Logic Pro & Apple

[Nick Batzdorf]

Waiting for another professional machine for 5 years now is unique in Apple's history

As I may have posted a few times the reason is that computers reached a performance plateau about ten years ago, and they're now long-term investments.

How many people just in this thread - me included - are happily using (upgraded) 9-year-old computers?

 

[Dewdman42]

couldn't disagree more. I lived through the dot com implosion, just barely. She should be selling. doesn't have to be all at once, but she should be selling it off and diversifying into other investments. Right now she's almost entirely in her company. I have been where she is, with a company that was showing no end in sight to the up-trend but eventually it crashed about 1000%. And we are also way overdue for a recession. Apple has done some extremely impressive things with their stock valuation, and you're right it has gone up, not only 25%, a lot more than that...but sooner or later it won't

 

[Dewdman42]

As I may have posted a few times the reason is that computers reached a performance plateau about ten years ago, and they're now long-term investments.

How many people just in this thread - me included - are happily using (upgraded) 9-year-old computers?

on this we agree wholeheartedly. They will try to drag us into new gear by inventing new standards of some kind and we'll be forced to upgrade in order to connected with the world in some way.

 

[Wunderhorn]

computers reached a performance plateau about ten years ago

You are quite right about this. Now the question remains - why? I think that most consumers are happy with the status quo because they don't need more and the remaining 0.1% of us who don't want to have to use slaves on a giant template or who don't want to sit and wait 12 hours for a 3D scene to render are financially speaking not worth it putting in the necessary research into faster technology.

That is however incredibly short-sighted. That is because the industry grows and thrives on acceleration. If you have creatives, producing content that is ever more dazzling but requires better machines on the consumer end, consumers will buy.
Look at Virtual Reality. How attractive is it when it all looks blocky and stutterring like an early nineties video game because more details cannot be rendered in realtime? Now, imagine that to be detailed, realistic and in 8K or more like any special effects scene in a movie. Suddenly those VR glasses would be flying off the shelves. And this is just one area.

You know when chasing after quick money has become the focus when the highlight of a keynote turns out to be a set of emojis.

 

[Nick Batzdorf]

Dewdman42, we're talking about different things.

I totally agree with you: not putting all your eggs in one basket is *always* good advice, as I said. No question, it's very risky putting all your money in one company if that's your only investment. Unless you're very young and can start over if you lose everything, it's not a good idea to do that.

All I'm saying is, basically, that stock analysts are all telling people to buy or hold AAPL now, because they're expecting continued earnings.

https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/aapl/recommendations

So I'd say this is not the time to sell your AAPL stock - unless you believe this is a good time to get out of the market in general, because you think a recession is coming soon. I don't. Well, I mean one is always coming, but it's not like last time when the economy was being driven by a housing bubble.

It's also worth mentioning that AAPL did okay during the Great Recession.

We put our "gambling" money in AAPL around 12 years ago, and it's gone up about 11X. Unfortunately that wasn't a whole lot, but I'm not complaining.

 

[AmbientMile]

Ill throw my two cents in here. I was PC for a loooong time (just to show my age here, my first computer was a Timex Sinclair with 1K of memory). When I made the jump to computer based recording, I struggled with software, ASIO drivers, sound cards, etc. After a few years of spending most of my time tinkering with the computer instead of being productive with it, I bought a Mid 2010 MBP and Logic. For me it was instant gratification. I didn't need third party drivers or work arounds of any kind. And I am still using the same setup today with upgrades to the MBP over the years. The downfall is that I have NO idea anymore about current PCs and Macs because I am so satisfied with my current setup. I know that I need a new system soon as 2010 is ancient for a computer these days. To get back to my point, my experience is that the Mac was easier to get on with from the start and has lasted much longer than my experience with PCs. Good luck in your choice!

 

[Dewdman42]

You are quite right about this. Now the question remains - why?

The truth is that they actually CAN'T make computers much faster with the existing paradigm. Its not a matter of motivation. A fundamentally new technology has to be invented, if that's even possible....along with free energy.

They have reached a point where silicon chips and CPU's as we know them are about as fast and small as they are going to get. Now they are trying to get us to buy new stuff by putting faster busses, bigger and faster memory, etc.. but they are running out of stuff that people need there too.

 

[Nick Batzdorf]

Right, although the 28-core chip Intel recently announced is still moving forward.

But as you say, how many of us need that much power? I’m not working with moving holograms, and I have less interest in VR helmets than in sleeping on nails.

 

[Dewdman42]

28 cores wow. but I agree, my MacPro 12 core has all the power I will need for quite some time.

 

[kitekrazy]

Right, although the 28-core chip Intel recently announced is still moving forward.

But as you say, how many of us need that much power? I’m not working with moving holograms, and I have less interest in VR helmets than in sleeping on nails.

Shoddy software development will bring that to it's knees eventually.

 

[Nick Batzdorf]

Shoddy software development will bring that to it's knees eventually.

It's hard to imagine that happening with an instrument or effect plug-in. Hosts are all making good use of multiple cores. But who knows.

28 cores wow. but I agree, my MacPro 12 core has all the power I will need for quite some time.

Here's the link:

<https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/10/08/the-new-mac-pro-might-get-intels-new-28-core-5-ghz-xeon-processor>

But I have to wonder whether the 2-year lead time since they announced the Mac Pro is because they're waiting for the rumored ARM processors. It can't take that long to develop another computer.

 

[dflood]

I bought a mac just for Logic 8 years ago, but I stayed and will stay on mac for much more. Definitely unhappy with the current Mac lineup but not leaving the ecosystem for windows unless apple forces me.

It was 10 years ago for me but exactly the same scenario. In my case, I left Pro Tools and Windows for Logic and a Mac. Since then of course I went down the Apple rabbit hole with iPads and iPhones and Apple TVs. And I haven’t regretted it yet, except for the empty wallet. However, I’m a bit concerned about their ongoing commitment to the Mac and OS X. For me, it’s the key to my continued loyalty to the Apple ecosystem.

 

[Simon Ravn]

As I may have posted a few times the reason is that computers reached a performance plateau about ten years ago, and they're now long-term investments.

How many people just in this thread - me included - are happily using (upgraded) 9-year-old computers?

I am (happily using a 2009/2010 Mac Pro). But what worries me is that this thing won't last forever. CPU's and components getting stressed a lot each day and one day it'll fail. And over time so will all 2009/2010 Mac Pro's and there'll be nothing new from Apple to buy as a replacement.

Which is why I desperately hope they won't fuck up the new Mac Pro release. Not holding my breath though, as they might come up with a too locked down system to be useful, rasonably affordable and upgradeable for what I/we do.

 

[Vik]

How many people just in this thread - me included - are happily using (upgraded) 9-year-old computers?

I replaced my 10 year old (8-core) Mac Pro not long ago with an 8 year old (12-core) Mac Pro. I'll add more RAM and a a new graphics card to the Mac before I consider buying a new Mac. The 12 core with 32 gb RAM cost me 10% of what the current fully spec'd Mac Pro would cost, or 5-6% of what a fully spec'd iMac Pro would cost me.

The 25% sales tax here and the 60-80% increased dollar rate (compared with last time I bought a Mac) makes it hard to legitimate buying a new Mac, especially since *if* I ever do that again, I plan to keep it for another 10 years.

Unless Apple's upcoming modular concept is truly modular (in that you can start with, say, an 8-core and add more cores later), they may actually risk pricing themselves out of the freelancer market music makers usually have been a part of.

But they certainly know how to make money. I wish they would have the same kind of respect for how music makers make money, and for instance start to list composers when listening to music on phones, AppleTV etc. This isn't a fair game.

 

[procreative]

All my Macs in probably the last 10-12 years have been refurbs or end of line and I have been using them since my first Mac Plus in 1988. I used to try to get the latest model, but in the last 10 years I dont think the CPU gains have made as much impact on day to day use as a lot of the software just was not programmed to make best use of them (certainly when it came to dual processors).

Then the Vader Mac just did not appeal, I dont like the non-modularity of it and there comes a point when you have many peripherals with connectors that just wont work without stupid workarounds eg Firewire, USB, PCIE etc.

My Macbook is a 2010 as they stupidly ended the 17" in 2011, cannot bring myself to squint at a 15" as my dayjob involves a lot of photo retouching and the scrolling... I would like 16GB RAM at least but thats a no go in the 2010.

But secondhand Macbooks can be a risky proposition as the screens are often shit and the casing usually dented all over from some cack handed owner.

I know its inevitable that my 2009 Mac Pro beefed up to pretend its a 2010 but with a dual CPU, SATA 3 SSDs and more RAM than was ever intended (128GB) will soon stop working with the latest Logic Pro X version without an OS upgrade that will likely not install on it, but until then...

 

[Nick Batzdorf]

I am (happily using a 2009/2010 Mac Pro). But what worries me is that this thing won't last forever. CPU's and components getting stressed a lot each day and one day it'll fail. And over time so will all 2009/2010 Mac Pro's and there'll be nothing new from Apple to buy as a replacement.

Which is why I desperately hope they won't fuck up the new Mac Pro release. Not holding my breath though, as they might come up with a too locked down system to be useful, rasonably affordable and upgradeable for what I/we do.

The 2009/10 gets a lot hotter than older computers (because of its power), i.e. it does take more stress than older machines. But for example I have a PowerMac 9600 from the '90s in my room that still works perfectly, and I'm pretty sure a IIci buried in my garage somewhere still works!

So I don't worry about the machine failing, for that reason and also because you can just replace boards or the whole processor tray.

But yeah, it's going to become outdated at some point, so I hope they come out with machines that are more appropriate for our uses.

 

[Wolfie2112]

I’ve always wanted to jump ship to Logic Pro. A big driver for that is studios and musicians that i’ve used and collaborated with on my pop material have been Logic users

I was in the same situation in 2013...the only difference is that it was for post production reasons (scoring to pic) as opposed to recording live instruments. I took the plunge and paid $2800 for the top-end MacBook pro at the time; best move ever. Five years later, it's still going strong and has been totally reliable (unlike my PC's for the previous 20+ years). You might pay more up front, but it's money well spent IMO. I still use Cubase for certain projects, but Logic Pro is my primary DAW. And honestly, Logic has crashed like maybe two or three times in the past five years, and it was due to a faulty plugin.

 

[procreative]

Still amazes me to think my Mac Plus had no hard drive, the OS and everything you ran was on a single density floppy disc (128k if I remember right and it had something like 256kb RAM).

Now that also tells me how disciplined the software programmers must have been!

OS software now has way to much crap bloating it in comparison.

 

[Nick Batzdorf]

Still amazes me to think my Mac Plus had no hard drive, the OS and everything you ran was on a single density floppy disc (128k if I remember right and it had something like 256kb RAM).

Now that also tells me how disciplined the software programmers must have been!

OS software now has way to much crap bloating it in comparison.

Well, the machines today are powerful enough to run all that crap, so whether the word "bloated" applies is open to debate.

Having said that, I'm always surprised at how fast the PowerMac 9600 OS 9 Finder is!

But you did still want to turn off the menu clock to save CPU cycles, even at that stage.

***

I bought a hard drive with my Mac Plus. It was a 30MB CMS SCSI one that cost $650.

Also, didn't the Mac Plus have a massive 1MB of memory? Wasn't that the Plus part? I vaguely remember upgrading the memory to 4MB. But I know the original one was 128K.

And that wasn't very long ago by most measures!

 

[procreative]

Also, didn't the Mac Plus have a massive 1MB of memory? Wasn't that the Plus part? I vaguely remember upgrading the memory to 4MB. But I know the original one was 128K.

Yes I think you are right! I got mine secondhand of a guy who had bought it to write his thesis on (always wondered why he bought a Mac for that.

It had a small 8 inch greyscale screen, but seemed like utopia at the time!