# New Mac Pro coming soon or...?



## URL

Anyone on the other side of pacific heard any rumor about a new Mac pro coming ...soon?


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## mac

I've heard rumours that they're due a spec refresh, alongside the new macbook pros later this year.


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## URL

okey,2017... seems more likely for a updated Mac Pro to arrive.


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## Shad0wLandsUK

They could do it at the end of the year. They have been known to do the hardware releases in a smaller session during the fall season. So it is possible. Andthe cycle seems about the right time. Not sure if they are held back by the TB3 specs or something else though. There was some talk about them needing someting to happen before they could make the jump for production.


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## URL

latest Intel Xeon technology is to expect with upgraded Mac Pro and TB3 ... perhaps Apple can keep prices more on a musical level than before to compete with Pc ... but it's probably not to expect...


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## jamwerks

URL said:


> ... perhaps Apple can keep prices more on a musical level than before to compete with Pc ... but it's probably not to expect...


I wouldn't hold your breath...


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## Shad0wLandsUK

OK, I am not sure how much people here know about the Mac Pro line. But stating about wanting it to be on-par with PC makes no sense. The Mac Pro is a server, PCs are usually consumer machines with no where near the performance output of the a Xeon. Yes a Xeon, workstation class CPU with multithreaded architecture designed to run 24/7 365. Because it goes in a server. You cannot compare a Xeon to an i5, i7, i7 Extreme. Xeon processors have ECC Error Check memory, for systems that need to have precise timings, due to massive transfers and access of data and processing. ECC costs more, as it is a server architecture. The Mac Pro for the machine it is, is on-par with PCs. But those from the likes of HP, DELL, LENOVO, IBM etc. Servers, that are designed with solid, high-end high throughput arcitecture and componenets. Which funny enough cost the same if not more than a Mac Pro.

Please don't take this as a negative post, because I am trying to get people to see that you cannot compare a Rolls Royce to a Lamborghini. They are not designed for the same purpose and just as with server vs consumer, they are not built with the same components.

I love you guys and I love forums and people collaborating, but one thing that can destroy that is misinformation and false facts. So lets not have any of that.


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## URL

Shad0wLandsUK said:


> OK, I am not sure how much people here know about the Mac Pro line. But stating about wanting it to be on-par with PC makes no sense. The Mac Pro is a server, PCs are usually consumer machines with no where near the performance output of the a Xeon. Yes a Xeon, workstation class CPU with multithreaded architecture designed to run 24/7 365. Because it goes in a server. You cannot compare a Xeon to an i5, i7, i7 Extreme. Xeon processors have ECC Error Check memory, for systems that need to have precise timings, due to massive transfers and access of data and processing. ECC costs more, as it is a server architecture. The Mac Pro for the machine it is, is on-par with PCs. But those from the likes of HP, DELL, LENOVO, IBM etc. Servers, that are designed with solid, high-end high throughput arcitecture and componenets. Which funny enough cost the same if not more than a Mac Pro.
> 
> Please don't take this as a negative post, because I am trying to get people to see that you cannot compare a Rolls Royce to a Lamborghini. They are not designed for the same purpose and just as with server vs consumer, they are not built with the same components.
> 
> I love you guys and I love forums and people collaborating, but one thing that can destroy that is misinformation and false facts. So lets not have any of that.



Yes I agree and disagree...
Build a PC based on today's 12-core Xeon server 64Gb ECC motherboard etc.
Could build a server pc for half the price of current Apple prices to 12-core.
Of course there are differences in the details such as OSX which I believe strikes win os by a long way.
Building cost for a Mac pro is huge why?, I think its not to big differences in the hw current PC vs Apple.
There is a lot of Pc servers out there among the pro composer Junkie XL- John Powell...etc why?

Don't get me wrong I love Apple and OS X and I never had a really bad day with Apple yet and
have used PCs since the 80s in different contexts and nowadays hardware is fine in most cases when building a PC for daw. Todays manufacturer for hardware memory processor motherboards based an the same tech, it should not be huge difference in price. But you have a choice, to expensive choose PC as simple as that -but pity.


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## Ashermusic

URL said:


> Yes I agree and disagree...
> Build a PC based on today's 12-core Xeon server 64Gb ECC motherboard etc.
> Could build a server pc for half the price of current Apple prices to 12-core.
> Of course there are differences in the details such as OSX which I believe strikes win os by a long way.
> Building cost for a Mac pro is huge why?, I think its not to big differences in the hw current PC vs Apple.
> There is a lot of Pc servers out there among the pro composer Junkie XL- John Powell...etc why?
> 
> Don't get me wrong I love Apple and OS X and I never had a really bad day with Apple yet and
> have used PCs since the 80s in different contexts and nowadays hardware is fine in most cases when building a PC for daw. Todays manufacturer for hardware memory processor motherboards based an the same tech, it should not be huge difference in price. But you have a choice, to expensive choose PC as simple as that -but pity.



The big difference,as I understand it, is that if you build the comparable PC yourself:

1. The range of components one can buy runs from very good to crap and unless you know what you are doing, you could end up with something considerably less quality than the Mac.

2. Unless you know what you are doing, you could choose components that just do not seem to work well together.


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## URL

Ashermusic said:


> The big difference,as I understand it, is that if you build the comparable PC yourself:
> 
> 1. The range of components one can buy runs from very good to crap and unless you know what you are doing, you could end up with something considerably less quality than the Mac.
> 
> 2. Unless you know what you are doing, you could choose components that just do not seem to work well together.



Yes of course there always a "risk" to build computers or buy them well known manufactures have problems too with components that not working properly, Apple had issue with graphic card and so on there always will be faulty components sometime but what I can't agree when components is so similar It should not be so huge different in price. Mac Pro in Europe/Sweden cost 12-core/64gb 9000 euro -and that is a lot of money if 12-core is what you need.


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## Nick Batzdorf

For what this is worth: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac

I've always thought the round Mac Pro is just too much money to pay for a computer. That doesn't mean it's overpriced - although I think it is now that it's been around for so long - I mean you just don't need to pay several thousand dollars for a computer to run a music studio.

Apple's high-end computers are all long in the tooth, and I'm sure they know it. My guess is that they'll come out with new models this year, but who knows.


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## Nick Batzdorf

Put another way, a solid professional music computer should cost $2500 - $3000, based on history. They're more powerful each time, but that's what the price has always been and there's no reason for it to be twice that (other than that you don't need to replace them every 2-1/2 years anymore).


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## URL

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Put another way, a solid professional music computer should cost $2500 - $3000, based on history. They're more powerful each time, but that's what the price has always been and there's no reason for it to be twice that (other than that you don't need to replace them every 2-1/2 years anymore).



Agree!


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## passsacaglia

Interesting thread, also member of macrumours, always think it's interesting to follow what maybe will happen...in particular interested in the new (?) iMac 27". 
80% of me wants to buy the current one since it's Skylake, which...probably the new late 2016 also will have since many ppl believe Kaby won't be ready for the newer ones. So for the DAW I think the 4.0Ghz processor will do good for Logic. 
But the GPU update (?) is very debated and the usb-c/tb3 ports and the video connectors ..
What do you guys believe,
@URL , ps are you in Sweden?  Hehe agree, my friend bought the currenct MP, think he and his buddy who he shares the studio with paid about 5k or 50.000 SEK something...that's just... really much. 
What do you believe, if we compare Skylake and Kaby lake (although I cannot find any 4core for Kaby, have you?) so I wonder which processors Apple will use for the 2017 versions...what do you think?? 
Feels like I'll be better off with Skylake although better performance and all new gear would also be prof as an update...


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## URL

passsacaglia said:


> Interesting thread, also member of macrumours, always think it's interesting to follow what maybe will happen...in particular interested in the new (?) iMac 27".
> 80% of me wants to buy the current one since it's Skylake, which...probably the new late 2016 also will have since many ppl believe Kaby won't be ready for the newer ones. So for the DAW I think the 4.0Ghz processor will do good for Logic.
> But the GPU update (?) is very debated and the usb-c/tb3 ports and the video connectors ..
> What do you guys believe,
> @URL , ps are you in Sweden?  Hehe agree, my friend bought the currenct MP, think he and his buddy who he shares the studio with paid about 5k or 50.000 SEK something...that's just... really much.
> What do you believe, if we compare Skylake and Kaby lake (although I cannot find any 4core for Kaby, have you?) so I wonder which processors Apple will use for the 2017 versions...what do you think??
> Feels like I'll be better off with Skylake although better performance and all new gear would also be prof as an update...



Yes, Apple prices for Swedes is really huge, if you compare it with us prices, if we discuss CPU, early rumors say it's about Intel be able to finish the latest modell Apple wants to deliver for MP and which works best with TB3 and it is impossible to know will be updated Skylake ...or.... I'm using a old Mac pro 4.1 with Pc slave (8-core Xeon) and everything is better than my old Mac pro. Xeon ("server") is my way for DAW, a lot of user have use i7 with high freq. and thats fine. Kabylake is new there is not so much information out there for rumors to handle...so we have to wait

But we can be absolutely sure that it want be cheaper than earlier MP...I think.

If you are waiting for something good -waiting always to long


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## passsacaglia

URL said:


> Yes, Apple prices for Swedes is really huge, if you compare it with us prices, if we discuss CPU, early rumors say it's about Intel be able to finish the latest modell Apple wants to deliver for MP and which works best with TB3 and it is impossible to know will be updated Skylake ...or.... I'm using a old Mac pro 4.1 with Pc slave (8-core Xeon) and everything is better than my old Mac pro. Xeon ("server") is my way for DAW, a lot of user have use i7 with high freq. and thats fine. Kabylake is new there is not so much information out there for rumors to handle...so we have to wait
> 
> But we can be absolutely sure that it want be cheaper than earlier MP...I think.
> 
> If you are waiting for something good -waiting always to long


Åh nice, soft! Stockholm bound here! Always up to hook up a beer or 2 and discuss vi stuff or just geek about apple stuff haha!
Well ok, I see, get your point. Interesting to hear about your setup, I needed a better computer than my old old imac early 2006 to produce on and a laptop for school, got the MBAir with 8GB of ram and the 2014 1,7Ghz i7 model, working alrightyy so far. So, yeah I will need a new one pretty soon..but can wait. Haha for me it's too many things going on atm, me and 60% of my class have a re-exam in IT-security, need to finish my master thesis next week and have 1000 other things at the same time, but it's so much nicer to dream about nice setups, cool soundcards, doing music and discuss stuff here than the stuff I Need to do... well!
Haha, talk soon cheers my Apple geek homie.
We will just have to wait and see I suppose...


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## Simon Ravn

I think the Mac Pro is close to EOL, unfortunately. New Mac Pro has been anticipated for 2015, 2016, and now we are talking about 2017. C'mon, the writing is on the wall. Sooner or later we'll all be "forced" to turn to Windows. I'll miss Logic for sure though.


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## URL

WHAT, Windows no way I go back to tape-record and cut tapes for loops...


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## OleJoergensen

Come to Denmark, we can talk about expensive. I just bought the "cheapest" Mac pro 3.7 Ghz quad core, 4050 USD. But I came from an Imac 2008 so its a huge jump for me. What I enjoy most, the Mac pro is silent and it load my Logic project so fast!


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## Ashermusic

I don't believe for a nanosecond that either Macs or Logic Pro is going away any time soon, but having a PC slave for several years now, I know that I could adjust if I had to n


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## dgburns

Simon Ravn said:


> I think the Mac Pro is close to EOL, unfortunately. New Mac Pro has been anticipated for 2015, 2016, and now we are talking about 2017. C'mon, the writing is on the wall. Sooner or later we'll all be "forced" to turn to Windows. I'll miss Logic for sure though.



If the recent updates to LPX are any indication,it might not be so dire.The thought of being pc/win only fills me with a bit of anxiety.Recently been dealing with a bunch of win10 issues that make me realize I'm not as well versed in the land of pc as maybe I should be.There's a part of me that thinks it should be a logical transition,but then there's a part of me that just feels secure in mac land.Especially with the OS and knowing that environment for so long.However,being PC only would def be easier on the plugin update cost,which has been getting me really mad at Apple/NI for their seemingly cartel like update schemes.(NI posting updates that cut off earlier OS's at a rather suspicious rate)
I'll also miss the years of channel strip settings and Logic only resources that I've built up over the years.It's such an intangible asset that you can easily overlook until you switch to another daw and realize the last 20 years or so of constant work you've done is flushed as you're starting from near scratch again.
Been flirting with Cubase ,but (possibly irrationally),I find the way to do things in LPX come across as more fluid.Things like addressing tempo changes and the list editor.Things like the relative cpu efficiency and the fact I can see more tracks in the arrange window when I resize them smaller.
I think Cubase has one feature set,track presets,that could fundamentally change the way I work,as I find adding new things in LPX takes more time then I'd like.

All to say,if Apple decide to make a new powerfull beast,it might matter less if the form factor is decidely less pro audio,and more minimalistic as they tend to enjoy doing.I think it makes sense to say us audio tech heads like our gear,and like our gear to fill us with a sense of joy and purpose.my vote has always been for a pro division at Apple,where the gear is built for the road,built like a tank,and has more extpansion possibilities then we can shake a stick at.In this world of prosumers,it would make sense to build a bonafide Apple wunderbox that is an MI (musical instrument) category thing.Think avalon 737 meets a new powerfull mac pro.The vader helmet thing was a bust as a box.Just not MI sexy,not so for clients ,not so for those who bought it,as most tucked it away from sight.I want the mofo to be the centerpiece of my studio,something to behold and is impressive just to look at.For such a "cool" brand,Apple can be so uncool.The things I would do if I was working there...


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## jamwerks

URL said:


> WHAT, Windows no way I go back to tape-record and cut tapes for loops...


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## URL

When Apple have done ONE update on OS X windows have done "500,2" updates I hade 18 updates yesterday I couldn't believe it, there must be something wrong I thought, still my slave-pc works but man this is crazy all this updates.


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## Nick Batzdorf

> I don't believe for a nanosecond that either Macs or Logic Pro is going away any time soon, but having a PC slave for several years now, I know that I could adjust if I had to



Simon says (haha) that there won't be another Mac Pro - as opposed to other Macs - and therefore it'll be mandatory that he switch from Logic to another DAW.

Regardless of whether they're called Mac Pros, I believe Apple will continue to introduce Macs and they'll be more powerful than the current Mac Pro. Logic Pro is under constant development and there is only evidence to support that continuing. And I predict that Windows machines will continue to be fine as slaves - although the need for them has already diminished. 

I've posted many times why I think the desktop tower format's days are numbered. We don't even need big cases to hold lots of drives anymore, because SSDs are small. The current Mac Pro isn't even a tower, it's just a "headless" machine that's bigger than a Mac Mini. So if there's no replacement Mac Pro, that'll be why.


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## Shad0wLandsUK

dgburns said:


> If the recent updates to LPX are any indication,it might not be so dire.The thought of being pc/win only fills me with a bit of anxiety.Recently been dealing with a bunch of win10 issues that make me realize I'm not as well versed in the land of pc as maybe I should be.There's a part of me that thinks it should be a logical transition,but then there's a part of me that just feels secure in mac land.Especially with the OS and knowing that environment for so long.However,being PC only would def be easier on the plugin update cost,which has been getting me really mad at Apple/NI for their seemingly cartel like update schemes.(NI posting updates that cut off earlier OS's at a rather suspicious rate)
> I'll also miss the years of channel strip settings and Logic only resources that I've built up over the years.It's such an intangible asset that you can easily overlook until you switch to another daw and realize the last 20 years or so of constant work you've done is flushed as you're starting from near scratch again.
> Been flirting with Cubase ,but (possibly irrationally),I find the way to do things in LPX come across as more fluid.Things like addressing tempo changes and the list editor.Things like the relative cpu efficiency and the fact I can see more tracks in the arrange window when I resize them smaller.
> I think Cubase has one feature set,track presets,that could fundamentally change the way I work,as I find adding new things in LPX takes more time then I'd like.
> 
> All to say,if Apple decide to make a new powerfull beast,it might matter less if the form factor is decidely less pro audio,and more minimalistic as they tend to enjoy doing.I think it makes sense to say us audio tech heads like our gear,and like our gear to fill us with a sense of joy and purpose.my vote has always been for a pro division at Apple,where the gear is built for the road,built like a tank,and has more extpansion possibilities then we can shake a stick at.In this world of prosumers,it would make sense to build a bonafide Apple wunderbox that is an MI (musical instrument) category thing.Think avalon 737 meets a new powerfull mac pro.The vader helmet thing was a bust as a box.Just not MI sexy,not so for clients ,not so for those who bought it,as most tucked it away from sight.I want the mofo to be the centerpiece of my studio,something to behold and is impressive just to look at.For such a "cool" brand,Apple can be so uncool.The things I would do if I was working there...



As someone who works in IT at a Unversity, I know only too well the nightmares of Windows 10


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## passsacaglia

Ofc there'll be more macs and mac pro's, I mean...someone has to be the slave?! (pc)


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## dgburns

Shad0wLandsUK said:


> As someone who works in IT at a Unversity, I know only too well the nightmares of Windows 10



please clarify.(or expand)


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## lpuser

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I've posted many times why I think the desktop tower format's days are numbered. We don't even need big cases to hold lots of drives anymore, because SSDs are small. The current Mac Pro isn't even a tower, it's just a "headless" machine that's bigger than a Mac Mini. So if there's no replacement Mac Pro, that'll be why.



Hi Nick,

personally I think this asumption is wrong, but plays well in Apples hands. Apple are very clever at telling their users what to think and yes, depending on what you are doing, a tower might not be necessary per se. However, there are many reasons why the tower form factor is not obsolete.

Let´s face it: Looking at a pro desk with a 2013 "trash can" Mac Pro makes me shiver, because most of the gear that used to be stored inside the previous tower is now externally cabled etc. This does neither look nice nor is it that comfortable. On the contrary, external hard disk housings can introduce additional noise due to the required fans, while the Mac Pro 2010+ had a fantastic design which is quiet even with 4 hard drives installed.
So, not having a tower does not save space (for these users) but does simply lead to more clutter.

Second, a tower offers the room you need if you want to grow your system without external stuff. You could easily add additional (more powerful) graphics cards, you could add fast PCIe cards etc. all which is absolutely impossible with the 2013 Mac Pro.

Yes, SSDs take considerably less space than standard drives, but with a 2013 Mac Pro, you would need an external chassis, no matter how small. Plus cables. My current Mac Pro hosts 4 standard hard drives (between 2 and 4 TB each) plus a large SSD as a replacement for the internal 2nd Superdrive. So I have much more backup/storage space inside 1 machine (without anything external) and can still burn audio or backup CDs without having to attach an external CD-burner.

And the iMac with it´s nearly equal limitations is not a good choice either (in my opinion) and having seen situations where the integrated monitor broke and people could not just replace it but had the whole computer repared expensively without being able to continue working is just ... not professional.

But that´s only my 2 cent. I wished Apple would go back to the drawing board and come up with a really good, replaceable, servicable and expandable system. Then they would certainly sell more than what they sold with the 2013 version.

Tom


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## synthpunk

I have two USB hubs and two Blackmagic Multidocks into my Vader helmet Pro.

Negatives for older Mac Pro's: fans noise (machine room/long cables solution), no Thunderbolt option, more power consumption.



lpuser said:


> Let´s face it: Looking at a pro desk with a 2013 "trash can" Mac Pro makes me shiver, because most of the gear that used to be stored inside the previous tower is now externally cabled etc. This does neither look nice nor is it that comfortable. On the contrary, external hard disk housings can introduce additional noise due to the required fans, while the Mac Pro 2010+ had a fantastic design which is quiet even with 4 hard drives installed.
> So, not having a tower does not save space (for these users) but does simply lead to more clutter
> Tom


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## babylonwaves

synthpunk said:


> I have two USB hubs and two Blackmagic Multidocks into my Vader helmet Pro.
> Negatives for older Mac Pro's: fans noise (machine room/long cables solution), no Thunderbolt solution, more power consumption.



i was just about to write the same. take a mac pro 2013 and a TB chassis and you're set. it takes not more space than the old mac pro. it doesn't eat +600w/hr (yes, you need a new heater in winter now, so add those costs ...). and the new combo is certainly less noisy in comparison to the old enclosure. back in the days i really loved my MP from 2008 but i certainly wouldn't go back. and the same was true for my Quadra 9600/350 - the most glorious machine on this planet. ever


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## samphony

Thanks to my Vader Pro I can travel worldwide with that horse power. I would buy this machine anytime again!


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## charlieclouser

I'm sure there will be more updated versions of the cylinder Mac Pro - but they'll probably look the same and just have upgraded internals. Newer CPU, bigger boot drive, etc. I doubt we'll ever see a rack mount or tower or any of the other form factors that "pros" like us were clamoring for before the cylinder came out. Heck, I was ranting and raving about how the next Mac Pro needed to be rack mount, have 8 drive slots, blah blah blah - and when the cylinder came out I was bitterly disappointed - until I got one.

Much like that old chestnut about Henry Ford's first customers wanting nothing more than "a faster horse", Apple has a long history of giving us what we "didn't know we wanted until we got it". For me, the cylinder has been exactly this. I wanted PCIe slots so I could continue to use my PowerCore and MOTU PCI-424 cards - but both of those cards are now discontinued and the software has been EOL'd so it turns out I didn't need the slots. I wanted eight drive bays so I could line up 3.5" hard drives - but now I use SSDs in a pair of MultiDocks that generate no noise and no heat and have zero moving parts, so it turns out I didn't need the bays. I even panic-purchased the last MacBook Pro that had an internal optical drive - and I have never inserted a disc into that drive, ever. Not once! I haven't had to read or burn a CD or DVD in nearly ten years. I can't say that I miss them.

Thunderbolt has proved to be a FAR better method of connecting peripherals than PCIe ever was for me - I now have gear connected that would occupy the equivalent of seven PCIe slots and I still have empty Thunderbolt ports and more room to daisy-chain if I want. PCIe is done for me and I'm fine with that.

I was a late adopter of the cylinder, not buying in until 18 months after release. What finally pushed me over the edge was wanting Thunderbolt, USB3, and support for 4k displays. It's worked out very well. 

I've also noticed that in every spotting session I go to, where the edit bays used to be filled with those bog-standard rented Avid rigs running silver towers, the cylinders have taken over completely. So it seems the picture people have jumped on the cylinders as well in a big way.

So I do think we'll see updated CPUs, bigger boot drives, TB3, and better graphics card options in a refreshed Mac Pro cylinder (maybe soon) but if the current form factor stays around for many years I won't be upset. And to be honest I'm not even close to maxing out the power of my current rig. I wouldn't mind a 4tb boot drive option, but if I get desperate I can always go to MacSales for that.


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## URL

A new Vader Helmet before 2017 would be a nice christmas gift.
There is Sonnet for Pci-E cards...soon with TB3


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## Nick Batzdorf

Well, internal cards have always been the shortest-term investment in all of digitaldom. I'm still happy I got cold feet about 12 years ago while Digidesign was out of stock on updated TDM systems, a few days after I'd given them my credit card for the next in an endless series of updates! The debate over native vs. add-on processing was still on at that time, but it was just starting to wind down.

ipuser:



> personally I think this asumption is wrong, but plays well in Apples hands. Apple are very clever at telling their users what to think and yes, depending on what you are doing, a tower might not be necessary per se. However, there are many reasons why the tower form factor is not obsolete.



Oh, I'm not saying it's obsolete today, I'm saying its days are numbered. And that the number is very low.

Let's say the generation of laptops after next has, I dunno, 6-core processors and can hold 128GB of RAM. Other than being able to upgrade internal components, is there any reason you'll need a desktop computer as well? We've been able to hook up all our desktop peripherals (including large screens) for ears, so that isn't an argument.

To me the only issue is being able to open them up and upgrade memory and drives. iMacs (and MacBook Airs, and iOS devices) aren't designed for that, and "pro" machines will probably want to be for a long time.


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## Nick Batzdorf

By the way, the aluminum Mac Pro case is still brilliant.


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## whinecellar

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Let's say the generation of laptops after next has, I dunno, 6-core processors and can hold 128GB of RAM.



A man can dream! I've been smacking my head for several years now that MacBook "Pros" have been limited to 16 GB RAM. It's absurd in 2016. I shudder to think how awesome my Retina MBP would be with 64 GB in it. It's truly a beast otherwise - never in a million years thought a laptop would be my main machine!


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## 5Lives

Would folks buy a 2013 Vader helmet right now though? Seems very long in the tooth.


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## samphony

I would!



5Lives said:


> Would folks buy a 2013 Vader helmet right now though? Seems very long in the tooth.


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## LondonMike

5Lives said:


> Would folks buy a 2013 Vader helmet right now though? Seems very long in the tooth.


I would too!
Been running mine with 32Gb ram and a few external drives including an ssd for sample libs. An absolutely silent, lightweight and portable rig. I like woking on one machine and if/when I need more ram I'll increase to 64gb but so far I haven't needed too.


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## OleJoergensen

I just bought one 3 weeks ago. Wonderful. So silent and so fast loading logic projects. Easy to upgrade Ram.


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## Simon Ravn

LondonMike said:


> I would too!
> Been running mine with 32Gb ram and a few external drives including an ssd for sample libs. An absolutely silent, lightweight and portable rig. I like woking on one machine and if/when I need more ram I'll increase to 64gb but so far I haven't needed too.



Portable... so... do you move around when you work on projects? I guess you bring along your master keyboard, drive bay(s), screens and monitors too then? Sorry but the "portable" thing just doesn't seem to make much sense for many people working with music. I don't know anyone who moves around when they compose. Sure, maybe if you work in electronic music or do recordings in studios and venues it could be the case, but I see people using laptops for that - not desktops.


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## URL

... can be a Tb3-Skylake updated 2017 Vader Helmet version soon for the same price as 2013 V.H in 3-4 months... hopefully Apple update us with news this autumn.


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## samphony

Working on a movie or game in different places is not uncommon for me and yes for that I don't wanna work on a minimum setup I want all my horse power. I either rent/lend screens and masterkeyboard and controllers or buy them and sell them on craigslist after the gig.



Simon Ravn said:


> Portable... so... do you move around when you work on projects? I guess you bring along your master keyboard, drive bay(s), screens and monitors too then? Sorry but the "portable" thing just doesn't seem to make much sense for many people working with music. I don't know anyone who moves around when they compose. Sure, maybe if you work in electronic music or do recordings in studios and venues it could be the case, but I see people using laptops for that - not desktops.


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## Nick Batzdorf

Simon, for the past 50 billion years I've had a laptop Mac for traveling (or whatever) and a desktop Mac for not traveling. It was always a PITA keeping the two in sync, although IMAP email has made the worst part of it a lot easier; I love returning home without having to go through and trash a couple of thousand messages.

So while the times I need a portable Mac for audio/music are few and far between, it would nice not having to own both.

However, I really like my 11" MacBook Air. It's not a studio machine, but it's just fabulous for everything else.


----------



## 5Lives

Surprised so many folks are jumping in on the 2013 Mac Pro right now, but I guess there are some good used deals to be had.

Did you get quad cores? 6? 8?


----------



## synthpunk

I got mine in 2015. I've never been into waiting for vaporware anyways. I want to create not be a I.T. expert. I would re read C Clousers post, it sums everything up very well.

6 cores here and kicking ass. No slaves, tons of tracks. I would recommend 8 cores if you can budget it. You can always upgrade the processor down the road as well.



5Lives said:


> Surprised so many folks are jumping in on the 2013 Mac Pro right now, but I guess there are some good used deals to be had.
> 
> Did you get quad cores? 6? 8?


----------



## Mike Fox

Am I crazy to be fully content with my 2008 cheese grater Mac pro? Ok, maybe not I'm not "fully" content. A newer processor would be nice! Honestly though, after the easy ssd and ram upgrades, I love this computer, and have absolutely no desire to upgrade for years to come.


----------



## synthpunk

Where is the OSX Sierra machine cutoff going to be again on the older macpro's ?



mikefox789 said:


> Am I crazy to be fully content with my 2008 cheese grater Mac pro? Ok, maybe not I'm not "fully" content. A newer processor would be nice! Honestly though, after the easy ssd and ram upgrades, I love this computer, and have absolutely no desire to upgrade for years to come.


----------



## Mike Fox

synthpunk said:


> Where is the OSX Sierra machine cutoff going to be again on the older macpro's ?


2010, I believe. If I had my way, I'd still be running Snow Leopard.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

Mike, I have the same machine running all day long. With 32GB and some SSDs it's keeping up just fine.


----------



## Mike Fox

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Mike, I have the same machine running all day long. With 32GB and some SSDs it's keeping up just fine.


Nice! Apple did a fine job with these particular computers. One great thing about them is that you can use server RAM, which is dirt cheap on ebay. I just spent $30 for 32GB. Does it get any better than that?

I believe there were lots of musicians who used these as their main computers, including Jason Graves, and Danny Elfman.


----------



## Mike Fox

Sure enough, Jason Graves briefly talks about his setup at 3:22. This video is a few years old, so I'm sure he has a much different setup now.


----------



## kclements

synthpunk said:


> Where is the OSX Sierra machine cutoff going to be again on the older macpro's ?



For the first time (I think) ever, I'm not at all interested in the new os - Sierra. I don't have a use for Siri, or copy and paste, or photos improvements, or any other key features. I always enjoy speed increases. But I think j am just fine on El Cap.


----------



## synthpunk

How long before new versions Logic, Cubase, etc will not work with El Cap do you think ? 6 months to a year ? This is not a pissing contest, its about making a smart decision before your machine becomes a doorstop.

ps Don't tell your wives how much power those older Mac Pro's are eating up 
Less money for Yoga and Pilates.



mikefox789 said:


> 2010, I believe. If I had my way, I'd still be running Snow Leopard.





kclements said:


> For the first time (I think) ever, I'm not at all interested in the new os - Sierra. I don't have a use for Siri, or copy and paste, or photos improvements, or any other key features. I always enjoy speed increases. But I think j am just fine on El Cap.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

2008 Mac Pros sell for about $500. There is no smart decision anymore - you just keep it and use it as a VE Pro slave.


----------



## synthpunk

No need for slaves and extra layer of obtrusive technology in VEP with a vader helmet but I hear yah Nick.



Nick Batzdorf said:


> 2008 Mac Pros sell for about $500. There is no smart decision anymore - you just keep it and use it as a VE Pro slave.


----------



## dtonthept

I just had a really hard time comprehending spending $2,000 extra just to buy additional boxes to house the hard drives and pcie cards I need for my rig. That doesn't include the drives or cards, just the additional enclosures! 

That asides, it's very nice to hear of the positive experiences everyone is having with them. I've got my cheesegrater souped up as far as possible and am hoping a compelling refresh is in the pipeline. 

I would love to see apple make a thunderbolt chassis that shared similar style and silence characteristics to the helmet itself, a kickass version of the razer core concept. 

Let's see.....


----------



## Mike Fox

synthpunk said:


> How long before new versions Logic, Cubase, etc will not work with El Cap do you think ? 6 months to a year ? This is not a pissing contest, its about making a smart decision before your machine becomes a doorstop.
> 
> ps Don't tell your wives how much power those older Mac Pro's are eating up
> Less money for Yoga and Pilates.


Again, I'm very content with my current setup. I'm a Logic 9 user, and have absolutely no desire to upgrade to X. With that said, It will be quite sometime before my system is completely unsupported. With 2 SSD's (and 2 HD's), 32GB of RAM, and a Xeon 8 core processor, there's simply no reason to look elsewhere, and I think people forget how powerful these machines are considering their age. The fact is, these computers are still workhorses, and lots of people use them...for good reason. Regardless, there will be a time when I will need to look elsewhere. I just don't foresee it happening anytime soon.


----------



## Soundhound

Can you hook up Thunderbolt 2 devices to a 2010-12 mac pro with a Sonnet card or something? I've got 2 BlackMagic Multidocks w/ssds. When the new version of the mac pro is announced in a month or two or 4, I'm going to make a move to vader helmet or a 2010-12... (from 2 iMacs I work on currently w/VEP5 soon to be VEP6)...


----------



## 5Lives

You all might be convincing me to abandon my plan of building a PC and instead trading in my Macbook Pro for a helmet...


----------



## whinecellar

Nick Batzdorf said:


> 2008 Mac Pros sell for about $500. There is no smart decision anymore - you just keep it and use it as a VE Pro slave.


Bingo. This is why I have 4 slave Macs: they're far too useful to ditch when they still run plenty of older libraries just fine. Heck, one of my slaves is a 2009 MacBook Pro with 8 GB RAM, and it has the entire EWQLSO Gold XP orch & choir loaded on it, along with a bunch of ethnic libraries. I'd only get a few bucks for that machine if I sold it, but it's a crucial part of my system running all that old stuff that still sounds great!


----------



## Simon Ravn

synthpunk said:


> *I personally have* no need for slaves and extra layer of obtrusive technology in VEP with a vader helmet but I hear yah Nick.



I corrected that for you there


----------



## samphony

Jason used a PC Nuendo based workflow for his latest work afaik. 



mikefox789 said:


> Sure enough, Jason Graves briefly talks about his setup at 3:22. This video is a few years old, so I'm sure he has a much different setup now.


----------



## babylonwaves

5Lives said:


> Surprised so many folks are jumping in on the 2013 Mac Pro right now, but I guess there are some good used deals to be had.
> Did you get quad cores? 6? 8?


6-cores. btw: if you order a 4-core BTO and upgrade the processor to a 6-core you'll save money because apple includes the smaller graphic card.


----------



## URL

When "2017" V.H arrives 2013 V.H will be a target for reduced price.
There is a problem if software developer based there latest application on latest OS/hw and Apple discount old Macs for
the reason that is not musical. Music people isn't Apple main user there a lot others that Apple focus on in there business don't always co with us that compose music. Latest Macs have different Hd not "easy" to change with other hd. If Apple still se a need in Mac Pro there is more to choose from when new Macs arrives not everyone needs the latest tech. to compose music but you have more to choose from, in Sweden there is almost impossible to get a used Mac Pro so we all have different possibilities in are music life.


----------



## samphony

This will happen if Apple won't continue to support us


----------



## lpuser

synthpunk said:


> Where is the OSX Sierra machine cutoff going to be again on the older macpro's ?



Currently, all tests seem to indicate that ones needs a 5,1 system in order to run Sierra. However it is very-very easy to patch a 2010 Mac Pro from 4,1 to 5,1 (which I just did). So it might well be that you are still able to use an early 2009 Mac Pro with Sierra.


----------



## lpuser

mikefox789 said:


> Am I crazy to be fully content with my 2008 cheese grater Mac pro?



No, you certainly are not. I have two of them around, fully expanded and I am extremely happy with the performance. And I know quite a lot of professional musicians who opt for a tower Mac Pro via create.pro instead of buying the trash can due to a lack of expandability and upgradeability. Also for the FCP guys, sometimes having the old tower and adding an insanely powerful new graphics card is much better than being stuck with a "hard-wired" GPU which cannot be replaced.


----------



## kclements

synthpunk said:


> How long before new versions Logic, Cubase, etc will not work with El Cap do you think ? 6 months to a year ?



Seriously? I'm am just now replacing my 2010 iMac which is running the latest version of both El Cap and Logic without problems. It works like a champ (albeit, a slower, senior division champ)! Why would you expect any current Mac to not last at least as long? Apple has a great track record of backward compatibility. Heck my 2007 MBP is running El Cap.

For _me, personally, _I am tired of the software arms race. I have grown weary of constantly looking at the latest string vi that adds .00007 percent increase over LASS or whatever. Interesting new developments will come out that are amazing, but right now, I feel like every new product is a minor, tiny little step forward. 

And for what I do, what I currently have is more than enough to get me by for the next 5 years. I can ( and plan to) lock my system down, add very little new updates and just get back to writing music. Less time arguing over which "new" library is more realistic than the last, which is to say only slightly.

I've never had a publisher tell me my LASS strings are too dated. Or I really need to get Omnisphere 2 for this. Or "we rejected this cue because you're still using the Westgate Oboe."

I'm official off the _caring about the latest and greatest _train. I understand this will perhaps revoke my VI-C membership.


----------



## synthpunk

Was referring to this below KC. No reason to be cranky. My opinion is just as valid as yours.

If people are happy with what they have that is great IMO. I kept my old G5 tower to the very end as well. Just getting it out there that Apple is ending 4,1 support come fall and other tips. I thought that was what vic is truly for ?



lpuser said:


> Currently, all tests seem to indicate that ones needs a 5,1 system in order to run Sierra. However it is very-very easy to patch a 2010 Mac Pro from 4,1 to 5,1 (which I just did). So it might well be that you are still able to use an early 2009 Mac Pro with Sierra.


----------



## kclements

synthpunk said:


> Was referring to this below KC. No reason to be cranky. My opinion is just a as valid as yours.
> 
> If people are happy with what they have that is great IMO. I kept my old G5 tower to the very end as well. Just getting it out there that Apple is ending 4,1 support come fall and other tips. I thought that was what vic is truly for ?



Sorry if I sounded cranky, it was not my intent, truly. I apologize. Absolutely your opinion is valid and that's what VI is for. I do enjoy these discussions. No disrespect intended.


----------



## synthpunk

I had seen 2013 MP for 1k off recently, can't remember where (OWC maybe?), may tell you something is brewing or might just be coincidence.

There are no MP on the Apple certified refurbished page currently. (but things usually get slim before back to school)



URL said:


> When "2017" V.H arrives 2013 V.H will be a target for reduced price.
> There is a problem if software developer based there latest application on latest OS/hw and Apple discount old Macs for
> the reason that is not musical. Music people isn't Apple main user there a lot others that Apple focus on in there business don't always co with us that compose music. Latest Macs have different Hd not "easy" to change with other hd. If Apple still se a need in Mac Pro there is more to choose from when new Macs arrives not everyone needs the latest tech. to compose music but you have more to choose from, in Sweden there is almost impossible to get a used Mac so we all have different possibilities in are music life.


----------



## Ashermusic

My late 2012 32 GB iMac 27" i7 and PC slave tandem handles everything I can throw at it with aplomb and is still compatible with the latest OS. In fact, most of what I get hired to write these days, I can write with newly created Logic Pro-VE Pro "Quick Compose" templates I am creating and the iMac is handling that really well in my preliminary tests.

When I gave up my cheese grater I did however have to buy a Sonnet Echo Express Thunderbolt chassis for my RME and UAD cards and a CalDigit Thunderbolt dock for some of my drives and my 4k Ultra HD 39" monitor (TV actually.)M ost of my drives are external, sitting side by side on a lower shelf.

I do miss the look of the cheese grater and housing the pci-e cards and drives inside and since the trash can Mac Pro does not allow that, it has little appeal to me. And of course, the iMac has a beautiful display.


----------



## Mike Fox

samphony said:


> Jason used a PC Nuendo based workflow for his latest work afaik.


Interesting!


----------



## Mike Fox

kclements said:


> Seriously? I'm am just now replacing my 2010 iMac which is running the latest version of both El Cap and Logic without problems. It works like a champ (albeit, a slower, senior division champ)! Why would you expect any current Mac to not last at least as long? Apple has a great track record of backward compatibility. Heck my 2007 MBP is running El Cap.
> 
> For _me, personally, _I am tired of the software arms race. I have grown weary of constantly looking at the latest string vi that adds .00007 percent increase over LASS or whatever. Interesting new developments will come out that are amazing, but right now, I feel like every new product is a minor, tiny little step forward.
> 
> And for what I do, what I currently have is more than enough to get me by for the next 5 years. I can ( and plan to) lock my system down, add very little new updates and just get back to writing music. Less time arguing over which "new" library is more realistic than the last, which is to say only slightly.
> 
> I've never had a publisher tell me my LASS strings are too dated. Or I really need to get Omnisphere 2 for this. Or "we rejected this cue because you're still using the Westgate Oboe."
> 
> I'm official off the _caring about the latest and greatest _train. I understand this will perhaps revoke my VI-C membership.


I completely agree with everything here.


----------



## synthpunk

Nice sum up Charlie.



charlieclouser said:


> I'm sure there will be more updated versions of the cylinder Mac Pro - but they'll probably look the same and just have upgraded internals. Newer CPU, bigger boot drive, etc. I doubt we'll ever see a rack mount or tower or any of the other form factors that "pros" like us were clamoring for before the cylinder came out. Heck, I was ranting and raving about how the next Mac Pro needed to be rack mount, have 8 drive slots, blah blah blah - and when the cylinder came out I was bitterly disappointed - until I got one.
> 
> Much like that old chestnut about Henry Ford's first customers wanting nothing more than "a faster horse", Apple has a long history of giving us what we "didn't know we wanted until we got it". For me, the cylinder has been exactly this. I wanted PCIe slots so I could continue to use my PowerCore and MOTU PCI-424 cards - but both of those cards are now discontinued and the software has been EOL'd so it turns out I didn't need the slots. I wanted eight drive bays so I could line up 3.5" hard drives - but now I use SSDs in a pair of MultiDocks that generate no noise and no heat and have zero moving parts, so it turns out I didn't need the bays. I even panic-purchased the last MacBook Pro that had an internal optical drive - and I have never inserted a disc into that drive, ever. Not once! I haven't had to read or burn a CD or DVD in nearly ten years. I can't say that I miss them.
> 
> Thunderbolt has proved to be a FAR better method of connecting peripherals than PCIe ever was for me - I now have gear connected that would occupy the equivalent of seven PCIe slots and I still have empty Thunderbolt ports and more room to daisy-chain if I want. PCIe is done for me and I'm fine with that.
> 
> I was a late adopter of the cylinder, not buying in until 18 months after release. What finally pushed me over the edge was wanting Thunderbolt, USB3, and support for 4k displays. It's worked out very well.
> 
> I've also noticed that in every spotting session I go to, where the edit bays used to be filled with those bog-standard rented Avid rigs running silver towers, the cylinders have taken over completely. So it seems the picture people have jumped on the cylinders as well in a big way.
> 
> So I do think we'll see updated CPUs, bigger boot drives, TB3, and better graphics card options in a refreshed Mac Pro cylinder (maybe soon) but if the current form factor stays around for many years I won't be upset. And to be honest I'm not even close to maxing out the power of my current rig. I wouldn't mind a 4tb boot drive option, but if I get desperate I can always go to MacSales for that.


----------



## synthpunk

One might say they were already there Nick with the Mac Mini format before they took the processor horsepower away in the latest versions (presumably for imac sales). Of course limited to 16G ram was always a roadblock as well. I mean a 6 or 8 core Mac Mini format with 64G ram would of been a DAW dream machine.

Maybe we will see a Ipad Pro/Mac Pro (for connectivity) hybrid or something in coming years or a Ipad Pro powerful enough for Logic Pro. Of course seeing Apple is eliminating the headphone jack form the iphone 7, connectivity seems to be something there intent on abandoning.



Nick Batzdorf said:


> Simon says (haha) that there won't be another Mac Pro - as opposed to other Macs - and therefore it'll be mandatory that he switch from Logic to another DAW.
> 
> Regardless of whether they're called Mac Pros, I believe Apple will continue to introduce Macs and they'll be more powerful than the current Mac Pro. Logic Pro is under constant development and there is only evidence to support that continuing. And I predict that Windows machines will continue to be fine as slaves - although the need for them has already diminished.
> 
> I've posted many times why I think the desktop tower format's days are numbered. We don't even need big cases to hold lots of drives anymore, because SSDs are small. The current Mac Pro isn't even a tower, it's just a "headless" machine that's bigger than a Mac Mini. So if there's no replacement Mac Pro, that'll be why.


----------



## URL

it goes without saying, we wish powerful Effect plugins/192khz daw which can replace hardware compressor and so on, but the desire is not without hardware/software changes/upgrades in the computers.
What I'm a little afraid of is if computer manufacturers take own steps to develop components that are not common to suit there needs will be difficult to replace itself but must be submitted to the manufacturer to fix and wait again.
All we wish for make us "wait" and spend a huge amount money on upgrade our daw and spend endless of time make
things work the way I want... Still could not be without a daw so....


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

> Apple is eliminating the headphone jack form the iphone 7, connectivity seems to be something there intent on abandoning.



Like many people I've been upgrading iPhones every two years, but I'd much rather keep my current one than have to carry around an adapter to use the headphones. Thank goodness they now reduce the price of your cell service if you don't update to the latest one, i.e. the phone is sold separately rather than buried in your contract.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

By the way, so far it doesn't appear that Apple is planning to converge iOS and Mac OS X (soon to be called MacOS). They're integrating the two, but they're separate.

And that's how it should be. Adding a file system to iOS would be okay, but I sure wouldn't want a stripped down OS on my Mac.


----------



## samphony

Sorry to side jack this thread: And still I wouldn't mind if apple would natively allow touch screens to be added to ones workflow. Of course nobody wants to work touch based only but to grab a fader or a knob on a plugin meaning combining trackball/mouse/keyboard/touch screens in a workflow is evolutionary. And I know it's not for everyone but I'm one of it. 

I would rather use a "second (touch) screen" with a mixer and my main screen with the arrange/tracks view. 



Nick Batzdorf said:


> By the way, so far it doesn't appear that Apple is planning to converge iOS and Mac OS X (soon to be called MacOS). They're integrating the two, but they're separate.
> 
> And that's how it should be. Adding a file system to iOS would be okay, but I sure wouldn't want a stripped down OS on my Mac.


----------



## dtonthept

I added a wacom cintiq 13hd and the change from just mousing is incredible. Would dearly love iPad pro quality screen and touch on Mac OS, that would be killer. Nail on the head that a combo of input is a really great possibility.


----------



## Shad0wLandsUK

synthpunk said:


> How long before new versions Logic, Cubase, etc will not work with El Cap do you think ? 6 months to a year ? This is not a pissing contest, its about making a smart decision before your machine becomes a doorstop.
> 
> ps Don't tell your wives how much power those older Mac Pro's are eating up
> Less money for Yoga and Pilates.


I don't have one yet...


----------



## dgburns

charlieclouser said:


> I'm sure there will be more updated versions of the cylinder Mac Pro - but they'll probably look the same and just have upgraded internals. Newer CPU, bigger boot drive, etc. I doubt we'll ever see a rack mount or tower or any of the other form factors that "pros" like us were clamoring for before the cylinder came out. Heck, I was ranting and raving about how the next Mac Pro needed to be rack mount, have 8 drive slots, blah blah blah - and when the cylinder came out I was bitterly disappointed - until I got one.
> 
> Much like that old chestnut about Henry Ford's first customers wanting nothing more than "a faster horse", Apple has a long history of giving us what we "didn't know we wanted until we got it". For me, the cylinder has been exactly this. I wanted PCIe slots so I could continue to use my PowerCore and MOTU PCI-424 cards - but both of those cards are now discontinued and the software has been EOL'd so it turns out I didn't need the slots. I wanted eight drive bays so I could line up 3.5" hard drives - but now I use SSDs in a pair of MultiDocks that generate no noise and no heat and have zero moving parts, so it turns out I didn't need the bays. I even panic-purchased the last MacBook Pro that had an internal optical drive - and I have never inserted a disc into that drive, ever. Not once! I haven't had to read or burn a CD or DVD in nearly ten years. I can't say that I miss them.
> 
> Thunderbolt has proved to be a FAR better method of connecting peripherals than PCIe ever was for me - I now have gear connected that would occupy the equivalent of seven PCIe slots and I still have empty Thunderbolt ports and more room to daisy-chain if I want. PCIe is done for me and I'm fine with that.
> 
> I was a late adopter of the cylinder, not buying in until 18 months after release. What finally pushed me over the edge was wanting Thunderbolt, USB3, and support for 4k displays. It's worked out very well.
> 
> I've also noticed that in every spotting session I go to, where the edit bays used to be filled with those bog-standard rented Avid rigs running silver towers, the cylinders have taken over completely. So it seems the picture people have jumped on the cylinders as well in a big way.
> 
> So I do think we'll see updated CPUs, bigger boot drives, TB3, and better graphics card options in a refreshed Mac Pro cylinder (maybe soon) but if the current form factor stays around for many years I won't be upset. And to be honest I'm not even close to maxing out the power of my current rig. I wouldn't mind a 4tb boot drive option, but if I get desperate I can always go to MacSales for that.



Well, if you're being honest with yourself, you'll maybe come to see that all the EOL'd stuff was working just fine. It got scrapped because Apple changed the rules, and so everyone else had to adapt. Honestly, I'm probably just being a humbug, and you're likely totally thinking the right way. Better rig, faster, lighter and ultimately more efficient, so it gets out of the way of your work.
As my collegue says, "cost of doing business". Move on and get on with your life with the new paradigm.

But here's the thing, was just reading John Williams bio on IMDB, and it seems to call him the most successful composer (financially) of all time. And when you stop to think about it, I don't even know if he owns a single sample library, nor a sequencer app, nor a home, or facility studio. Just makes one think. I'd never be happy not owning the gear, and frankly I'm a hands-on type guy, so the instruments make me happy. But it makes you take a step back and think on how to make your music as good as it can be isn't always about the gear.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

samphony, I don't know what sequencer you use, but Logic Remote is really good if you're using Logic, and there are several other apps for others. They're probably better than just the desktop on your iPad - which you can also do if you don't mind a couple of days of latency.


----------



## synthpunk

Using Apple Logic Remote Key Commands and wireless remote happily on a old Ipad 2 here.
https://ask.audio/articles/making-the-most-out-of-logic-remote-with-logic-pro-101

And Touchable for Ableton on a Ipad mini
http://www.touch-able.com/

saves on wasting countless hours setting up Lemur or Touchosc.



Nick Batzdorf said:


> samphony, I don't know what sequencer you use, but Logic Remote is really good if you're using Logic, and there are several other apps for others. They're probably better than just the desktop on your iPad - which you can also do if you don't mind a couple of days of latency.


----------



## jamwerks

dgburns said:


> Well,if you're being honest with yourself,you'll maybe come to see that all the EOL'd stuff was working just fine.It ...


Just wondering why you write without spaces after periods and comas? Kind of strange to read...


----------



## dgburns

jamwerks said:


> Just wondering why you write without spaces after periods and comas? Kind of strange to read...



Yes I see that's what everyone else is doing. Duly noted.


----------



## charlieclouser

dgburns said:


> Well, if you're being honest with yourself, you'll maybe come to see that all the EOL'd stuff was working just fine. It got scrapped because Apple changed the rules, and so everyone else had to adapt. Honestly, I'm probably just being a humbug, and you're likely totally thinking the right way. Better rig, faster, lighter and ultimately more efficient, so it gets out of the way of your work.
> As my collegue says, "cost of doing business". Move on and get on with your life with the new paradigm.
> 
> But here's the thing, was just reading John Williams bio on IMDB, and it seems to call him the most successful composer (financially) of all time. And when you stop to think about it, I don't even know if he owns a single sample library, nor a sequencer app, nor a home, or facility studio. Just makes one think. I'd never be happy not owning the gear, and frankly I'm a hands-on type guy, so the instruments make me happy. But it makes you take a step back and think on how to make your music as good as it can be isn't always about the gear.



Well, my old rig WAS "working fine" in that it wasn't "broken" or whatever, but it wasn't doing what I wanted it to do. Mac Pro tower 12-core with 6x 1tb SSD drives (two of them on a Sonnet Tempo PCIe card), PowerCore, and MOTU PCIe-424 with multiple 2408mk3 interfaces, two 2560x1600 30" displays. Here's a few reasons I had to make the switch:

- Any further expansion of drives meant either using FireWire (an utterly dead technology that I never liked anyway), eSATA (limited to two or four drives per PCIe card, plus it would need a PCIe slot I didn't have unless I removed the Sonnet card, so the max would have been four more drives than I already had). I could have swapped out the SSDs for 2tb sizes, and now I'd be looking at the 4tb EVO drives.... so.... not ideal. I could have put a PCIe expansion chassis on the tower, but I've been down that road and I hated it. Clunky, noisy, not cheap. I want a wide-open path to storage nirvana, and Thunderbolt represents that for me.

- I wanted 4k monitors. 3840x2160 is fantastic, and for Logic X it's pretty much mandatory (for me). Logic X on my old 2560x1600 monitors didn't allow me to see enough tracks and was very frustrating. I also wanted the option to go beyond two monitors, and the cylinder and Thunderbolt give me that, and the HDMI output is a nice bonus.

- I wanted a more channel-dense digital pathway to get audio from my Logic machine to my ProTools machine, so that I could print more surround stems in a single pass. The old setup had two 2408mk3 interfaces on the Logic machine so I had 48 channels going over to ProTools - but the PT machine needed THREE 192 interfaces to do this, each with the optional digital card. I could have gone all the way up to 96 channels but I'd wind up with SIX 192's on the PT rig, and four 2408's - it gets messy fast with so many fragile little ADAT cables etc. My old ProTools right was HD3, so I could have bolted on a few more 192's (and buy those for about three dollars each) but that rig is EOL and the software path for that hardware is frozen at PTv10. Not ideal. The old rig would have been 17 rack spaces (and six fans). My current rig is THREE rack spaces (and NO fans!) for 64 channels going across. Two 7-dollar BNC cables instead of a rats nest of fragile, hair-thin ADAT cables. The new rig is so fresh and so clean, clean.

- Now that I have USB3, I can actually use it for connecting storage instead of just trackballs and stuff. Nice bonus for connecting portable drives and stuff like that.

- I now can stick a few more UAD-Octo Thunderbolt Satellite units if I feel like it. No PCIe slot limitations, no expansion chassis needed.

- PowerCore is dead and not coming back, and that was about the last PCIe thing I really cared about - but the software does not work with modern OS versions, and the plugins were 32-bit anyway. So... I'm sad to see it go but it was already dead, even on the silver tower. 

- My Unitor MIDI interfaces work fine on the new cylinder, with no driver install needed. 

- The new ProTools rig is a 6-core cylinder with HD Native Thunderbolt, Avid MADI and SyncHD. I don't need ANY plugins on the PT side, and I can live with the 64-channel limit on i/o, so this is an ideal setup for me. Records 64 channels to the cylinder's internal drive, showing barely anything on the disc usage meter (!), and it just works. Setup time was minimal, and it takes up two whole rack spaces.

Now, on to the John Williams thing. Sure, HE might not own anything other than a pencil and a piano, but that doesn't mean that no hardware is used in the making of his scores. No civilian could ever buy all the hardware that heats up the room during the production of a John Williams score! 96-channel Neve 88rs, a few dozen world-class microphones, a room full of orchestral instruments... and I'm sure there's a ProTools rig or two in there somewhere. So that's a false equivalency. I'm paid not just to "compose", but also to produce and deliver - it's never just "write down the music and we'll deal with getting it recorded and mixed and delivered, you just do what you do best", and I'm sure that's not what John Williams is doing either. He doesn't deliver a stack of score paper to the movie studio and go home. He might not sit in front of ProTools editing and mixing, but SOMEBODY does.

There's a crew at my house fabricating concrete steps and landscaping, and those guys break tools all the time. The jackhammer is acting up? The foreman drives down the hill and is back on the scene with a brand new one in an hour. Stuff wears out, gets left behind, etc. Like you said, "cost of doing business". If I had to justify and re-evaluate every gear purchase, I'd still be using my old Linn 9000 and second-guessing whether upgrading to an MPC-60 would be a good idea! (It was.)

Out of that old rig I got ten years, a dozen feature films, and 250+ hours of tv scores - more than 10,000 pieces of music. And not just "composed" with a pencil and a piano, but recorded, mixed, delivered and paid for. With no commute, no interns, no assistants, no events on my calendar except for the spotting session and the delivery date (and no pencil, so that saved me at least 25 cents!). Even with my admittedly profligate computer expenditures, compared to the personnel, scheduling, and gear behind a John Williams score, I'd say I'm doing it on the cheap!


----------



## dgburns

charlieclouser said:


> Well, my old rig WAS "working fine" in that it wasn't "broken" or whatever, but it wasn't doing what I wanted it to do. Mac Pro tower 12-core with 6x 1tb SSD drives (two of them on a Sonnet Tempo PCIe card), PowerCore, and MOTU PCIe-424 with multiple 2408mk3 interfaces, two 2560x1600 30" displays. Here's a few reasons I had to make the switch:
> 
> - Any further expansion of drives meant either using FireWire (an utterly dead technology that I never liked anyway), eSATA (limited to two or four drives per PCIe card, plus it would need a PCIe slot I didn't have unless I removed the Sonnet card, so the max would have been four more drives than I already had). I could have swapped out the SSDs for 2tb sizes, and now I'd be looking at the 4tb EVO drives.... so.... not ideal. I could have put a PCIe expansion chassis on the tower, but I've been down that road and I hated it. Clunky, noisy, not cheap. I want a wide-open path to storage nirvana, and Thunderbolt represents that for me.
> 
> - I wanted 4k monitors. 3840x2160 is fantastic, and for Logic X it's pretty much mandatory (for me). Logic X on my old 2560x1600 monitors didn't allow me to see enough tracks and was very frustrating. I also wanted the option to go beyond two monitors, and the cylinder and Thunderbolt give me that, and the HDMI output is a nice bonus.
> 
> - I wanted a more channel-dense digital pathway to get audio from my Logic machine to my ProTools machine, so that I could print more surround stems in a single pass. The old setup had two 2408mk3 interfaces on the Logic machine so I had 48 channels going over to ProTools - but the PT machine needed THREE 192 interfaces to do this, each with the optional digital card. I could have gone all the way up to 96 channels but I'd wind up with SIX 192's on the PT rig, and four 2408's - it gets messy fast with so many fragile little ADAT cables etc. My old ProTools right was HD3, so I could have bolted on a few more 192's (and buy those for about three dollars each) but that rig is EOL and the software path for that hardware is frozen at PTv10. Not ideal. The old rig would have been 17 rack spaces (and six fans). My current rig is THREE rack spaces (and NO fans!) for 64 channels going across. Two 7-dollar BNC cables instead of a rats nest of fragile, hair-thin ADAT cables. The new rig is so fresh and so clean, clean.
> 
> - Now that I have USB3, I can actually use it for connecting storage instead of just trackballs and stuff. Nice bonus for connecting portable drives and stuff like that.
> 
> - I now can stick a few more UAD-Octo Thunderbolt Satellite units if I feel like it. No PCIe slot limitations, no expansion chassis needed.
> 
> - PowerCore is dead and not coming back, and that was about the last PCIe thing I really cared about - but the software does not work with modern OS versions, and the plugins were 32-bit anyway. So... I'm sad to see it go but it was already dead, even on the silver tower.
> 
> - My Unitor MIDI interfaces work fine on the new cylinder, with no driver install needed.
> 
> - The new ProTools rig is a 6-core cylinder with HD Native Thunderbolt, Avid MADI and SyncHD. I don't need ANY plugins on the PT side, and I can live with the 64-channel limit on i/o, so this is an ideal setup for me. Records 64 channels to the cylinder's internal drive, showing barely anything on the disc usage meter (!), and it just works. Setup time was minimal, and it takes up two whole rack spaces.
> 
> Now, on to the John Williams thing. Sure, HE might not own anything other than a pencil and a piano, but that doesn't mean that no hardware is used in the making of his scores. No civilian could ever buy all the hardware that heats up the room during the production of a John Williams score! 96-channel Neve 88rs, a few dozen world-class microphones, a room full of orchestral instruments... and I'm sure there's a ProTools rig or two in there somewhere. So that's a false equivalency. I'm paid not just to "compose", but also to produce and deliver - it's never just "write down the music and we'll deal with getting it recorded and mixed and delivered, you just do what you do best", and I'm sure that's not what John Williams is doing either. He doesn't deliver a stack of score paper to the movie studio and go home. He might not sit in front of ProTools editing and mixing, but SOMEBODY does.
> 
> There's a crew at my house fabricating concrete steps and landscaping, and those guys break tools all the time. The jackhammer is acting up? The foreman drives down the hill and is back on the scene with a brand new one in an hour. Stuff wears out, gets left behind, etc. Like you said, "cost of doing business". If I had to justify and re-evaluate every gear purchase, I'd still be using my old Linn 9000 and second-guessing whether upgrading to an MPC-60 would be a good idea! (It was.)
> 
> Out of that old rig I got ten years, a dozen feature films, and 250+ hours of tv scores - more than 10,000 pieces of music. And not just "composed" with a pencil and a piano, but recorded, mixed, delivered and paid for. With no commute, no interns, no assistants, no events on my calendar except for the spotting session and the delivery date (and no pencil, so that saved me at least 25 cents!). Even with my admittedly profligate computer expenditures, compared to the personnel, scheduling, and gear behind a John Williams score, I'd say I'm doing it on the cheap!



You should realize by now that I like reading your posts. Also that I've always regarded your approach rational and well thought out- I can count on you to weigh the benefits of gear to a razor's edge of precision. That said, the thing I was getting at was the seperation of gear and quality of music produced. That's it.
Have a good day.


----------



## 5Lives

Will be interesting to see if they release any updates this October. Having second thoughts on buying into 3-4 year old hardware with the 2013 nMP. This is where part of me thinks a PC slave makes a lot of sense (if I want to stay on Logic - or go completely PC if I want to be on Cubase). Way cheaper, way more power.

Will see how far disabled tracks can get me on my Macbook Pro.


----------



## NYC Composer

Interesting counterpoint to the widely accepted 2010 12 core MP evangelism.
I know Peter Brinkley, Jack Weaver and others I respect are big fans. I think horses for courses applies to a degree-not everyone has Charlie's needs. 

There's no future-proofing possible as things are constantly changing, but I hate changing my basic rig and I've gotten 8 years out of this one so far. I'm tired of the arms race in tech. I'll upgrade when I can't do most of what I want to do.


----------



## babylonwaves

NYC Composer said:


> There's no future-proofing possible as things are constantly changing, but I hate changing my basic rig and I've gotten 8 years out of this one so far. I'm tired of the arms race in tech. I'll upgrade when I can't do most of what I want to do.


i had my MP from '08 until 2015 and sold it used for about $1000 still. it wouldn't have crossed my mind that i'd get that much for such an old machine. so take it this way: as long as so many people believe that the old machines are worth a lot, it is even easier to buy a new one


----------



## passsacaglia

a liittle off-topic (iMacs), compared the US mac store with the swedish ones, here's my comparison for those of you who are interested hehe  :
Specs i7, 8GB, 256GB, 27", M390 GPU
US = $2399, Swe=26395sek ($3157)

512GB SSD:
US = $2979, Swe=28804ser ($3450)

And if you reduce 10% from them with edu discount, it's such a...you get the 1TB SSD for cheaper than the original price in SEK of 256GB SSD one. It's...such a difference in price.
Btw, don't compare or visit the romanian apple store of curiosity, the 2nd step (choosing what platform), which I just thought looked different in romania was hacked haha I got a red screen in firefox and 10 blocked popups from my antivirus-internet security program telling me it had blocked 10 hacking attempts haha :D ...bewaare..


----------



## jamwerks

Just as a point of comparison, I'm about to upgrade a 5 year-old machine. New MB, cpu (5820k), 128go ram, done. About 1500€ for a monster machine (PC of course).

As for mac's, I read a post on a forum by an Apogee guy who talked about a "new generation of HW", then stepped back saying to have only been speculating. So I'd say there's probably lots of Mac goodies on the horizon.


----------



## URL

Maybe we will see a paradigm shift in daw "computer" technology, and what could that be I wonder...?


----------



## N.Caffrey

passsacaglia said:


> a liittle off-topic (iMacs), compared the US mac store with the swedish ones, here's my comparison for those of you who are interested hehe  :
> Specs i7, 8GB, 256GB, 27", M390 GPU
> US = $2399, Swe=26395sek ($3157)
> 
> 512GB SSD:
> US = $2979, Swe=28804ser ($3450)
> 
> And if you reduce 10% from them with edu discount, it's such a...you get the 1TB SSD for cheaper than the original price in SEK of 256GB SSD one. It's...such a difference in price.
> Btw, don't compare or visit the romanian apple store of curiosity, the 2nd step (choosing what platform), which I just thought looked different in romania was hacked haha I got a red screen in firefox and 10 blocked popups from my antivirus-internet security program telling me it had blocked 10 hacking attempts haha :D ...bewaare..


I don't know if someone mention it before, but I read a rumor of a possible iMac pro, with similar specs to the mac pro


----------



## charlieclouser

dgburns said:


> You should realize by now that I like reading your posts. Also that I've always regarded your approach rational and well thought out- I can count on you to weigh the benefits of gear to a razor's edge of precision. That said, the thing I was getting at was the seperation of gear and quality of music produced. That's it.
> Have a good day.




Yeah, I know. I wasn't doing a rebuttal, sorry if it sounded like a defensive post. I was just procrastinating instead of finishing cleaning the studio so I thought I'd type out yet another manifesto about how my reasons for upgrading to the cylinder were not at all related to raw CPU speed. For all I know, the cylinder's CPU is actually slower than the tower's was - but for me it was all about the stuff hanging off the CPU that made me want an upgrade. That, and the fact that the tower is EOL and so I can't just run down to the Apple store and pick up a spare if something goes wrong.

Plus, your post got me thinking about how massive an undertaking something like a John Williams score must be. I've seen some videos of him at the piano with Spielberg in what looks like the den in a very ordinary suburban house, and that video of the kids playing on his front lawn where he comes out to compliment them, and it's surprising at how low-key his situation seems to be. No gated community, no impenetrable death star defense system! But then I remembered some article or video on the making of the Lord of the Rings trilogy score, and reading about things like the IT workflow managers dealing with trans-continental secure file sharing, massive data storage and version tracking solutions, the church they bought / rented for years at a time to record in, etc., which made me realize how easy I have it with just a couple of computers in a single room!


----------



## synthpunk

Charlie, your not using any slaves correct ? Thanks for sharing. Getting rarer these days. I think you and HZ have a good philosophy about investing. HZ always tells his juniors it will buy you a house one day.



charlieclouser said:


> Well, my old rig WAS "working fine" in that it wasn't "broken" or whatever, but it wasn't doing what I wanted it to do. Mac Pro tower 12-core with 6x 1tb SSD drives (two of them on a Sonnet Tempo PCIe card), PowerCore, and MOTU PCIe-424 with multiple 2408mk3 interfaces, two 2560x1600 30" displays. Here's a few reasons I had to make the switch:
> 
> - Any further expansion of drives meant either using FireWire (an utterly dead technology that I never liked anyway), eSATA (limited to two or four drives per PCIe card, plus it would need a PCIe slot I didn't have unless I removed the Sonnet card, so the max would have been four more drives than I already had). I could have swapped out the SSDs for 2tb sizes, and now I'd be looking at the 4tb EVO drives.... so.... not ideal. I could have put a PCIe expansion chassis on the tower, but I've been down that road and I hated it. Clunky, noisy, not cheap. I want a wide-open path to storage nirvana, and Thunderbolt represents that for me.
> 
> - I wanted 4k monitors. 3840x2160 is fantastic, and for Logic X it's pretty much mandatory (for me). Logic X on my old 2560x1600 monitors didn't allow me to see enough tracks and was very frustrating. I also wanted the option to go beyond two monitors, and the cylinder and Thunderbolt give me that, and the HDMI output is a nice bonus.
> 
> - I wanted a more channel-dense digital pathway to get audio from my Logic machine to my ProTools machine, so that I could print more surround stems in a single pass. The old setup had two 2408mk3 interfaces on the Logic machine so I had 48 channels going over to ProTools - but the PT machine needed THREE 192 interfaces to do this, each with the optional digital card. I could have gone all the way up to 96 channels but I'd wind up with SIX 192's on the PT rig, and four 2408's - it gets messy fast with so many fragile little ADAT cables etc. My old ProTools right was HD3, so I could have bolted on a few more 192's (and buy those for about three dollars each) but that rig is EOL and the software path for that hardware is frozen at PTv10. Not ideal. The old rig would have been 17 rack spaces (and six fans). My current rig is THREE rack spaces (and NO fans!) for 64 channels going across. Two 7-dollar BNC cables instead of a rats nest of fragile, hair-thin ADAT cables. The new rig is so fresh and so clean, clean.
> 
> - Now that I have USB3, I can actually use it for connecting storage instead of just trackballs and stuff. Nice bonus for connecting portable drives and stuff like that.
> 
> - I now can stick a few more UAD-Octo Thunderbolt Satellite units if I feel like it. No PCIe slot limitations, no expansion chassis needed.
> 
> - PowerCore is dead and not coming back, and that was about the last PCIe thing I really cared about - but the software does not work with modern OS versions, and the plugins were 32-bit anyway. So... I'm sad to see it go but it was already dead, even on the silver tower.
> 
> - My Unitor MIDI interfaces work fine on the new cylinder, with no driver install needed.
> 
> - The new ProTools rig is a 6-core cylinder with HD Native Thunderbolt, Avid MADI and SyncHD. I don't need ANY plugins on the PT side, and I can live with the 64-channel limit on i/o, so this is an ideal setup for me. Records 64 channels to the cylinder's internal drive, showing barely anything on the disc usage meter (!), and it just works. Setup time was minimal, and it takes up two whole rack spaces.
> 
> Now, on to the John Williams thing. Sure, HE might not own anything other than a pencil and a piano, but that doesn't mean that no hardware is used in the making of his scores. No civilian could ever buy all the hardware that heats up the room during the production of a John Williams score! 96-channel Neve 88rs, a few dozen world-class microphones, a room full of orchestral instruments... and I'm sure there's a ProTools rig or two in there somewhere. So that's a false equivalency. I'm paid not just to "compose", but also to produce and deliver - it's never just "write down the music and we'll deal with getting it recorded and mixed and delivered, you just do what you do best", and I'm sure that's not what John Williams is doing either. He doesn't deliver a stack of score paper to the movie studio and go home. He might not sit in front of ProTools editing and mixing, but SOMEBODY does.
> 
> There's a crew at my house fabricating concrete steps and landscaping, and those guys break tools all the time. The jackhammer is acting up? The foreman drives down the hill and is back on the scene with a brand new one in an hour. Stuff wears out, gets left behind, etc. Like you said, "cost of doing business". If I had to justify and re-evaluate every gear purchase, I'd still be using my old Linn 9000 and second-guessing whether upgrading to an MPC-60 would be a good idea! (It was.)
> 
> Out of that old rig I got ten years, a dozen feature films, and 250+ hours of tv scores - more than 10,000 pieces of music. And not just "composed" with a pencil and a piano, but recorded, mixed, delivered and paid for. With no commute, no interns, no assistants, no events on my calendar except for the spotting session and the delivery date (and no pencil, so that saved me at least 25 cents!). Even with my admittedly profligate computer expenditures, compared to the personnel, scheduling, and gear behind a John Williams score, I'd say I'm doing it on the cheap!


----------



## charlieclouser

No, I'm still not using slaves. Ten or fifteen years ago I had a brief flirtation with GigaSampler slaves, but that was mainly because that was the only way to get true-legato-transition instruments in the pre-Vienna era. Although it did "work" it was about as enjoyable as composing with racks of hardware synth modules. Print as you go, save patches as you go, etc. I wound up only using it when I needed a solo cello or something, and that's sort of how I use Kontakt and VEPro these days - only in emergencies!

But I'm not attempting realistic orchestration by any means. I am fine with plain old polyphonic string ensemble patches, and I still use lots of old Denny Jaeger and Kirk Hunter libraries from the Akai S-1000 CD-ROM era - simply because I prefer their tone to some of the more modern libraries. They're not as realistic as the modern stuff, but I actually like that aspect of their sound. It's a nice bonus that they load into EXS24 and have a negligible CPU and memory footprint. That said, I do buy tons of Kontakt libraries when the big sales are on, partly out of curiosity and partly because when a tricky situation arises I want to be able to just audition tons of different sample patches and compare them on the fly. I do use some Spitfire, Cinesamples, 8dio, SoundIron, Symphobia, and LASS stuff in my normal template, but they're mixed in with the old stuff that I'm familiar with like Jaeger, Hunter, Sonic Implants, EWQLSO, etc.

I do own VEPro, and I've used it on a few projects, but always on my main Logic machine as opposed to a separate slave. I have a bunch of silver Mac Pro towers I could re-purpose as slaves, but I'm really waiting for full implementation of multi-port MIDI in Logic, once they implement the AUv3 spec. When that rolls out I will give VEPro another try. Still, nothing will ever be as quick and easy as my all-EXS template in Logic. Load times for a 240-instrument template are 30 seconds or so, and samples remain loaded when switching songs, as they would in a "preserved" VEPro setup, so switching between cues that were descended from a common template takes maybe 10 seconds - and it's been like this for 15 years or so. Since you can't use EXS inside VEPro, I may just be stuck where I'm at for a long time! I know I could load all of my EXS instruments into Kontakt (and this does work perfectly) but browsing EXS instruments from Logic's built-in browser is just so fast and simple. I do love it when things are simple.

In terms of thinking about gear and software as "investments" - I prefer to think of them as "expenditures". Depreciating assets. Not hammers and saws, more like boards and nails. They get used up. Consumed. Destroyed in the process of doing the work. My accountant depreciates every purchase across five years, so after that point they're considered worthless (and they often are!). If I can get $350 for a Digidesign 192 interface that cost me $3k ten years ago, it's a bonus.


----------



## NYC Composer

Why screw with a great working system?


----------



## jononotbono

charlieclouser said:


> For me, the cylinder has been exactly this. I wanted PCIe slots so I could continue to use my PowerCore and MOTU PCI-424 cards



If you don't mind me asking, I still use a Motu 424 Card with MotuHD192. What Thunderbolt interface did you change to?

The only thing that has stopped me from upgrading to a MP 6,1 is having to change my interface and can't afford to do both at the same time at this point in time. I'm kind of thinking of a UA Apollo Duo and perhaps adding an 8p when I need the physical ins and outs. Not sure if they are a rip off though.


----------



## synthpunk

I love when HGW recently said he sold 26 S760's on Ebay for $35 each lol  Times change. I had up to four at one time.



charlieclouser said:


> In terms of thinking about gear and software as "investments" - I prefer to think of them as "expenditures". Depreciating assets. Not hammers and saws, more like boards and nails. They get used up. Consumed. Destroyed in the process of doing the work. My accountant depreciates every purchase across five years, so after that point they're considered worthless (and they often are!). If I can get $350 for a Digidesign 192 interface that cost me $3k ten years ago, it's a bonus.


----------



## NYC Composer

I gave three of mine away.


----------



## charlieclouser

jononotbono said:


> If you don't mind me asking, I still use a Motu 424 Card with MotuHD192. What Thunderbolt interface did you change to?
> 
> The only thing that has stopped me from upgrading to a MP 6,1 is having to change my interface and can't afford to do both at the same time at this point in time. I'm kind of thinking of a UA Apollo Duo and perhaps adding an 8p when I need the physical ins and outs. Not sure if they are a rip off though.



I am now using the MOTU AVB series - a 112d (directly connected to Thunderbolt) and a 1248 (connected to the 122d via CAT5). As usual with MOTU interfaces, I've not had a single pop, click, noise burst, or any other weirdness. Their modern equivalent of the old CueMix software is a lot more flexible but a lot more confusing to set up at first. Implementing more than one box involves dealing with "AVB Streams" to get audio between the boxes and this can be a pain. It offers far more flexibility than I really need. With just one box online it's a joy to work with but adding more boxes increases the confusion factor somewhat. Since I wanted MADI as well as headphone jacks I wound up with both the 112d and the 1248. I may experiment with just using the 1248 in standalone mode, hanging off of some unused ADAT ports on the 112d as opposed to making it a participant in the AVB network - this would put me back to just using a single 112d via Thunderbolt and this is dead simple to comprehend. The MOTU AVB driver presents 128 channels of i/o to the host software, to be routed and dealt with any way you see fit to whatever hardware i/o is available on the AVB network. Mirroring, mixing, recording through their DSP fx, etc. - lots of power under the hood of the MOTU stuff. Not "modeled" plugins like UAD, but simple compressor, eq, and reverb are provided. Real time monitoring similar to CueMix (as opposed to through the host software's buffer) is provided, and the delay is something like 14 samples (!). 

My speakers have AES digital inputs, and I can connect to the 112d directly via AES. One thing that's nice about the MOTU rig is that you can save configurations of complex routings and recall them quickly, so I can have the speakers connected to Logic's outputs 1-6 in one preset, then switch to another preset that has the speakers connected to channels 1-6 of the MADI return from ProTools - while Logic's outputs 1-64 are going over to ProTools via MADI in BOTH presets. This lets me switch from listening to Logic's output, to listening to ProTools' output in a click or two. Very handy. 

Now that RME have their FireFace UFX+ (or whatever it's called) with native Thunderbolt support, that is an interesting option, and the Antelope Goliath looks pretty monstrous but I've read some unfavorable posts about their software. I know from experience that RME's drivers and TotalMix are rock solid and well implemented so I'd have no hesitation going that route. This would give me a one-box solution for MADI and headphones with some analog and ADAT i/o thrown in, so it could work.

Apollo is probably great. I know lots of folks who use the rack units and love them. But I need MADI, massive i/o count, and surround support, and Apollo is really set up for a stereo channel layout. So that's not a good solution for me. But pretty much everyone I know who is working in stereo has an Apollo of some sort and they all love them. UA is quality stuff.


----------



## jononotbono

charlieclouser said:


> I am now using the MOTU AVB series - a 112d (directly connected to Thunderbolt) and a 1248 (connected to the 122d via CAT5). As usual with MOTU interfaces, I've not had a single pop, click, noise burst, or any other weirdness. Their modern equivalent of the old CueMix software is a lot more flexible but a lot more confusing to set up at first. Implementing more than one box involves dealing with "AVB Streams" to get audio between the boxes and this can be a pain. It offers far more flexibility than I really need. With just one box online it's a joy to work with but adding more boxes increases the confusion factor somewhat. Since I wanted MADI as well as headphone jacks I wound up with both the 112d and the 1248. I may experiment with just using the 1248 in standalone mode, hanging off of some unused ADAT ports on the 112d as opposed to making it a participant in the AVB network - this would put me back to just using a single 112d via Thunderbolt and this is dead simple to comprehend. The MOTU AVB driver presents 128 channels of i/o to the host software, to be routed and dealt with any way you see fit to whatever hardware i/o is available on the AVB network. Mirroring, mixing, recording through their DSP fx, etc. - lots of power under the hood of the MOTU stuff. Not "modeled" plugins like UAD, but simple compressor, eq, and reverb are provided. Real time monitoring similar to CueMix (as opposed to through the host software's buffer) is provided, and the delay is something like 14 samples (!).
> 
> My speakers have AES digital inputs, and I can connect to the 112d directly via AES. One thing that's nice about the MOTU rig is that you can save configurations of complex routings and recall them quickly, so I can have the speakers connected to Logic's outputs 1-6 in one preset, then switch to another preset that has the speakers connected to channels 1-6 of the MADI return from ProTools - while Logic's outputs 1-64 are going over to ProTools via MADI in BOTH presets. This lets me switch from listening to Logic's output, to listening to ProTools' output in a click or two. Very handy.
> 
> Now that RME have their FireFace UFX+ (or whatever it's called) with native Thunderbolt support, that is an interesting option, and the Antelope Goliath looks pretty monstrous but I've read some unfavorable posts about their software. I know from experience that RME's drivers and TotalMix are rock solid and well implemented so I'd have no hesitation going that route. This would give me a one-box solution for MADI and headphones with some analog and ADAT i/o thrown in, so it could work.
> 
> Apollo is probably great. I know lots of folks who use the rack units and love them. But I need MADI, massive i/o count, and surround support, and Apollo is really set up for a stereo channel layout. So that's not a good solution for me. But pretty much everyone I know who is working in stereo has an Apollo of some sort and they all love them. UA is quality stuff.



That's interesting. I did look at the new Motu stuff when it was released. Hmmm, I may have another look. Motu has always been fantastic to me and although I'm not working in Surround who knows what the future holds! Yeah, I love the Motu Cuemix. It's just amazing when tracking bands. And not going through the host buffer is killer when recording audio.

UA attracts me because of the DSP (and obviously the Plugins) and I can see the massive benefit but it certainly comes at a financial cost! 

Thanks man!


----------



## synthpunk

My decision came down to the versatility of the UAD Apollo (quad dsp, analog In, analog out, 4 mic pres, quality convertors, Digital In, Digital out, Internal clock) , the expandibility, TB, and the quality of the plugins. I also think they will still be in business in 10 more years. I know other companies are struggling.



jononotbono said:


> That's interesting. I did look at the new Motu stuff when it was released. Hmmm, I may have another look. Motu has always been fantastic to me and although I'm not working in Surround who knows what the future holds! Yeah, I love the Motu Cuemix. It's just amazing when tracking bands. And not going through the host buffer is killer when recording audio.
> 
> UA attracts me because of the DSP (and obviously the Plugins) and I can see the massive benefit but it certainly comes at a financial cost!
> 
> Thanks man!


----------



## jononotbono

synthpunk said:


> My decision came down to the versatility of the UAD Apollo (quad dsp, analog In, analog out, 4 mic pres, quality convertors, Digital In, Digital out, Internal clock) , the expandibility, TB, and the quality of the plugins. I also think they will still be in business in 10 more years. I know other companies are struggling.



All perfectly valid points. And it works well with the Mac Pro 6,1? I'm sure that's a silly question. I think I shall start looking to get a 6,1 when the new one's get released and try to find one of these current generations secondhand.


----------



## Anami

Recently read that there is some code in el captain that hints to “AAPLJ95,1” while the version from the latest Mac Pro is “AAPLJ90,1”. The rumors also indicate autumn/late 2016. I have to buy a new mac and doubting to buy an iMac or Mac Pro. Some of my friends are desperately waiting for a new Mac Pro. Some were saying apple is not going to release a new Mac Pro.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

...but as I said, nobody believes that the current Mac Pro is the most powerful machine they'll ever release.


----------



## charlieclouser

I would not be a bit surprised to see a refreshed Mac Pro cylinder with faster / upgraded processor, bigger boot drive sizes, and TB3 and / or USB-C possibly augmenting or replacing the existing TB2 and USB3 ports. Much like the silver towers had various port configurations during their lifespan (FW400 > FW800, etc.) this would only change the internals and the rear panel but not the form factor. If new Macbook Pros come out with USB-C and a reduction of the crazy number and variety of ports, that would be a good indicator that such a change for the cylinder is likely. If USB-C really is all they say it is, it would be very Apple-like to just centralize on one port type for everything. I'm sure people will wail and rend their garments at that announcement, and then six months later wonder how they ever lived without it. Imagine a Macbook Pro with two or four USB-C ports and NOTHING else on the sides, or a cylinder with six or more USB-C ports, CAT5, and HDMI and nothing else. Could happen.


----------



## URL

Soon there is no differences between Mac mini and Mac pro.. theres just cosmetic change...


----------



## fastlanephil

From what I've read and digested, if a 7.1 Mac Pro is released this year it will probably use the Broadwell Xeon. If Apple waits until 2017 there is a chance that it will use the SkyLake/Purley Xeon. This would be bring a much bigger jump in CPU performance to the Mac Pro than Braodwell. But a 2016 release is probably more likely considering that the three year anniversary of the release of the Mac Pro 6.1 is late December 2016 and early purchaser's 3 yr. Apple Care warranty's will end. Though it would not exactly be the end of the world.

There is also a slight chance that Apple could wait until 2017 and use the new and untested in the wild AMD Zen chip if it performs close to what AMD says it does. The advantage for Apple here is possibly a cutrate price since Apple will probably also use a AMD GPU as it did with the Mac Pro 6.1.

Traveling farther into altered reality, Apple could decide to get out of the desktop/workstation business and just sell the iMac and maybe Mac Mini. It's obvious Apple is concentrating much more of it's resorces and hopes on the iPad and it's laptops to a lesser degree for it's future computing platform. To provide a desktop/workstation for the time being Apple might license it's macOS to select PC manufactures for use on their high end models that wouldn't directly compete with their remaining consumer/prosumer desktops. Some may say Apple tried this in the past but that was out of desperation to gain market share. This would be just a temporary arrangement until Apple's future vision is realized. Apple is making comparatively very little revenu from the Mac Pro and the sales of it's macOS and redirection of R&D resorces could actually be a plus for corporate profit. And that way I'll get to keep using Logic Pro X on a tower computer. lol.


----------



## charlieclouser

I don't think Apple will abandon the high-end (and high-priced) Mac Pro line, ever. It's certainly central to their image to be perceived as the platform of choice for the "content creators", and the engineering and tooling is done and paid for on the Mac Pro, so very little dollars need be spent going forward to keep it at the top of the heap. Incremental tweaks to the guts and back panel ports won't involve big dollar re-tooling now that they've got the form factor worked out. Mac Mini is more of a mid-range / "appliance" solution as opposed to a serious content creation platform. 

About thirty years ago, when I was the point man for Sam Ash becoming the first pro music store to become an authorized Apple dealer, I underwent training at Apple HQ in Secaucus. Even back then, before the days of Mac clones, in the dark years of the John Sculley era, they straight out told us that Mac OS and application software only existed to drive sales of the very profitable hardware. They even told us that their ideal business model would be for ALL of the software to be given away for free, as long as they could insure that it would only run on Apple hardware. This was not some industry secret protected by NDA's - they told us street-level retailers that this was how they thought, and to fully expect that Mac apps and OS pricing would start trending downward toward a zero-cost endgame. We can see this idea at work today, when a $200 copy of Mac-exclusive Logic DAW is clearly a strong factor driving sales of Mac hardware. 

The Mac clone years were a sidetrack from this theory, which is why I was not surprised to see that phase end swiftly. Hackintosh is obviously not in line with this thinking either, which is why I won't go down that road - I'm always expecting that each new version of MacOS will firmly slam the door on non-Apple hardware.

In my travels in Hollywood I see full penetration of the Mac Pro into the high-end (and even mid-level) users. Every composer I know who isn't a Window guy has one or more. Every editing suite I go into for spotting sessions has one. Price is not really that big a consideration for these users - the need for power, speed, and access to the latest peripherals and technology (like Thunderbolt and 4k monitors) seems to be sufficient to drive lots of dollars in Apple's direction. 

They've done a great job of packaging pro-level power and connectivity into a product that looks, feels, and works as simply as their lower-level "consumer grade" products like the Mac Mini or laptops. Opening up a silver tower, swapping drives and PCIe cards, and needing to press down REALLY hard to snap in those RAM sticks onto the motherboard always felt like things that a video editor would need to call the "computer guy" to do - like those were tasks for the IT department and not the end user. Of course, we weren't scared of that, we all loved doing that stuff. I still have an anti-static mat and wrist strap just in case! It made us feel like we were "in the know", like we were somehow more hard-core than those miserable civilians who were afraid to swap RAM sticks. 

But the "consumer-ification" evident in the Mac Pro cylinder's design is proof that sometimes Apple knows what I want better than I do myself. Hard-core users like me who wanted a rack-mount Mac Pro with twenty drive bays and thirty PCIe slots are like Henry Ford's customers who just wanted a faster horse. Apple gave us a fast car that only needs the driver to sit down and turn the key, without knowing how to re-jet a carburetor or bleed the brakes.

Turns out I like driving better than spending an afternoon under the hood. Who knew? Apparently Apple did.


----------



## InLight-Tone

Surface Pro 5 ?!?!?


----------



## muziksculp

How likely is it that Apple will scrap the Mac Pro line all together ? i.e. there won't be any new/next generation Mac Pro this year, or any year in the future. 

I hope this doesn't happen, but I'm afraid they could do it, given that the Mac Pro is not a primary product line, that generates lots of $$$ for them.


----------



## Anami

muziksculp said:


> How likely is it that Apple will scrap the Mac Pro line all together ? i.e. there won't be any new/next generation Mac Pro this year, or any year in the future.
> 
> I hope this doesn't happen, but I'm afraid they could do it, given that the Mac Pro is not a primary product line, that generates lots of $$$ for them.


I don't think it's very likely. My guess is that this autumn they will release a mac pro with new specs. What happens after that? Who knows...


----------



## URL

..who needs Xeon server processor, the industrial market, who are they?
A processor with high frequency type Skylake perform our job as good as a Xeon Broadwell how many Xeon Broadwell sells for music creation?

Where is the market for the Mac Pro, believe that Apple must widen the processor market for the Mac Pro to get this to a wider group of users, will Mac Pro be a game player's computer, well, I do not think so. "All" the others Apple do not have the possibility of large memory modules and for that reason are usually rejected by musicians. There is a reason that many of us still use a Mac Pro tower which was the model that had everything pci-e, hard disk places, large memory, Apple went from tower to a computer that is not directed to all musicians, Helmet expensive therefore, one can say that not a huge amount of musicians are waiting for a Mac pro for $ 8000 ...

IMac, Mac mini is a consumer market like PCs but do not have the same user group as PC, so whoa are they next Apple customers for Mac Pro, or their entire product line.
Do not think Apple can be unique, PC is so much better for the past years and so many musicians go this route because it is cheaper and works just as well and are easier to replace parts that are old or broken.
I personally love the OS X and thats the main reason I use Apple- and the tower still is the best computer I ever had.

Known composers buy one V.H and then use pc as slaves there is a reason for that...


----------



## jononotbono

charlieclouser said:


> I don't think Apple will abandon the high-end (and high-priced) Mac Pro line, ever. It's certainly central to their image to be perceived as the platform of choice for the "content creators", and the engineering and tooling is done and paid for on the Mac Pro, so very little dollars need be spent going forward to keep it at the top of the heap. Incremental tweaks to the guts and back panel ports won't involve big dollar re-tooling now that they've got the form factor worked out. Mac Mini is more of a mid-range / "appliance" solution as opposed to a serious content creation platform.
> 
> About thirty years ago, when I was the point man for Sam Ash becoming the first pro music store to become an authorized Apple dealer, I underwent training at Apple HQ in Secaucus. Even back then, before the days of Mac clones, in the dark years of the John Sculley era, they straight out told us that Mac OS and application software only existed to drive sales of the very profitable hardware. They even told us that their ideal business model would be for ALL of the software to be given away for free, as long as they could insure that it would only run on Apple hardware. This was not some industry secret protected by NDA's - they told us street-level retailers that this was how they thought, and to fully expect that Mac apps and OS pricing would start trending downward toward a zero-cost endgame. We can see this idea at work today, when a $200 copy of Mac-exclusive Logic DAW is clearly a strong factor driving sales of Mac hardware.
> 
> The Mac clone years were a sidetrack from this theory, which is why I was not surprised to see that phase end swiftly. Hackintosh is obviously not in line with this thinking either, which is why I won't go down that road - I'm always expecting that each new version of MacOS will firmly slam the door on non-Apple hardware.
> 
> In my travels in Hollywood I see full penetration of the Mac Pro into the high-end (and even mid-level) users. Every composer I know who isn't a Window guy has one or more. Every editing suite I go into for spotting sessions has one. Price is not really that big a consideration for these users - the need for power, speed, and access to the latest peripherals and technology (like Thunderbolt and 4k monitors) seems to be sufficient to drive lots of dollars in Apple's direction.
> 
> They've done a great job of packaging pro-level power and connectivity into a product that looks, feels, and works as simply as their lower-level "consumer grade" products like the Mac Mini or laptops. Opening up a silver tower, swapping drives and PCIe cards, and needing to press down REALLY hard to snap in those RAM sticks onto the motherboard always felt like things that a video editor would need to call the "computer guy" to do - like those were tasks for the IT department and not the end user. Of course, we weren't scared of that, we all loved doing that stuff. I still have an anti-static mat and wrist strap just in case! It made us feel like we were "in the know", like we were somehow more hard-core than those miserable civilians who were afraid to swap RAM sticks.
> 
> But the "consumer-ification" evident in the Mac Pro cylinder's design is proof that sometimes Apple knows what I want better than I do myself. Hard-core users like me who wanted a rack-mount Mac Pro with twenty drive bays and thirty PCIe slots are like Henry Ford's customers who just wanted a faster horse. Apple gave us a fast car that only needs the driver to sit down and turn the key, without knowing how to re-jet a carburetor or bleed the brakes.
> 
> Turns out I like driving better than spending an afternoon under the hood. Who knew? Apparently Apple did.



I want a new unannounced, unreleased but will be released Mac Pro more than ever now.


----------



## URL

jononotbono said:


> I want a new unannounced, unreleased but will be released Mac Pro more than ever now.


Mac Pro for consumers or semi-professionals...or whatever... still Apple's silence goes on your nerves just hope that my tower continues to run.


----------



## samphony

I have similar experiences like Charlie. Even universities here in Berlin exchanged a lot of the cheese craters with the cylinder Mac Pros. The studios I know who are not windows based use Mac Pro and or iMacs. 

If Apple releases a new Mac Pro I'll get a second one. If they don't I'll get a second one anyway. I wouldn't go back to the tower Mac.


----------



## NYC Composer

I don't have the needs that Charlie does, but I'm amazed at what I can get out of a 2008 silver tower with 3 terabytes of SSD and 24 gig of RAM, coupled with my "new" purchase of a 2012 Mini with 16 gig of RAM AND two terabytes of SSD, connected beautifully with VEP.

Still, I'd love to see the Pro line push forward. Eventually, I'll open up my creaky wallet and buy a shiny semi-new Apple toy (my last 4 purchases were refurbs.) I've been an addict since the Mac Plus.


----------



## synthpunk

I believe it is also the only Apple computer assembled in the U.S. (Texas) ? Just like the predicted end of Logic Pro, I believe the Mac Pro will continue in some form.

URL, Apple have more important things to worry about like there stock price and iphone sales 



muziksculp said:


> How likely is it that Apple will scrap the Mac Pro line all together ? i.e. there won't be any new/next generation Mac Pro this year, or any year in the future.
> 
> I hope this doesn't happen, but I'm afraid they could do it, given that the Mac Pro is not a primary product line, that generates lots of $$$ for them.


----------



## mc_deli

charlieclouser said:


> I would not be a bit surprised to see a refreshed Mac Pro cylinder with faster / upgraded processor, bigger boot drive sizes, and TB3 and / or USB-C possibly augmenting or replacing the existing TB2 and USB3 ports. Much like the silver towers had various port configurations during their lifespan (FW400 > FW800, etc.) this would only change the internals and the rear panel but not the form factor. If new Macbook Pros come out with USB-C and a reduction of the crazy number and variety of ports, that would be a good indicator that such a change for the cylinder is likely. If USB-C really is all they say it is, it would be very Apple-like to just centralize on one port type for everything. I'm sure people will wail and rend their garments at that announcement, and then six months later wonder how they ever lived without it. Imagine a Macbook Pro with two or four USB-C ports and NOTHING else on the sides, or a cylinder with six or more USB-C ports, CAT5, and HDMI and nothing else. Could happen.


I hear you.
Just to throw in: the current top of the line rMBP doesn't even have two proper USB3 ports. One (one the left) is proper USB3 (superspeed). The other (on the right) is only hispeed (crippled).
Can Apple even fit two "real" USB-C connectors in a rMBP... ?
And don't the current rMBP's "2 Thunderbolt 2" ports share the same bus... so they are not really 2x2 but 1x2?

...my point is... they might put USB-C everywhere but will they obfuscate the bus architecture like they have done with the current portable range - might they also not play with a straight bat about the MP too?


----------



## OleJoergensen

I would be interesting to mail this thread to Apple


----------



## Soundhound

The jumping the gun question at this point for moi (I want the good stuff and I run tons of instruments and effects etc but I'm a cheap bastard) becomes: when the new New Mac Pro comes out this fall, will a 2013/14/15 NMpro do the job for orchestral/TV/Film/Game music production?


----------



## jononotbono

Soundhound said:


> The jumping the gun question at this point for moi (I want the good stuff and I run tons of instruments and effects etc but I'm a cheap bastard) becomes: when the new New Mac Pro comes out this fall, will a 2013/14/15 NMpro do the job for orchestral/TV/Film/Game music production?



It is now. So yes.


----------



## Soundhound

Thanks Jono. The cheap bastard part of me rejoices. Addendum to last question - at what point will the OCD part of me feel like I should have gotten the new 2016 NMpro? Two years? Three? Four? Ten?


----------



## fastlanephil

If Apple releases a 7,1 Mac Pro this year it will use Broadwell so CPU speed wise there probably won't be a big gain compared to the 6,1 Mac Pro and TB3 dosen't seem to have any great advantage over TB2 for storage purposes. 

The main benefactors for a 7,1 Mac Pro this fall are the graphics users as GPUs are much more powerful now than what Apple offered with the Mac Pro 6.1 and for laptops TB3 eGPU possibilities. That's why a mid 2017 or so release using SkyLake/Purley would be better for audio users.


----------



## NYC Composer

Phil, are your lanes SATA 3? PCI-e?


----------



## fastlanephil

NYC Composer said:


> Phil, are your lanes SATA 3? PCI-e?



I’m no computer tech but aren’t computer lanes PCIe based? SATA is an interface.


----------



## NYC Composer

Classic point and yes, correctamundo. I shall scourge myself for the error and eschew incorrect humor going forward.


----------



## chimuelo

Interesting reports on Zen 8 Core CPUs from FAB 8.
Coincides with Apple delays on Mac Pro and Mac Book Pro.

My guess is AMD has the least expensive faster chip according to tests.
Intel might make serious concessions to keep thier CPUs in Apple land.
AMD would allow MacPros to keep pricing the same, make more money and deliver faster performance.

I'm rooting for AMD.
A MacBook Pro with a Polaris CPU is much better for 4k than the Iris Pro/Crystal Well.

Apple stock really wants the all time high to return as it's 25 points down.
Performance and profit are pretty hard to pass up.


----------



## lpuser

Soundhound said:


> at what point will the OCD part of me feel like I should have gotten the new 2016 NMpro? Two years? Three? Four? Ten?



I am still using a 2010 MP and for the most part, I don´t feel that I would really need a faster one. So chances are high you can get a lot of work done with the 6,1 for the next 3+ years in my opinion. But depending on the stuff you use, it could also only take hours until you wished you had that extra bit of power from the next generation. Always remember you can bring down every system (no matter which one) if you use a lot of the most CPU hungry plugins available.


----------



## Soundhound

Very good to hear. I do tend to get lost in the sauce and grab whatever sounds good, next thing I know there's steam coming out of the cpu's ears. I'm getting better about that though. Purge Kontakt instruments as a matter of course now... I still have a reasonable amount of headroom most of the time, but I'm really looking forward to having 64 or 96 gigs of ram and way more CPU than I need. I'm on a 2012 3.4ghz iMac w/32 gigs of ram, using a 2010 iMac with VEP5 when I run out of either ram or cpu. I'm thinking the 2013 8 core (once the new ones come out) could do the trick...


----------



## Gerd Kaeding

Soundhound said:


> Very good to hear. I do tend to get lost in the sauce and grab whatever sounds good, next thing I know there's steam coming out of the cpu's ears. I'm getting better about that though. Purge Kontakt instruments as a matter of course now... I still have a reasonable amount of headroom most of the time, but I'm really looking forward to having 64 or 96 gigs of ram and way more CPU than I need. I'm on a 2012 3.4ghz iMac w/32 gigs of ram, using a 2010 iMac with VEP5 when I run out of either ram or cpu. I'm thinking the 2013 8 core (once the new ones come out) could do the trick...


Hey Soundhound , concerning the RAM : if you are also updating from an older OS X ( _i.e. OS Yosemite or Mavericks_ ) I wouldn't necessary bet on a "significant" improvement when having more RAM installed , because the biggest issue is the current OS X itself when it comes to loading sample libraries , no matter which Sample Engine you use ( Kontakt, VSL , PLAY , ... ). I've updated my setup with a MacPro2013 earlier this year , so please read thru this not so old entry of mine on LogicProHelp ( http://www.logicprohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=120527 ). By the way , the 2013 6Core is the best "bang for the buck" . If you have the money for the 8Core , I'd rather would buy a 6Core plus an UAD Octo Satellite for Reverb/EQ (lexicon,etc. ).
Best,
Gerd


----------



## passsacaglia

If your machine comes with El Capitan it's impossible what I know to "downgrade" right? 
I haven't upgraded to Capitan here on my MBAir and haven't planning on it but will need a better workhorse soon (iMac 27"). Can this be configured/asked for in the Apple ordering page I guess no ...?


----------



## Gerd Kaeding

passsacaglia said:


> If your machine comes with El Capitan it's impossible what I know to "downgrade" right?
> I haven't upgraded to Capitan here on my MBAir and haven't planning on it but will need a better workhorse soon (iMac 27"). Can this be configured/asked for in the Apple ordering page I guess no ...?


Hello passsacaglia , "no" , unfortunately Apple blocks the possibility to install former OS versions on a new computer. Depending on your needs, it might be an option to buy a Windows Slave-PC for samples plus a refurbished iMac with an i5 Processor instead of the i7 .
Best
Gerd


----------



## lpuser

passsacaglia said:


> I haven't upgraded to Capitan here on my MBAir and haven't planning on it but will need a better workhorse soon (iMac 27"). Can this be configured/asked for in the Apple ordering page I guess no ...?



From what I think it "could" work if you still have an older OS installer available. The biggest issue is that the App Store does not make earlier installers available, so you are usually stuck with what you have. However, in case you still have saved your Yosemite installer, I would definitely give it a try. The only issue could be that newer components (such as USB-C) might cause problems. But maybe worth a try?


----------



## Gerd Kaeding

lpuser said:


> From what I think it "could" work if you still have an older OS installer available. ...


 Hi , I had the Combo-Installers for both Mavericks and Yosemite , but unfortunately I couldn't install those OS versions on my MacPro2013 , which already came with a later OS version installed.
Best,
Gerd


----------



## passsacaglia

Alright thanks guys! Will just hope for the best when I buy the iMac.
Just to sum it up about the Cap upgrade, are the flaws linked to Large templates? Must be some people with "good" or relatively good/OK experiences with Logic and El Cap. Atm I won't have more than 20-30 tracks and only light Waves plugins and the stock plugins. Will try learn using Aux sends for reverbs etc..
Hows it going for you guys? Hope Sierra later will fix Logic issues...


----------



## lpuser

Gerd Kaeding said:


> Hi , I had the Combo-Installers for both Mavericks and Yosemite , but unfortunately I couldn't install those OS versions on my MacPro2013 , which already came with a later OS version installed.



Hi Gerd, thanks for the reply. Just so that I understand it right: Do you mean "Combo installer" or the first available complete OS installation (aka .0 version)? The terminology is different, because a combo installer would simply update an .0 OS to a .5 OS for instance (see: http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/29918/os-x-why-is-there-not-a-combo-installer-for-every-release/).

Maybe you meant the complete .0 version, but I just want to be sure if we are talking about the same thing, because when I purchased my Macbook Pro a few years ago, I could actually downgrade it. However, maybe Apple has changed this in the meantime.

Thanks & all the best
Tom


----------



## Gerd Kaeding

lpuser said:


> Hi Gerd, thanks for the reply. Just so that I understand it right: Do you mean "Combo installer" or the first available complete OS installation (aka .0 version)? The terminology is different, because a combo installer would simply update an .0 OS to a .5 OS for instance (see: http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/29918/os-x-why-is-there-not-a-combo-installer-for-every-release/).
> 
> Maybe you meant the complete .0 version, but I just want to be sure if we are talking about the same thing, because when I purchased my Macbook Pro a few years ago, I could actually downgrade it. However, maybe Apple has changed this in the meantime.
> 
> Thanks & all the best
> Tom




Hey Tom , sorry for the confusion , I didn't use the right term. 
I was referring to such an installer that contains the _original_ ".0" version which you then can update to ".xx" followed sub-versions. 
I assume Apple changed something with those Hardware that shipped with OS Mavericks and above , concerning OS downgrade. 
( However , it seems that you can downgrade if you use Timemachine on an older Mac with older OS version , which you then update to a current OS version , but afterwards want to go back to the older OS version :
http://osxdaily.com/2015/10/09/howto-downgrade-os-x-el-capitan-mac/)


I'm on MacOS since version 7 , but I have to admit that I can't remember how this was handled with older OS versions and Hardware, because usually I never was up-to-date with my OS versions, until now , since having the MacPro2013 , and therefore had to update all my older MacPro's to use everything with the current version of VEPRO , which has to be the same on all systems.

Best,
Gerd


----------



## lpuser

Gerd Kaeding said:


> Hey Tom , sorry for the confusion , I didn't use the right term.



No problem at all Gerd and thank you very much for your explanation and follow-up. It is very unfortunate that Apple actively prevents this, because from my collegues I have heard very mixed reports about El Cap.

All the best & take care
Tom


----------



## whinecellar

passsacaglia said:


> ...Just to sum it up about the Cap upgrade, are the flaws linked to Large templates? Must be some people with "good" or relatively good/OK experiences with Logic and El Cap...



Oh my word, El Cap and Logic 10.2.3/4 are the best combo I've seen in quite some time - it's finally starting to feel like Logic again. I'm not sure we'll ever get back to the lightning-fast feel of Logic 9, but it's finally really good. El Cap fixed a ton of stuff all the way around - not just related to Logic. And FWIW, I run a massive 1000+ track Logic/VEP template across 5 machines (4 Macs and 1 PC slave). It rocks.


----------



## Soundhound

Thanks for that Gerd. I guess my post was unclear! I didn't mean that RAM increases performance, just the ability to load more instruments etc. The two things that always could use more more more are CPU power and RAM. 



Gerd Kaeding said:


> Hey Soundhound , concerning the RAM : if you are also updating from an older OS X ( _i.e. OS Yosemite or Mavericks_ ) I wouldn't necessary bet on a "significant" improvement when having more RAM installed , because the biggest issue is the current OS X itself when it comes to loading sample libraries , no matter which Sample Engine you use ( Kontakt, VSL , PLAY , ... ). I've updated my setup with a MacPro2013 earlier this year , so please read thru this not so old entry of mine on LogicProHelp ( http://www.logicprohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=120527 ). By the way , the 2013 6Core is the best "bang for the buck" . If you have the money for the 8Core , I'd rather would buy a 6Core plus an UAD Octo Satellite for Reverb/EQ (lexicon,etc. ).
> Best,
> Gerd


----------



## URL

Oh my good a new Iphone, maybe Mac Pro sees the light of day in the near future .... on a Broadwell E
I just discovered that my early 2009 MBP 17" is not a Sierra compatible... Hard days for a Apple Geek.
Pc/win here I come...


----------



## Musicam

Mac pro alive? I need a a new version. Apple please, we trust in you, trust in the musicians and artist.


----------



## synthpunk

2016-17 I will need a adapter to use my Grado cans on a new iphone.


----------



## URL

alive or not, it seems that people needs phones for 1000 dollar but no computers... Hopefully Apple have "paid" there taxes in EU so there is possibility for a new Mac (pro) to arrive in EU I don't think I can wait any longer for a update on "Broadwell" E in a Mac, I need a new computer , my old mac is so slow its "lagging" me crazy.
Maybe a Iphone have 128 Gb memory so what a H..ll- I go for a iphone instead as daw


----------



## munician

Not to derail this thread but I upgraded my trusty early 2009 8-core to a 2x3,33Ghz 12-core. It now is supposedly almost as fast as a trashcan (I'm talking about computers here...).
I have no way of comparing but my machine rocks now.


----------



## URL

munician said:


> Not to derail this thread but I upgraded my trusty early 2009 8-core to a 2x3,33Ghz 12-core. It now is supposedly almost as fast as a trashcan (I'm talking about computers here...).
> I have no way of comparing but my machine rocks now.


Yes if I could I should, thats a really good option - but to far away from the stores that have all the components.


----------



## Kaufmanmoon

Well my 2009 Imac's Graphics card has decided to break on me and speaking to an independent Apple repair guy he says it's not really worth trying to replace.
Luckily I have a 2015 macbook that will see me through and I'm wondering if I should try and make this my main system for a while before I decide what to do.


----------



## colony nofi

I have read this thread with a lot of interest.

I do have the need for small, portable, silent power the vader helmet gives me. I would LOVE a PC that had similar specs for same size, weight, and noise - just to use D-Fader with nuendo. I'm stuck waiting for that one - as I'm fairly sure thats at least 12 months away.

Is the vader all I need? No - I frequently max it out - but there are enough ways around it which are not too difficult at all - which makes it a workable workstation for me. (I used to have 4x4core mac mini slaves - but I no longer use them. I much prefer working on one powerful computer - even using VEP - and some of the different techniques for turning tracks on/off in nuendo etc.

Cheers!


----------



## colony nofi

As for a new vader helmet? I'm not 100% convinced it will be the same form factor, but I'm fairly sure. I personally think a refresh - either spring 2016 or autumn 2017 - will bring in processor change, 10xUSB C connectors (a number if not all with thunderbolt3 enabled) and new graphics card options. 
I have heard rumours (embarrassing slip-ups) from people in the industry about a new gen of hardware. So something is definitely afoot.


----------



## URL

do not really understand why Apple is so slow to release new Mac Pro or other models. Apple and PC uses basically the same components and the PC world, where you can build new computers every week ... strange.


----------



## nas

Kaufmanmoon said:


> Well my 2009 Imac's Graphics card has decided to break on me and speaking to an independent Apple repair guy he says it's not really worth trying to replace.
> Luckily I have a 2015 macbook that will see me through and I'm wondering if I should try and make this my main system for a while before I decide what to do.



This exact same thing just happened to me on my 2009 iMac a few days ago !

I'm actually going to replace the card and hold off on a new machine for a few more months as I'm in the middle of a project and can't afford the time for the whole migration and setup needed. 

Luckily I have everything backed up but it's not the best timing.


----------



## synthpunk

more detailz from Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brookec...ng-in-october-this-month-report/#6500a6ab525e


----------



## toddkedwards

Musicam said:


> Mac pro alive? I need a a new version. Apple please, we trust in you, trust in the musicians and artist.


It's sad to say, but us musicians/artists/pro are not Apple's main base anymore. They make the most money with phones, not computers anymore. I've been waiting myself to see what they will do with the Mac Pro. I'm on a 2010 Quad core machine.


----------



## mac

@synthpunk Still no word on new mac pros


----------



## Musicam

Apple always surprise!


----------



## synthpunk

It's still October 



mac said:


> @synthpunk Still no word on new mac pros


----------



## kurtvanzo

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/...elease-date-price-specs-new-features-3536364/

Why are the brits always reading my mind? (spitfire!)


----------



## muziksculp

Musicam said:


> Apple always surprise!



Sometimes it's a very bad surprise. (hopefully not as far as the new Mac Pro's are concerned), but I wouldn't be too surprised if it happens.


----------



## URL

Intel has on Xeon not progressed as far as in those other processors so...March 2017 seems to be fully logical for the new Mac Pro to arrive, unfortunately, we have to wait a while but waiting for something good always awaits ....but there a MBP between so...


----------



## passsacaglia

synthpunk said:


> more detailz from Forbes
> http://www.forbes.com/sites/brookec...ng-in-october-this-month-report/#6500a6ab525e


Woh!!! Still waiting on the cpu news bout the i7 chip for the high end hehe... 4.5GHz *fingers crossed*


----------



## synthpunk

Apple event is now October 27th. Stores should have any new releases by Nov. 1


----------



## jaddne

Confirmed!
http://www.apple.com/apple-events/october-2016/

How about a MacBookPro w/ 64gb RAM, 2 standard M.2 PCIe SSD slots ? One can only dream...


----------



## Fab

^

and it comes preloaded with albion 1-5 plus optional ssd with orchestral tools and a DAW optimized boot mode designed by RC, with specially coded sound drivers....yep.


----------



## jmvideo

Hate to burst any bubbles, but all the rumor articles I've read only mention updates for laptops and iMacs... no mention of the lonely 'ol Mac Pro.


----------



## muziksculp

Is Apple still waiting for some new Processor/s for the Next Gen. Mac Pro ? or ... ?

I wonder what's holding them back to move these machines forward ?


----------



## Christof

I think as long as they maintain their pro apps such as Final cut X and Logic X there would be no reason to discontinue a pro machine.


----------



## URL

Mac Pro rumors says that Intel Xeon is late and therefore we have to wait for Mac Pro until mars 2017...
We know for sure the 27/10 if the rumors is true or not...


----------



## khollister

I suspect we are waiting on Skylake Xeon along with native TB3, USB-C and NVME SSD support, which will put us into next year. I doubt Apple would consider an incremental Broadwell Xeon CPU update without updating the I/O busses as well and I seem to recall some discussion about no native USB-C/TB3 capability with Broadwell.


----------



## muziksculp

Well, I hope this is not the case, but ... Come 2017, we will be waiting for 2018, and the waiting cycle will repeat ... ... ... ... ... ... Really tired of waiting


----------



## synthpunk

Thats why I never wait for vaporware.



muziksculp said:


> Well, I hope this is not the case, but ... Come 2017, we will be waiting for 2018, and the waiting cycle will repeat ... ... ... ... ... ... Really tired of waiting


----------



## mc_deli

http://www.macrumors.com/2016/10/22/kuo-october-2016-mac-predictions/
Looks like no new MP machines... but until 27th we won't know for sure. Happens to be my birthday


----------



## jacobthestupendous

mc_deli said:


> Looks like no new MP machines


Well _someone_ thinks there will be some new machines.
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/new-product/apple/mac-pro-2016-uk-release-date-new-mac-pro-rumours-3648084/


----------



## mc_deli

jacobthestupendous said:


> Well _someone_ thinks there will be some new machines.
> http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/new-product/apple/mac-pro-2016-uk-release-date-new-mac-pro-rumours-3648084/



Wafer thin clickbait
(As is the Macrumours as well of course )


----------



## mac

I'm sat here hoping for a monster new mac pro to be released with 1tb of ram and 24 processors, then I remember I have no money. Why does my brain like screwing with me?


----------



## mac

If anyone's interested...http://thenextweb.com/apple/2016/10/25/apple-just-leaked-new-macbook-pro-including-oled-touch-panel/


----------



## 5Lives

If no Mac Pro updates again, thinking it may finally be time to bite the PC slave bullet.


----------



## colony nofi

5Lives said:


> If no Mac Pro updates again, thinking it may finally be time to bite the PC slave bullet.



Next mac pro updates are far more likely to come with intel's next xeon release - the E5v5 series (also known as Skylake) - though there is some talk of them using E3 series chips this time round (all just rumours....)

Most commentators think that an update right now is very unlikely given apple would have to engineer a stop-gap solution in order to transition to tb3 on a computer using current gen xeons. Most people are convinced apple will not update the mac pro without transitioning to TB3.

Its all quite complicated. Workstation class computers have very different requirements to standard desktop "family" computers, and the lead time on the tech is generally slower. This is also true for things like HP's "Z" line (often used on the PC side for high end graphics / DAWS / NLEs etc). Choices for chips are not always as straight forward as they seem.

If apple were going to do an incremental update without updating TB, they probably would have done it on the last intel processor update (known as Broadwell - E5v4)

The nMP's currently run E5v2 (Ivy-Bridge) based Xeons. Since then, there have been Haswell EP E5v3 (Late 2014 from memory - but a chipset / architechture change, so not just a "drop in" replacement - and probably a little too soon in the product cycle for apple to consider doing a full refresh), and then earlier this year (march) the Broadwell refresh (also known as E5V4 - so 2 gens since the original series 2 mac pro). 

It certainly seems that apple has chosen not to go with Broadwell (perhaps because of the lack of native tb3 support, and the fairly fast architecture transition from v4 to v5 (Skylake) that intel has undertaken - with its native tb3 support thru alpine ridge.


----------



## Christof

mac said:


> If anyone's interested...http://thenextweb.com/apple/2016/10/25/apple-just-leaked-new-macbook-pro-including-oled-touch-panel/


This article is about MacBook Pro , the thread is about the Mac Pro


----------



## colony nofi

As a quick followup - it seems that the E3v5 chips may well be available in decent numbers already (as of oct 20) - but this series is restricted to lower core counts, and doesn't at first glance feel like a true mac Pro replacement CPU. Unless apple are doing something tricky.... 
The E5v5 chips look like coming Q1 2017. So those predicting a March 2017 refresh for nMP may well be onto something.


----------



## jacobthestupendous

In case anyone wants to watch the new Mac Pro probably not get announced:
http://www.apple.com/apple-events/october-2016/


----------



## passsacaglia

1hour 40 mins !


----------



## Carbs

jacobthestupendous said:


> In case anyone wants to watch the new Mac Pro probably not get announced:
> http://www.apple.com/apple-events/october-2016/



Lol! Hey, there may be hope yet because I finally broke down and bought a late 2013 trash can awhile back...and if history is any indication the next best thing comes RIGHT after I make a big purchase .


----------



## Soundhound

Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.


----------



## passsacaglia

iPhone 7, camera and Apple TV so far now they talk about Movies


----------



## Zhao Shen

Watching the keynote right now, gotta say the MBP is pretty funny. So far the touch bar seems like an awesome concept that is utterly useless. Like predictive typing suggestions??? No one who types with two hands is going to ever use that


----------



## passsacaglia

Live from my bedroom studio haha!
Looks great tho! Lookin forward to the iMac update. That must be phaaZing!

Oh yeah btw 4 USB-C outputs.

no RAM info yet or I missed it!


----------



## passsacaglia

New MacBookPro's


----------



## NYC Composer

Seems like 32 gig would have been right out front if it was so


----------



## passsacaglia

Alright so, only new MacBookPro's. No iMac, no "MacPro Pro" aka MacPro's this time guys. 
Thunderbolt 3, refreshed specs and a better GPU.


----------



## Zhao Shen

R.I.P. dreams of a new Mac Pro announced today. On the bright side, the 15" MBP seems to have good specs this time around. On the not-so-bright side, Apple's innovation is uh... becoming very gimmicky. All the significant improvements this time around were in the spec upgrades.


----------



## Drech

The Mac Pro 'Buy Now' button on the Apple site takes you to a page that says they have something in store for us and to check back soon. Has that been there a while or is it new?


----------



## Soundhound

Yup, 16 gigs is it, no 32gig macbook pro. Doesn't look like much, if any processor bump as well. Ah well, one less thing I have (want/need) to buy.


----------



## jacobthestupendous

Zhao Shen said:


> All the significant improvements this time around were in the spec upgrades.


I'd be cool with a Mac Pro spec upgrade...


----------



## jacobthestupendous

Drech said:


> The Mac Pro 'Buy Now' button on the Apple site takes you to a page that says they have something in store for us and to check back soon. Has that been there a while or is it new?


Apple does this to their whole online store during announcements.


----------



## 5Lives

Lackluster update - and the touch bar is useless for those that run the MBP with the lid closed and hooked to external monitors. Too bad they didn't release a standalone wireless keyboard with the touch bar. No reason for me to upgrade my mid-2014 MBP.


----------



## dtonthept

Ordered mine.... Significant jump from my 2009 machine, can't see any reason beyond sheer bling to jump from the last version though!


----------



## Zhao Shen

jacobthestupendous said:


> I'd be cool with a Mac Pro spec upgrade...


Yeah, but at the price that they're being offered at... I'll have to pass.


----------



## 5Lives

It's also stupidly overpriced...$4299 for a maxed out 15". My mid-2014 maxed out was like $2700.


----------



## mac

Try looking at our UK prices, vomit inducing.


----------



## gsilbers

those windows machine are starting look pretty good


----------



## passsacaglia

From macrumors forum:

Not surprised there were no iMac announcements since Ming-Chi Kuo has a pretty solid track record and he said 2017.

So looks like Apple is waiting for Kaby Lake and the higher-spec AMD GPUs (470/480) before they refresh the iMac. Kaby Lake Xeon should be ready by then, as well, so they could do a Mac Pro update.


----------



## Daniel James

So another year and we got.....less USB ports and a tiny touchpad for the laptop? really? Not even a RAM upgrade?

Nope Apple. It appears in reality they dont particularly care about professional users anymore. Microsoft on the other hand trying new things with the surface aimed at pros. I have never been more tempted to swap sides.

-DJ


----------



## Zhao Shen

gsilbers said:


> those windows machine are starting look pretty good



They are. I'm surprised Windows 10 hasn't been more widely praised. Been using a MBA for university/productivity and a Windows laptop for composing/gaming, and the only thing I would miss if I went full Windows would be the Apple trackpad - it's just so fluid.


----------



## Zhao Shen

Daniel James said:


> So another year and we got.....less USB ports and a tiny touchpad for the laptop?


But... but... you can _rotate photos_ with it!!!


----------



## Symfoniq

Daniel James said:


> So another year and we got.....less USB ports and a tiny touchpad for the laptop? really? Not even a RAM upgrade?
> 
> Nope Apple. It appears in reality they dont particularly care about professional users anymore. Microsoft on the other hand trying new things with the surface aimed at pros. I have never been more tempted to swap sides.
> 
> -DJ



I transitioned my desktop system from Mac to Windows a couple of years ago, and my laptop this year. It has been a good decision, and today's announcements (or lack thereof) don't make me think otherwise.


----------



## URL




----------



## synthpunk

Pictures


----------



## Daniel James

Oh on the usb thing...I forgot to mention. Not only did we lose the USB sockets (which most midi hardware uses and works great over) we also lose our old Thunderbolt ports...great so now my audio interfaces and hard drive bays need ANOTHER adapter.....oh and wait they also removed the HDMI so now I also need ANOTHER adapter for my screen. 

I swear sometimes they think they know better than the rest of the world. That kind of arrogance will bite them in the ass, any gamers remember when Microsoft announced the Xbox one with all these restrictive features they thought they could get away with because they knew better then Sony just wiped the floor with them by allowing the consumer to have all the freedoms they were used to and more than the Xbox was offering. I get the feeling soon we will see Microsoft doing something similar to Apple, calling them out on their 'innovations' which currently serve only to sell more adapters it seems. .

-DJ


----------



## synthpunk

I'm going back to this!


----------



## samphony

Daniel James said:


> So another year and we got.....less USB ports and a tiny touchpad for the laptop? really? Not even a RAM upgrade?
> 
> Nope Apple. It appears in reality they dont particularly care about professional users anymore. Microsoft on the other hand trying new things with the surface aimed at pros. I have never been more tempted to swap sides.
> 
> -DJ



The surface studio will be on my soon to buy list!


----------



## URL

I really miss the old Atari days when a mono chrome display and 1024 mb was todays news.
Were is the market Apple?


----------



## clisma

Less talk. More switching. Just. Do. It.


----------



## Greg

Am I the only one that doesn't care? Logic is working great with VEP, the old mac pro is still solid. Early 2017 will be a nice time to upgrade 

Only issue i've had is some USB bus overloading but thats easily fixed with thunderbolt monitors' usb ports.


----------



## clisma

Now now, Greg. There's no space here for a voice of reason.


----------



## Soundhound

Apple stock down a point since this exhilarating announcement...


----------



## 5Lives

I think MSFT missed a chance with the Surface Studio though - no SSD and no high bandwidth ports (Thunderbolt or USB-C). Not great for sample streaming.


----------



## nas

The new MacBook pro is a nice machine but fully specd. is overpriced IMHO... especially given the persisting 16GB RAM limit which is a _real_ deal-breaker for me.


----------



## Fab

Gotta say though, it does look pretty sexy...even if there is no good reason for me to have it


----------



## dtonthept

Fab you hit the nail on the head. If you need it now it's the best reason to get it. I ordered mine within minutes of the end of the announcement, while it's not ultimately what I may have dreamed about, I have some travelling sessions coming up at the end of the year and my (now six year old) previous machine really isn't cutting it at all for serious work. So buying it on the day of release at least means I'll get the most and best use out of it until something better comes along. The new Surface Books look cool but I just feel a tad nervous about switching platform at a mission critical phase. Could see myself grabbing a lower spec Surface Pro 5 when they come out as a fun sandbox, but for now. . . Back to work !


----------



## synthpunk

Article here going over the new models.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/27/13419182/apple-new-macbook-pro-video-photos-hands-on?yptr=yahoo


----------



## jonnybutter

Zhao Shen said:


> But... but... you can _rotate photos_ with it!!!



Trackpad isn't tiny. Other than that though....unless I need to do heavy work on the road, there's no way I will buy one of these.


----------



## jaddne

Big disappointment w/new MacBookPro RAM still limited to 16gb. Should be at least 32gb.


----------



## galactic orange

jaddne said:


> Big disappointment w/new MacBookPro RAM still limited to 16gb. Should be at least 32gb.



Also disappointed in the RAM option here. My main setup is a Mac Mini 2012 with quad-core i7 (purchased just a week before the gimped 2014 models were announced!) with self-installed 16GB RAM and two 500GB SSDs and this thing flies. It's the best computer I've ever owned. I've also got a 2009 MBP Core 2 Duo I've been carrying around for 7 years. I'm sorely in need of a laptop upgrade, but the prices on these new MBPs are ludicrous.

I can live with the port changes. I think the SSD sizes are too small for the price, but that's dealable. And yes, the OLED strip is cool and will surely offer some great Logic Pro integration in the future, but not to offer 32GB RAM on at least the highest spec system is indeed a huge miss for Apple. Hardly worth plopping down the cash when I expect to use this computer for the next 3-5 years!

The only reason I stick with Apple is because they've made great strides with Logic Pro and I love it, but this is the first time I've considered switching DAWs to escape the combination of higher prices with "could have been better" options for pros. Looking at 2015 MBPs now.

Oh, and "one more thing": As an audio software user, I don't need a high level graphics card. The 2015 MBP base model offered an internal on-chip GPU which is all I would need. Where is that option now? Now I can't buy a new MBP without paying for a graphics card I don't need. It really seems as if last year's model was the best for audio heads. I really wish I would have picked one up instead of waiting another year for zero increase in RAM possibility.


----------



## colony nofi

Will wait for a tech tear-down before commenting further - but it is possible they've gone for underlying architecture that doesn't allow for more than 16GB ram. This leaves the door open for 32GB once they transition to Kaby Lake. Unfortunately, I wouldn't think they'll do this until q4 2017. The chips won't be ready until q1 2017, and it will require a full architecture re-model. They'll suck this model dry for as long as possible.
Note - even microsoft didn't release a kabylake laptop this week. Those that are around are the much lower spec'd versions (as they are the only CPU's that are available.) 
Now, of course, there is architecture around that allows 32GB on laptops, but it appears apple have not gone down that route this time round. Not surprised - as 32GB users are in a vast minority (<1%) and apple can charge more for 16GB when its the "top" spec. Gotta love marketing hey.

I'm really not enamoured by this particular laptop. Its a pity - as I'd love to be able to travel with just a MBP for work. Instead, I carry a nMP (128GB ram!!!) and a screen. Not ideal - but still extremely powerful. 
I am currently going down the windows path for the first time in ages - more because one of the spacialisation tools I use can only be controlled from windows... but it is opening me up to going down that route for all my machines.

Hm.....


----------



## 5Lives

For the folks that use Logic like myself, I feel keeping your current machine and getting a PC slave might be a better option. Get all the benefits of OS X and all the power of a custom-built PC. Even getting a used Mac Pro seems like a bad option comparatively.


----------



## galactic orange

5Lives said:


> For the folks that use Logic like myself, I feel keeping your current machine and getting a PC slave might be a better option. Get all the benefits of OS X and all the power of a custom-built PC. Even getting a used Mac Pro seems like a bad option comparatively.



That's definitely something I'm considering now. But my laptop is so long in the tooth that I've got to upgrade to something newer. That being said, I don't think going all out for the new ones for the long term is the best choice so I'll probably go for a used one instead. The questions are "which model?" and "how long before that stock gets bought up?"


----------



## khollister

Yeah, I watched the keynote today and I'm kinda disappointed & frustrated with Apple right now. I didn't expect the Mac Pro to be updated today, but not even mentioning any of the desktop line and not using Logic to demo the laptop left a bad taste in my mouth. I went from considering buying a used nMP last week to try and retire my PC slave to now thinking about life after Apple - I downloaded trials of Cubase and Studio One to see if I could leave Logic. 

I am updating some of the SSD's in my slave and decided to put Windows 10 on it. While there is still a lot of little things that I find annoying, I actually like a lot of the look and feel far better than previous versions. All of a sudden building a 8 or 10 core monster machine with Cubase seems acceptable and a lot cheaper than the alternative.


----------



## 5Lives

galactic orange said:


> That's definitely something I'm considering now. But my laptop is so long in the tooth that I've got to upgrade to something newer. That being said, I don't think going all out for the new ones for the long term is the best choice so I'll probably go for a used one instead. The questions are "which model?" and "how long before that stock gets bought up?"



Look into the Skull Canyon NUC. For less than $1000, you can get Thunderbolt 3, 32GB of RAM, 2.6GHz i7, 256GB M.2 hard drive all in a very, very small package. Seems like it would make a killer slave machine. That with a Surface Studio as the main front end could be an absolutely beautiful setup.


----------



## mc_deli

Level 4 rant approaching...

TCO Total Cost of Ownership
Adapter, adapter, adapter, adapter, USB hub, year 5 battery replacement at service center... you can put 25% on top of the selling price for this basic stuff that you don't need if you have an older MBP or PC.

TB3
Great for Apple. Bad for consumers. Of course. They can justify the poor connectivity options because the thing is slimmer. That is the main sales pitch. "We made it smaller". The previous rMBP was already small enough. For daily road use they need to be in a case and in a bag already. These things are not portable as they. If you are carrying around 2k of rMBP (or 3k with adapters and drives, which I do)is essential then a hard case and bag are essential. A couple of millimetres makes no difference.

The new model is all about cross sales, up sales (less top end config options), planned obsolescence (again, they glued the battery and the RAM - how is that legal?) and demonstrates that this company is way way too powerful and does not put the user (or planet) anything like first. 

And they pay "no" tax. It is an amazing scam. This (non user serviceable parts, locked digital ecosystems, tax avoidance) is what the EU should be legislating for IMHO


----------



## Shad0wLandsUK

mac said:


> Try looking at our UK prices, vomit inducing.


I absolutely agree :/ £4,049


----------



## Shad0wLandsUK

mc_deli said:


> Level 4 rant approaching...
> 
> TCO Total Cost of Ownership
> Adapter, adapter, adapter, adapter, USB hub, year 5 battery replacement at service center... you can put 25% on top of the selling price for this basic stuff that you don't need if you have an older MBP or PC.
> 
> TB3
> Great for Apple. Bad for consumers. Of course. They can justify the poor connectivity options because the thing is slimmer. That is the main sales pitch. "We made it smaller". The previous rMBP was already small enough. For daily road use they need to be in a case and in a bag already. These things are not portable as they. If you are carrying around 2k of rMBP (or 3k with adapters and drives, which I do)is essential then a hard case and bag are essential. A couple of millimetres makes no difference.
> 
> The new model is all about cross sales, up sales (less top end config options), planned obsolescence (again, they glued the battery and the RAM - how is that legal?) and demonstrates that this company is way way too powerful and does not put the user (or planet) anything like first.
> 
> And they pay "no" tax. It is an amazing scam. This (non user serviceable parts, locked digital ecosystems, tax avoidance) is what the EU should be legislating for IMHO


I wish I could disagree :/


----------



## passsacaglia

Think I will get an iMac as soon as possible to skip the next upcoming one.
People here seem to be very happy with theirz and I do not plan having a 300+ template...not now but I think I will be fine for my work, I'm very minimalistic and always go for the Less is more for everything I do, learned that of doing my music on a MacBook Air i7 8GB (1,7-3.3GHz). And I will not huzzle with TB3 adapters etc.
And people seem to have like...0 latency problems with their soundcards (another story) So...I think I will go for that. Or I will just buy one of those cheap Ali hubs but well, maybe not 3.1 speed hehe...:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item-img...USB-C-to-USB-3-0-Bus-Powered/32377374322.html


----------



## Killiard

So much dongling of the dongles...


----------



## willbedford

Killiard said:


> So much dongling of the dongles...


Apple are becoming a parody of themselves :D

So if I want to use my Firewire soundcard, I'll need a FW to Thunderbold adapter and a Thunderbolt to USB-C adapter.


----------



## Killiard

If some magical force blew up all my macs simultaneously, (after I'd stopped crying) I'd find it hard to go out and buy a new one. I really think now I'd have to go for a PC :-(

Here's some fun filled price changes from the UK Apple store that someone posted on the twitters today...

Mac Mini starts £479 (was £399)
Mac Pro £2999 (£2499)
iMac 4K £1449 (£1199)
iMac 5K from £1749 (£1449)

The three year old Mac Pro has jumped up £500!!! WTF??!


----------



## OleJoergensen

The Mac prices in Denmark has not changed.....


----------



## URL

With all the adapters you can use the MBP as an alternative Christmas tree on the adapters had different colors ....horrible.


----------



## Daryl

OleJoergensen said:


> The Mac prices in Denmark has not changed.....


Yes, but your currency hasn't tanked over the last few months. :>(


----------



## OleJoergensen

Daryl said:


> Yes, but your currency hasn't tanked over the last few months. :>(


Im not sure what that means? The British Pound has lost value?


----------



## FriFlo

Apple has become more expensive in Germany, as well, which has to do with the Euro having become weaker against the US$. Also, They put VAT on top of that. I am not sure how that works in the US? Are there no taxes on sales at all? Or are those taxes only applied according to each states tax rates, like I have heard about that in California? Anyway, the Mac pro is WAY to expensive right now! I cannot imagine anybody buying it at this point in time, who is either desperate or doesn't care for money at all or probably even both ...


----------



## michal

That Touch Bar will be soooo useful, totally worth the money! Especially when your laptop is placed on a laptop stand next to your external monitor and you're using an external keyboard, like I do...


----------



## michal

OleJoergensen said:


> Im not sure what that means? The British Pound has lost value?


Brexit...


----------



## PeterKorcek

When they showcased the new MBP with that touchbar, and showed how you can just "tap" emoticons while doing messages... I was like, really, this is the big news? and that it's several mm thinner


----------



## Baron Greuner

The GBP has lost value against a basket of currencies on a relative basis.

All my Gibson and Fender guitars have goner up in value. On a relative basis.


----------



## nas

I actually think that the touchbar will be really cool for tools and functions in LPX... and when they started showing how it could be used in _Final Cut_ and _Photoshop_ I was getting psyched to see examples in Logic. Then the idiots decided to demo it with _DJ Pro._

They have one of the best DAWs in the market for composers and they go with DJ software??... hell, I would have even settled for_ Garage Band_!


----------



## jacobthestupendous

nas said:


> They have one of the best DAWs in the market for composers and they go with DJ software??... hell, I would have even settled for_ Garage Band_!


They already updated Garage Band to include TouchBar support.


----------



## 5Lives

Remains to be seen how useful the touch bar concept is in real use. I'm skeptical it is better than shortcuts and because it is touch, you have two screens to look at essentially vs. just keeping your fingers on the keyboard and touch typing without looking down. Seems like it might be slower to use if anything. Plus, totally useless for those that use the MBP in clamshell mode.


----------



## jacobthestupendous

Killiard said:


> The three year old Mac Pro has jumped up £500!!! WTF??!


Actually, in 2013 the GBP was worth between $1.50 and $1.60. Based on how much it's lost value since then ($1.22 currently), you are still getting a better deal on it at £2,999 than you should be if they were really adjusting to match the foreign exchange rates.



OleJoergensen said:


> The British Pound has lost value?


Yes. This was why economists said Brexit was a "bad" idea.


----------



## Soundhound

The more Apple focuses on toys instead of tools, the more I'm thinking about a powerful PC slave. I like the idea of having everything in one box (12 core nMP), but it's so more expensive a way to go.

In lieu of building a PC slave, anybody have recommendations for good PCs, brands/models etc, to just buy for that purpose? 64 gigs RAM, fast processors etc?


----------



## nas

5Lives said:


> Remains to be seen how useful the touch bar concept is in real use. I'm skeptical it is better than shortcuts and because it is touch, you have two screens to look at essentially vs. just keeping your fingers on the keyboard and touch typing without looking down. Seems like it might be slower to use if anything. Plus, totally useless for those that use the MBP in clamshell mode.



If you check out the Slate Digital RAVEN touch console there's a similar touch bar screen with shortcuts and batch commands that seems to speedup workflow. I imagine that this bar could be similar:


----------



## 5Lives

Yes but with the Raven, you only look at one screen. No context-switching. Sort of like a Surface Studio


----------



## Prockamanisc

Soundhound said:


> I'm thinking about a powerful PC slave. I like the idea of having everything in one box (12 core nMP), but it's so more expensive a way to go


You can build a monster slave for cheap. Mine would be around $3000 if I bought it today (the components were more expensive when I bought them), and it has 6 cores overclocked to 4.0Hz, running Windows 7 on an M.2, 96GB RAM, and around 10 SSDs that total around 5TB. I've never had a problem with it and it's absolutely awesome and insanely fast. I think in June they'll be coming out with the new processors, so you can build something even better then.


----------



## Soundhound

Thanks for that info. If I could ask, how much did it cost to build yours? 

I'm quite interested in buying one as opposed to building (I know my limitations, which are vast) so that's why I'm hoping to find some recommendations for off the shelf solutions. Dell? HP? etc...


----------



## Prockamanisc

Soundhound said:


> off the shelf solutions


If you're going to buy off the shelf, might as well buy a Mac. There's really no comparison in specs- just build it yourself. It's easy, the only thing you're missing is that you haven't done it before. Once you do it for the first time you'll realize how easy it is. My first PC build took 2 days, my second PC build was completed while my girlfriend was in the shower (no joke). It's basically like Legos. Mine cost $3300, but some of the components were purchased 2 years ago, so now it would be under $3000.


----------



## URL

WHAT! stays in the shower for a whole day... no dirt there


----------



## Zhao Shen

Killiard said:


> So much dongling of the dongles...



You even need a dongle to connect your new iPhone to the new MacBook...

On the bright side, Apple is leading the world in innovation by including the new, industry-standard 3.5mm headphone jack in their laptops. This is what cutting-edge technology looks like, people!


----------



## Mornats

If you're looking for an off-the-shelf PC for audio and you're in the UK then Scan offer a range of pro-audio 3XS systems: https://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/custom/daw-digital-audio-workstation-pcs/form-factors#anc

You can configure any of the base specs if you like and I'm sure they'd accommodate any additional customisations above and beyond what you see on the site too.


----------



## khollister

At least here in the US, buying a pre-built from a music computer outfit (ADK, VisionDAW, etc) will cost you at least $1000 more than the cost of similar parts if you DIY.


----------



## 5Lives

DIY PC builds are the way to go. Plug and play these days basically. I'm seriously considering jumping ship now. Price to performance ratio and upgradability is way better. Just have to give up Logic but not too concerned about that.


----------



## LamaRose

Prockamanisc said:


> There's really no comparison in specs- just build it yourself. It's easy, the only thing you're missing is that you haven't done it before. Once you do it for the first time you'll realize how easy it is.




Haven't built a PC in a long time, but the actual build was quite easy. The hardest part was determining what components to get. And the last one I built was still running strong after 5-years with zero crashes. With that said, I've been using Macs for quite awhile now... but these price increases... WTF?


----------



## Soundhound

Understood about the DIY aspect. I'm just looking into the off the shelf options first. Scan looks great, but I'm in the U.S. I've seen Vision Daw etc. Was thinking that an off the rack option like a dell etc would do the job for a slave? Wrong in assuming that?



Mornats said:


> If you're looking for an off-the-shelf PC for audio and you're in the UK then Scan offer a range of pro-audio 3XS systems: https://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/custom/daw-digital-audio-workstation-pcs/form-factors#anc
> 
> You can configure any of the base specs if you like and I'm sure they'd accommodate any additional customisations above and beyond what you see on the site too.


----------



## Baron Greuner

I just put in the specs for my iMac here at Apple UK.

Exactly the same machine would cost roughly £450 more.

Black Magic Dock is up by about £100.

Apollo Twin Duo is up by about £175.

SansDisk pro extreme X 4 are up about £200.


----------



## samphony

Soundhound said:


> The more Apple focuses on toys instead of tools, the more I'm thinking about a powerful PC slave. I like the idea of having everything in one box (12 core nMP), but it's so more expensive a way to go.
> 
> In lieu of building a PC slave, anybody have recommendations for good PCs, brands/models etc, to just buy for that purpose? 64 gigs RAM, fast processors etc?


You can buy a used quad core and upgrade to a 12core. 
12 core will cost you 750$.


----------



## 5Lives

Thoughts on getting a used 2015 iMac maxed out (4.0 GHz i7, 64 GB RAM, 4GB video card) vs. a used trash can 6 core? Both being about the same price.


----------



## Soundhound

Thanks, sounds like a plan. A PC i7 on ebay perhaps, and then get a 12 Core PC processor upgrade? 




samphony said:


> You can buy a used quad core and upgrade to a 12core.
> 12 core will cost you 750$.


----------



## Gerd Kaeding

5Lives said:


> Thoughts on getting a used 2015 iMac maxed out (4.0 GHz i7, 64 GB RAM, 4GB video card) vs. a used trash can 6 core? Both being about the same price.


Hi ,
without knowing what you are actually doing with your DAW ( which DAW ? ; Mixing tasks or sequencing ( rather sample libraries , or rather softsynths ? ; external tools like UAD stuff involved , or not ? etc. , ....) :

I have both a MacPro 2013 6 Core (64GB) and an iMac 2015 (4GHz i7 ; 32GB RAM ) and one differences is , that since both machine can get very hot , you will _never_ hear the MacPro , while the iMac sometimes can get quite loud ( ... "loud" , that's quite a subjective term for sure... ) . Concerning only the CPU , in a direct comparison the MacPro 6Core is definitely a small portion stronger . Again : without making "any" noise . However , if you get the iMac including the 64GB RAM , but have to buy that amount of RAM extra for the MacPro I would rather consider the iMac and use the extra money for investing in external storage.

Good luck,
Gerd


P.S.:

I have to add that I don't use the iMac for music production. However I have installed the same music software on it ( backup ; tests , etc. ) like on the MacPros.


----------



## passsacaglia

Gerd Kaeding said:


> Hi ,
> without knowing what you are actually doing with your DAW ( which DAW ? ; Mixing tasks or sequencing ( rather sample libraries , or rather softsynths ? ; external tools like UAD stuff involved , or not ? etc. , ....) :
> 
> I have both a MacPro 2013 6 Core (64GB) and an iMac 2015 (4GHz i7 ; 32GB RAM ) and one differences is , that since both machine can get very hot , you will _never_ hear the MacPro , while the iMac sometimes can get quite loud ( ... "loud" , that's quite a subjective term for sure... ) . Concerning only the CPU , in a direct comparison the MacPro 6Core is definitely a small portion stronger . Again : without making "any" noise . However , if you get the iMac including the 64GB RAM , but have to buy that amount of RAM extra for the MacPro I would rather consider the iMac and use the extra money for investing in external storage.
> 
> Good luck,
> Gerd
> 
> 
> P.S.:
> 
> I have to add that I don't use the iMac for music production. However I have installed the same music software on it ( backup ; tests , etc. ) like on the MacPros.



Gerd, when will the mac get loud...at what level of work?


----------



## synthpunk

May want to read a newspaper occasionally. 



michal said:


> Brexit...


----------



## Gerd Kaeding

passsacaglia said:


> Gerd, when will the mac get loud...at what level of work?


Unfortunately , the devil is in the detail , so I can't give you a satisfying answer .
Depends on which PlugIns you are using , if you work with a slave for sample libraries or not , ... .

With an iMac I would keep sample libraries on a slave machine , and use the iMac for MIDI sequencing and Mixing only. That way it won't get hot . So , whatever you have now ( MacBook , older iMac ) : keep it , get VSL's VEPRO6 and use it as your slave for softsynth slave / sample library slave.


----------



## Greg

passsacaglia said:


> Gerd, when will the mac get loud...at what level of work?



I have never heard mine make a noise..  It gets hot with adobe after effects but, really silent.


----------



## Baron Greuner

If I was going to buy a new Mac today for music production in the UK, I wouldn't buy one. I would get a refurbished Mac. Much better value now.


----------



## jononotbono

Baron Greuner said:


> If I was going to buy a new Mac today for music production in the UK, I wouldn't buy one. I would get a refurbished Mac. Much better value now.



I bought my first Mac this year doing exactly this.


----------



## Baron Greuner

I would never pay £2800 plus for a fully packed iMac (not including the RAM btw) in today's market just for music production. Call me a twat, but I did see this coming a while back (beginning of the year) and thought I may as well get new equipment right now with warranties etc rather than wait and find myself going.. fk that, I'm not paying that for that. A £450 hike on the iMacs isn't going to find many buyers in the UK that's for sure.

Apple makes it's money on the imbeciles that change their iPhones every 10 minutes.


----------



## 5Lives

Ended up grabbing a used maxed out 2015 5k iMac to replace my MBP. The previous owner had upgraded to 64GB of RAM and it is still under warranty (so I can grab AppleCare). Pretty happy with this - gorgeous screen.


----------



## Baron Greuner

£470 more on an iMac with exactly the same specifications as one I bought in January??? That's ridiculous.

I would strongly advise anyone not to buy any new Apple computer in the UK today. That's total madness on their part. They have apparently stated that they are losing money on their higher end computers. Tough shit on that one Apple. 
Let's watch what more bollocks they come up with on the propaganda front soon.


----------



## mac

Baron Greuner said:


> £470 more on an iMac with exactly the same specifications as one I bought in January??? That's ridiculous.
> 
> I would strongly advise anyone not to buy any new Apple computer in the UK today. That's total madness on their part. They have apparently stated that they are losing money on their higher end computers. Tough shit on that one Apple.
> Let's watch what more bollocks they come up with on the propaganda front soon.



Realistically, what are my other options though? I've thought long and hard the last few days about leaving Apple completely. I've been researching windows, pc builds, cubase (I've been logic for over 10 years), android phones, watches etc etc. I'm so far embedded in Apple OS's, from my home security, fitness, daw, and work, that switching would be a huge pain. Monumentally huge. I also need to update my 2012 machine as its just not cutting it anymore. As much as I hate it, I'm going to have to bend over and pay them, again.


----------



## mac

Ironically, I write this after I've just had to purchase a £30 thunderbolt cable (20% increase from last week) because the integrated one in the £900 display I bought from them doesn't work properly. I've never been more anti Apple than I am right now.


----------



## khollister

mac said:


> Realistically, what are my other options though? I've thought long and hard the last few days about leaving Apple completely. I've been researching windows, pc builds, cubase (I've been logic for over 10 years), android phones, watches etc etc. I'm so far embedded in Apple OS's, from my home security, fitness, daw, and work, that switching would be a huge pain. Monumentally huge. I also need to update my 2012 machine as its just not cutting it anymore. As much as I hate it, I'm going to have to bend over and pay them, again.



I'm sort of in a similar quandary, however I have compartmentalized my music rig(s) from the rest of my computer life. I too am heavenly invested in the Apple eco-system with iPhones, iPads, iCloud and Macs. I can't imagine dumping all of that in the near term. I am currently using a 2014 rMBP for everything non-music, including my extensive photography work (LR & PS). While I would like 32GB, I'm doing OK with 16 and I use a TB dock to get everything else hooked up at home. It's nice to be able to take the same machine on the road and not have to synchronize anything other than images. While the prices have crept up on the new MBP just announced, that wouldn't keep me from getting one if I needed it - I paid the same (in the US) for the off the shelf loaded version 2 years ago and the only difference is it came with a 512GB SSD instead of 256.

Where I'm really pissed (US context, not drunk) is the desktop stuff and the message that was sent (likely unknowingly on Apple's part) about the commitment to LPX in this latest event. Due to economics (nMP vs DIY i7-E or Xeon v4), clutter (storage and UAD DSP ITB vs cluttering up my limited desk space), control over technology insertion and performance, I'm seriously considering a move to Windows 10/Cubase over the next year.

Pros:

I will be able to build a Skylake E 8 or 10 core (or equiv Xeon) machine for far less than a new or even refurb 7.1 nMP - if it even materializes. It does seem unlikely that Apple will just abandon the MP after the redesign and investment in setting up the US factory though.
Performance in that I will be able to incorporate enough NVME PCIe SSD storage to hold the libraries with the biggest footprints. With the nMP, I would be constrained to TB which doesn't seem to perform nearly as well due to the TB bridge controllers in the peripherals.
I get expression maps in Cubase and the ability to not have a bazillion instances of everything
I can buy a larger UAD card today to use in my 5.1 6 core MP and move it over to a PC replacement without another damn TB box. It also means I can pick up a used Quad rather than having to go all the way to an Octo due to the nMP compatibility issues in addressing the older cards.
The only affordable way I could ever hope to consolidate down to a single box.
Cons:

I have to learn Cubase
Is Cubase on Windows as stable as LPX has become?
While Windows 10 is not bad from a UI/visual perspective, I greatly prefer OS X
Lose the ability to use the more powerful desktop for the photography work without having to maintain 2 different environments and synchronize LR libraries.
Leaving the comfort zone


----------



## khollister

Of course, the alternative is to get a top spec iMac, stay with LPX and the PC slave/VEP. The only concerns there are price (somewhat rationalized in I get a fantastic display) and fan noise when I have everything going and the cores loaded up in Logic.


----------



## jacobthestupendous

Can anyone quantify how loud their iMacs get? My 13" rMBP sounds like a little jet engine firing up when the fan gets going; it's wicked obnoxious when it's on my lap, but I never notice it when I'm working on music. 

Can anyone quantify how hot their iMacs get? Is it hot enough to notice or hot enough to damage system components? Under what kinds of loads?


----------



## mac

jacobthestupendous said:


> Can anyone quantify how loud their iMacs get? My 13" rMBP sounds like a little jet engine firing up when the fan gets going; it's wicked obnoxious when it's on my lap, but I never notice it when I'm working on music.
> 
> Can anyone quantify how hot their iMacs get? Is it hot enough to notice or hot enough to damage system components? Under what kinds of loads?



I haven't used an imac in a few years, but my thunderbolt displays certainly warm my face up.


----------



## pixel

mac said:


> Realistically, what are my other options though? I've thought long and hard the last few days about leaving Apple completely. I've been researching windows, pc builds, cubase (I've been logic for over 10 years), android phones, watches etc etc. I'm so far embedded in Apple OS's, from my home security, fitness, daw, and work, that switching would be a huge pain. Monumentally huge. I also need to update my 2012 machine as its just not cutting it anymore. As much as I hate it, I'm going to have to bend over and pay them, again.



You know that it sounds like slavery?


----------



## Baron Greuner

My 2016 iMac is as silent as the grave. The BMD housing 4 SSDs is just as quiet.

What I would at least look at, is someone like MacRefresh. Even if it costs, I wouldn't give any money to Apple.


----------



## mac

pixel said:


> You know that it sounds like slavery?



Yep.


----------



## 5Lives

To clarify, Apple didn't raise prices across the board (for example, prices dropped in NZ I believe and stayed flat in the US - there is a price drop coming for 2015 Macs on November 7th). In terms of raising prices in the UK, based on how the GBP is performing, that should be no surprise (great time for Americans to buy Spitfire libraries though).

Here was my thinking in getting the late 2015 5k iMac used for $3000:
- It is running a 4.0GHz Skylake. That's the fastest Skylake available (even better than the 2016 MBP).
- Was upgraded to 64GB of RAM. MBP doesn't even do 32. This is basically a $650 upgrade.
- Has 2 Thunderbolt ports, so unlike the Surface Studio, I get some high bandwidth connectivity.
- In single core tests, it is way better than the nMP, and in multi-core tests, it holds its own (performs better than the 6-core nMP).
- 5K screen is gorgeous
- TBD when a Kabylake iMac refresh will come out - but I guarantee it'll be way more expensive than the used 2015 iMac. Same goes for a nMP.
- Was eligible for AppleCare.
- Once I sell my monitor and 2014 MBP at market prices, I'll only be about $600-800 out off pocket for this "upgrade". Happy to do that every 2 years.

So far, so good - very cool and very quiet.


----------



## khollister

Baron Greuner said:


> My 2016 iMac is as silent as the grave. The BMD housing 4 SSDs is just as quiet.


 Even with all four cores going strong? I thought I read a couple comments on MacRumors about the fan going full speed when running Handbrake


----------



## passsacaglia

I'm also thinking of jumping on the 5lives route with an iMac 5k 2015 but perhaps start with 32GB


----------



## Baron Greuner

khollister said:


> Even with all four cores going strong? I thought I read a couple comments on MacRumors about the fan going full speed when running Handbrake



No noise at all.


----------



## khollister

Baron Greuner said:


> No noise at all.


That's good - still need to decide on whether to bail on Logic and/or try to get back to single machine


----------



## josefsnabb

So there is still a limit of 16GB ram on the new Macbook Pro? Seriously, in a 2016 Laptop for Media Professionals from Apple? Then my "old" MacBook Pro from 2011 upgraded with 16GB ram and 500Gb SSD still seems to be quite "up to date" and valid? Would be the stronger CPU and Thunderbolt 3 but it is still not worth it.


----------



## khollister

A couple more questions for the current model iMac users here ...

Is the BMMultidock sturdy enough to support the weight of the 27" iMac sitting on top of it?
Are you using an external display? I'm a little concerned about the single TB controller supporting an array of 2-3 SSD's, an external display and a UAD TB satellite without throttling the performance


----------



## synthpunk

The BMM is fairly solid, but my advice would be to still rack mount it and put your monitor on top of the rack.

You could always go with a UAD USB3 satellite (Edit: N/A), BMM and ext display works fine on systems I have seen.



khollister said:


> A couple more questions for the current model iMac users here ...
> 
> Is the BMMultidock sturdy enough to support the weight of the 27" iMac sitting on top of it?
> Are you using an external display? I'm a little concerned about the single TB controller supporting an array of 2-3 SSD's, an external display and a UAD TB satellite without throttling the performance


----------



## khollister

synthpunk said:


> You could always go with a UAD USB3 satellite, BMM and ext display works fine on systems I have seen.



Apparently not - While the TB Satellite works on Mac & Windows 10, the USB3 version only lists Windows 7/8/10, not the Mac. I'll investigate further, but the web site seems pretty clear.

I was hoping Apple would at least put USB-C/TB3 in the current iMac's - that would solve this problem.


----------



## jononotbono

khollister said:


> I was hoping Apple would at least put USB-C/TB3 in the current iMac's - that would solve this problem.



I can't help but feel Apple will be with their next iMac and Mac Pro models. I don't believe for a second that Apple are going to stop releasing their flagship computers.


----------



## Greg

Flextronics' Mac Pro facility is roughly a mile from Apple's new Austin campus, which is actually an expansion of the company's long-standing operations campus in the city. The campus expansion is major effort that will see Apple investing $300 million to add at least 3,600 workers at the site by 2021.

I have faith :D


----------



## michal

josefsnabb said:


> So there is still a limit of 16GB ram on the new Macbook Pro? Seriously, in a 2016 Laptop for Media Professionals from Apple? Then my "old" MacBook Pro from 2011 upgraded with 16GB ram and 500Gb SSD still seems to be quite "up to date" and valid? Would be the stronger CPU and Thunderbolt 3 but it is still not worth it.


Exactly! The same here, 2011 MBP upgraded to 16gb ram and 1.5TB internal SSD space. The only thing that the new MBP offers to me is a more powerful CPU, however, at the price of way less internal storage and the same amount of ram...


----------



## NoamL

Those of us who use Logic need to start thinking about getting out of the Apple ecosystem in the next 2-3 years.

16gb mbp is going to _devastate_ Logic's market share among students and first-time DAW buyers.


----------



## 5Lives

How many students are buying brand new MBPs anyway? That's a pricey machine!

The 16GB limit should change with Kabylake.


----------



## ctsai89

5Lives said:


> How many students are buying brand new MBPs anyway? That's a pricey machine!
> 
> The 16GB limit should change with Kabylake.



is 16GB the real limit? are we still waiting to see if companies like other world computing will be able to test out to see if the actually limit is going to be 32GB or so?


----------



## URL

It will be interesting to see how sales are for Apple with the new MBP.
The lack of ports and add a bunch of adapters is not a standard that appeals to customers.
It is unfortunately "only" audio users who hope for more than 16Gb of memory ordinary consumers do not have the same needs and therefore there is no room for ports or memory, it's important to keep down the weight and size than anything else.

I think we see a revised MBP spring 2017 with kabylake more after our desires even if Apple does not have audio users as first choice.


----------



## Vik

URL said:


> It will be interesting to see how sales are for Apple with the new MBP.


Well, who knows... there are a lot more wannabees out there than people who actually work with music for a living, and most of them have more cash than most of us.


----------



## Kaufmanmoon

This, is very clever
https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/10/benjamin_button_reviews_the_new_macbook_pro/


----------



## Baron Greuner

khollister said:


> That's good - still need to decide on whether to bail on Logic and/or try to get back to single machine



One of the issues I had when I switched from my old MacPro to the new iMac at the beginning of 2016, was Thunderbolt. Looking into the refurbed Macs at the time, (I think it was company in Ipswich - very good btw) was there seemed to be a lack of TB facility in any of the refurbs at the time.
So the iMac I use today has all of that. It's great and works great with the BMD and the Apollo Twin Duo (2 x TB slots). 32 GBs of Ram etc etc. 
Would I buy the same system today. Yes. Would I buy the same system today with the price hikes. Emphatically no!


----------



## Musicam

Macpro, no imac and mackbook... I need a mac pro updated. I hope that Apple think this question.


----------



## khollister

ctsai89 said:


> is 16GB the real limit? are we still waiting to see if companies like other world computing will be able to test out to see if the actually limit is going to be 32GB or so?


The ram on the laptops is soldered in - no upgrades. It has been that way for a couple years now. The CPU and chipset can support more but Apple decided to not offer it as an option. I read a comment somewhere that they were concerned about battery life.


----------



## ctsai89

khollister said:


> The ram on the laptops is soldered in - no upgrades. It has been that way for a couple years now. The CPU and chipset can support more but Apple decided to not offer it as an option. I read a comment somewhere that they were concerned about battery life.



such a shame lol. all that just for battery life that already lasts like 10 hours? unbelievable. Wish Logic pro x can run on windows one day but im sure apple will do everything they can to prevent that as well since it's "business". bull$hit


----------



## Mihkel Zilmer

Kaufmanmoon said:


> This, is very clever
> https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/10/benjamin_button_reviews_the_new_macbook_pro/



Hahaa, thanks for posting this, hilarious.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

ctsai, you do know that Logic did run on Windows before Apple bought Emagic about 15 years ago, right?

I certainly don't blame them for knocking the Windows version on the head - after all, they bought the company to add value to their computers - but you do have to wonder about the decision to limit their high-end laptops to 16GB. As a friend pointed, out, they could have added an option in the Energy Saver control panel to switch off the additional RAM while you're running on battery.


----------



## ctsai89

Nick Batzdorf said:


> ctsai, you do know that Logic did run on Windows before Apple bought Emagic about 15 years ago, right?
> 
> I certainly don't blame them for knocking the Windows version on the head - after all, they bought the company to add value to their computers - but you do have to wonder about the decision to limit their high-end laptops to 16GB. As a friend pointed, out, they could have added an option in the Energy Saver control panel to switch off the additional RAM while you're running on battery.



yea well 15 years ago sure but now we're in a total new era where steve Jobs isn't even alive anymore. I think macbook pro would've been a lot more different but apple keeps on failing ever since. I had to endure 2 years of bugs on logic pro x!!


----------



## NoamL

taking into account the onward march of specs, it would almost be fair to say that this year's MBP represents what this year's Macbook _Air_ should have been.

Indeed apart from the name, what is supposed to convince me that this is a pro's machine? Sacrificing onboard power to make the case thinner, lighter and have more battery life sounds like the compromise a *notebook* computer makes, not a *laptop* workstation.

I was really looking forward to upgrading from my 16gb maxed MBP but it looks like the MBPs won't have 32gb for a year or more.

If they pull the same gimmicks with the next iteration of MacPro...


----------



## Symfoniq

NoamL said:


> taking into account the onward march of specs, it would almost be fair to say that this year's MBP represents what this year's Macbook _Air_ should have been.
> 
> Indeed apart from the name, what is supposed to convince me that this is a pro's machine? Sacrificing onboard power to make the case thinner, lighter and have more battery life sounds like the compromise a *notebook* computer makes, not a *laptop* workstation.
> 
> If they pull the same gimmicks with the next iteration of MacPro...



I would argue they pulled the same gimmicks with the _current_ iteration of the Mac Pro. Moreover, I think it's unlikely that there will be a next iteration of Mac Pro.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

This is the latest on why 16GB RAM (and also why its Thunderbolt isn't full thunder).

http://appleinsider.com/articles/16...d-thunderbolt-3-ram-issues-in-new-macbook-pro


----------



## Whatisvalis

it's all about the iPhone, iPad and App Store - Apple are fast moving away from traditional/pro computing and I doubt there will be a Mac Pro refresh.


----------



## khollister

It is easy to get sucked into the black hole of "no more Mac Pros" and "Apple doesn't care about the desktop" - I'm struggling at the event horizon of that singularity myself. But to play devil's advocate on the MP in particular ...

Apple apparently spent a lot time and money on the nMP design as well as setting up the Texas fab facility with Flextronics. Apple has never done updates of the Power Macs/Mac Pros with every incremental technology change like PC makers do. And Intel's Xeon roadmap has been rather uninspiring the last few years. I'm not aware of how much slippage there has been in the Skylake E/Xeon schedule, but Apple may have been caught in waiting on a major architecture "tick" and passed on the "tocks" until it was too late. There is no way I would expect Apple to insert Broadwell now when Skylake with native USB-C and TB3 is coming next year.

I find it hard to believe that they would punt after a single generation. Their market research is pretty good - they had to have known what the expected sales were going to be. 

The iMac situation is similar - no point in doing a temporary hack job if Kabylake quad core desktop is coming next year.

I'm not as upset about the lack of actual updated products right now as about Apple's public indifference to the desktop/pro market by not at least teasing something. I also understand the marketing reasons to not do that, especially with the iMac.


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## khollister

Nick Batzdorf said:


> This is the latest on why 16GB RAM (and also why its Thunderbolt isn't full thunder).
> 
> http://appleinsider.com/articles/16...d-thunderbolt-3-ram-issues-in-new-macbook-pro



Makes sense - higher power RAM was sacrificed to the form factor. Probably a good marketing decision for 95% of the buyers.


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## colony nofi

khollister said:


> Makes sense - higher power RAM was sacrificed to the form factor. Probably a good marketing decision for 95% of the buyers.



Yes indeedy. The whole architecture design decision places a load of constraints around the final makeup of the laptop. Using LP-DDR3 means an absolute, no way around it, 16GB maximum. 
To go non-lp would have meant changes in the overall design of the laptop that didn't just increase ram energy usage, but also other parts of the system. Everything has knock on effects.
Now - we can certainly look forward to kaby-lake - which can use LP-DD4, and this completely removes the 16GB restriction. From all the communication from apple about this so far, I would suspect that will happen as soon as they transition to the new architecture.
Interestingly, that could be quite a while. While there are kaby-lake processes out now, there's every chance it could be quite a while before the kaby-lake CPUs which are suitable for the new macbook pro's come to market. Mid 2017 even. 

I've also heard that intel maybe (are?) doing a 4th cycle in the current CPU family (after having previously always been tic-toc). Why? They are coming up against a wall with the processes die shrinks - and 10nm shrink is the second last shrink they have confidence in at the moment. 
So, by having more iterative changes on cpu's between die shrinks, they can eek-out extra performance benefits without relying on the benefits of die shrink. This is going to be absolutely key going forward. There's only so far they can go with die shrink.

Interestingly though, the current skylake macbook pro's really don't have much of a performance benefit - processing wise at least - over the broadwell chips used in the previous gen mac book pro's. Battery life, sure. H265 encoding - ahha. But general computing? negligible on a clock for clock comparison. Certainly one of the smallest jumps seen in this CPU segment between processor updates in a long time. Under the hood, there were quite a few structural changes - which allow all sorts of fun things to be done... but none of these contribute to raw power.

And as composers using loads of samples and synths, we all want RAW POWER


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## colony nofi

ctsai89 said:


> is 16GB the real limit? are we still waiting to see if companies like other world computing will be able to test out to see if the actually limit is going to be 32GB or so?



Yes. It is when using skylake with LP-DDR3 over standard DDR3. There isn't a laptop on the planet right now that does more than 16GB ram with LP-DDR3.


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## 5Lives

Apple won't tease anything (just like Microsoft tends not to or Google etc.). Not their culture and too much of a competitive advantage at stake to do it.

Having thought about it some more, this update was basically all Apple could've done at the moment given Intel's delay. And remains to be seen how the Touch Bar does in practice - they've gone on record saying they has explored touch in various ways and this was the approach that made most sense to them. Also, as exciting as the Surface Studio announcement was to me, after the initial buzz has worn off, I am disappointed that it is a rather underpowered machine. For example, compared to the late 2015 iMac (a year old), it has the same CPU, but less max RAM (32 vs 64) and only USB 3 ports (no Thunderbolt 2 even, let alone USB-C). And early reviews (by Surface users) have noted the general lack of polish.

I think next year will bring bigger, more powerful updates from Apple - hopefully with their usual high level of polish.


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## jcrosby

Symfoniq said:


> I would argue they pulled the same gimmicks with the _current_ iteration of the Mac Pro. Moreover, I think it's unlikely that there will be a next iteration of Mac Pro.



I couldn't agree more... I think they see a much bigger market available phasing out most computers and driving the tablet market... I personally think we're peering into the end of Apple's run as a viable computer company, any remaining models being guaranteed to receive a considerable price hike...


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## Soundhound

Cold shiver with my morning coffee. 



jcrosby said:


> I couldn't agree more... I think they see a much bigger market available phasing out most computers and driving the tablet market... I personally think we're peering into the end of Apple's run as a viable computer company, any remaining models being guaranteed to receive a considerable price hike...


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## Gerd Kaeding

For those who think the MacPro is dead :
Early this year APPLE made a survey among MacPro(2013) users asking for feedback concerning that model, what could be improved , etc. . I think Apple still evaluates if it makes sense to put _more_ money into the MacPro's developement, or leave it the way it is now and just upgrade some components when Intel releases newer/better XEON processors ( ... that fit into the thermal architecture of the MacPro ) . But I don't think that the MacPro will be discontinued soon , because it's a terrific workhorse for FinalCut Pro users , and Apple just released a significant FCPX update (10.3) . Apple might sell just a few MacPro's per year , but currently this model still is a kind of _symbol_ that Apple cares about the "Pro market" .


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## Musicam

Macpro update is coming the next year, I believe-


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## khollister

I'm of mixed feelings about this. While I can rationalize why the iMac & MP weren't updated last month (waiting on Intel), I can't help but feel that Apple believes their sales/reputation across the product lines aren't tied to the "pro market" (high powered desktops) anymore. With their resources/assets, if they believed that Mac Pro's drove sales down the product line, it would seem that they would spend the money to refresh/update them more frequently even if the payback within the MP product line was not there.

It just feels like they are making decisions on the MP based on the direct sales impact of the MP by itself. And the recent decision to collaborate with LG and let them sell the 5K TB monitor under their brand makes me wonder about the iMac as well long term. 

I believe the world is more mobile than ever before and once Intel cooperates and Apple can deliver MBP's with large amounts of RAM and even more powerful processors in svelte packages with all day better life, their desktop product line is toast. The desktop products feel like they have entered "harvest mode" rather than "invest mode".

I've pretty much made the decision in the last couple of days to move towards a Cubase/PC future rather than LPX/Mac based on a combination of features (expression maps and multi-timbral workflow rather than instance explosion) and platform independence. I can accept potential performance efficiency issues with Cubase because I can add horsepower much more inexpensively and on my timetable with DIY PC's rather than waiting/guessing on Apple.

I purchased ARTzID to try and salvage my LPX comfort factor, but after playing with a trial version of Cubase (under OS X on my cMP), I can't give up the workflow of expression maps combined with multi-timbral VEP rack instruments.


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## jcrosby

I certainly wouldn't want to see Apple move away from computers, especially powerful workhorses like desktops. Logic's been my home since version 8 and I'm quite comfortable in it...

Their business model has changed significantly though over the past 4 years and even if they continue to make new machines I think we should all expect to see a big price hike... I can accept the technical reasoning for a lack of significant updates to the hardware, BUT THAT PRICE. FECK!!!

The fact that you have to pre-configure your machine, as you're stuck with soldered in components, only underlines that if you want something with horsepower you're paying a lot up front... $4300 for the space, memory and horsepower most of us require... That was the cost of my 8-core Mac Pro, with a few add ons when I bought it  That's plum crazy man....

When I watch the key note I see lifestyle marketing with one homogenous end user in mind....social media text obsessed young-professional millennials with money to burn... I don't see any indication that powerful computing is on the radar anymore and that price jump tells me something else is at play, they've officially moved into selling you a status symbol with an OS that mirrors all of your other status symbol devices...

Regardless it's a sure bet they're computers are only going to become more expensive. (I still think this is only in the short term. Sadly it's easy to envision a world 10 years from now where they've consolidated their product line to "pro" tablets, phones and watches; eventually pairing that down to watches and palm sized tablets...) It gives me a shiver typing it, but I've been seeing this on the horizon since Yosemite...

I really hope I eat those words. I'm comfortable in Logic and switching platforms comes with growing pains...


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## jcrosby

*Omg this too good not share! F-ing hilarious!!*


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## mc_deli

jcrosby said:


> *Omg this too good not share! F-ing hilarious!!*



GUTTED Just came to share this!!!!
Hilarious!


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## jcrosby

mc_deli said:


> GUTTED Just came to share this!!!!
> Hilarious!


Found it on the UAD forum 
"Get used to it, fanboy! You like the headphone port? It's going away next!"
OMG I peed a little when I watched this lol


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## synergy543

jcrosby said:


> *Omg this too good not share! F-ing hilarious!!*


ROTFLOL! 
That's absolutely hilarious.


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## URL

Hopefully "Mac Pro update 2017" don't adapt Mac Book Pros recent design -I have no room for more ad....
2017 seems very close...to a new Mac pro


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## toddkedwards

Looks like we could see a new Mac Pro and desktops, very soon! http://www.macrumors.com/2016/12/19/apple-tim-cook-desktops-roadmap/


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## khollister

toddkedwards said:


> Looks like we could see a new Mac Pro and desktops, very soon! http://www.macrumors.com/2016/12/19/apple-tim-cook-desktops-roadmap/



Given that Skylake-X (i.e. E5 v5 Xeons and 68xx/69xx replacements) isn't coming until Aug or Sept 2017 from what I've read, I find it really hard to believe Apple would finally do a Broadwell-EP update with TB3/USB-C and then give users the finger 6 months later by passing over Skylake, thus setting up the "Mac Pros are already obsolete" whining. Skylake-X is a whole new socket and chipset, so it's not like Apple can do a design and then drop in new CPU's Q3. 

Kabylake iMacs with TB 3 should be coming Q1, I suspect, however. Who knows what is going on with the Mini.


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## Zhao Shen

khollister said:


> Given that Skylake-X (i.e. E5 v5 Xeons and 68xx/69xx replacements) isn't coming until Aug or Sept 2017 from what I've read, I find it really hard to believe Apple would



I mean, this is the same company that removed USB ports and the SD card slot from their "professional" line of laptops and touted their revolutionary new touch bar which is actually just a near-useless half-measure version of a touchscreen laptop. Who's to say what they will and won't do?


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## fastlanephil

Apples has apparently gotten out of the monitor/display business. If they were going to continue the Mac Pro and Mac Mini wouldn’t Apple have updated the Thunderbolt display instead of just partnering with LG with the less than attractive LG Ultra Fine 5K display? Apple had no trouble developing the break through 27” iMac 5K display. This makes more sense business wise if Apple just wanted to provide a display option for it’s popular Mac Books.


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## Kaufmanmoon

Bumping this thread for the first few pages, went off the rails a bit but interesting to hear the love for the NMP


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## jamwerks

Heard from a guy at Apogee that new hardware is coming...


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## jacobthestupendous

I had an opportunity and I jumped on it, so my new Mac Pro _is_ coming soon. Tomorrow, actually.


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