your project takes?


About 26GB in the (new) video linked *below*. On a 16MB M1 MBP. So, the remaining was handled by the "swapfile" I guess. (?)



jcrosby said:


> Curious to see what you think.


Currently disappointed. My initial enthusiasm that it didn't crash and burn immediately has been tempered by the fact that a slightly challenging project easily made things go snap crackle pop.



Al Maurice said:


> I would say 'the jury is out on this one'.


I think some people could use it fine but others (like a lot of VI-C folks) will consider it un-usable. So, maybe: "YMMV". :D



Sovereign said:


> Have you tried reducing/experimenting with the Kontakt DFD sample buffer just to see how low you can go?


At the end of the video linked below, I showed a screen ... is that where I change it? And do I make the number Low or High? Sorry I am going a little brain dead after 4 days of installing and trying to make things work and get things done.



RixMusik said:


> Don't believe the hype Apple and the YouTubers say about the Unified Memory. They're not professional composers of orchestral based music for film and media. *It's fast, but very limited in depth: can't handle many high-end virtual instruments*. Mem pressure gets overloaded.


Yeah unless there's a "workaround" I'm missing, I'm getting the sense today that this M1 with 16GB RAM is a bit like Scrappy Doo. "Lemme at 'em!" It's got a lot of fight but can't get the job done on its own. 



Manaberry said:


> I've also tried the Mini M1, for a week, before sending it back. If you like stability, compatibility and performance efficiency, just wait.
> It's far from being good enough when you work as a pro.


I'm sure plenty of "pro" producers could keep make money with this machine! Like EDM, hip hop or future bass or other pop/electronic styles. BUT -- when the caveat is made like @RixMusik made above that VI-C posters are using the word "professional" in tight conjunction with "professional composers of orchestral based music for film and media" then the math does indeed change, I'm afraid.

Here's today's results. Not so encouraging.

I guess it's pretty easy to get audio crackling on an M1 when your project is taking more than 16GB and you're playing more than about 20 "modern" orchestral sample instruments. The tune I wrote for this (clicked in with a mouse late at night) sort of became my M1 "sad theme".


----------



## mscp

Manaberry said:


> I've also tried the Mini M1, for a week, before sending it back. If you like stability, compatibility and performance efficiency, just wait.
> It's far from being good enough when you work as a pro.


You and I both. M1 is pretty weak compared to any I9. I’ve mentioned about the mini in countless threads. It’s feeble and most VI composers WILL get disappointed.


----------



## Jett Hitt

I am very appreciative of anyone who takes the time to make these sorts of tests, as there haven't been many that I have seen. However, it seems a little unfair to do this test in Studio One. Logic is optimized for this machine, and it should be the true bellwether.


----------



## Sovereign

Soundbed said:


> At the end of the video linked below, I showed a screen ... is that where I change it? And do I make the number Low or High? Sorry I am going a little brain dead after 4 days of installing and trying to make things work and get things done.


This its where you change it (general override), I have it set to 18 Kb (a lower buffer means less is loaded into memory) on my old trashcan Mac Pro which works fine. Do you think your performance issues are related to memory usage only, or a combination of factors?

From the video it looks like you're using the onboard audio and no external audio device? Pretty sure that would impact performance too.


----------



## jcrosby

Soundbed said:


> Currently disappointed. My initial enthusiasm that it didn't crash and burn immediately has been tempered by the fact that a slightly challenging project easily made things go snap crackle pop.


Oh no. Sorry to hear. I swear Apple gets a thrill out of tormenting their music users.
I bet Tim Cook's happy place is a fire pit he tosses musically inclined Apple employees into when thier stock has a bad day. 


If it's trying to playback with 26 GB of instruments that would explain some of the issues. Once memory pressure hits the red things can go downhill quickly... I wonder if enabling memory server has any effect on the outcome?


----------



## RixMusik

@Soundbed Your sad M1 music expresses our lament upon the M1 rather well! I notice you're running on 48,000 Hz, I tend to use 41,100 Hz at the moment, although 48K will become the standard for VSL instruments too as well.

I'm using Logic, I noticed you were on StudioOne. But for your info and for others reading this, I can confirm that such limitations exist within Logic and Cubase (I use both) for the M1, 16GB.

I'm considering the crazy idea of selling my M1 and purchasing a 16" 64GB again, while Apple still have a promo of 0% interest instalments spread over 24 months. Next month is royalty pay day for me, so I might go and do it. I know the new ARM 16" will be super powered, but it's looking like they won't be out for another 3 or 4 months, or possibly 2022 due to factory delays from covid affecting the led display production. And I've got projects to do before then, away from my desk iMac, so I'm considering it


----------



## RixMusik

jcrosby said:


> Oh no. Sorry to hear. I swear Apple gets a thrill out of tormenting their music users.
> I bet Tim Cook's happy place is a fire pit he tosses musically inclined Apple employees into when thier stock has a bad day.
> 
> 
> If it's trying to playback with 26 GB of instruments that would explain some of the issues. Once memory pressure hits the red things can go downhill quickly... I wonder if enabling memory server has any effect on the outcome?


I think you're right about Apple's stance for musicians. They seem to love the visual artists and media content producers, but rather ignore us musicians, and their recent keynote illustrates this. Lovely, exciting new features for visual arts, nothing regarding audio/music creation.


----------



## Alex Fraser

I think Apple looks after (most) musicians just fine. We need to be specific: The M1's are powerhouses for every sort of music production except virtual orchestras and ram intensive VI's. We're such a small market in comparison. Tiny, even.

It's been pretty clear for a while now. We gotta wait for the "pro" stuff (with the associated costs) to hit before we really know where the Apple Silicon/VI story is.


----------



## el-bo

Alex Fraser said:


> I think Apple looks after (most) musicians just fine. We need to be specific: The M1's are powerhouses for every sort of music production except virtual orchestras and ram intensive VI's. We're such a small market in comparison. Tiny, even.
> 
> It's been pretty clear for a while now. We gotta wait for the "pro" stuff (with the associated costs) to hit before we really know where the Apple Silicon/VI story is.


This! 

These entry-level computers are just that. The fact that they happen to offer more power than many musicians/producers will ever need is a lucky bi-product of Apple needing to make a very bold statement-of-intent, with their first in-house, fully-fledged computers. Attempting to extract 24gigs worth of performance from 16gigs worth of memory seems like a good recipe for disappointment, to me 

Also, at least for us Logic-users, Apple has given seven years of regular and free updates. A Mac Mini M1 with Logic comes in at about 1k. I'd say Apple have not ignored musicians at all


----------



## Soundbed

Jett Hitt said:


> it seems a little unfair to do this test in Studio One. Logic is optimized for this machine, and it should be the true bellwether.


I’ll try a similar test in GarageBand today.


Sovereign said:


> This its where you change it (general override), I have it set to 18 Kb (a lower buffer means less is loaded into memory) on my old trashcan Mac Pro which works fine. Do you think your performance issues are related to memory usage only, or a combination of factors?
> 
> From the video it looks like you're using the onboard audio and no external audio device? Pretty sure that would impact performance too.


oh! Ok I will try that buffer and an external interface when I get a chance.


----------



## Soundbed

jcrosby said:


> I wonder if enabling memory server has any effect on the outcome?


I will need to Google that to learn how to do it.


----------



## Soundbed

Jett Hitt said:


> Logic is optimized for this machine, and it should be the true bellwether.


Also wanted to draw your attention to this comment:


RixMusik said:


> I can confirm that such limitations exist within Logic and Cubase (I use both) for the M1, 16GB.


----------



## Soundbed

Alex Fraser said:


> We need to be specific: The M1's are powerhouses for every sort of music production except virtual orchestras and ram intensive VI's.


I agree. This machine is capable of a lot, in terms of music. But many tools we rely upon in the virtual sampled orchestra need … more.

[EDIT] that said, I am learning that there still may be some things I can do to optimize the project for 16GB RAM... stay tuned...


----------



## RixMusik

el-bo said:


> This!
> 
> These entry-level computers are just that. The fact that they happen to offer more power than many musicians/producers will ever need is a lucky bi-product of Apple needing to make a very bold statement-of-intent, with their first in-house, fully-fledged computers. Attempting to extract 24gigs worth of performance from 16gigs worth of memory seems like a good recipe for disappointment, to me
> 
> Also, at least for us Logic-users, Apple has given seven years of regular and free updates. A Mac Mini M1 with Logic comes in at about 1k. I'd say Apple have not ignored musicians at all


I agree with the Logic point.


----------



## el-bo

RixMusik said:


> I agree with the Logic point.


But not the point about the 700-quid MINI being more than powerful enough, for everyone except orchestral composers looking to replace their basement VEP server-farms with entry-level tech?


----------



## RixMusik

@el-bo and @Alex Fraser "entry-level computers as being more than any musicians/producers will ever need"?

Without sounding arrogant or rude: I am not talking music producers of beats and electronic/pop (there's nothing wrong with such musicians). I'm talking about scoring music for prime time networks like BBC, Sky etc and having music placed in Hollywood productions. You'd be surprise how many of us there are and how little we get paid for the royalties in considering how high profile the placements are, and how much we need to spend on equipment :( Our sample libraries cost £1,000s and most of us build them up through the years and still use them several years later, but they cost a lot and use lots of RAM.

The notation facility in Logic is a joke. Nobody uses it. We use Sibelius. The virtual instruments they provide for orchestra is mostly unusable for professional recordings for motion picture. Apple have the Apple Pencil and innovate for visual artists and graphic designers. You still can't get Sibelius on an iPad, whereas Windows tablets have had it for a while.

Most classical/scoring composers use PC servers as you can get insane specs without needing to take out a mortgage if buying Apple equivalents. Stuff them full of RAM, and a million-core CPU, then connect them to iMacs for the front end DAW. Networking through VE Pro. Some have ditched Apple altogether and just use a single machine, like Hans Zimmer, using on PC running Cubase.

I decided to do less orchestral music because the overheads are becoming ridiculous and I kept making the mistake of buying and selling Macs when I ran out of storage or found that the 'entry levels' were a far to short for my growing needs. 
I also enjoy writing songs which do not need orchestral sample libraries and have decided to change direction, away from classical based music, so gave the M1 16GB a try and am hugely disappointed that it can't manage professional sounding high-end sample libraries for even modest templates.

I simply made the mistake of thinking that the super-doper M1 MBPs would be enough, because I got carried away with the hype instead of waiting. A risk I lost out on. Oh well.


----------



## el-bo

RixMusik said:


> @el-bo and @Alex Fraser "entry-level computers as being more than *ANY* musicians/producers will ever need"?


Who are you quoting? I'm not sure either Alex or I wrote about it being more than "any" will ever need; rather, we both seem to agree that it is more than many/most will need.


----------



## Soundbed

RixMusik said:


> [...] gave the M1 16GB a try and am hugely disappointed that it can't manage professional sounding high-end sample libraries for even modest templates.


someone commented on my video with the below, and my question to you is: would you take the time to lower voice count in each of your Kontakt instances, if it meant you could run your projects?

my question is about the TIME it takes to lower voice counts to project-specific values (I think that's the only way to do it, right? per part, per project lowering of voice counts to a minimum level needed per instance of Kontakt?) ... would that "workaround" make sense in terms of time to do it vs the cost of RAM to you?

I've yet to try it but it seems like another variable to throw into the mix.


----------



## Jett Hitt

If indeed the M1 is a powerhouse that merely lacks RAM, the solution seems to be having a slave. I have a 5,1 sitting here with 64 GB (expandable to 128). Is the M1 powerful enough to drive everything via VEP if the 5,1 hosts the samples? I haven't yet been willing to spring for an M1 to try this because Big Sur is still a stumbling block for many plugins. I keep thinking that someone will make a video illustrating/attempting this combo, but I haven't seen one yet. But since many of us have older machines with RAM onboard, this would seem to be the obvious avenue.


----------



## Loïc D

Impressive…
Somehow I think I should redo my template. It is taking too much memory and is taking a lot of disk space. I suspect I have a monster hidden inside that’s eating RAM in the dark.
My template has a long history of adjustments.

Any tips on how to redo a clean template from an existing template?


----------



## Soundbed

Phil81 said:


> M1 is pretty weak compared to any I9. I’ve mentioned about the mini in countless threads. It’s feeble and most VI composers WILL get disappointed.


ANY i9? I thought the primary issue was the RAM, not the CPU. If we tried an i9 with 8GB or 16GB or RAM wouldn't it have similar issues as the M1s?

if I'm missing the point, do you mind pointing me to those other posts, or summarizing quickly?


----------



## Soundbed

Jett Hitt said:


> If indeed the M1 is a powerhouse that merely lacks RAM, the solution seems to be having a slave. I have a 5,1 sitting here with 64 GB (expandable to 128). Is the M1 powerful enough to drive everything via VEP if the 5,1 hosts the samples? I haven't yet been willing to spring for an M1 to try this because Big Sur is still a stumbling block for many plugins. I keep thinking that someone will make a video illustrating/attempting this combo, but I haven't seen one yet. But since many of us have older machines with RAM onboard, this would seem to be the obvious avenue.


If I have time I will try to set up a VEP situation when I get my Intel MBP back. It takes me a while to maneuver and set up VEP for me. I own it but never bothered deciding on a strategy for loading things into it because there are so many ways to route midi and audio. I got overwhelmed and began using S1 to simply drag preset instrument combos into the session (as needed) which ended up working out well for me.


----------



## Soundbed

Here is the list of things I've collected to try today ... *anything I've missed?*

(Also these mostly seem specific to Kontakt.)

"Have you tried..."

Kontakt: loading the samples Direct From Disk?
Kontakt: lowering the Preload Buffer Size? (@Sovereign — is that the SAME as the above?)
Kontakt: using the memory server?
Kontakt: lowering the voice count?
using Logic instead of Studio One?
lowering the Device Block Size in S1?
changing the dropout protection in S1?
quitting the background Adobe support applications?
using an audio interface instead of the Mac built in audio?
using VEP with a slave machine?
[edited]


----------



## Sovereign

Soundbed said:


> Kontakt: lowering the Preload Buffer Size? (@Sovereign — is that the SAME as


Ah yes, but I'd advise not doing this per instrument, but in the general Kontakt options menu instead and making sure the override option is selected. Otherwise you'd have to make these adjustments on a per instrument basis. You should be seeing a reasonably reduced memory load in the individual Kontakt instances after applying this successfully.


----------



## el-bo

Soundbed said:


> someone commented on my video with the below, and my question to you is: would you take the time to lower voice count in each of your Kontakt instances, if it meant you could run your projects?
> 
> my question is about the TIME it takes to lower voice counts to project-specific values (I think that's the only way to do it, right? per part, per project lowering of voice counts to a minimum level needed per instance of Kontakt?) ... would that "workaround" make sense in terms of time to do it vs the cost of RAM to you?
> 
> I've yet to try it but it seems like another variable to throw into the mix.



I can imagine there are going to be composers who are working to tight deadlines, for whom this kind of pissing about would cost more money (In wasted time) than it saved (Skimping on computer costs). 
But for hobbyists on a tight-budget, these little tweaks seem to pay rather large dividends


----------



## RixMusik

@el-bo and @Alex Fraser Sorry guys, had a bit of diva moment! I thought you were suggesting that Apple were totally fine for sort of bedroom composers (of which I started out as and certainly needed less resources and certainly found Apple to cater to my needs at the time).

Yes I see what you mean now. And sorry for the massive text for the word any. I didn't meant that and it looked like I was shouting at you all haha. Sorry about that.

Will get back to you as I've been doing some Kontakt / VSL Memory usage tests today, to pinpoint some RAM hungry libraries, which to my surprise, might not be the VSL libraries, but some 8DIO libraries. Will report back.


----------



## el-bo

RixMusik said:


> @el-bo and @Alex Fraser Sorry guys, had a bit of diva moment! I thought you were suggesting that Apple were totally fine for sort of bedroom composers (of which I started out as and certainly needed less resources and certainly found Apple to cater to my needs at the time).
> 
> Yes I see what you mean now. And sorry for the massive text for the word any. I didn't meant that and it looked like I was shouting at you all haha. Sorry about that.
> 
> Will get back to you as I've been doing some Kontakt / VSL Memory usage tests today, to pinpoint some RAM hungry libraries, which to my surprise, might not be the VSL libraries, but some 8DIO libraries. Will report back.


Nothing wrong with a diva moment, now and then. Cleans out the pipes 

Still not sure that we are on the same page, but it's really not important.


----------



## RixMusik

el-bo said:


> Nothing wrong with a diva moment, now and then. Cleans out the pipes
> 
> Still not sure that we are on the same page, but it's really not important.


That you mean, Apple cater for most of the needs of most composers, musicians and producers? And also for those who can afford the time to tweak etc? Yes, I think I agree with that.


----------



## mscp

Soundbed said:


> ANY i9? I thought the primary issue was the RAM, not the CPU. If we tried an i9 with 8GB or 16GB or RAM wouldn't it have similar issues as the M1s?
> 
> if I'm missing the point, do you mind pointing me to those other posts, or summarizing quickly?


I think I had already mentioned how weak the M1 is compared to my i9s in a few PC vs Mac threads. Reason why I sold the mini a few days after purchase. 

Sorry if the focus is RAM. I guess a cheap slave on ethernet would solve that easily.


----------



## RixMusik

Phil81 said:


> I think I had already mentioned how weak the M1 is compared to my i9s in a few PC vs Mac threads. Reason why I sold the mini.
> 
> Sorry if the focus is RAM. I guess a cheap slave on ethernet would solve that easily. No?


Is that the desktop i9s or the Laptop/MacBook i9s? The M1 seems to beat the MacBook i9s in CPU processing when used in Logic, specifically using the Logic benchmark file.


----------



## mscp

RixMusik said:


> Is that the desktop i9s or the Laptop/MacBook i9s? The M1 seems to beat the MacBook i9s in CPU processing when used in Logic, specifically using the Logic benchmark file.


Desktop i9 pcs. I’m not a Logic user.


----------



## Soundbed

Phil81 said:


> a cheap slave on ethernet would solve that easily. No?


might be one method, yes.

Or if optimizing the M1 w/16GB RAM so the project actually uses less than 16GB of RAM -- might work for hobbyists or those who are interested in making the system very "lean" ...

because many of us have projects where the system is not actually "using" 64GB of RAM but instead the software is keeping 64+ GB available in case it needs it. not only remove unused samples but also perhaps reducing (bloated) unused voice counts in Kontakt ... I am currently experimenting to see if 1024 voices seem to provision more RAM than 10 voices, for instance.


----------



## RixMusik

Phil81 said:


> Desktop i9 pcs. I’m not a Logic user.


Nice. Single core, M1 wins. Multi-core, desktop i9 (9th Gen) wins.



Mac Benchmarks - Geekbench Browser


----------



## Jett Hitt

RixMusik said:


> Nice. Single core, M1 wins. Multi-core, desktop i9 (9th Gen) wins.
> 
> 
> 
> Mac Benchmarks - Geekbench Browser


This is the part that remains a mystery to me. My 5,1 is nearly as good as the new Mini at 5k+ multicore performance, but in single-core, it is a pathetic 600. I have just never quite understood when I am benefiting from my 12 cores or being crushed by my single-core performance.


----------



## RixMusik

Update:

The following were taking up a lot in my template:

Soundiron Venus (Staccato instrument) = *1.37GB*
8Dio Hybrid Tools 2 (Hits & Stingers) = *1.14GB*
8Dio Hybrid Tools 3 (Main) = *2.40GB*

I've removed them from my template and now mostly have orchestral instruments from VSL's Synchron Special Edition and it takes my memory usage from over 17GB (using Swap memory overload) to *13.70GB*. Memory Pressure in the Green 

Ok this is a minimum template, which I will use on the go with the M1 MBP. 2-stage workaround might be to compose the parts for the Orchestral instruments, mix and export them as audio files. Next, open a new project file, insert the orchestral instruments audio files and then load the epic/hybrid instruments to compose the final mix with those loaded up.


----------



## el-bo

RixMusik said:


> That you mean, Apple cater for most of the needs of most composers, musicians and producers? And also for those who can afford the time to tweak etc? Yes, I think I agree with that.


There are those who mainly rely on virtual synths etc. for whom even 8gig is enough, and there are others doing the full virtual-orchestra who look at 64gig as a minimum.

If one is doing the hybrid thing, 16gig could suffice. The issue is that 'we' tend to upscale workflow to fill any given space. But as long as one doesn't expect to have an always-loaded, at-the-ready template, full of Repro & Diva. And as long as we occasionally and judiciously lean on 'Freeze tracks' and 'Bounce-in-place', all's good.

That's my opinion, anyway


----------



## el-bo

RixMusik said:


> Update:
> 
> The following were taking up a lot in my template:
> 
> Soundiron Venus (Staccato instrument) = *1.37GB*
> 8Dio Hybrid Tools 2 (Hits & Stingers) = *1.14GB*
> 8Dio Hybrid Tools 3 (Main) = *2.40GB*
> 
> I've removed them from my template and now mostly have orchestral instruments from VSL's Synchron Special Edition and it takes my memory usage from over 17GB (using Swap memory overload) to *13.70GB*. Memory Pressure in the Green
> 
> Ok this is a minimum template, which I will use on the go with the M1 MBP. 2-stage workaround might be to compose the parts for the Orchestral instruments, mix and export them as audio files. Next, open a new project file, insert the orchestral instruments audio files and then load the epic/hybrid instruments to compose the final mix with those loaded up.


Does VSL have any thing like 'purge samples'?. Also, are you a Logic-user?

Also, why would you need to bounce to audio. Just freeze the tracks in the project, and dump the whole project file onto your main rig, later


----------



## mscp

Jett Hitt said:


> This is the part that remains a mystery to me. My 5,1 is nearly as good as the new Mini at 5k+ multicore performance, but in single-core, it is a pathetic 600. I have just never quite understood when I am benefiting from my 12 cores or being crushed by my single-core performance.


I see it this way: if it can’t handle my work comfortablyand it’s a dropout fest, it’s worthless - regardless what benchmark tests tell.


----------



## RixMusik

el-bo said:


> Does VSL have any thing like 'purge samples'?. Also, are you a Logic-user?
> 
> Also, why would you need to bounce to audio. Just freeze the tracks in the project, and dump the whole project file onto your main rig, later


So the way it works is, you open Vienna Ensemble Pro (VE Pro). Load up your template with instruments. Then open up DAW of choice (I use both Cubase and Logic, but more Logic these days). Then you basically route the tracks to corresponding VE Pro channels.

This means that freezing tracks isn't an option as the DAW doesn't have tracks loaded. Just sends data to VE Pro to make the sounds, which then come back and plays through the DAW.

I've not been able to work out how to freeze unused loaded channels in VE Pro. In any case, this doesn't make sense. I need to hear those instruments in order to compose the epic library tracks. So I'd need to hear the whole orchestra play back while I add Taiko action/epic etc instruments on top.

Sorry, I meant hybrid as in hybrid tools. The epic sort of percussions, sound design etc that adds cinematic Hollywood thriller type vibes to it. They seemed to be the main issue I was having, as they were using gigs rather then bytes. I love 8Dio's range, but the latest libraries are memory intensive. The ones I use anyway.


----------



## RixMusik

Just to add, you can of course, load instruments directly into the DAW, rather than use VE Pro, but VE Pro comes with purpose built EQ, Compressors etc for each orchestral instrument.


----------



## el-bo

RixMusik said:


> Just to add, you can of course, load instruments directly into the DAW, rather than use VE Pro, but VE Pro comes with purpose built EQ, Compressors etc for each orchestral instrument.


This particular workflow doesn't make sense to me.

I understand the advantages of VEP. however, unless you're taking a project from writing to mastering, on your laptop, why would you need to have all the special eq's, reverb placements etc.

If you just load the tracks into Logic, you can set up comparable eq's, compressors etc. but more than that, you can freeze tracks (Freeze makes a temporary audio file, and unloads resources. you can still hear it as if it were playing live). And even better, you can set up a template with hundreds of tracks, but with all the resources unloaded. Whenever you want to use an instrument, then you click on it to load the sounds. If you don't use a particular instrument in a particular project it won't consume any resources. 

If you make sure to save the template with all Kontakt instances purged, you'll be running even leaner.

Save all the VEP goodies for the main rig.


----------



## Vik

Jett Hitt said:


> This is the part that remains a mystery to me. My 5,1 is nearly as good as the new Mini at 5k+ multicore performance, but in single-core, it is a pathetic 600. I have just never quite understood when I am benefiting from my 12 cores or being crushed by my single-core performance.


If I'm not mistaken: The 600 single core is a main limitation in terms of how much you can do on one single track, both with layering and with being able to run a single, complex preset without hearing artefacts. Having 12 scores is a main benefit in terms if how many tracks you can use in a project. 


Phil81 said:


> Sorry if the focus is RAM. I guess a cheap slave on ethernet would solve that easily.


If you buy a cheap slave to to all the hard work, part if the reason to invest in a new high performance Mac is gone. However, when M1 Macs with 64 gb or more RAM exist*, maybe it would make sense to use that M1 as the slave since it both has a fast processor and reads samples to/from internal or external drive faster than a cheap slave would do.

* or when Kontakt, Sine, Play, the Synchron and Spitfire players etc run natively on Apple Silicon


----------



## mscp

Vik said:


> If you buy a cheap slave to to all the hard work, part if the reason to invest in a new high performance Mac is gone. However, when M1 Macs with 64 gb or more RAM exist*, maybe it would make sense to use that M1 as the slave since it both has a fast processor and reads samples to/from internal or external drive faster than a cheap slave would do.
> 
> * or when Kontakt, Sine, Play, the Synchron and Spitfire players etc run natively on Apple Silicon


Not sure what 'high' performance means to you, but loading VEP on a cheap i9 slave can yield amazing results.

Mac Minis might be able to take quite a punch in the future. Who knows? For now though, a Mac Pro is the only real solution for what it seems to be a requirement more often than not over here. But yea, costly. Perhaps write it off as business expense if you're LLC?

Like @Soundbed said...it might work for hobbyists. I think it's perfect for hobbyist whose track counts are low. I also think it's a great gateway to those who love MacOS. It's perfect under these circumstances.


----------



## RixMusik

el-bo said:


> This particular workflow doesn't make sense to me.
> 
> I understand the advantages of VEP. however, unless you're taking a project from writing to mastering, on your laptop, why would you need to have all the special eq's, reverb placements etc.
> 
> If you just load the tracks into Logic, you can set up comparable eq's, compressors etc. but more than that, you can freeze tracks (Freeze makes a temporary audio file, and unloads resources. you can still hear it as if it were playing live). And even better, you can set up a template with hundreds of tracks, but with all the resources unloaded. Whenever you want to use an instrument, then you click on it to load the sounds. If you don't use a particular instrument in a particular project it won't consume any resources.
> 
> If you make sure to save the template with all Kontakt instances purged, you'll be running even leaner.
> 
> Save all the VEP goodies for the main rig.


The point is: this thread is discussing the capabilities of the M1 Mac with 16GB Unified Memory.

I know it's better to do the heavy mixing etc on the main rig. 

Also, as I have mobility difficulties with a condition, the ability to work away from the main studio is a great thing.


----------



## Stephen Limbaugh

el-bo said:


> Does VSL have any thing like 'purge samples'?.


VIPro2 does, yes.

For the Synchron Player, I believe that is the purpose of the "Room Mix" fader, one fader which has the Mains, Surrounds, etc all mixed down so those mic positions do not need to be loaded. Though, unlike VIPro2, it does not purge note by note.


----------



## Soundbed

Thanks to the suggestion from @Sovereign I was able to get 96 orchestral instruments to play back using a 30GB swap file on the M1 16GB by lowering the preload size in Kontakt to 18kB. The Studio One memory in Activity Monitor was around 74GB and the segment played back flawlessly. Granted, after I made an edit I was having some stability issues but that doesn't mean they couldn't get resolved. So, interesting development.


----------



## Sovereign

Based on these tests I'd say it's obvious the most limiting factor is the 16 gigs of memory, not necessarily the CPU.


----------



## Alex Fraser

Sovereign said:


> Based on these tests I'd say it's obvious the most limiting factor is the 16 gigs of memory, not necessarily the CPU.


I think so too. It’s certainly the case with my 2019 Intel MbB. The memory bottleneck (and cooling!) becomes an issue before the cpu runs out of puff.


----------



## RixMusik

Soundbed said:


> Thanks to the suggestion from @Sovereign I was able to get 96 orchestral instruments to play back using a 30GB swap file on the M1 16GB by lowering the preload size in Kontakt to 18kb. The Studio One memory in Activity Monitor was around 74GB and the segment played back flawlessly. Granted, after I made an edit I was having some stability issues but that doesn't mean they couldn't get resolved. So, interesting development.



Oh thanks for mentioning the preload tweak! I don't know much about Kontakt settings but knew that might be something that can be adjusted to keep things from being overly loaded in to lower RAM capacities.


----------



## RixMusik

Sovereign said:


> Based on these tests I'd say it's obvious the most limiting factor is the 16 gigs of memory, not necessarily the CPU.


Absolutely. For the M1 Macs, the CPU seems very capable indeed. The limiting factor is certainly memory. M1 can only handle 16GB so we would need to wait for M1x / M2 (whatever it will be called) next gen chips.
I've read that Apple will release the new models of the 16" and 14" in the Autumn/Fall, however, factory delays might suggest first quarter of 2022. Various sites are similar in reporting this.


----------



## RixMusik

Observation using VE Pro7 with mostly Synchron instruments in Logic...
When playing a new instrument during playback, I receive a system overload warning, some cores spike to 100% and it stops. However, *upon re-playing back that bar, there is no overload*. 

It seems that the overloads are happening due to the Rosetta translation for VE Pro and Synchron is taking longer than the anticipated playback of Logic, hence the overload. I guess it only need a split second to throw it out of sync momentarily. Once this is translated and you replay that part, then all is good  A bit annoying though.


----------



## el-bo

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> VIPro2 does, yes.
> 
> For the Synchron Player, I believe that is the purpose of the "Room Mix" fader, one fader which has the Mains, Surrounds, etc all mixed down so those mic positions do not need to be loaded. Though, unlike VIPro2, it does not purge note by note.


Gotcha! So, it's one or the other 

But wouldn't the advantages of track-freeze and working in a full, but unloaded, template favour the use of Synchron instead of VIPro2?


----------



## Kent

RixMusik said:


> 16GB M1 2TB MBP = *Can't handle more than about 10 instruments* from VSL Synchronised Special Edition, loaded in VE Pro 7, using MIR Pro :(
> 
> 64GB i9 2TB MPB (previous machine) = Easily handles 40 instruments with the above settings.
> 
> Don't believe the hype Apple and the YouTubers say about the Unified Memory. They're not professional composers of orchestral based music for film and media. *It's fast, but very limited in depth: can't handle many high-end virtual instruments*. Mem pressure gets overloaded.


I'm not sure what you're saying here. Why is it a bad thing that a computer with x RAM handles about* 1/4 the instruments that a computer with 4x RAM can?

*(not that it's 1:1; there's a semi-fixed cost of running an OS that scales slightly with increased RAM availability, so you're really looking at something more like 8 GB vs 52 GB... but the question still stands)


----------



## el-bo

kmaster said:


> I'm not sure what you're saying here. Why is it a bad thing that a computer with x RAM handles about* 1/4 the instruments that a computer with 4x RAM can?


A quarter of the RAM and a third of the cost!


----------



## Soundbed

RixMusik said:


> Observation using VE Pro7 with mostly Synchron instruments in Logic...
> When playing a new instrument during playback, I receive a system overload warning, some cores spike to 100% and it stops. However, *upon re-playing back that bar, there is no overload*.
> 
> It seems that the overloads are happening due to the Rosetta translation for VE Pro and Synchron is taking longer than the anticipated playback of Logic, hence the overload. I guess it only need a split second to throw it out of sync momentarily. Once this is translated and you replay that part, then all is good  A bit annoying though.


This is very similar to what I was experiencing with certain settings. Play it once, hear a click or two. Play again and all is fine.


----------



## Jett Hitt

@Soundbed and @RixMusik I think this is a built-in feature of Logic or MacOS. I have the same issue with Mohave when a file starts pushing my system. It crackles, pops, and overloads the system for a few plays when the file is first opened. Then it smooths out and I no longer notice anything. There is some sort of AI behind the scenes figuring out how to reallocate resources.


----------



## el-bo

Jett Hitt said:


> @Soundbed and @RixMusik I think this is a built-in feature of Logic or MacOS. I have the same issue with Mohave when a file starts pushing my system. It crackles, pops, and overloads the system for a few plays when the file is first opened. Then it smooths out and I no longer notice anything. There is some sort of AI behind the scenes figuring out how to relocate resources.


The dreaded 'System Overload' is a golden-oldie for us Logic users  It often improved with a pre-play-through, especially if the project had freshly been loaded. Once past the bits where effects and automation get a bit scatty, things would normally settle-down


----------



## RixMusik

kmaster said:


> I'm not sure what you're saying here. Why is it a bad thing that a computer with x RAM handles about* 1/4 the instruments that a computer with 4x RAM can?
> 
> *(not that it's 1:1; there's a semi-fixed cost of running an OS that scales slightly with increased RAM availability, so you're really looking at something more like 8 GB vs 52 GB... but the question still stands)


Hi, I will say it once again: this thread is discussing what the M1 Macs with their 16GB Unified Memory can handle.

How can we measure what the M1 16GB can handle if we don't compare it to other systems?

Also, I was wrong in saying it couldn't handle 10 Synchron instruments with effects etc etc. The real memory hungry instruments appeared to be the 8Dio and Soundiron instruments in my template.


----------



## RixMusik

Jett Hitt said:


> @Soundbed and @RixMusik I think this is a built-in feature of Logic or MacOS. I have the same issue with Mohave when a file starts pushing my system. It crackles, pops, and overloads the system for a few plays when the file is first opened. Then it smooths out and I no longer notice anything. There is some sort of AI behind the scenes figuring out how to relocate resources.


Interesting. Although I don't experience that behaviour on my intel iMac with the same project.

I also don't experience this behaviour when using Logic instruments only.

So I'm inclined to suggest it is Rosetta not being quick enough for to output in time. I think Logic has a feature that predicts what's coming up next as it is playing back, building in a sort of buffer for the CPU not to get overloaded. I can't remember the actual name of this feature. It might be similar/same to Cubase's Asio Guard.


----------



## Kent

RixMusik said:


> Hi, I will say it once again: this thread is discussing what the M1 Macs with their 16GB Unified Memory can handle.
> 
> How can we measure what the M1 16GB can handle if we don't compare it to other systems?
> 
> Also, I was wrong in saying it couldn't handle 10 Synchron instruments with effects etc etc. The real memory hungry instruments appeared to be the 8Dio and Soundiron instruments in my template.


But that’s not a comparison of M1 to Intel. That’s mostly a comparison of 16 GB RAM to 64 GB RAM. Of _course_ the smaller RAM will hold fewer instruments, and it is not surprising that if 16 gigs can more or less hold 10 instruments, 64 gigs can more or less hold 40 instruments.

If we had a current-gen Intel Mac with 16GB of RAM and compared an M1 Mac with 16GB of RAM, then the picture would be a bit more clear.


----------



## RixMusik

Ok, I'm not sure why @el-bo and @kmaster are so confused 

Firstly: kmaster the M1 16GB does not use RAM. It uses Unified Memory. It is very different to RAM.

Secondly: (and this bit is very important)...nearly EVERY single review by both musicians and non-musicians are saying the 13" M1 16GB MacBook Pros utterly destroy the 16" 64GB i9 MacBook Pros (the flagship MacBook prior to the M1 chip). But as I've pointed out, it's not the case for the small number off us that compose large scores of orchestral virtual instruments and needs them to play back rather than freezing.

The 64GB RAM on those 16" MacBook Pros handles simultaneous playback of a large template (without needing to freeze but allowing you to compose and hear back a huge amount of instruments used in the film and tv would, especially epic tracks like 2 Steps from Hell tracks).

So, me having an iMac powerful rig is irrelevant. Freezing tracks is irrelevant. 

The relevant scenario to consider is this: Can the M1 16GB allow some composers to have 1 portable machine that they can compose large scale tracks on using standard Virtual Instruments? The answer is: it cannot handle that as well as the 64GB MacBook Pro.


----------



## Kent

RixMusik said:


> Ok, I'm not sure why @el-bo and @kmaster are so confused
> 
> Firstly: kmaster the M1 16GB does not use RAM. It uses Unified Memory. It is very different to RAM.
> 
> Secondly: (and this bit is very important)...nearly EVERY single review by both musicians and non-musicians are saying the 13" M1 16GB MacBook Pros utterly destroy the 16" 64GB i9 MacBook Pros (the flagship MacBook prior to the M1 chip). But as I've pointed out, it's not the case for the small number off us that compose large scores of orchestral virtual instruments and needs them to play back rather than freezing.
> 
> The 64GB RAM on those 16" MacBook Pros handles simultaneous playback of a large template (without needing to freeze but allowing you to compose and hear back a huge amount of instruments used in the film and tv would, especially epic tracks like 2 Steps from Hell tracks).
> 
> So, me having an iMac powerful rig is irrelevant. Freezing tracks is irrelevant.
> 
> The relevant scenario to consider is this: Can the M1 16GB allow some composers to have 1 portable machine that they can compose large scale tracks on using standard Virtual Instruments? The answer is: it cannot handle that as well as the 64GB MacBook Pro.


But Unified Memory *is* RAM—just on the same chip/board as the CPU, GPU, and what have you. Having that sort of architecture unlocks some different capabilities, sure, but at the end of the day you’re comparing a device with 16 gigs of memory to a device with 64 gigs of memory, no matter what you call it or how it works under the hood.

There are simply too many variables between those two machines to determine anything of use. 

to compare processors/architectures, make sure the memory is the same value.

to compare memory sizes, make sure the processors/architectures are the same.


----------



## RixMusik

kmaster said:


> But that’s not a comparison of M1 to Intel. That’s mostly a comparison of 16 GB RAM to 64 GB RAM. Of _course_ the smaller RAM will hold fewer instruments, and it is not surprising that if 16 gigs can more or less hold 10 instruments, 64 gigs can more or less hold 40 instruments.
> 
> If we had a current-gen Intel Mac with 16GB of RAM and compared an M1 Mac with 16GB of RAM, then the picture would be a bit more clear.


No because we are NOT comparing 16GB of RAM to 64 GB RAM. The new M1 chip is contains 16GB *Unified Memory *type RAM. Not standard RAM.








What is the difference between RAM and Unified Memory on Apple’s M1 chip?


Answer (1 of 7): Unified Memory is RAM used in a specific way. The specific way is “all the parts of the system use the same RAM not different pools of RAM, and it looks the same to all of them”. This isn't a novel unique concept. This was a super common design in say the 1980s. It got less comm...




www.quora.com





And the Unified Memory is supposed to be far superior to RAM, as the link above suggests. For instance, Jon Sine says the 16GB is roughly around 30GB standard type RAM. Others before him talked about the Unified Memory as being some kind of alien technology that obliterated 64GB RAM. Again, they did this by loading up a file in Logic and seeing how many Logic-based instruments could play back and simply declaring the M1 16GB as winner.

Well...no, it's not, if you want non-Apple made virtual instruments and to compose music for a 50 piece orchestra of virtual instruments and epic-based virtual instruments.


----------



## RixMusik

kmaster said:


> But Unified Memory *is* RAM—just on the same chip/board as the CPU, GPU, and what have you. Having that sort of architecture unlocks some different capabilities, sure, but at the end of the day you’re comparing a device with 16 gigs of memory to a device with 64 gigs of memory, no matter what you call it or how it works under the hood.
> 
> There are simply too many variables between those two machines to determine anything of use.
> 
> to compare processors/architectures, make sure the memory is the same value.
> 
> to compare memory sizes, make sure the processors/architectures are the same.


Yeah I agree with that. But my point is that I was not the only one to think that the new Unified RAM was capable of doing what the 64GB could do, based on the Logic Bench tests that many did. That is all I am saying. Hoping others don't make my mistake. Call me dumb, whatever, but I did constantly hear that everyone's 64GB MacBooks are getting ditched for the M1s and did the same.


----------



## RixMusik

Soundbed said:


> This is very similar to what I was experiencing with certain settings. Play it once, hear a click or two. Play again and all is fine.


This was with StudioOne I presume?

I think it might be the translation. Once it's done, it's then recognised in terms of that the CPU has to do with it perhaps.


----------



## el-bo

RixMusik said:


> Ok, I'm not sure why @el-bo and @kmaster are so confused


I'm not so sure we are.


----------



## el-bo

RixMusik said:


> And the Unified Memory is supposed to be far superior to RAM, as the link above suggests. For instance, Jon Sine says the 16GB is roughly around 30GB standard type RAM. Others before him talked about the Unified Memory as being some kind of alien technology that obliterated 64GB RAM. Again, they did this by loading up a file in Logic and seeing how many Logic-based instruments could play back and simply declaring the M1 16GB as winner.


Did you actually see Jon or anyone else load up a large template of orchestral or hybrid Kontakt libraries? Because as far as I'm aware, most of these kinds of tests were run in the ARM version of Logic, with Alchemy and a series of Logic stock plugins (Also, by default, running in ARM).

It's a shame you weren't following the conversations here, instead. These claims about memory have been met with skepticism, with most of us who are interested waiting for the brave few to become virtual cannon-fodder. It's taken Soundbed's latest efforts to give perhaps a more rounded picture.


----------



## Soundbed

RixMusik said:


> This was with StudioOne I presume?


Yes. But only with certain instruments / parts / settings, etc. It's not easy for me to know when it's going to "recover" like we've discussed in this thread, versus when it's going to keep glitching and clicking and having dropouts.


----------



## Soundbed

I think I'm going to try a session with only SINE and only pulling from the internal drive, to remove Kontakt and SATA-based drives from the mix.


----------



## Loïc D

For the record, there’s also a preload setting in SINE.


----------



## Soundbed

Loïc D said:


> For the record, there’s also a preload setting in SINE.


Oh! Thanks, I was wondering ... at the default settings, I got to 80 instances of playing back from SINE with no issues at a reasonable buffer size. Adding 16 of the same instruments playing the same notes at a time Studio One repeatedly choked and disabled it's own audio engine (close and re-open the "Song" file to resume) when I got to 96 channels. It was all pulling from the internal drive and there were no external devices connected except the MOTU M2 interface via USB C (not even a bluetooth mouse). All the Adobe stuff was off. I almost wonder if the reason there was a "lockup" was that fact that the same samples were being requested from the drive 4 times, virtually simultaneously (?) ... I'd need to repeat with distinct instruments (or different mic positions or different pitches) at some point. Then I'd need to mess with the preload settings. Interestingly there was NO swap file this time. Everything was under 12GB of "RAM" (unified memory).


----------



## givemenoughrope

Pretty impressive really. I wonder how Cubase with VEpro eould handle this. Prob in the ballpark.


----------



## RixMusik

el-bo said:


> Did you actually see Jon or anyone else load up a large template of orchestral or hybrid Kontakt libraries? Because as far as I'm aware, most of these kinds of tests were run in the ARM version of Logic, with Alchemy and a series of Logic stock plugins (Also, by default, running in ARM).
> 
> It's a shame you weren't following the conversations here, instead. These claims about memory have been met with skepticism, with most of us who are interested waiting for the brave few to become virtual cannon-fodder. It's taken Soundbed's latest efforts to give perhaps a more rounded picture.



Jon loaded up some Kontakt instances but not epic orchestral templates. I just got so carried away. 

However...as mentioned, once I removed some of the memory intensive epic instruments, I was left with the *M1 16GB still handling a substantial template very well * Something like 30-40 Synchron orchestral instruments with memory pressure still in the green! So, after all that...I'm pretty happy with the M1 16GB performance haha! 

I've corrected my previous reply where I said only 10 or so instruments were being handled properly, as those epic instruments certainly ate up half the template RAM and freeing that up let me work with 30-40 orchestral instruments all at the same time.


----------



## RixMusik

givemenoughrope said:


> Pretty impressive really. I wonder how Cubase with VEpro eould handle this. Prob in the ballpark.


It handled about 40 VSL Synchron Special Editions instruments with EQs, Compressors and MIR Pro. Very impressed actually.

I joined this thread utterly disappointed, but now, after amending my template, am quite pleased with its performance in general.


----------



## el-bo

RixMusik said:


> Jon loaded up some Kontakt instances but not epic orchestral templates. I just got so carried away.


I get it. And I feel bad that you sold your 'better' laptop. But if you can get into the mindset of the M1 laptop as a really solid sketching device, rather than a desktop-replacement, there are lots of benefits. The enormous battery life and low heat being just two. Of course, it's absolutely no slouch and I remain convinced that it'd be worth your while experimenting with loading VSL/Synchron directly into Logic, bypassing MIR etc. completely.

Anyway, it's good that you are feeling happier with your current results


----------



## jcrosby

Soundbed said:


> Oh! Thanks, I was wondering ... at the default settings, I got to 80 instances of playing back from SINE with no issues at a reasonable buffer size.
> 
> ..... Interestingly there was NO swap file this time. Everything was under 12GB of "RAM" (unified memory).


That's actually pretty impressive. Sine runs the leanest on my i9 and I was able to get all of the individual instruments of THP to play at once but once I hit those last few I'd get the occasional hiccup... (Mind you my buffer tends to locked to 256)...

RAM's the main bottleneck here, (which shouldn't be a surprise). Even on my i9 if memory pressure hits red things degrade pretty quickly.... Overall this shows promise for future models with more memory and a couple extra cores.... I'm just hoping they arrive before Apple ditches Big Sur.


----------



## RixMusik

el-bo said:


> I get it. And I feel bad that you sold your 'better' laptop. But if you can get into the mindset of the M1 laptop as a really solid sketching device, rather than a desktop-replacement, there are lots of benefits. The enormous battery life and low heat being just two. Of course, it's absolutely no slouch and I remain convinced that it'd be worth your while experimenting with loading VSL/Synchron directly into Logic, bypassing MIR etc. completely.
> 
> Anyway, it's good that you are feeling happier with your current results


Thanks  The M1 is indeed a very capable machine and I had fun composing on it yesterday afternoon from bed, because of backaches stopped me being in the studio, and got a lot done 

It's a perfect inspiration solution too. If I have an idea, the M1 is so fast, ready to go straight away when ideas suddenly come


----------



## RixMusik

jcrosby said:


> That's actually pretty impressive. Sine runs the leanest on my i9 and I was able to get all of the individual instruments of THP to play at once but once I hit those last few I'd get the occasional hiccup... (Mind you my buffer tends to locked to 256)...
> 
> RAM's the main bottleneck here, (which shouldn't be a surprise). Even on my i9 if memory pressure hits red things degrade pretty quickly.... Overall this shows promise for future models with more memory and a couple extra cores.... I'm just hoping they arrive before Apple ditches Big Sur.


I think Apple announced that their new OS called Monterey is coming very soon. I think the next few weeks. The new MacBooks 16 and 14 inch aren't realistically expected until the Autumn/Fall so looks like Big Sur will end before the new machines come along.

What is the reason you are hoping for Big Sur not to end? The teething issues of new OS?
*EDIT: Sorry, looks like Monterey release date is vaguely slated for Later in 2021, not in a few weeks.*


----------



## el-bo

RixMusik said:


> Thanks  The M1 is indeed a very capable machine and I had fun composing on it yesterday afternoon from bed, because of backaches stopped me being in the studio, and got a lot done
> 
> It's a perfect inspiration solution too. If I have an idea, the M1 is so fast, ready to go straight away when ideas suddenly come


What a difference a day makes


----------



## samphony

After 6 months of use I came to the conclusion if you’re using a lot of non m1 optimized sample players and want to do heavy layered sample heavy music you are better of using:

A) m1 macs as daw sequencer/ audio stem recorder hooked up to one or multiple intel macs/ pcs via VEP

B) use a beefy intel mac or intel/amd pc as your single machine if you prefer the one machine can handle it all workflow.


----------



## samphony

If you are someone who likes freezing or turn everything into audio asap you can get by with a single m1 machine. 

Logic as native m1 app is amazingly fast when freezing for example.


----------



## RixMusik

samphony said:


> After 6 months of use I came to the conclusion if you’re using a lot of non m1 optimized sample players and want to do heavy layered sample heavy music you are better of using:
> 
> A) m1 macs as daw sequencer/ audio stem recorder hooked up to one or multiple intel macs/ pcs via VEP
> 
> B) use a beefy intel mac or intel/amd pc as your single machine if you prefer the one machine can handle it all workflow


Yes, that's true. I used my iMac 64GB i5-10600 for VEP connected with Thunderbolt 3 to the M1 16GB MacBook Pro for Logic or Cubase and the set up is fantastic for performance. With a PreSonus Quantum Thunderbolt 2 interface (the 26 x 32), I managed to get the Buffer to 64 and round trip latency to about 3 with an VSL orchestral instruments + 8Dio, Native Instruments etc epic cinematic instruments, totally around 55 instruments, playing back about 35 simultaneous instruments during the thicker bars of music.


----------



## el-bo

RixMusik said:


> Yes, that's true. I used my iMac 64GB i5-10600 for VEP connected with Thunderbolt 3 to the M1 16GB MacBook Pro for Logic or Cubase and the set up is fantastic for performance. With a PreSonus Quantum Thunderbolt 2 interface (the 26 x 32), I managed to get the Buffer to 64 and round trip latency to about 3 with an VSL orchestral instruments + 8Dio, Native Instruments etc epic cinematic instruments, totally around 55 instruments, playing back about 35 simultaneous instruments during the thicker bars of music.


Do you need to work at 64? 128 seems acceptable for many, and it should allow you to have more running. And if you ever get curious enough to load directly into Logic, you can leverage freezing, bouncing (with unloading of resources) and then be ale to perhaps get even more.

Also, remember the blank audio track trick. This'll allow you to devote all resources to the playing tracks, and at the highest buffer size


----------



## Kent

el-bo said:


> Do you need to work at 64? 128 seems acceptable for many, and it should allow you to have more running. And if you ever get curious enough to load directly into Logic, you can leverage freezing, bouncing (with unloading of resources) and then be ale to perhaps get even more.
> 
> Also, remember the blank audio track trick. This'll allow you to devote all resources to the playing tracks, and at the highest buffer size


yep. For example:





From http://www.scanproaudio.info/tag/dawbench/

Sure, this doesn't cover M1 (only Intel and Ryzen), but the principles of parallelized audio processing apply to any CPU. Higher buffer sizes result in, in some cases, _dramatically_ (read: non-linearly) more possible concurrent instances of VIs.

@mrmiller is a literal expert in this—if he's around, maybe he'll chime in with his knowledge & opinions.


----------



## RixMusik

el-bo said:


> Do you need to work at 64? 128 seems acceptable for many, and it should allow you to have more running. And if you ever get curious enough to load directly into Logic, you can leverage freezing, bouncing (with unloading of resources) and then be ale to perhaps get even more.
> 
> Also, remember the blank audio track trick. This'll allow you to devote all resources to the playing tracks, and at the highest buffer size


As a pianist, I love to have low latency as it feels smoother and responsive. I've a Casio Privia 150px with weighted keys and the feel is fantastic when plugged to my set up. I know some pianists can't determine the difference lower than 10ms, but I definitely can. I even got it down to 32 playing substantial amounts of instruments, but that is a bit over the top 😆 

Yes, 128 it fine for me too, which gives about 5 or 6ms round trip which is also great.

For piano, I mainly use Synchron Pianos but using stock Logic acoustic pianos is nice too, especially for pop/rock tracks and the M1 works great at managing piano led tracks at 64 so far.


----------



## RixMusik

kmaster said:


> yep. For example:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From http://www.scanproaudio.info/tag/dawbench/
> 
> Sure, this doesn't cover M1 (only Intel and Ryzen), but the principles of parallelized audio processing apply to any CPU. Higher buffer sizes result in, in some cases, _dramatically_ (read: non-linearly) more possible concurrent instances of VIs.
> 
> @mrmiller is a literal expert in this—if he's around, maybe he'll chime in with his knowledge & opinions.


I built a PC with the 3950x processor and it was a monster! Last year, I was considering continuing with the epic orchestral production music library tracks I was doing, but my musical direction changed somewhat towards electronic, piano and guitar music, and towards Apple systems for accessibility features for disability plus having an iPad, I wanted to play around with Logic remote and Logic DAW and ended up really liking it.

Anyway, I totally recommend the 3950x for heavy orchestral music. I used it with VEPro but also put in a MAYAeX 44 sound card, which was just supposed to be a budget nice to have thing, as it didn't need a sound card to be a server computer of course. But I ended up just working on that 1 system without a server-slave set up.


----------



## erodred

I built a PC with 3900x last December and because ram was cheap I maxed it out at 128gb (I think the prices doubled now since I bought it). Been very interested in a macbook with m1 so I can be portable for sketching/studying but also to use as a master with it instead. So far it looks pretty impressive on its own but wondering how the VEP plugin works


----------



## MarcusD

M1 finally arrived, not really had chance to run any projects off it yet... This is kind of a pointless post for the context of the thread. But just to throw it out there, the rendering times for plugins and FX on RX8 are extremely fast indeed!


----------



## Soundbed

MarcusD said:


> M1 finally arrived, not really had chance to run any projects off it yet... This is kind of a pointless post for the context of the thread. But just to throw it out there, the rendering times for plugins and FX on RX8 are extremely fast indeed!


Yes I'm really enjoying the M1 as a computer! Everything in terms of usability and just enjoyment (as a longtime user of both Macs and Windows) is fantastic. It's really hard not to like it for everything except the RAM, screen size, internal speaker sound, and number of ports (for me).


----------



## MarcusD

Soundbed said:


> Yes I'm really enjoying the M1 as a computer! Everything in terms of usability and just enjoyment (as a longtime user of both Macs and Windows) is fantastic. It's really hard not to like it for everything except the RAM, screen size, internal speaker sound, and number of ports (for me).


This is my first Mac computer, I really wanted the 64GB version of the M1x Mini to be out at WDC. However in a funny living situation ATM without my main machine, been in desperate need of a portable and powerful laptop for x-y-z to keep me ticking until living situation is sorted. Had my eye on the M1s for ages and thought, why not. Needed a Mac for testing templates and when the m1x drops I'll pick one up.

So far, super impressed with the OS and how damn fast the M1 it is at rendering files. What usually took 20 minuets for a 25 - 30 minuet clip ( in RX ) literally is done in 2 minuet or less. Everything has been really easy to set up and install, no headaches. Coming from windows, the OS is actually refreshingly simple to work with. Was expecting to fumble looking for certain settings etc... nope. Not been the case. I'm sure there'll be things that will eventually crop up after longer term usage, but for now. Really good!


----------



## rnb_2

Soundbed said:


> Yes I'm really enjoying the M1 as a computer! Everything in terms of usability and just enjoyment (as a longtime user of both Macs and Windows) is fantastic. It's really hard not to like it for everything except the RAM, screen size, internal speaker sound, and number of ports (for me).


For the ports issue, the best option out there for giving an M1 laptop connectivity better than any other stock Mac, at least when at a desk with power, is the Caldigit Element Hub. It will turn one of your Thunderbolt 3 ports into three (giving you four total), and also adds 4 USB-A ports, all in a very small package. Since it is powered, you can plug just about anything into any of the ports - external SSDs, MIDI controllers, thumb drives/iLok keys, a USB-C or Thunderbolt display.

I'm about to switch some things around here, replacing my i7 Intel Mac mini with my M1 mini, and putting an M1 MacBook Air in place of the M1 mini (which will eventually either replace my i3 Intel mini server, or become my wife's computer when the M1x mini arrives). The Element Hub will allow me to use the Air in place of the M1 mini without changing anything else about my setup, since I currently have a couple of its USB-A ports free when used with the mini.

The other nice thing about the Element Hub is that it is a fair bit cheaper ($199) than the previous generation Thunderbolt Docks, which typically run $250-300. The docks tend to have more ports, but you may not need all of them, and some can be replaced by USB or Thunderbolt cables/adapters.


----------



## Soundbed

rnb_2 said:


> For the ports issue, the best option out there for giving an M1 laptop connectivity better than any other stock Mac, at least when at a desk with power, is the Caldigit Element Hub. It will turn one of your Thunderbolt 3 ports into three (giving you four total), and also adds 4 USB-A ports, all in a very small package. Since it is powered, you can plug just about anything into any of the ports - external SSDs, MIDI controllers, thumb drives/iLok keys, a USB-C or Thunderbolt display.
> 
> I'm about to switch some things around here, replacing my i7 Intel Mac mini with my M1 mini, and putting an M1 MacBook Air in place of the M1 mini (which will eventually either replace my i3 Intel mini server, or become my wife's computer when the M1x mini arrives). The Element Hub will allow me to use the Air in place of the M1 mini without changing anything else about my setup, since I currently have a couple of its USB-A ports free when used with the mini.
> 
> The other nice thing about the Element Hub is that it is a fair bit cheaper ($199) than the previous generation Thunderbolt Docks, which typically run $250-300. The docks tend to have more ports, but you may not need all of them, and some can be replaced by USB or Thunderbolt cables/adapters.


Cool info.

For me, for a laptop, I guess it's not only about the number of hubs. I like plugging [whatever] into my 2018 MBP on the left OR right side. On this M1 I can only plug in on the left side.

I have the OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock, an OWC Thunderbolt 4 Mini that I won in a contest and a Juiced port expander so I am set. But I always need to plug in on the left. So sad. J/K


----------



## jcrosby

RixMusik said:


> What is the reason you are hoping for Big Sur not to end? The teething issues of new OS?


Compatibility issues. As if M1 doesn't bring enough of a compatibility challenge, with every new version of macos the developer compatibility times tend to get longer and longer...

So basically on top of having the added issue of waiting on (frankly a lot) of developers to still get natively compatible with AS, you then have the added headache of waiting for OS compatibility to boot!


----------



## rnb_2

jcrosby said:


> Compatibility issues. As if M1 doesn't bring enough of a compatibility challenge, with every new version of macos the developer compatibility times tend to get longer and longer...
> 
> So basically on top of having the added issue of waiting on (frankly a lot) of developers to still get natively compatible with AS, you then have the added headache of waiting for OS compatibility to boot!


Most testers have been pretty impressed with the various Apple betas thus far - like most of them, Monterey doesn't seem to be such a huge change, especially after the last two years. That doesn't mean there aren't going to be issues, but I'm cautiously optimistic that we won't see as much chaos as we've become used to lately.


----------



## rnb_2

Soundbed said:


> Cool info.
> 
> For me, for a laptop, I guess it's not only about the number of hubs. I like plugging [whatever] into my 2018 MBP on the left OR right side. On this M1 I can only plug in on the left side.
> 
> I have the OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock, an OWC Thunderbolt 4 Mini that I won in a contest and a Juiced port expander so I am set. But I always need to plug in on the left. So sad. J/K


Yeah, I hadn't been thinking about the logistics of both ports being on the same side, but I'll be dealing with that myself when my Air arrives tomorrow. Ideally, they'd be on opposite sides, but at least there are two Thunderbolt ports instead of the one USB-C on the ill-fated 12" MacBook.


----------



## jcrosby

rnb_2 said:


> Most testers have been pretty impressed with the various Apple betas thus far - like most of them, Monterey doesn't seem to be such a huge change, especially after the last two years. That doesn't mean there aren't going to be issues, but I'm cautiously optimistic that we won't see as much chaos as we've become used to lately.


I'll believe it when I see it. The compatibility lag times consistently get longer with each new OS. Big Sur (non-native) hasn't really been any different than Catalina, the skeptic in me doesn't see any reason to assume Monterey will play out differently... (No offense FYI... Apple as of late has left me a bit skeptical.)


----------



## rnb_2

jcrosby said:


> (No offense FYI... Apple as of late has left me a bit skeptical.)


None taken, and completely understandable.


----------



## HCMarkus

I bought a 16gb m1 Air for live use with MainStage. It is currently with Apple to fix a bad trackpad, but has been handling my live needs with headroom to spare. Not ready to give up the 12 core 5,1 in the studio, but I’m onboard to make the jump in another year or so. As someone who was thinking He’d have to abandon Apple at long last, I am excited to see what develops.


----------



## Soundbed

jcrosby said:


> I'll believe it when I see it. The compatibility lag times consistently get longer with each new OS. Big Sur (non-native) hasn't really been any different than Catalina, the skeptic in me doesn't see any reason to assume Monterey will play out differently... (No offense FYI... Apple as of late has left me a bit skeptical.)


Why would you want / need to move away from Big Sur? I’m usually a late adopter.


----------



## jcrosby

Soundbed said:


> Why would you want / need to move away from Big Sur? I’m usually a late adopter.


I definitely wouldn't. I am too, and that's actually what I meant...

I'm hoping we're lucky enough to see new machines before they release Monterey because m1/m1x already comes with enough challenges of its own. Adding a new OS into the mix would most likely come with an extra set of headaches that I'd prefer to avoid... (Not to mention that with each new OS some piece of software often dies.)


----------



## mscp

rnb_2 said:


> None taken, and completely understandable.


Just out of curiosity - do you work for Apple? I'm asking because most of the threads you're in are related to Apple...please don't take this as an offense. *I'm just genuinely curious* whether you're an associate.


----------



## rnb_2

Phil81 said:


> Just out of curiosity - do you work for Apple? I'm asking because most of the threads you're in are related to Apple...please don't take this as an offense. *I'm just genuinely curious* whether you're an associate.


Why is everybody worried about offending me all of the sudden?  No offense taken!

I do a bit of Apple hardware/software consulting, mostly in the photography market (I'm also a commercial photographer and very occasional videographer), but have never been employed by Apple. I ended up here via a search last May, and diving into VIs, controllers, etc. helped keep me sane during quarantine. I try to make myself useful when I can.


----------



## mrmiller

kmaster said:


> yep. For example:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From http://www.scanproaudio.info/tag/dawbench/
> 
> Sure, this doesn't cover M1 (only Intel and Ryzen), but the principles of parallelized audio processing apply to any CPU. Higher buffer sizes result in, in some cases, _dramatically_ (read: non-linearly) more possible concurrent instances of VIs.
> 
> @mrmiller is a literal expert in this—if he's around, maybe he'll chime in with his knowledge & opinions.


What are we talking about?? (I’ve been summoned but didn’t read the whole thread…)

Especially for VI heavy workflows, more cores matters a lot. Every VI can be processed on its own thread (and by proxy, CPU core) because they are entirely independent in the processing graph and hence fully parallelizable.

That is different from most other plug-ins which are dependent on previous computation. If you’ve got an EQ on an aux bus, it can’t do its work until all the other tracks feeding that aux bus have been processed. They’re not full parallelizable like VIs are. And at the end of each buffer rendering cycle (which happens hundreds of times a second), what started as a massively parallel effort collapses into usually a single output bus which can only ever be handled by a single thread and core. That heavy mastering chain can only be processed sequentially by a single CPU core. At that point, raw core speed is what matters most because you literally can’t use those extra cores to help you finish your work faster.

So definitely a balancing act but the lower core count of the M1 CPUs is what would worry me about VI heavy workloads. If the cores are that much faster, they’ll be able to make up for some of it with raw muscle but it would be need to be massively faster. And for the M1, the cores are split between high performance and lower perf but high energy efficiency, which is rather different from AMD and Intel x86-64 chips.

Imagine you have 32 VIs and 16 cores (virtual cores thanks to hyperthreading) and suppose that each VI takes about .5ms to process. You’ll be able to start processing the rest of the audio bussing and FX plugins after 1ms. If you only had 8 cores, then you’re looking at 2ms. Your 8 cores would have to be more than twice as fast as each of the 16 cores to make up for that difference. And when you’re looking at a total time of ~2ms (plus or minus) to process the entire buffer for 128 samples @ 48kHz… that makes a huge difference.

The specific numbers are back-of-the-envelope approximations but hopefully you get the general idea.


----------



## el-bo

RixMusik said:


> As a pianist, I love to have low latency as it feels smoother and responsive. I've a Casio Privia 150px with weighted keys and the feel is fantastic when plugged to my set up. I know some pianists can't determine the difference lower than 10ms, but I definitely can. I even got it down to 32 playing substantial amounts of instruments, but that is a bit over the top 😆
> 
> Yes, 128 it fine for me too, which gives about 5 or 6ms round trip which is also great.
> 
> For piano, I mainly use Synchron Pianos but using stock Logic acoustic pianos is nice too, especially for pop/rock tracks and the M1 works great at managing piano led tracks at 64 so far.


I'm not a pianist, but I do a bit of finger-drumming. I get the drive to get as low as possible, but sometimes compromises need to be made and there is a big difference between detecting/discerning a difference and that difference actually hindering performance. Of course, where that dividing line sits is up to each individual to determine. It might just mean that you'd save the recording of the more nimble piano parts for your main machine


----------



## Soundbed

mrmiller said:


> What are we talking about?? (I’ve been summoned but didn’t read the whole thread…)
> 
> Especially for VI heavy workflows, more cores matters a lot. Every VI can be processed on its own thread (and by proxy, CPU core) because they are entirely independent in the processing graph and hence fully parallelizable.
> 
> That is different from most other plug-ins which are dependent on previous computation. If you’ve got an EQ on an aux bus, it can’t do its work until all the other tracks feeding that aux bus have been processed. They’re not full parallelizable like VIs are. And at the end of each buffer rendering cycle (which happens hundreds of times a second), what started as a massively parallel effort collapses into usually a single output bus which can only ever be handled by a single thread and core. That heavy mastering chain can only be processed sequentially by a single CPU core. At that point, raw core speed is what matters most because you literally can’t use those extra cores to help you finish your work faster.
> 
> So definitely a balancing act but the lower core count of the M1 CPUs is what would worry me about VI heavy workloads. If the cores are that much faster, they’ll be able to make up for some of it with raw muscle but it would be need to be massively faster. And for the M1, the cores are split between high performance and lower perf but high energy efficiency, which is rather different from AMD and Intel x86-64 chips.
> 
> Imagine you have 32 VIs and 16 cores (virtual cores thanks to hyperthreading) and suppose that each VI takes about .5ms to process. You’ll be able to start processing the rest of the audio bussing and FX plugins after 1ms. If you only had 8 cores, then you’re looking at 2ms. Your 8 cores would have to be more than twice as fast as each of the 16 cores to make up for that difference. And when you’re looking at a total time of ~2ms (plus or minus) to process the entire buffer for 128 samples @ 48kHz… that makes a huge difference.
> 
> The specific numbers are back-of-the-envelope approximations but hopefully you get the general idea.


Explains a lot thanks


----------



## Soundbed

el-bo said:


> I'm not a pianist, but I do a bit of finger-drumming. I get the drive to get as low as possible, but sometimes compromises need to be made and there is a big difference between detecting/discerning a difference and that difference actually hindering performance. Of course, where that dividing line sits is up to each individual to determine. It might just mean that you'd save the recording of the more nimble piano parts for your main machine


And @RixMusik 

if I need low latency I switch to low latency mode. It disables the laggy plugins while I record. Don’t need it on all the time.


----------



## el-bo

Soundbed said:


> And @RixMusik
> 
> if I need low latency I switch to low latency mode. It disables the laggy plugins while I record. Don’t need it on all the time.


Ah, yes! Good call


----------



## StefVR

samphony said:


> After 6 months of use I came to the conclusion if you’re using a lot of non m1 optimized sample players and want to do heavy layered sample heavy music you are better of using:
> 
> A) m1 macs as daw sequencer/ audio stem recorder hooked up to one or multiple intel macs/ pcs via VEP
> 
> B) use a beefy intel mac or intel/amd pc as your single machine if you prefer the one machine can handle it all workflow.


I concur with this. Love my M1. When I use native plugjns and instruments I can play with 4.1 ms latency 48khz 64 samples or even 3.6 on 32 samples with no issues at all on my RME UFX+

However Kontakt is not supported and it shows giving me serious interuots kn action strings 2 and spitfire solo strings even with ine instance up.

VEP might be the solution till Kontakt runs natively and is supported.


----------



## givemenoughrope

StefVR said:


> However Kontakt is not supported


???

I have to wonder what NI is even doing these days. I'm really taking stock in how much I want to rely on them going forward but of course that's probably not going to change for a long time.


----------



## StefVR

Apple Silicon (M1) Compatibility News


On November 10th, 2020, Apple announced the release of the first Mac computers to contain Apple Silicon, their new generation of processors. Apple Silicon Macs require Apple’s latest macOS operatin...




support.native-instruments.com





Here is the status


----------



## el-bo

givemenoughrope said:


> I have to wonder what NI is even doing these days.


It's probably nothing more complicated than that they've decided to get their full catalogue ready before releasing the lot as M1 native. That's a lot of software for them to update.


----------



## givemenoughrope

el-bo said:


> It's probably nothing more complicated than that they've decided to get their full catalogue ready before releasing the lot as M1 native. That's a lot of software for them to update.


Ok but KONTAKT(!) not being compatible by now??

Is it completely non-functional or only works via Rosetta?

edit- ok yea, looks like it's working via Rosetta.


----------



## el-bo

givemenoughrope said:


> Ok but KONTAKT(!) not being compatible by now??
> 
> Is it completely non-functional or only works via Rosetta?
> 
> edit- ok yea, looks like it's working via Rosetta.


I made my comment before reading the link that @StefVR pasted. So it does seem that I was wrong, and the they will have various release points.

We can only guess how this will work. Maybe we need to consider that:

- while Kontakt might be the priority for users on this board, it might not be for NI or other users. 

- perhaps the more complex the software, or the fact that some of these programs are still built on foundations of very old code, might make them harder to get to comply. 

- the task of meeting this new standard is split into groups working on different software (rather than all the coders working on one program, before moving to another)

- they aren't going to devote 100% of their resources to this task. Development for new projects, bug-fixing, Windows issues...whatever. All of this extra stuff shouldn't be expected to grind to a halt.

Consider also, that in the space of one year, they announced Big Sur, M1 and the new OS Monterey. And not only is there a new Windows version, but I suspect that Microsoft are going to start increasing their release schedule. That's a lot to expect companies to deal with, especially when they have a catalogue as large as NI do.

It's always been the case that those who want to be at the bleeding-edge of tech are going to face these drawbacks. In this case, the fact that it even works in Rosetta, is more than might have been expected. I'm not blaming you for buying into M1, but it might've not been the best decision if you expected to be able to jump into doing mission-critical work with it


----------



## wayne_rowley

givemenoughrope said:


> Ok but KONTAKT(!) not being compatible by now??
> 
> Is it completely non-functional or only works via Rosetta?
> 
> edit- ok yea, looks like it's working via Rosetta.


We are expecting them to port their apps to Apple Silicon free of charge. It wouldn't surprise me if you had to PAY for native AS compatibility via a Komplete update/new version.


----------



## dcoscina

samphony said:


> Yes me. I’ve run a couple tests in January between an i7 mini 64gb and m1 mini. Working on a feature.
> 
> The m1 mini won hands down.
> 
> I sent back the m1 as it was 16gb 256gb ssd only and replaced it with 16gb 1tb ssd!
> 
> The i7 mini got sold yesterday as it didn’t met my expectations.
> 
> I’ll try doing a large track count session in the next days on one m1 mini and probably add 1-3 more down the line as VEP servers. All neatly stacked into a Sonnet RackMac mini 1U
> 
> 
> 
> RackMac mini 1U Rack Enclosure for Mac mini - Sonnet
> 
> 
> 
> So powerful and portable.
> 
> The single core speed alone is worth getting a new m1 mac. I’ve upgraded from a 6,1 Mac Pro 128GB RAM. No regrets.
> 
> I’ll also get whatever new Apple Silicon mac is next as it can only get more powerful down the line.


This is good news! I’ve ordered a
M1 Mini and I’m looking forward to its improved speed over my
MacBook Air i7 (which I use as my day time work computer and my notation computer- Dorico/MuseScore/Sibelius.
Plus I sketch on it with Studio One. The i7 cannot handle that much these days… I remember doing an RPG track several years ago in LPX on it and getting 50 tracks before having to freeze some.
But alas, the poor thing just can’t keep up anymore so Mac Mini it is..
Also, I figure this future proofs my studio as my MP 6,1 can be used as a slave.


----------



## davidson

Well, my 2013 mp is seriously misbehaving so I'm going to have to take a punt at an m1 mini to get me by until the m2 or mac pro mini is released. Looks like bounce in place is set to become my new best friend, wish me luck!


----------



## Soundbed

dcoscina said:


> This is good news! I’ve ordered a
> M1 Mini and I’m looking forward to its improved speed over my
> MacBook Air i7 (which I use as my day time work computer and my notation computer- Dorico/MuseScore/Sibelius.
> Plus I sketch on it with Studio One. The i7 cannot handle that much these days… I remember doing an RPG track several years ago in LPX on it and getting 50 tracks before having to freeze some.
> But alas, the poor thing just can’t keep up anymore so Mac Mini it is..
> Also, I figure this future proofs my studio as my MP 6,1 can be used as a slave.


Have you tried lowering your preload setting (assuming you have a fast drive) on your i7?


----------



## el-bo

Soundbed said:


> Have you tried lowering your preload setting (assuming you have a fast drive) on your i7?


I know this isn't addressed to me, but what do you mean by 'fast"? And what kinds of pre-load buffers have you tested?

Cheers


----------



## samphony

dcoscina said:


> This is good news! I’ve ordered a
> M1 Mini and I’m looking forward to its improved speed over my
> MacBook Air i7 (which I use as my day time work computer and my notation computer- Dorico/MuseScore/Sibelius.
> Plus I sketch on it with Studio One. The i7 cannot handle that much these days… I remember doing an RPG track several years ago in LPX on it and getting 50 tracks before having to freeze some.
> But alas, the poor thing just can’t keep up anymore so Mac Mini it is..
> Also, I figure this future proofs my studio as my MP 6,1 can be used as a slave.


Why didn’t you choose the m1 Air? Do you need more than 1 additional screen?


----------



## dcoscina

samphony said:


> Why didn’t you choose the m1 Air? Do you need more than 1 additional screen?


yes. This is my day job work computer that I remote into so I need multiple screens. But sometimes when it's slow I use it to sketch stuff on Studio One or LPX or Dorico.. ssshhh don't tell anyone. LOL


----------



## robgb

StefVR said:


> Apple Silicon (M1) Compatibility News
> 
> 
> On November 10th, 2020, Apple announced the release of the first Mac computers to contain Apple Silicon, their new generation of processors. Apple Silicon Macs require Apple’s latest macOS operatin...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> support.native-instruments.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here is the status


I have to wonder, since developers knew the M1 was coming for months (maybe a year?) before its launch -- why weren't they ready? There are a number of them that weren't, not just NI. Some people have found that their subscription service plugins no longer work. Imagine paying a monthly fee and being screwed over because you bought a machine that has been in the works for years?


----------



## Soundbed

el-bo said:


> I know this isn't addressed to me, but what do you mean by 'fast"? And what kinds of pre-load buffers have you tested?
> 
> Cheers


I was getting increased track counts by lowering it to 18k in Kontakt which was recommended by someone else on VI-C. Sorry not “fast” but “small”, I should have said. I also got increased track counts in SINE with 25k. They were a little arbitrary. The SINE value was 1/10th of the default.


----------



## JohnG

el-bo said:


> It's always been the case that those who want to be at the bleeding-edge of tech are going to face these drawbacks.


Have to agree with this -- if we want the latest, there is going to be some breakage. There's always that one library or old piece of software that is a little slow to get updated to the latest OS. 

I'm quite keen to replace my 4GB RAM aging MacBook Air, but I think I'll wait until the next round of laptops, or maybe M1.02 or something -- just not the very first iteration.

I'm trying to be patient, exciting though the new tech appears.


----------



## Soundbed

robgb said:


> I have to wonder, since developers knew the M1 was coming for months (maybe a year?) before its launch -- why weren't they ready? There are a number of them that weren't, not just NI. Some people have found that their subscription service plugins no longer work. Imagine paying a monthly fee and being screwed over because you bought a machine that has been in the works for years?


I didn’t have any troubles with Kontakt on the M1 I was using. It was very stable until I pushed it to the limit if the machine’s capabilities with 16GB RAM. Is the only library that has an issue Action Strings 2? If so that’s a library issue, not a sampler issue.


----------



## Vik

samphony said:


> I’ve run a couple tests in January between an i7 mini 64gb and m1 mini. Working on a feature.
> 
> The m1 mini won hands down.
> 
> I sent back the m1 as it was 16gb 256gb ssd only and replaced it with 16gb 1tb ssd!
> 
> The i7 mini got sold yesterday as it didn’t met my expectations.
> 
> I’ll try doing a large track count session in the next days on one m1 mini and probably add 1-3 more down the line as VEP servers. All neatly stacked into a Sonnet RackMac mini 1U
> 
> RackMac mini 1U Rack Enclosure for Mac mini - Sonnet
> So powerful and portable.
> 
> The single core speed alone is worth getting a new m1 mac. I’ve upgraded from a 6,1 Mac Pro 128GB RAM. No regrets.


You guys confuse me again. 

Soundbed wrote recently, in another thread that "I was indeed constrained by the amount of RAM / Unified Memory on the M1" and "There’s no point getting a machine with 1/4 or 1/2 the RAM/Unified Memory and expecting it to compete with a machine with more RAM". This seems to be in conflict what what you wrote here, @samphony.

Someone, please unconfuse me.


----------



## mscp

Writing fast, busy acoustic metal drum lines on the M1 is insufferable, along other things.


----------



## davidson

Phil81 said:


> Writing fast, busy acoustic metal drum lines on the M1 is insufferable, along other things.


In what way?


----------



## mscp

davidson said:


> In what way?


Busy Kontakt-based drum passages take up a LOT of CPU. The less amount of cores, the worse.


----------



## Soundbed

Phil81 said:


> Busy Kontakt-based drum passages take up a LOT of CPU. The less amount of cores, the worse.


Did you try anything to make them run more efficiently? Like try lowering the preload buffer size?


----------



## mscp

Soundbed said:


> Did you try anything to make them run more efficiently? Like try lowering the preload buffer size?


Ah. I keep forgetting this is a ram-related thread.


----------



## Soundbed

Vik said:


> You guys confuse me again.
> 
> Soundbed wrote recently, in another thread that "I was indeed constrained by the amount of RAM / Unified Memory on the M1" and "There’s no point getting a machine with 1/4 or 1/2 the RAM/Unified Memory and expecting it to compete with a machine with more RAM". This seems to be in conflict what what you wrote here, @samphony.
> 
> Someone, please unconfuse me.


Well, @samphony didn't mention several things in that post. With the increased speed of the M1, were lots of tracks “frozen”? That workflow can work for some people. Reading from lots of audio tracks should be a breeze. Other people hate it. 



MarcusD said:


> super impressed with the OS and how damn fast the M1 it is at rendering files. What usually took 20 minuets for a 25 - 30 minuet clip ( in RX ) literally is done in 2 minuet or less



Also:


kmaster said:


> the principles of parallelized audio processing apply to any CPU. Higher buffer sizes result in, in some cases, _dramatically_ (read: non-linearly) more possible concurrent instances of VIs.


Also @samphony mentions he was working on a feature. That means to me that he was trying to get work done. Which means doing whatever is necessary to keep moving (purge RAM, bounce, use efficient instruments that aren’t bloated maybe?). You previously were interested in track counts without purging RAM or maybe without changing preload buffer sizes; to get an apples to apples comparison I understand but I find it more useful to adopt a “when in Rome” approach and use a 16GB RAM machine with a fast CPU by capitalizing on its strengths rather than trying to use if like a slower CPU / larger RAM configuration.


----------



## davidson

Phil81 said:


> Busy Kontakt-based drum passages take up a LOT of CPU. The less amount of cores, the worse.


That sounds strange. The only cpu heavy percussion library that I've come across is LAMP, and that destroys my 6-core mac pro so I can only imagine it runs better on an M1 mac.

The multi core score of the M1 seems to better all but the most powerful new macs, and destroys everything in single core. That can only be a positive, surely?


----------



## Soundbed

davidson said:


> That sounds strange. The only cpu heavy percussion library that I've come across is LAMP, and that destroys my 6-core mac pro so I can only imagine it runs better on an M1 mac.
> 
> The multi core score of the M1 seems to better all but the most powerful new macs, and destroys everything in single core. That can only be a positive, surely?


Good point. Some Kontakt drum libs may be less / more efficient than others.


----------



## mscp

davidson said:


> That sounds strange. The only cpu heavy percussion library that I've come across is LAMP, and that destroys my 6-core mac pro so I can only imagine it runs better on an M1 mac.
> 
> The multi core score of the M1 seems to better all but the most powerful new macs, and destroys everything in single core. That can only be a positive, surely?


LAMP is lighter than some of the drum libraries I use. By drums I mean Rock/Metal drums, not concert drums, and the passages I write are often super fast/busy.


----------



## el-bo

Soundbed said:


> I was getting increased track counts by lowering it to 18k in Kontakt which was recommended by someone else on VI-C. Sorry not “fast” but “small”, I should have said. I also got increased track counts in SINE with 25k. They were a little arbitrary. The SINE value was 1/10th of the default.


Thanks! But I was speaking more in terms of the speed of the drive to which the extra labour of streaming is being passed. I'm assuming a mechanical HDD is out of the question, but would a standard SATA ssd work? 

I guess I should just try my own experiments, I guess


----------



## Soundbed

el-bo said:


> Thanks! But I was speaking more in terms of the speed of the drive to which the extra labour of streaming is being passed. I'm assuming a mechanical HDD is out of the question, but would a standard SATA ssd work?
> 
> I guess I should just try my own experiments, I guess


oh, I understand you now. well I consider "fast" these days in the 2000-3500MB/s Seq. reads arena, ergo NVMe not SATA, but I think a fast SATA e.g., 600MB/s will also be able to share the load with lowered preload buffer sizes!

I'm guessing modern 7200rpm spinning disks might be able to help a little but not nearly as much and older 5400rpm drives I wouldn't expect anything ... might even be worse, I'm not sure.


----------



## el-bo

Soundbed said:


> oh, I understand you now. well I consider "fast" these days in the 2000-3500MB/s Seq. reads arena, ergo NVMe not SATA, but I think a fast SATA e.g., 600MB/s will also be able to share the load with lowered preload buffer sizes!
> 
> I'm guessing modern 7200rpm spinning disks might be able to help a little but not nearly as much and older 5400rpm drives I wouldn't expect anything ... might even be worse, I'm not sure.


Thanks! The default is 24kb. right?


----------



## Soundbed

el-bo said:


> Thanks! The default is 24kb. right?


No, I think it's 60kb, which was designed for older, slower drives.

Here's some references for those who are interested...





__





Preload buffer size configuration | Preload buffer size configuration | Prominy







prominy.com





an older article:









How to Use and Optimize Kontakt DFD


In today's tutorial, we will discuss how to Use and Optimize Kontakt DFD. How to Use and Optimize Kontakt DFD DFD stands for "Direct from Disk" and is a Source Module mode for playing very...




www.adsrsounds.com





or maybe people trust an article from Spitfire:

https://spitfireaudio.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020762793-Reducing-RAM-usage-when-using-SSDs 

In fact @EvilDragon (Kontakt legend) even wrote in this thread: 


> Default of 60 KB is for very old hard drives. If your libraries are all on SSDs you can freely push it to the lowest value.


... so I think it's a "tip" that needs to continue to be shared.

Tagging @Vik as well based on previous conversations about RAM.


----------



## el-bo

Soundbed said:


> No, I think it's 60kb, which was designed for older, slower drives.
> 
> Here's some references for those who are interested...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Preload buffer size configuration | Preload buffer size configuration | Prominy
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> prominy.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> an older article:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> How to Use and Optimize Kontakt DFD
> 
> 
> In today's tutorial, we will discuss how to Use and Optimize Kontakt DFD. How to Use and Optimize Kontakt DFD DFD stands for "Direct from Disk" and is a Source Module mode for playing very...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.adsrsounds.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> or maybe people trust an article from Spitfire:
> 
> https://spitfireaudio.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020762793-Reducing-RAM-usage-when-using-SSDs
> 
> In fact @EvilDragon (Kontakt legend) even wrote in this thread:
> 
> ... so I think it's a "tip" that needs to continue to be shared.
> 
> Tagging @Vik as well based on previous conversations about RAM.


Thanks! Will look into it. Since owning Kontakt, I've not really pushed to see how far it will let me go. But I'm interested in testing.


----------



## dcoscina

My Mac Mini arrives later this week. Will be curious to see its performance over my dual-core i7 MacBook which used to be pretty good but no longer seems to handle much.


----------



## Sovereign

Soundbed said:


> ... so I think it's a "tip" that needs to continue to be shared.


Absolutely. On my Mac Pro 2013 it reduces Kontakt ram usage immensely, everything streams just fine at the lowest setting. I'm surprised this isn't more common knowledge. I now wonder how much you could have loaded into that 16gb m1 machine at these optimal settings.


----------



## Soundbed

Sovereign said:


> Absolutely. On my Mac Pro 2013 it reduces Kontakt ram usage immensely, everything streams just fine at the lowest setting. I'm surprised this isn't more common knowledge. I now wonder how much you could have loaded into that 16gb m1 machine at these optimal settings.


Yes if I’d known 6kb was more common I bet I could have pushed things even further. Well, it’s all learning. By the way having my Intel i9 back I’m not disappointed at all. This 2018 MBP is still a very capable machine.


----------



## dcoscina

Got my Mac Mini M1 today and loaded everything up. A few surprises- my wireless generic mouse (USB remote) doesn’t work so I had to return to the Magic Mouse 2 (a little louder which is a drag). More odd, EW OPUS doesn’t show in my available instruments in Logic even though it’s there and authorized in the plug in manager. It shows up in Studio One 5.3 and DP11….weird!!!


----------



## rnb_2

dcoscina said:


> Got my Mac Mini M1 today and loaded everything up. A few surprises- my wireless generic mouse (USB remote) doesn’t work so I had to return to the Magic Mouse 2 (a little louder which is a drag). More odd, EW OPUS doesn’t show in my available instruments in Logic even though it’s there and authorized in the plug in manager. It shows up in Studio One 5.3 and DP11….weird!!!


Opus should work just fine - I'm not even running Logic in Rosetta mode and Opus shows up fine for me. Try restarting if you haven't already - that does sometimes cure things like this.


----------



## dcoscina

rnb_2 said:


> Opus should work just fine - I'm not even running Logic in Rosetta mode and Opus shows up fine for me. Try restarting if you haven't already - that does sometimes cure things like this.


Yeah I’ve noticed that since High Sierra. Unfortunately it has no effect. It’s weird that it show up in the plug ins list in LPX but not when I select and instrument from the drop down…


----------



## dcoscina

dcoscina said:


> Got my Mac Mini M1 today and loaded everything up. A few surprises- my wireless generic mouse (USB remote) doesn’t work so I had to return to the Magic Mouse 2 (a little louder which is a drag). More odd, EW OPUS doesn’t show in my available instruments in Logic even though it’s there and authorized in the plug in manager. It shows up in Studio One 5.3 and DP11….weird!!!


Just to add to this. OPUS shows up in VEP and Dorico as well. And not just under VST but also AU... Logic is being weird about this.. I dunno why..


----------



## dcoscina

rnb_2 said:


> Opus should work just fine - I'm not even running Logic in Rosetta mode and Opus shows up fine for me. Try restarting if you haven't already - that does sometimes cure things like this.


I actually tried Rosetta mode and still nothing, OPUS does not come up under the instrument drop down even though it shows up in the AU plug in list as authorized.... This is bizarre.....


----------



## osterdamus

el-bo said:


> The dreaded 'System Overload' is a golden-oldie for us Logic users  It often improved with a pre-play-through, especially if the project had freshly been loaded. Once past the bits where effects and automation get a bit scatty, things would normally settle-down


Would you mind elaborating on the pre-play-through, what is it?


----------



## el-bo

osterdamus said:


> Would you mind elaborating on the pre-play-through, what is it?


A good example of where Logic (Any DAW, theoretically), is when new sections come in, and with them a handful of plugins. From-cold i.e first play-through, these sections might cause the session to halt. But if one played from the point at which things stopped, it would often run fine (Assuming the section is within the possibilities of the CPU). Sometimes all that's necessary is to play just from the sections that are more intensive.

Where a pre-play might be useful, is if you need to play a mix to a client. Rather than having all these stops and starts, just make sure to not play the mix, from cold.

In it's simplest for, it's just 'warming' things up


----------



## osterdamus

el-bo said:


> A good example of where Logic (Any DAW, theoretically), is when new sections come in, and with them a handful of plugins. From-cold i.e first play-through, these sections might cause the session to halt. But if one played from the point at which things stopped, it would often run fine (Assuming the section is within the possibilities of the CPU). Sometimes all that's necessary is to play just from the sections that are more intensive.
> 
> Where a pre-play might be useful, is if you need to play a mix to a client. Rather than having all these stops and starts, just make sure to not play the mix, from cold.
> 
> In it's simplest for, it's just 'warming' things up


Haha, ok I though it was a fancy feature. But I get what you mean. In the tech we have an equivalent which is warming up a server, letting it set up caches and such. The first hit is always slow, then it’ll run smooth. Very similar case.


----------



## el-bo

osterdamus said:


> Haha, ok I though it was a fancy feature. But I get what you mean. In the tech we have an equivalent which is warming up a server, letting it set up caches and such. The first hit is always slow, then it’ll run smooth. Very similar case.


----------



## crd

Okay... I have not read this entire thread. 

I am wondering if anyone here has any experience using a Mac mini M1 as a part of a VEPro setup? I think I will need to replace my maxed out 2013 Mac Pro can soon. Is it nuts to think about two Mac mini's networked? How are the M1's handling streaming audio via ethernet? I routinely run big sessions and want to avoid freezing tracks etc.


----------



## erodred

crd said:


> Okay... I have not read this entire thread.
> 
> I am wondering if anyone here has any experience using a Mac mini M1 as a part of a VEPro setup? I think I will need to replace my maxed out 2013 Mac Pro can soon. Is it nuts to think about two Mac mini's networked? How are the M1's handling streaming audio via ethernet? I routinely run big sessions and want to avoid freezing tracks etc.


I think it has been asked a couple of times on this thread but I have not personally seen anything definitive of it yet. I think someone mentioned previously they would run a test and share the results. 

I also think I read in another thread that it was better to do the mixing/mastering on the slave instead of in Logic. Hopefully someone can solve the mystery for us.


----------



## dcoscina

I ordered a refurb Mini with 8gb that was not great. Returned it and waiting for the 16gb to arrive. Last time I did an install from Time machine. This time I’m doing clean install of all my apps.


----------



## crd

erodred said:


> I think it has been asked a couple of times on this thread but I have not personally seen anything definitive of it yet. I think someone mentioned previously they would run a test and share the results.
> 
> I also think I read in another thread that it was better to do the mixing/mastering on the slave instead of in Logic. Hopefully someone can solve the mystery for us.


My work flow is to mix in my session, not the computer holding the samples. The last gen intel Mac mini seems like maybe my best bet.


----------



## crd

dcoscina said:


> I ordered a refurb Mini with 8gb that was not great. Returned it and waiting for the 16gb to arrive. Last time I did an install from Time machine. This time I’m doing clean install of all my apps.


Were you using it with VEPro?


----------



## kolton

This may not be much help but here goes. 
I run large sessions on my 12 core 2012 Mac Pro and have been hit it’s functional capacity too often and having to freeze tracks etc..
I bought an m1 mini 256/16 to run my daw and audio fx leaving the Mac Pro for vi’s hosted in ve pro. (Ver. 5.4 for what it’s worth). It’s working pretty well, at least the things that are compatible. 
I have to get a new audio/midi interface for the m1. Many of my audio fx do not work at all, some some as authorized but won’t instantiate. Anything with a hardware dongle can be a hassle moving The dongle back to my old computer for older projects. It’s doable but takes some extra organizing. 
That said, the m1 is very fast and solid. I like it a lot.
I’m not really noticing a difference running native or universal since most of my fx are running native. 
Since I’m only running audio fx and a couple of synth vi’s on the m1 it’s not being taxed that hard. I’m hoping more software becomes compatible so I can run more on the m1. 
The m1 has filled the void and allowed me to run more stuff but at the expense of a fair amount of hassle and waiting for things to be compatible. 
Also, some plugins don’t run in ve pro ve server on the Mac Pro and aren’t compatible with m1 yet. 
Hopefully with time things will be a easier. 
Sorry for the ramble...


----------



## crd

kolton said:


> This may not be much help but here goes.
> I run large sessions on my 12 core 2012 Mac Pro and have been hit it’s functional capacity too often and having to freeze tracks etc..
> I bought an m1 mini 256/16 to run my daw and audio fx leaving the Mac Pro for vi’s hosted in ve pro. (Ver. 5.4 for what it’s worth). It’s working pretty well, at least the things that are compatible.
> I have to get a new audio/midi interface for the m1. Many of my audio fx do not work at all, some some as authorized but won’t instantiate. Anything with a hardware dongle can be a hassle moving The dongle back to my old computer for older projects. It’s doable but takes some extra organizing.
> That said, the m1 is very fast and solid. I like it a lot.
> I’m not really noticing a difference running native or universal since most of my fx are running native.
> Since I’m only running audio fx and a couple of synth vi’s on the m1 it’s not being taxed that hard. I’m hoping more software becomes compatible so I can run more on the m1.
> The m1 has filled the void and allowed me to run more stuff but at the expense of a fair amount of hassle and waiting for things to be compatible.
> Also, some plugins don’t run in ve pro ve server on the Mac Pro and aren’t compatible with m1 yet.
> Hopefully with time things will be a easier.
> Sorry for the ramble...


Thank you. That is super helpful.


----------



## Soundbed

crd said:


> Okay... I have not read this entire thread.
> 
> I am wondering if anyone here has any experience using a Mac mini M1 as a part of a VEPro setup? I think I will need to replace my maxed out 2013 Mac Pro can soon. Is it nuts to think about two Mac mini's networked? How are the M1's handling streaming audio via ethernet? I routinely run big sessions and want to avoid freezing tracks etc.


Someone on VI-C has indicated they have multiple VEP M1 Macs working, but i cannot find the posts at the moment. In this thread, check out specifically the post below, and others by @samphony.



samphony said:


> VEP running in parallel


----------



## samphony

Soundbed said:


> Someone on VI-C has indicated they have multiple VEP M1 Macs working, but i cannot find the posts at the moment. In this thread, check out specifically the post below, and others by @samphony.


Thats what i went for and add minis as satellites as needed.


----------



## crd

samphony said:


> Thats what i went for and add minis as satellites as needed.


I'd love to know more about your set up. Have you used an M1 in network with an intel Mac or PC? Right now I am using a trash can Mac and cheese grater and would love to retire the cheese grater. 

I'm happy with a two computer set-up but would love to be able to run my template at lower latencies.


----------



## dcoscina

dcoscina said:


> I ordered a refurb Mini with 8gb that was not great. Returned it and waiting for the 16gb to arrive. Last time I did an install from Time machine. This time I’m doing clean install of all my apps.


Update- the clean install was a much smarter idea. OPUS shows up in LPX natively no worries. As much as it's a bit of a headache to re-install everything, it's also nice to not carry over bloatware that had built up on my previous MacBook Air. The M1 w. 16gb definitely is even crisper than the 8gb.


----------



## pcarrilho

Hello guys!
Here is my experience with my M1 Mackbook Air 16Gb.


For 3 months now, I have been using my MacBook AIR M1 (16Gb Ram) as the main tool on my set (in addition to the mocbook air M1, I have a Mackbook Pro Intel 6 core I7 from 2018, and a Windows desktop I7 8700K with 64Gb of Ram ).

The M1 serves 90% of my current work, which at this moment is essentially:
- Lib Development for Kontakt
- Production Music
- Game Coposing
- some TV Composing

My main tools are:

DAW:
- LOGIC PRO X

SYNTHS:
- OMNISPHERE
- NEXUS 3
- ALCHEMY

Sample Libs:
- KONTAKT (with several orchestral libs)
- Spitfire BBC SO PRO
- Spitfire AROAD
- VSL
- EW OPUS
- Fabfilter Plugins
- OZONE
- UAD Plugins

On M1 I can run more than 95% of my projects. The only times I have to use one of the other PCs is when I really need to use OZONE (in some specific situation), or some big orchestral project that needs for example 64Gb of memory (but even in this case, sometimes use VE PRO using Desktop PC as sample server, continuing to use M1 as main computer.

I use it connected to a CALDIGIT HUB thunderbolt 3

Some observations:

- I ALWAYS use LOGIC in NATIVE mode (NEVER with Rosetta)
- OMNISPHERE, NEXUS and ALCHEMY are NATIVE M1... yeahhhhh!!!
- Kontak runs smoothly! ... even using Logic in native M1 mode;
- OPUS runs without problems!... even using Logic in native M1 mode;
- OZONE Does not work!
- SPITFIRE Doesn't work! I've tried it several times, following all the steps recommended by spitfire, without success, so at the moment I use these Libs less.
- FABFILTER is NATIVE!
- UAD runs without problems (hardware and plugins)
- As I mentioned in a post a few months ago, I tried doing a stress test, and I managed to run projects that used almost 30Gb (and I remember that the macbookj air M1 has "only" 16Gb).

I confess that at the time I thought about waiting for the new generation of M!s (M1X, M2...) But I decided to take a risk on this basic M1. At the end of this time of intensive use, I confess that I am delighted with this M1.
Although I don't use video editing much, this machine's performance in video editing is impressive (but here it's really good to use native M1 software like Final Cut).

I think for those who work exclusively with big orchestral projects, big templates, maybe the 16GB memory limitation might be a problem, but as I mentioned, it's the only situation where I use my desktop that has a lot of memory.

Another thing I love is the silence! And temperature!

I am really impressed with the performance of this little machine, and I will certainly upgrade to new models in the future.


----------



## dcoscina

pcarrilho said:


> Hello guys!
> Here is my experience with my M1 Mackbook Air 16Gb.
> 
> 
> For 3 months now, I have been using my MacBook AIR M1 (16Gb Ram) as the main tool on my set (in addition to the mocbook air M1, I have a Mackbook Pro Intel 6 core I7 from 2018, and a Windows desktop I7 8700K with 64Gb of Ram ).
> 
> The M1 serves 90% of my current work, which at this moment is essentially:
> - Lib Development for Kontakt
> - Production Music
> - Game Coposing
> - some TV Composing
> 
> My main tools are:
> 
> DAW:
> - LOGIC PRO X
> 
> SYNTHS:
> - OMNISPHERE
> - NEXUS 3
> - ALCHEMY
> 
> Sample Libs:
> - KONTAKT (with several orchestral libs)
> - Spitfire BBC SO PRO
> - Spitfire AROAD
> - VSL
> - EW OPUS
> - Fabfilter Plugins
> - OZONE
> - UAD Plugins
> 
> On M1 I can run more than 95% of my projects. The only times I have to use one of the other PCs is when I really need to use OZONE (in some specific situation), or some big orchestral project that needs for example 64Gb of memory (but even in this case, sometimes use VE PRO using Desktop PC as sample server, continuing to use M1 as main computer.
> 
> I use it connected to a CALDIGIT HUB thunderbolt 3
> 
> Some observations:
> 
> - I ALWAYS use LOGIC in NATIVE mode (NEVER with Rosetta)
> - OMNISPHERE, NEXUS and ALCHEMY are NATIVE M1... yeahhhhh!!!
> - Kontak runs smoothly! ... even using Logic in native M1 mode;
> - OPUS runs without problems!... even using Logic in native M1 mode;
> - OZONE Does not work!
> - SPITFIRE Doesn't work! I've tried it several times, following all the steps recommended by spitfire, without success, so at the moment I use these Libs less.
> - FABFILTER is NATIVE!
> - UAD runs without problems (hardware and plugins)
> - As I mentioned in a post a few months ago, I tried doing a stress test, and I managed to run projects that used almost 30Gb (and I remember that the macbookj air M1 has "only" 16Gb).
> 
> I confess that at the time I thought about waiting for the new generation of M!s (M1X, M2...) But I decided to take a risk on this basic M1. At the end of this time of intensive use, I confess that I am delighted with this M1.
> Although I don't use video editing much, this machine's performance in video editing is impressive (but here it's really good to use native M1 software like Final Cut).
> 
> I think for those who work exclusively with big orchestral projects, big templates, maybe the 16GB memory limitation might be a problem, but as I mentioned, it's the only situation where I use my desktop that has a lot of memory.
> 
> Another thing I love is the silence! And temperature!
> 
> I am really impressed with the performance of this little machine, and I will certainly upgrade to new models in the future.


Nice post! SFA just released an update on Abbey Road 1 the other day, conveniently right when I got my Mac mini M1 (16gb). Seems to run quite nicely. 

I also run LPX in native mode and I changed the setting to 8 cores, rather than the default 4 cores. Seems really quite excellent. My only gripe is that with the way SFA manages their libraries via the Spitfire Player, I cannot have it set to 2 different target folders when I want to use Studio One 5.3 which is primarily my DAW of choice these days. This involves either running LPX under Rosetta (booo) and doing a repair on the BBC and AR1 libraries to work under Rosetta, or else, work in LPX for the time being with these two libraries and hope Presonus updates S1 for silicone processors soon..


----------



## khollister

"- SPITFIRE Doesn't work! I've tried it several times, following all the steps recommended by spitfire, without success, so at the moment I use these Libs less."

After a remote session with Spitfire support, they concluded the AS beta versions of the Spitfire player libs are broken with either the current version of Logic or a recent MacOS update. The production native versions (Hammers, Landfill Totems, Janglebox piano, Mrs Mills piano, LABS, Cinematic Pads) work fine.


----------



## pcarrilho

khollister said:


> "- SPITFIRE Doesn't work! I've tried it several times, following all the steps recommended by spitfire, without success, so at the moment I use these Libs less."
> 
> After a remote session with Spitfire support, they concluded the AS beta versions of the Spitfire player libs are broken with either the current version of Logic or a recent MacOS update. The production native versions (Hammers, Landfill Totems, Janglebox piano, Mrs Mills piano, LABS, Cinematic Pads) work fine.



Good to know! Thanks!
So I will just wait for native version of abbey road and bbcso pro...


----------



## khollister

pcarrilho said:


> Good to know! Thanks!
> So I will just wait for native version of abbey road and bbcso pro...


ARO was recently released as native per Spitfire’s support FAQ


----------



## dcoscina

pcarrilho said:


> Good to know! Thanks!
> So I will just wait for native version of abbey road and bbcso pro...


Hmmm, I'm using BBC on my Mac mini m1. to make a patch sound, you have to hit the semi circular refresh thing on the GUI. That helps.


----------



## pcarrilho

dcoscina said:


> Hmmm, I'm using BBC on my Mac mini m1. to make a patch sound, you have to hit the semi circular refresh thing on the GUI. That helps.



Are you using it on native mode? Or Rosetta mode?


----------



## pcarrilho

khollister said:


> ARO was recently released as native per Spitfire’s support FAQ


Hooo... thanks... I will check! Good news!


----------



## dcoscina

pcarrilho said:


> Are you using it on native mode? Or Rosetta mode?


Native.


----------



## pcarrilho

dcoscina said:


> Native.


Thanks...
I have my bbcso working in native mode now 😃😃😃


----------



## macmac

I’m wondering if the next OS or M2 will no longer have Rosetta available, or if Apple will permit it for a longer time during this crossover. (Before it only was available one time, in Snow Leopard). Meaning if I wanted a newer computer that could still run apps not yet native, now is the time to buy?


----------



## rnb_2

macmac said:


> I’m wondering if the next OS or M2 will no longer have Rosetta available, or if Apple will permit it for a longer time during this crossover. (Before it only was available one time, in Snow Leopard). Meaning if I wanted a newer computer that could still run apps not yet native, now is the time to buy?


Rosetta existed from OS X 10.4.8 (January 2006) through 10.6, which was the shipping version of OS X until July 2011, so it was available for about 5.5 years. Rosetta 2 may not last that long, but it certainly won't go away soon.


----------



## macmac

Thanks for the info. I guess my recollection wasnt very good. I remembered Rosetta from Snow, was thinking it had started then.


----------



## dcoscina

So here is an interesting development. I tried bouncing a 1 track piano piece, around 5 minutes long, and Studio One took FOREVER... I'm guessing it's because it's running in Rosetta and not optimized for the M1... I was a little surprised...

Anyone else having these kind of troubles with audio mix/bounce?


----------



## pcarrilho

Bouncing/freezing tracks/mixdonw... on Logic, super fast. Don´t have S1 to test


----------



## samphony

Especially freezing in logic on the m1 is blazing fast. 

@dcoscina my guess it’s related to a plugin or multiple plugins


----------



## dcoscina

samphony said:


> Especially freezing in logic on the m1 is blazing fast.
> 
> @dcoscina my guess it’s related to a plugin or multiple plugins


it's possible. I used Pianoteq but from what I read, it's M1 compatible


----------



## Vik

samphony said:


> Especially freezing in logic on the m1 is blazing fast.


Are your projects stored on the system/internal drive? How long does it take to freeze a 10 minute VI track (anyone?)?


----------



## samphony

Vik said:


> Are your projects stored on the system/internal drive? How long does it take to freeze a 10 minute VI track (anyone?)?


Do you mean a single track or multiple tracks involved?

Send me an example and I’ll let you know


----------



## crd

crd said:


> I'd love to know more about your set up. Have you used an M1 in network with an intel Mac or PC? Right now I am using a trash can Mac and cheese grater and would love to retire the cheese grater.
> 
> I'm happy with a two computer set-up but would love to be able to run my template at lower latencies.


Are you


samphony said:


> Thats what i went for and add minis as satellites as needed.


Are you using multiple M1 mac's or mixing M1's with intel Mac's in your VEPro set-up? Did you notice you could reduce the latency in your VEPro template?


----------



## Jophus

so whats the current stance on these as far as using it for a portable rig w the sole intention of recording/producing/composing music (virtual instrumentation obviously included)? if im pretty exclusively using logic and in the market for a new laptop to take on tour with me, is this the move ?


----------



## rnb_2

Jophus said:


> so whats the current stance on these as far as using it for a portable rig w the sole intention of recording/producing/composing music (virtual instrumentation obviously included)? if im pretty exclusively using logic and in the market for a new laptop to take on tour with me, is this the move ?


Really depends on the VIs and how big a template you're using. If you can wait about a month, the M1X laptops should be announced, and they should address the M1's 16GB RAM limit (as well as having twice the cores of the M1). If you are currently working with 16GB, you'd likely be fine with an M1, but waiting and comparing M1 vs M1X and seeing if the extra cost of the latter makes sense for you can't hurt if you can wait a few weeks.


----------



## Pier

rnb_2 said:


> comparing M1 vs M1X and seeing if the extra cost of the latter makes sense


You think Apple will increase prices of M1 vs M1X?

I would expect them to simply replace the CPUs of newer models without a price change (except for more RAM ofc).


----------



## rnb_2

Pier said:


> You think Apple will increase prices of M1 vs M1X?
> 
> I would expect them to simply replace the CPUs of newer models without a price change (except for more RAM ofc).


M1X will be for a different line - M1 (and M2 to follow) will be the base chip with the fewest cores, for the low end products (MacBook Air, 13" MacBook Pro, base iMac, base Mac mini). M1X will be for the higher end, with more cores and RAM - 14" and 16" MacBook Pros, high end Mac mini (to replace i5/i7 Intel mini), and maybe the replacement for the 27" iMac.

You could think of M1/M2/etc as serving the consumer line, with M1X/M2X/etc serving the professional line, at least for the foreseeable future. The Mac Pro (and possibly the big iMac) will have a (rumored) 20-40 core processor, based off of whatever is the current base processor.


----------



## Pier

rnb_2 said:


> M1X will be for a different line - M1 (and M2 to follow) will be the base chip with the fewest cores, for the low end products (MacBook Air, 13" MacBook Pro, base iMac, base Mac mini). M1X will be for the higher end, with more cores and RAM - 14" and 16" MacBook Pros, high end Mac mini (to replace i5/i7 Intel mini), and maybe the replacement for the 27" iMac.


Oh right. I thought M1X would be a replacement of M1, not a "pro" version so to speak.


----------



## RSK

A while back, Lorne Balfe made his Cubase file for the Mission Impossible: Fallout theme availabe for download. It's mainly Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra, Albion One, Spitfire Percussion, Hans Zimmer Percussion, and Omnisphere. All total it's 81 tracks.

I loaded that up onto my M1 MacBook Air and was able to play it fine. There is a spot near the end where the CPU spikes and the audio glitches for a fraction of a second, but it keeps playing through to the end. I think that's a single-core spike because the track never comes close to using all the cores.


----------



## robgb

RSK said:


> A while back, Lorne Balfe made his Cubase file for the Mission Impossible: Fallout theme availabe for download. It's mainly Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra, Albion One, Spitfire Percussion, Hans Zimmer Percussion, and Omnisphere. All total it's 81 tracks.
> 
> I loaded that up onto my M1 MacBook Air and was able to play it fine. There is a spot near the end where the CPU spikes and the audio glitches for a fraction of a second, but it keeps playing through to the end. I think that's a single-core spike because the track never comes close to using all the cores.


This is really interesting. I assume you didn't have to freeze any tracks are anything? I bought my wife an 8gb M1 Air. I'm wondering if I could steal it long enough to test it out.


----------



## Pier

RSK said:


> A while back, Lorne Balfe made his Cubase file for the Mission Impossible: Fallout theme availabe for download.


Was this the mockup or the music that ended up in the film?


----------



## RSK

robgb said:


> This is really interesting. I assume you didn't have to freeze any tracks are anything? I bought my wife an 8gb M1 Air. I'm wondering if I could steal it long enough to test it out.


No freezing. I put the freeze button on the tracks so you can see it's not lit up.


----------



## RSK

Pier said:


> Was this the mockup or the music that ended up in the film?


The mock-up. I'm certain they had the budget to use a real orchestra.


----------



## Pier

RSK said:


> The mock-up. I'm certain they had the budget to use a real orchestra.


I assumed that but who knows. Inception for example was all done in the DAW except for the brass braaams IIRC.


----------



## RSK

Pier said:


> I assumed that but who knows. Inception for example was all done in the DAW except for the brass braaams IIRC.


Are you sure? It's not like Zimmer to do that.


----------



## Tronam

RSK said:


> A while back, Lorne Balfe made his Cubase file for the Mission Impossible: Fallout theme availabe for download. It's mainly Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra, Albion One, Spitfire Percussion, Hans Zimmer Percussion, and Omnisphere. All total it's 81 tracks.
> 
> I loaded that up onto my M1 MacBook Air and was able to play it fine. There is a spot near the end where the CPU spikes and the audio glitches for a fraction of a second, but it keeps playing through to the end. I think that's a single-core spike because the track never comes close to using all the cores.


Not bad, especially considering neither Cubase or Kontakt are M1 native yet.


----------



## robgb

Tronam said:


> Not bad, especially considering neither Cubase or Kontakt are M1 native yet.


Yes, this. The Rosetta conversion seems pretty damn solid.


----------



## Pier

RSK said:


> Are you sure? It's not like Zimmer to do that.


Yeah, he actually wrote about it here on VIC. Let me see if I can find his post.


Edit:

Here it is:





__





The Sound off Inception with samples


Okay so now for real inception sound the deep booms offers with a volume that is hard to exaggerate ... why? I'm looking for the sound of the deep booms from inception I think it's a tuba or a brass instrument but which unfortunately I never know. Why are there so many samplers library with...




vi-control.net


----------



## RSK

Pier said:


> Yeah, he actually wrote about it here on VIC. Let me see if I can find his post.
> 
> 
> Edit:
> 
> Here it is:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Sound off Inception with samples
> 
> 
> Okay so now for real inception sound the deep booms offers with a volume that is hard to exaggerate ... why? I'm looking for the sound of the deep booms from inception I think it's a tuba or a brass instrument but which unfortunately I never know. Why are there so many samplers library with...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> vi-control.net


Interesting. Thanks for digging that up.


----------



## Jophus

thank you for the helpful info ! i have a macmini at home with plenty of ram for the massive stuff. I am mostly looking into getting a macbook for a mobile rig now that i am back on the road again and would like to get some work done. and unfortunately i leave for tour in a few weeks so ideally i wouldnt be waiting on the announcement of the m1x. anyone have any opinions on what kind of macbook would be my safest bet ? (mostly running logic by the way)


----------



## rnb_2

The biggest functional difference between the M1 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro is two hours more battery life on the Pro; beyond that, you're mostly paying for the Touch Bar, which you may or may not like. Other than that, they're very similar, and for most people, I think you get more for your money with the Air.

I'd start with the base 8-core GPU/8GB/512GB config, up the RAM to 16GB, and go for more storage if you want to have your samples on the internal drive.


----------



## Pier

rnb_2 said:


> The biggest functional difference between the M1 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro is two hours more battery life on the Pro; beyond that, you're mostly paying for the Touch Bar, which you may or may not like. Other than that, they're very similar, and for most people, I think you get more for your money with the Air.


Doesn't the fan on the pro make any difference?


----------



## rnb_2

Pier said:


> Doesn't the fan on the pro make any difference?


From what I've seen, not for anything music-related. It might give the processor a bit more time at full power on a task that has everything maxed out for an extended period, but I wouldn't anticipate that being an issue in music workflows (which tend to be spikey on the CPU). Might make a small difference for something like an extended video encode, or compiling an app for testing, though.

Honestly, the M1 MacBook Pro seems to be primarily for people attracted to the "pro" connotation in the name, or who really like the Touch Bar (which is about to be abandoned in the M1X laptops). It seems to me that Apple made that machine because there is a price point where it makes them a bit more money and some people will buy it, and it was probably useful to have a "Pro" M1 Mac with the first releases, just for the optics ("these aren't just consumer computers" - in the long run, they are, but they reset what that means vs what they replaced).


----------



## Tronam

Yeah, the current M1 MBP is a bit of an odd product at the moment, especially compared to the almost-too-good MBA. 10% better battery life, 20% brighter screen, slightly better speakers/microphone, and the ultimate shrug feature: TouchBar. I got one for the fan, but in the 9 months I’ve had it they haven’t spun up a single time doing anything music or productivity related. I’ve actually only heard them once in all this time when I was playing World of Warcraft, but it took more than 20 minutes. If I were to do it over again, I’d probably get the MBA and invest the saved money into more storage, maybe even 2TB so I can have all of my libraries internal. At 1TB I can’t quite get there.


----------



## hoxclab

I really hope Apple drops a Mac Mini M1X or heck maybe by that time a M2X equipped with 16-32GB Ram, 512GB SSD-1TBSSD, dual monitor capabilities, three thunderbolt/usb-c ports. Then I will buy.


----------



## colony nofi

hoxclab said:


> I really hope Apple drops a Mac Mini M1X or heck maybe by that time a M2X equipped with 16-32GB Ram, 512GB SSD-1TBSSD, dual monitor capabilities, three thunderbolt/usb-c ports. Then I will buy.


Oh there's some interesting computers coming for mac users...
The next 12 months will see at least 4 mac "m" based computers that will all be game changers for DAW users - suiting various workflows. Buckle up.


----------



## tmhuud

But will anything be ‘curated’ for us?


----------



## el-bo

colony nofi said:


> Oh there's some interesting computers coming for mac users...
> The next 12 months will see at least 4 mac "m" based computers that will all be game changers for DAW users - suiting various workflows. Buckle up.


Yeah...but my sister's ex-boyfriends' father-in-law's cousin, twice-removed, read a post on some random forum that Apple no longer has any interest in professional creatives, and are only concerned with mobile sales. Seems legit!


----------



## davidson

colony nofi said:


> Oh there's some interesting computers coming for mac users...
> The next 12 months will see at least 4 mac "m" based computers that will all be game changers for DAW users - suiting various workflows. Buckle up.


Tim Cook, is that you...?


----------



## Tronam

hoxclab said:


> I really hope Apple drops a Mac Mini M1X or heck maybe by that time a M2X equipped with 16-32GB Ram, 512GB SSD-1TBSSD, dual monitor capabilities, three thunderbolt/usb-c ports. Then I will buy.


I doubt we'll have too much longer to wait. There's 5 lingering Intel legacy models they continue to sell which are overdue for updates. The 27” iMac and Mac Pro replacements might not be this year though.


----------



## dcoscina

el-bo said:


> Yeah...but my sister's ex-boyfriends' father-in-law's cousin, twice-removed, read a post on some random forum that Apple no longer has any interest in professional creatives, and are only concerned with mobile sales. Seems legit!


BEST RESPONSE EVER


----------



## rnb_2

Tronam said:


> I doubt we'll have too much longer to wait. There's 5 lingering Intel legacy models they continue to sell which are overdue for updates. The 27” iMac and Mac Pro replacements might not be this year though.


Yep - three of the five should get knocked out in the next month or so.


----------



## el-bo

dcoscina said:


> BEST RESPONSE EVER


Haha! Bring it in, man!


----------



## cuttime

el-bo said:


> Yeah...but my sister's ex-boyfriends' father-in-law's cousin, twice-removed, read a post on some random forum that Apple no longer has any interest in professional creatives, and are only concerned with mobile sales. Seems legit!


Yes, but I have it on good faith that his testicles swelled.


----------



## el-bo

cuttime said:


> Yes, but I have it on good faith that his testicles swelled


Davina’s not had testicles since she stopped being Dave


----------



## Tronam

rnb_2 said:


> Yep - three of the five should get knocked out in the next month or so.


Will you be getting one? I'm a little torn because I haven't actually tapped out my M1 MacBook Pro yet and as more optimized software gets released it's almost like the M1 is getting faster.


----------



## tmhuud

I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a more difficult time in trying to decide what my next snapple computer(s) is/are going to be.


----------



## Vik

Tronam said:


> The 27” iMac and Mac Pro replacements might not be this year though.


My guess is that we'll see an M1X iMac before December, but only with 32 gb RAM, so those of us who need more RAM may have top wait longer – or go for an Intel iMac. Maybe they'll release more Intel based iMacs/Mac minis as well– at least until the Apple Silicon Macs come with 64 gb RAM?


----------



## rnb_2

Tronam said:


> Will you be getting one? I'm a little torn because I haven't actually tapped out my M1 MacBook Pro yet and as more optimized software gets released it's almost like the M1 is getting faster.


If there's a M1X Mac mini, I will likely get one, as that will have all the processing power I will need for the foreseeable future. The M1 was a step up from my 2018 i7 Mac mini, but not a big step, and the integrated GPU can't compare with the Vega 56 eGPU that I had for that machine (though it's powerful enough for what I do, and it doesn't suffer from the flakey connection and complex update dance that the eGPU did).

I hope that @Vik is right about another iMac before the end of the year, but there are honestly no rumors to that effect. The 16" and 14" MacBook Pros are basically guaranteed (the mini LED screen supply chain is leaking like crazy), the Mac mini is strongly rumored but leaks are minimal because of the very small production footprint, but the bigger (possibly Pro) iMac and Mac Pro replacements are almost certainly going to be 2022 products, at best. The iMac may be the first M2X release, depending on timing; the MacBook Air should be the first M2 product, but rumors now point to that slipping to later next year from the previously-rumored spring release.


----------



## colony nofi

The jokes are good.
But some folk do have dialog with Apple, and although they are secretive, there are some pieces of info that are shared. Much is similar to the normal noise in the rumour-sphere. I try not to pay too much attention to it - although with the m-based silicon transition, I've been keeping ears to the ground a little more than usual. 
There are a bunch of very large VFX co's that have very good relationships with Apple. There are sound houses that have "Apple" run rooms in London. Even smaller sound houses + folk like me chat to apple-business about future requirements. Although they can't give much away, there's enough to give confidence for being able to plan / budget large studio upgrades over the next 18 months or so.

And the new apple "pro" m-based macs are being taken VERY seriously by apple.


----------



## colony nofi

colony nofi said:


> The jokes are good.
> But some folk do have dialog with Apple, and although they are secretive, there are some pieces of info that are shared. Much is similar to the normal noise in the rumour-sphere. I try not to pay too much attention to it - although with the m-based silicon transition, I've been keeping ears to the ground a little more than usual.
> There are a bunch of very large VFX co's that have very good relationships with Apple. There are sound houses that have "Apple" run rooms in London. Even smaller sound houses + folk like me chat to apple-business about future requirements. Although they can't give much away, there's enough to give confidence for being able to plan / budget large studio upgrades over the next 18 months or so.
> 
> And the new apple "pro" m-based macs are being taken VERY seriously by apple.


And to reply to myself....
This *doesn't* do anything to help the fact I need to replace a mac pro kinda now (trash can with graphics cards failing) but I'm thinking I might just get a second hand replacement to wait out another 12 months. Intel Mac Pro is not the direction I want to go, but is the only other real alternative. Unless the mac mini "pro" edition comes along at a reasonable $ level, and becomes a decent stop gap computer. 

Best case scenario for them though is 64GB ram max - so its a downgrade in that dept, but might just get away with it.


----------



## davidson

More than anything, apple need to sort out their usb-c connection issues. Hundreds and hundreds of posts about external drives constantly disconnecting leaving you with no option but to go with usb-a and a hub. I had the issue myself within the first 24 hours of owning the mini. I feel like apple have obviously wrote it off as something not worth fixing at this point on the first gen silicon products, but if its not fixed with the next gen, oh boy, we're in for a bumpy ride.


----------



## el-bo

colony nofi said:


> The jokes are good.
> But some folk do have dialog with Apple, and although they are secretive, there are some pieces of info that are shared.


Absolutely! I'd imagine you are amongst more than a handful within this community who are privy to more than the rest of us


----------



## Vik

rnb_2 said:


> I hope that @Vik is right about another iMac before the end of the year, but there are honestly no rumors to that effect.


I think you can find rumours about pretty much any possible future Mac on internet. 
My assumption is based the fact that Apple isn't exactly Mother Theresa – they know that they'll generate more total sales by first releasing a 32 gb version, and a 64 gb version later, so they'll probably do that. There were some rumours this summer a about M1X MacBook Pro models being limited to 32GB of RAM instead of 64GB, and if that's true, it's probably true also for an M1x based iMac.

Personally, I'd rather have a MacBook Pro with a lot of RAM over an iMac with a lot of RAM, because it's easy to connect a MBP to external m.2-drives and a large monitor. The big question, for me, is if it's true that an M1x based Mac will be able to do a lot more with 32gb than Intel Macs can do with 32 gb.










New MacBook Pros Likely to Launch at Apple Event This Month, Says Gurman


After its first event of the fall, Apple is on track to hold a Mac focused event within the next month, where it will debut brand new MacBook Pros with a faster "M1X" Apple silicon chip, an updated design, and improved display technology, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple last year...




forums.macrumors.com


----------



## Tronam

tmhuud said:


> I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a more difficult time in trying to decide what my next snapple computer(s) is/are going to be.


Hopefully it'll all be much clearer shortly, especially once we know what pricing is going to be like; You can bet 32GB of unified memory won't be cheap. <wince> My primary desktop is a maxed out 2019 27" iMac which still works great, so I've got both bases covered for now and have the luxury of waiting a while. For anyone needing an upgrade right now it's kind of a weird time to buy since a bunch of updates and replacements are right around the corner.


davidson said:


> More than anything, apple need to sort out their usb-c connection issues. Hundreds and hundreds of posts about external drives constantly disconnecting leaving you with no option but to go with usb-a and a hub. I had the issue myself within the first 24 hours of owning the mini. I feel like apple have obviously wrote it off as something not worth fixing at this point on the first gen silicon products, but if its not fixed with the next gen, oh boy, we're in for a bumpy ride.


I’ve not experienced this yet. I have 2 Samsung SSDs (T5 & T7), a LaCie HD and 6TB WD RAID array. No random disconnects, but I either connect them directly on the go (no USB hub) or use a CalDigit full speed TB3 dock. This has been on an M1 MacBook Pro though and I haven’t personally used the mini. Could it be that with 2 displays attached and USB ports fully populated the M1 Mac mini is starting to hit its internal bandwidth limits a bit and this is somehow impacting external drive reliability?


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

My guess is that the next machine released will be a MacBook Pro with the next M and more RAM.

That guess is based on nothing other than that it's the one that seems like it would sell the best.

What I want is that machine without a monitor and keyboard, aka a Mac Mini.


----------



## Vik

Nick Batzdorf said:


> My guess is that the next machine released will be a MacBook Pro with the next M and more RAM


Sure, and that’s also what the rumors say. But if they have an M1x ready, wouldn’t it also make sense to offer a Mini and an iMac based on the same chip?


----------



## rnb_2

Vik said:


> Sure, and that’s also what the rumors say. But if they have an M1x ready, wouldn’t it also make sense to offer a Mini and an iMac based on the same chip?


In an ideal world, sure, but there may be component constraints right now that prevent that. The rumor is that the mini is coming with the MacBook Pros or soon thereafter (which I would have to interpret as "Spring"), but the mini is probably a much smaller component concern than the high end iMac.

I would anticipate the new iMac to have a larger-than-27" display, so the display itself, as well as the display controller, may not be available in quantity yet, and adding iMac to 16"/14"/mini (maybe) might be more M1X than TSMC can supply before year end. To avoid the laptops being sales-constrained (because that is their biggest market), the iMac may have to wait.


----------



## Tronam

Our local Apple Store still hasn’t been able to catch up with even the 24” iMac demand, 5 months after release. Always sold out and now 4 weeks backordered. If new systems do get announced soon and you miss the preorder window, they may not be readily available until well into next year.


----------



## rnb_2

Tronam said:


> Our local Apple Store still hasn’t been able to catch up with even the 24” iMac demand, 5 months after release. Always sold out and now 4 weeks backordered. If new systems do get announced soon and you miss the preorder window, they may not be readily available until well into next year.


Yeah, I'm kind of shocked that the iMac is still so difficult to get. I was briefly looking at buying one for my mom, when my late dad's 2018 Mac mini started having issues, and discovered that there was no availability, even a few months after they came out. Fortunately, the mini sorted itself out and we didn't need to find a replacement, but I have a feeling that they're dealing with component shortages (maybe the screens, since nobody else is using that screen in anything?), since the iMac is the only M1 machine that is showing this much of a stock issue - the MacBook Air is generally available within 2 weeks, and the MacBook Pro and Mac mini are both in stock.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

rnb_2 said:


> Yeah, I'm kind of shocked that the iMac is still so difficult to get. I was briefly looking at buying one for my mom, when my late dad's 2018 Mac mini started having issues, and discovered that there was no availability, even a few months after they came out. Fortunately, the mini sorted itself out and we didn't need to find a replacement, but I have a feeling that they're dealing with component shortages (maybe the screens, since nobody else is using that screen in anything?), since the iMac is the only M1 machine that is showing this much of a stock issue - the MacBook Air is generally available within 2 weeks, and the MacBook Pro and Mac mini are both in stock.



It took a few weeks for my wife's iMac to arrive in May, but my daughter's MacBook Air arrived in a few days.

There's little doubt that it's a supply chain issue. That's affecting a lot of things, not just tech products. The wood I just bought for a desk I'm making went up 36% - which may not sound like much, but it was about $150 more.

Covid.


----------



## Kent

Nick Batzdorf said:


> It took a few weeks for my wife's iMac to arrive in May, but my daughter's MacBook Air arrived in a few days.
> 
> There's little doubt that it's a supply chain issue. That's affecting a lot of things, not just tech products. The wood I just bought for a desk I'm making went up 36% - which may not sound like much, but it was about $150 more.
> 
> Covid.





here's a thread with a bunch of great articles on how/why this is all happening.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

Great thread, kmaster. Thanks, will work my way through some of those links.


----------



## Tronam

It would appear that iLok has quietly released the long awaited native PACE Eden client to developers recently because the first universal Apple Silicon updates are finally starting to trickle out. Good timing. We can probably expect a ton more plug-in updates in the coming weeks.


----------



## davidson

Tronam said:


> It would appear that iLok has quietly released the long awaited native PACE Eden client to developers recently because the very first UB2 updates are starting to trickle out. Good timing. We can probably expect a ton more plug-in updates in the coming weeks.


Whats that?


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

davidson said:


> Whats that?


Ditto, only written more grumpily.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

Okay, here's my answer.









Eden 5.0


PACE Anti-Piracy introduces a major upgrade to their software license protection service. The new version has major increases in security.



www.paceap.com





For me personally there's no improvement over the standard USB dongle.

Hm. Here's an idea: a system like Teslas have. You pair your phone with the car using Bluetooth, and there's nothing to unlock - you just drive, then it locks when you leave.

But there's a backup - a card.


----------



## Tronam

davidson said:


> Whats that?


Up until now there have been no M1 native plugins which use iLok copy protection (either dongle or machine authorized), not because developers couldn't port their plugins, but because they were being held back by Pace waiting for them to update the protection system. Many 3rd party developers across the industry use it, including Avid, so for anyone wanting to run these plugins natively on Apple Silicon computers it just hasn't been possible yet.


----------



## Tronam

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Okay, here's my answer.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Eden 5.0
> 
> 
> PACE Anti-Piracy introduces a major upgrade to their software license protection service. The new version has major increases in security.
> 
> 
> 
> www.paceap.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> For me personally there's no improvement over the standard USB dongle.
> 
> Hm. Here's an idea: a system like Teslas have. You pair your phone with the car using Bluetooth, and there's nothing to unlock - you just drive, then it locks when you leave.
> 
> But there's a backup - a card.


That press release is from 2019. As far as I'm aware PACE haven't officially announced M1 support to the general public yet, but the updated protection tools have already been going out to developers, I think as early as last month.


----------



## jonnybutter

mscp said:


> Yeah. I’d definitely use the Mac Mini for a stereo music production that doesn’t exceed the amount of tracks a modern MBP (150ish tracks) can handle, but I find it very hard to believe that the Mac Mini will ever be able to handle large projects—otherwise a Mac Pro would become less and less attractive to a lot of the small suites out there. Apple is, at the end of the day, a business.
> 
> I’m also a PC user but own a few Macs too. Love them both.


I don’t think small studio music production is the target audience of the MacPro - that’s probably more about video, and higher end audio studios. Honestly, if a Mac mini or iMac ever gets their RAM upped, they are going to be plenty for most music producers I think. And I hope they hurry up because I’m on a Vader and ready for something better!


----------



## BassClef

...wishing the new Mini is soon... needed to replace my 7 year old iMac. My ideal would be 10 core m1X, 2tb internal SSD, 32 core graphics and 64GB ram. But then I need a really good monitor (maybe 32 inch) for Logic as well and photo editing.


----------



## oneironauta

New to this thread, hope I am not repeating what somebody shared before. But I found this two videos and its completely mindblowing. 
96 tracks of orchestral samples!

150 tracks of instruments on 8 gb


Is there any real downside to the M1? of course at this point is worth waiting a couple months to see what Apple's new releases are...


----------



## Alex Fraser

jonnybutter said:


> I don’t think small studio music production is the target audience of the MacPro - that’s probably more about video, and higher end audio studios. Honestly, if a Mac mini or iMac ever gets their RAM upped, they are going to be plenty for most music producers I think. And I hope they hurry up because I’m on a Vader and ready for something better!


Agreed. An M(something or other) Mini with bumped ram would be the absolute sweet spot for many in the community. Something I'm keeping an eye on too. I'd even consider 32gb of ram if the machine was fast and quiet


----------



## Martin S




----------



## Nick Batzdorf

Alex Fraser said:


> Agreed. An M(something or other) Mini with bumped ram would be the absolute sweet spot for many in the community. Something I'm keeping an eye on too. I'd even consider 32gb of ram if the machine was fast and quiet


Yes. And I know that multi-computer setups aren't as streamlined as one would like, but they do cost a lot less than one super-high-end computer, they do just as much, plus you have a back-up machine if your main one has a bad hair day.


----------



## tmhuud

I just want the Worlds most powerful Mac Pro. (So I can rule the world). lol.

Hurry up Apple.


----------



## tmhuud

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Yes. And I know that multi-computer setups aren't as streamlined as one would like, but they do cost a lot less than one super-high-end computer, they do just as much, plus you have a back-up machine if your main one has a bad hair day.


Well…I guess that’s where I’m at. Already have a slave setup to a maxed out Trash can but I guess I could get another slave. (Wait, this is not the accurate description , er, what do we refer to computers now that are connected to each other ? (Leader and follower?)

I guess I need more followers. (I’m soooo bad at social media)


----------



## Tronam

If they announce a more powerful Mac mini alongside the new laptops it might be the first time I'd consider one. M1 is already nearly 80% as powerful as my iMac and although I'd miss that 5K display I like the idea of such a compact computer and having more flexibility with my desk setup.


----------



## handz

BassClef said:


> ...wishing the new Mini is soon... needed to replace my 7 year old iMac. My ideal would be 10 core m1X, 2tb internal SSD, 32 core graphics and 64GB ram. But then I need a really good monitor (maybe 32 inch) for Logic as well and photo editing.


Yah I also had these dreams, but thebcI woke up and bought 2020 Imac from a guy who bought it and find out he doesn’t like it after few days. 2tb ssd from apple will sadly cost 6x what it normally cost and same for ram.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

tmhuud said:


> Well…I guess that’s where I’m at. Already have a slave setup to a maxed out Trash can but I guess I could get another slave. (Wait, this is not the accurate description , er, what do we refer to computers now that are connected to each other ? (Leader and follower?)
> 
> I guess I need more followers. (I’m soooo bad at social media)


Sorry, I have no plans to stop calling them master and slave.

These aren't Confederate statues erected decades after the Civil War to intimidate Black people, they're computers.


----------



## jonnybutter

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Yes. And I know that multi-computer setups aren't as streamlined as one would like, but they do cost a lot less than one super-high-end computer, they do just as much, plus you have a back-up machine if your main one has a bad hair day.


There was speculation (or something) that the minis might some day be able to be ganged together somehow. I don’t know how it would work or if it’s even possible. But something like that would be ideal. Need more power? Get another mini. Something like that would keep me on the Mac long term. Seems unlikely though.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

jonnybutter said:


> There was speculation (or something) that the minis might some day be able to be ganged together somehow. I don’t know how it would work or if it’s even possible. But something like that would be ideal. Need more power? Get another mini. Something like that would keep me on the Mac long term. Seems unlikely though.


You mean a way of making them appear as one machine? That would be cool, but I haven't heard anything about it.


----------



## jonnybutter

Nick Batzdorf said:


> You mean a way of making them appear as one machine? That would be cool, but I haven't heard anything about it.


Yes, exactly. I could of course be mistaken, but I thought that it was Apple itself who sort of vaguely teased this idea a few years ago. BS probably. Appealing idea though. Don’t know if it’s even possible..


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

Logic had a "distributed audio processing" feature that would use another computer on the network's horsepower to do the heavy lifting, but I don't even know whether it's still there.


----------



## jonnybutter

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Logic had a "distributed audio processing" feature that would use another computer on the network's horsepower to do the heavy lifting, but I don't even know whether it's still there.


Wow, that’s interesting. Logic is so deep. Old feature? Did it work? 

I was thinking of something else, specifically about the mini, implying that they are modular. A nice dream…


----------



## samphony

It was called Logic Node

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/setting-logic-node


----------



## tmhuud

Wow, that’s an old article. Sure brings back memories!


----------



## Vik

rnb_2 said:


> I hope that @Vik is right about another iMac before the end of the year, but there are honestly no rumors to that effect.


Does this title in the Mac section at apple.com serve as hint/rumor about a new, larger (30"?) iMac?


----------



## tmhuud

Vik said:


> Does this title in the Mac section at apple.com serve as hint/rumor about a new, larger (30"?) iMac?


Better for big things but PLEASE apple dont abandon the Mac Pro....


----------



## Vik

You mean the 2019 Mac Pro?
Personally, I'll probably need my 2010 Mac Pro for a while, and I have already (kind of) bought a 3.8 i7 Intel iMac. But I'd much rather have a 30" iMac, or an M1X MacBook Pro, if 64gb RAM is an option (and the price isn't ridiculous).









iMac Pro Predictions and Rumors | 30-inch Display, M1X Power, Same Chin


Bloomberg's Mark Gurman stated in April that Apple had paused the development of its 30" iMac, which would replace the outdated 27" iMac. The M1X is




www.idropnews.com


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## Markrs

Vik said:


> and the price isn't ridiculous


It will almost certainly be ridiculous, won't stop many of us buying it though


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## rnb_2

Vik said:


> Does this title in the Mac section at apple.com serve as hint/rumor about a new, larger (30"?) iMac?


I suspect that's been there since the last round of 27" iMacs were released, since they rarely intentionally signal anything. We'll know for sure in about 45 hours, regardless.


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## handz

tmhuud said:


> Better for big things but PLEASE apple dont abandon the Mac Pro....


I always wondered who buys this overpriced mac. Imac is absolutely awesome machine for the price but MacPro? It is like 5x expensive than PC alternative and I really don’t see how can anyone justify this price. Especially when it gets old super fast


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## KEM

handz said:


> I always wondered who buys this overpriced mac. Imac is absolutely awesome machine for the price but MacPro? It is like 5x expensive than PC alternative and I really don’t see how can anyone justify this price. Especially when it gets old super fast



Professional studios that can throw money at this stuff without thinking twice


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## handz

KEM said:


> Professional studios that can throw money at this stuff without thinking twice


Which is like 0.001% of market and I bet many of them use PCs as well for their easy upgrade possibilities. Photographers or designers dont need mac pro and 3D artists need most powerful machines out there -which is not mac pro and also there is not 3dsMax for mac and never will be.


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## BassClef

I just priced a fully loaded "current" MacBookPro (2TB internal) for about $4300. Since you can get 64BG in that (and the mini) I'm still holding out hope that the new ones will have that much RAM as well... plenty for me!. It's hard for me to believe that they would take a step back and still call in Pro!


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## rnb_2

handz said:


> Which is like 0.001% of market and I bet many of them use PCs as well for their easy upgrade possibilities. Photographers or designers dont need mac pro and 3D artists need most powerful machines out there -which is not mac pro and also there is not 3dsMax for mac and never will be.


It is, for the time being, the most powerful computer that runs macOS. You can install up to 1.5TB of RAM. There are literally no cables inside the machine, which makes working inside the case (should you want to) much easier than a similar PC. The 1st Party GPUs, while expensive, don't come with the loud fans you find on the commodity cards in the PC market - they are designed to use the large, quiet fans built into the case for cooling. The 1st Party GPUs also support a ridiculous number of displays - up to 8 4K displays, 4 5K displays, or 6 6K Pro Display XDRs from a single card (and you can install multiple cards). For video work, it's the only machine that supports the Afterburner card, which supports 6 streams of 8K ProRes RAW video, or 23 streams of 4K ProRes RAW video.

While all of those items probably don't matter to any single user, only one needs to matter to someone with the budget for the Mac Pro.


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## tmhuud

handz said:


> I always wondered who buys this overpriced mac. Imac is absolutely awesome machine for the price but MacPro? It is like 5x expensive than PC alternative and I really don’t see how can anyone justify this price. Especially when it gets old super fast


I guess you can stop wondering.


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## Nick Batzdorf

tmhuud said:


> I guess you can stop wondering.


Yah.

I've softened my stance from "you have to be in a position not to care about this kind of money, for example a network" to "there are a handful of people who will get their money's worth out of a $50K computer."


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