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Cheesegrater mac is back!

Extremely impressed by this machine. 1.5TB RAM is amazing. Unfortunately though, that doesn't solve one of our main problems which is having to wait for all those samples to load. I think I'd still rather have a dedicated sample slave that never shuts down.

Hmmm...or maybe buy 2!?

MOH
Disabled instrument tracks in cubase work a treat for this. Aside from the slow saving (which really only effects when you get up over 800+ tracks) its an awesome/powerful way of working. No wait for samples to load aside from those which are being used. On fast drives, this means opening most projects in 30 seconds for me - even very big cues.

Or sure. Buy two ;).
 
I'm still using an iMac from 2011. God help me. AND I just realized that means I can't go to Mojave. Crap.
 
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I'm still using an iMac from 2011. God help me.
Don't worry, me too. Whilst everyone else saves for a MacPro, we'll gaze at our fuzzy, non retina screens (whilst freezing tracks) for the rest of eternity.

Apple have also sidelined my elderly iOS devices come the fall. So, I'm stuck in some sort of weird apple tech purgatory.
 
Fortunately, if I'm able to work as smoothly as I can now on this machine (a minor miracle), a decently spec'd Mini should do fine for me once I get the cash together.
 
Extremely impressed by this machine. 1.5TB RAM is amazing. Unfortunately though, that doesn't solve one of our main problems which is having to wait for all those samples to load. I think I'd still rather have a dedicated sample slave that never shuts down.

Hmmm...or maybe buy 2!?

MOH

Or, you know... just run VEPro on the same machine as your DAW. No chance of Ethernet bottlenecks, and with the Cheese Greater's massive RAM, fast storage, and ability to run at full steam 24/7, you can just leave your template loaded for years at a time.

On those rare occasions when I need to resort to VEPro that's how I use it and then the CPU usage in Logic goes down to one or two flickering bars on the meter.

Or, if you use EXS-24 (as I do) then Logic already has "preserve but not decoupled" operation (and has for nearly 15 years). Samples stay loaded as you switch between Logic projects, but incoming projects DO recall all of their saved front-panel tweaks - so song A can have different ADSR / filter / mod routings than song B does, across hundreds of instances - but save and load times are still usually under 10 seconds. None of the horrific load/save times I see when I use VEPro in "preserve but not decoupled" mode in Cubase or even Logic, since the DAW doesn't have to poll all VEPro instances for their front-panel tweaks and save them back to the project.

Of course, "preserve and decoupled" mode in VEPro does give quicker save times but then you're not allowed to touch the front panel of any VEPro-hosted instruments or you'll run the risk of changing a setting that a different project needs in order to sound right. I guess this method can work for some parts of a big orchestral template, where it's "load, set, and forget", but as soon as you're hosting Omnisphere or any of the Heavyocity or Sample Logic synth-style instruments, it's not practical to be in decoupled mode.

I'll be quite happy to stay on one machine, and with the new Cheese Greater it should be even quicker than ever.
 
Considering how bad Logic's multicore support is, and the fact that this processor likely isn't capable of high boost speeds, is this really going to be ideal for audio unless you're 100% samples with few synths/FX? I'd think one of Intel's 18-core monsters in the 9xxx family would be a lot better with speeds likely ~1.5 to 2ghz higher than this.
 
Considering how bad Logic's multicore support is, and the fact that this processor likely isn't capable of high boost speeds, is this really going to be ideal for audio unless you're 100% samples with few synths/FX? I'd think one of Intel's 18-core monsters in the 9xxx family would be a lot better with speeds likely ~1.5 to 2ghz higher than this.

One of the things they seemed to brag about in that demo was massive number of Logic tracks and the CPU hit.
 
Extremely impressed by this machine. 1.5TB RAM is amazing. Unfortunately though, that doesn't solve one of our main problems which is having to wait for all those samples to load. I think I'd still rather have a dedicated sample slave that never shuts down.

Hmmm...or maybe buy 2!?

MOH
What about fast NVMe drives?
 
Considering how bad Logic's multicore support is, and the fact that this processor likely isn't capable of high boost speeds, is this really going to be ideal for audio unless you're 100% samples with few synths/FX? I'd think one of Intel's 18-core monsters in the 9xxx family would be a lot better with speeds likely ~1.5 to 2ghz higher than this.

Yeah unless Logic addresses that with the new update this is a tiny upgrade in clock speed for us. Single core spikes from intense libraries, synths, or big effect chains when playing with a low buffer have always been the bottleneck. There are enough workarounds with raising the buffer, or freezing tracks to deal with playback of large sessions but this does nothing to help real time recording at low latency. Pretty massive fail for Logic users imo.
 
Yeah unless Logic addresses that with the new update this is a tiny upgrade in clock speed for us. Single core spikes from intense libraries, synths, or big effect chains when playing with a low buffer have always been the bottleneck. There are enough workarounds with raising the buffer, or freezing tracks to deal with playback of large sessions but this does nothing to help real time recording at low latency. Pretty massive fail for Logic users imo.

This is not a Mac issue. It’s a computer issue. It happens on Win PCs too. It’s a hardware-level comm limitation. That is why I love ASIO guard on Cubase. I can have any unarmed track running at stupid-high latencies while playing the armed one at stupid-low latencies.
 
This is not a Mac issue. It’s a computer issue. It happens on Win PCs too. It’s a hardware-level comm limitation. That is why I love ASIO guard on Cubase. I can have any unarmed track running at stupid-high latencies while playing the armed one at stupid-low latencies.

Its definitely a Logic issue to some extent too though. Libraries that cause spikes in Logic run considerably better through VEpro on the same rig.
 
Considering how bad Logic's multicore support is, and the fact that this processor likely isn't capable of high boost speeds, is this really going to be ideal for audio unless you're 100% samples with few synths/FX? I'd think one of Intel's 18-core monsters in the 9xxx family would be a lot better with speeds likely ~1.5 to 2ghz higher than this.

Very much true, Andrew. Very much true.

Perhaps wait and and see before declaring it a 'massive fail'.

Turbo speeds at 4.4 GHz, BUT this is not an all-core turbo, but a single core turbo (IIRC).

This is definitely a fail for CPU hungry virtual instruments and heavy sample libraries (think OT).

One of the things they seemed to brag about in that demo was massive number of Logic tracks and the CPU hit.

But they didn't run a bajillion Kontakt instances with OT libraries in there, were they? Or a decked out Omnisphere multi? Or some really really heavy Alchemy patches?


The highest tiered 28-core Xeon has a base frequency of 2.5 GHz. That is absolutely not gonna cut it for heavy instruments. Sure it can turbo boost to 4.4 but again, not over all cores, and not for extended periods of time for sure.

EDIT: This is a bit weird, they cite 28-core but that's W-3175, which runs at 3.1 base frequency, not 2.5. 2.5 GHz base freq is W-2175. Hmmm.


Might wanna curb everyone's enthusiasm, please. Let me reiterate things one more time: single-core frequency is still the most important factor for audio DAW performance! It's great to have many cores, but it's also more important to have all those cores with as high frequency as possible. All those cores, not one!



https://www.anandtech.com/show/13748/the-intel-xeon-w-3175x-review-28-unlocked-cores-2999-usd/3

Max 3.8 GHz for an all-core turbo on the top-tier $3k Xeon W CPU. These are not the droids audio DAW users are looking for.


ED out. :)
 
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The keynote video is now up. I don’t know, @EvilDragon , but seeing David Earl showing this system with the upcoming (yet to be released) version of Logic seemed more than capable to me.
 
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I guess when it's really out we'll see. But there are clear limitations to single-core frequencies that those Xeons have. It's just (sic) logic. I'm sure that new cheesegrater is going to choke on some heavy instruments (a more complex Reaktor Blocks patch, say, or aforementioned decked out Omni multi or OT libraries in Kontakt...) that a cheaper i9-9900K will be able to swallow like nothing, this is just par for course, because 9900K can run at 5 GHz across all its 8 cores.

Remember: when the main realtime audio thread saturates, even if you have a bunch of cores that are not at all being used, you will get dropouts and crackles. If a plugin/track is relegated to one core and it demands more than that core can process, you will get dropouts and crackles. You cannot split one track's (+ its sends) processing chain across multiple cores.
 
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Looking forward for that one!
All in one place, no slave / master setup and the ability to load a big template with lots of mic positions...
 
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