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Post by thehightenor on Jun 5, 2023 0:35:36 GMT -6
So just thinking out loud.
My current PC workstation is 9 years old by end of this year.
So I’m due an upgrade.
If I went for a Studio M2 Ultra, I’m thinking I’d get at least another 8 years out of a machine of that quality and power.
Question, on a computer of that value would you Mac guys maintain Apple Care through the entire life of the computer?
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Post by mike on Jun 5, 2023 7:31:37 GMT -6
So just thinking out loud. My current PC workstation is 9 years old by end of this year. So I’m due an upgrade. If I went for a Studio M2 Ultra, I’m thinking I’d get at least another 8 years out of a machine of that quality and power. Question, on a computer of that value would you Mac guys maintain Apple Care through the entire life of the computer? From my previous experience my guess is you'd get 8 years easy and probably more. If I could get 10 years out of a 2012 MBP for audio before buying a Mac Studio last year, I would think an Ultra would last you as long to longer myself. And I did choose to buy my Applecare coverage for the machine annually that you can drop any time, but can't restart if you stop I believe. |
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Post by plinker on Jun 5, 2023 7:44:10 GMT -6
So just thinking out loud. My current PC workstation is 9 years old by end of this year. So I’m due an upgrade. If I went for a Studio M2 Ultra, I’m thinking I’d get at least another 8 years out of a machine of that quality and power. Question, on a computer of that value would you Mac guys maintain Apple Care through the entire life of the computer? I definitely wouldn't because, although it would hurt, I can afford to replace it should it fail. Manufacturers know the odds, and they make good money on extended warranties. If you can't afford to replace the Mac, should it fail, then get the extended warranty -- but not for long because the probability of component failure drops SIGNIFICANTLY over the first year. You are really just paying a huge markup on the product after that. |
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Post by sirthought on Jun 5, 2023 13:49:28 GMT -6
I've never paid for Applecare for the lifetime. I think usually three or four years.
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Post by gmichael on Jun 5, 2023 14:28:07 GMT -6
Ah, so why are you buying an i7 for just tracking vocals ? You could buy a used m1 mini. I did, works fine. Ignorance I guess. My wife is completely mac'd out and wants a desktop version. I read the specs for a Apollo Twin TB 1st gen and thought an easy access for tracking would be an intel iMac 32gb ram, nvme ssd and ssd drive would be under a grand all upgraded. BUT...
Basically I have no clue what I'm doing but know what I want to be doing with a Mac. So I've attached myself to this thread to learn what I can from folks who use their macs as I would use any mac I get. The mac mini's M1 are still spendy here and can't be upgraded. The used ones I see are pathetic spec wise and cost bucks!
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kcatthedog
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Post by kcatthedog on Jun 5, 2023 15:07:02 GMT -6
Where’s here, as m1 used mini’s are cheap in usa/canada, a 256- 512 ssd and 16 g ram are more than enough for recording vocals,
I have 256, 16g rsm, m1 mini, do 50 trwck sessions in logic, 3rd party plugd snd 3-5 vi, no problems over tbolt.
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kcatthedog
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Post by kcatthedog on Jun 5, 2023 15:08:54 GMT -6
Remember apple care plus also includes support not just warranty, if you are new to mac, support can be value add.
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Post by thehightenor on Jun 5, 2023 16:16:09 GMT -6
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kcatthedog
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Post by kcatthedog on Jun 5, 2023 16:55:06 GMT -6
The new m series ram is more efficient than previous ram. Do you have many very large sample libraries, use lots of vi, why do you think you need so much external drive space and memory ?
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Post by thehightenor on Jun 5, 2023 17:31:46 GMT -6
The new m series ram is more efficient than previous ram. Do you have many very large sample libraries, use lots of vi, why do you think you need so much external drive space and memory ? I have 5TB of sample libraries in total. So not small but not huge either. So I do need the drive space, but as I don’t use all my libraries at once then I’m thinking I should be ok with 64gb ram. |
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Post by howie on Jun 5, 2023 17:56:17 GMT -6
Remember apple care plus also includes support not just warranty, if you are new to mac, support can be value add. Yeah, the support is exceptional. Even after the 3 year warranty is up one can usually talk to a tech support person - I've called tech support- and have had some quite extensive instruction for my Mac issues.
Does any other computer company do this?
I've just owned Macs.
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Post by gmichael on Jun 5, 2023 18:01:49 GMT -6
AAVIM technology purpose built audio and video PC workstations. Remarkable builds, remarkable service. One of the wisest best serving investments I've ever made. aavimt.com.au/ |
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Post by wiz on Jun 5, 2023 18:56:22 GMT -6
AAVIM technology purpose built audio and video PC workstations. Remarkable builds, remarkable service. One of the wisest best serving investments I've ever made. aavimt.com.au/I used Vin years ago.. well over a decade.. Man, computers are cheap now compared to then.... I am running a m1 Mac 8GB Ram, 512G Internal..... and just loving it. cheers Wiz |
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Post by plinker on Jun 5, 2023 19:37:12 GMT -6
kcatthedog really knows this territory. I followed his advice and bought an M1 mini 2 years ago, and haven't looked back. It's a whole new architecture/world. Trust!
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Post by sirthought on Jun 5, 2023 22:43:54 GMT -6
The new m series ram is more efficient than previous ram. Do you have many very large sample libraries, use lots of vi, why do you think you need so much external drive space and memory ? I have 5TB of sample libraries in total. So not small but not huge either. So I do need the drive space, but as I don’t use all my libraries at once then I’m thinking I should be ok with 64gb ram. It's a new world with the M chips. 64GB RAM will be plenty almost any type of music project. In my opinion, 16GB will suffice for most projects. But if you do other high computational work, like video, you might want more. I think even for software instruments you'll be fine with the stock. It's a seriously loaded machine. |
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Post by gmichael on Jun 5, 2023 23:14:58 GMT -6
AAVIM technology purpose built audio and video PC workstations. Remarkable builds, remarkable service. One of the wisest best serving investments I've ever made. aavimt.com.au/I used Vin years ago.. well over a decade.. Man, computers are cheap now compared to then.... I am running a m1 Mac 8GB Ram, 512G Internal..... and just loving it. cheers Wiz Vin is a really good egg that guy. He's been really ill this past year and I think he is only just getting back to building his super computers. He'll be crawling into one of my machines in the coming weeks for an online health and safety checkup.
I could never do with 8gb of ram. I'm on 64gb and going to 128. Big projects and I need the ram and the headroom. Nothing interrupts my concentration faster than running out of ram or ram that can't take on more load if the cores aren't distributing evenly across. Some plugins and libraries just don't want to play nicely with the other beautiful greedy plugins. I've tried weeding some of those out but others I'm just to reliant on. 512gb for a main drive (C) would suit me fine though.
Again though, my whole interest in Mac is for simple tracking, I'm sure 8gb could handle that just fine.
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Post by gmichael on Jun 5, 2023 23:18:17 GMT -6
The only question being would I go for the 128GB RAM upgrade, maybe 128GB is OTT? .... my current PC workstation is only 32GB and I've never run out. Are Macs more RAM hungry than PC's? I think 128 is a great number. Plugin and audio technology is moving fast towards more and more powerful tools, and the ones that aren't going to be GPU users will undoubtedly want everything you've got. I'd love to be wrong about this though!lol 128 seems very pragmatic to me
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Post by sirthought on Jun 6, 2023 0:34:13 GMT -6
The only question being would I go for the 128GB RAM upgrade, maybe 128GB is OTT? .... my current PC workstation is only 32GB and I've never run out. Are Macs more RAM hungry than PC's? I think 128 is a great number. Plugin and audio technology is moving fast towards more and more powerful tools, and the ones that aren't going to be GPU users will undoubtedly want everything you've got. I'd love to be wrong about this though!lol 128 seems very pragmatic to me
For the record I use 16GB on my MBP M1 Pro and do projects that are usually between 50-100 tracks. No issues with RAM. If I had 50 tracks of MIDI instruments it might, but that's not what I do. There usually are a few Arturia synths. |
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Post by gmichael on Jun 6, 2023 5:13:41 GMT -6
I think 128 is a great number. Plugin and audio technology is moving fast towards more and more powerful tools, and the ones that aren't going to be GPU users will undoubtedly want everything you've got. I'd love to be wrong about this though!lol 128 seems very pragmatic to me
For the record I use 16GB on my MBP M1 Pro and do projects that are usually between 50-100 tracks. No issues with RAM. If I had 50 tracks of MIDI instruments it might, but that's not what I do. There usually are a few Arturia synths. That is remarkable what you can do with so little ram, I'm impressed!
We use a lot of soft synths and some are beasts. My thing is I want more ram than can be tipped over , so if my headroom is 30-35 % of my usage I can just not think about it. I've gotten 10+ yrs out of one of Vin's PC's and it shows no sign of slowing, but I am at a point with it that it needs to be parked and recieve no more updates on anything, which means it has about 7-10 yrs before EOL. It will be a fantastic mix machine for yrs to come I believe
The next machine I get, I want to be prepared to enjoy that same degree of longevity and efficient effective processing. As long as ram is still the kingmaker for a computer, that's where I go deep. If it were only audio I had to contend with, I'm sure I'd look at things much differently. Some of the newer Arturia's are really nice sounding but they are pigs, as most of the better sounding plugs are in my experience.
But I am keen to dip a toe into Mac solely for tracking. I thought modding an Imac might also give me better insight as to how the mac boxes work
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Post by niklas1073 on Jun 6, 2023 8:00:44 GMT -6
I have not read the complete thread, some from beginning and some from end. I have always used macs so I am not the best to comment on any vs. pc issues.
But the M1 has been the biggest jump over the past few decades Ive been using them. I am not doing music as my profession, I do photo and video, thus running into quite heavy renderings and cpu usage at times. I went from mac pro tower and mac book pro intel to mac book pro M1Max, to cover all my needs. I have 32gb ram on mine and theres nothing stopping it. I know the 8Gb will easily run pro tools tracking and mixing. A friend of mine uses it.
Now as you have M2 or if you wait a little M3 you will have even more juice. I usually get approx 7-10 years out of my computers under heavy usage in the field, that might change for the better even due to M processors, remains to be seen. I tend to juice them up as much as my wallet allows when I buy them which has proven to give me a few more years out of them.
Just remember the M does not work really with HDD, you will need to get SSDs. I use HDD for archiving but have a bunch of Samsung T7 disks I work from. This combo is a rocket.
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Post by thehightenor on Jun 6, 2023 12:27:24 GMT -6
The thing with these advances like 13th Gen intel DDD5 and Apple M2 Ultra and super fast Apple RAM.
In the real world if you want to work at 96KHz and 32 buffers and then pull up Toontrack SD3 (full bleed, all mics, max voices)
Spitfire Audio Chambers stings (full sample set) UHE Pro Repro 1 and 5 (high quality mode) Ivory piano (full sample, set max voices)
Omnisphere, Keyscape, Kontakt with CPU Hungry Orange tree sample guitars (for example)
and then some great plugins DMG Equiliburm (long impulse length) etc etc etc.
Even after spending $5000+
The flippin thing just falls over.
So then it's reduce the sample rate, increase the buffers, freeze tracks.
Sooooooo ...... ??
Is a Mac Studio M2 Ultra going to be the one that can achieve the above at 96KHz - 32 buffers super low latency.
I'm sceptical, but if I'm hearing it can achieve this .... well I'm all in.
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Post by niklas1073 on Jun 6, 2023 14:49:47 GMT -6
The thing with these advances like 13th Gen intel DDD5 and Apple M2 Ultra and super fast Apple RAM. In the real world if you want to work at 96KHz and 32 buffers and then pull up Toontrack SD3 (full bleed, all mics, max voices) Spitfire Audio Chambers stings (full sample set) UHE Pro Repro 1 and 5 (high quality mode) Ivory piano (full sample, set max voices) Omnisphere, Keyscape, Kontakt with CPU Hungry Orange tree sample guitars (for example) and then some great plugins DMG Equiliburm (long impulse length) etc etc etc. Even after spending $5000+ The flippin thing just falls over. So then it's reduce the sample rate, increase the buffers, freeze tracks. Sooooooo ...... ?? Is a Mac Studio M2 Ultra going to be the one that can achieve the above at 96KHz - 32 buffers super low latency. I'm sceptical, but if I'm hearing it can achieve this .... well I'm all in. I can honestly not say I would know where the limit for the M processor stands within these realms. The bottlenecks can lie in various places despite having excessive cpu and ram behind it. And I rarely work in 96 either…. But what it in praxis did for me moving from intel to M was the ability to mix a project pretty far and without freezing, bouncing stems or other workarounds still be able to throw in a tracking on 32 buffer near zero latency. This actually impacts the workflow quite a bit. On top of this I use apollo and mainly uad plugins so that supports further the workflow. But despite the plugins you use I believe you can experience a significant difference as it is. Not sure what your example of a layout would require mac-wise. I have not had the time to actually make a test of how much I can load the cpu before it gives up. But I do know I run out of juice from my 10 cores of uad processing before my mac runs out when I compare them 😄. |
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Post by sirthought on Jun 6, 2023 15:13:03 GMT -6
The thing with these advances like 13th Gen intel DDD5 and Apple M2 Ultra and super fast Apple RAM. In the real world if you want to work at 96KHz and 32 buffers and then pull up Toontrack SD3 (full bleed, all mics, max voices) Spitfire Audio Chambers stings (full sample set) UHE Pro Repro 1 and 5 (high quality mode) Ivory piano (full sample, set max voices) Omnisphere, Keyscape, Kontakt with CPU Hungry Orange tree sample guitars (for example) and then some great plugins DMG Equiliburm (long impulse length) etc etc etc. Even after spending $5000+ The flippin thing just falls over. So then it's reduce the sample rate, increase the buffers, freeze tracks. Sooooooo ...... ?? Is a Mac Studio M2 Ultra going to be the one that can achieve the above at 96KHz - 32 buffers super low latency. I'm sceptical, but if I'm hearing it can achieve this .... well I'm all in. Well...working in 96Khz for mixing doesn't require staying in 32 buffers the whole time, but just to show one guy's example... This guy took an M2 mac mini and tried to break it with multiple tracks of midi, plugins, etc. It's pretty impressive what it can do and shows you don't necessarily need the Mac Studio to be productive. Although personally I'd get the Studio, because once you add better storage and RAM to the mini you're getting up around the same price as the studio, only with fewer port options and other considerations. |
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Post by kcatthedog on Jun 6, 2023 15:15:53 GMT -6
I believe apple still lets you return in 30 days?
Perhaps, real world test ?
Order the m2 studio you’d buy and see ?
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Post by gmichael on Jun 6, 2023 15:36:36 GMT -6
The thing with these advances like 13th Gen intel DDD5 and Apple M2 Ultra and super fast Apple RAM. In the real world if you want to work at 96KHz and 32 buffers and then pull up Toontrack SD3 (full bleed, all mics, max voices) Spitfire Audio Chambers stings (full sample set) UHE Pro Repro 1 and 5 (high quality mode) Ivory piano (full sample, set max voices) Omnisphere, Keyscape, Kontakt with CPU Hungry Orange tree sample guitars (for example) and then some great plugins DMG Equiliburm (long impulse length) etc etc etc. Even after spending $5000+ The flippin thing just falls over. So then it's reduce the sample rate, increase the buffers, freeze tracks. Sooooooo ...... ?? Is a Mac Studio M2 Ultra going to be the one that can achieve the above at 96KHz - 32 buffers super low latency. I'm sceptical, but if I'm hearing it can achieve this .... well I'm all in. 100%. We share this scenario almost verbatim.
I don't hang out on 32 buffers though, I track and lower to a stable setting and on some jobs wind up all the way down. It's less about 1 particular synth and kind of more what a given combination of them is. Anything U-he gets frozen on sight, it will not share it's toys or play nicely with others like SD3 and a big ABR Spitfire patch, for examples sake
My other underlying motivation is I'm strongly considering moving to Logic full time. I no longer need to be exclusively PT so I want to pull the plaster off and make enroads to get this change over done in the next few months. Some stuff I will continue with my monster PC's, mainly heavy lifting on tuning audio restorations ARA integration etc. A lot about the Mac solutions really appeal to me.
Looking for that ideal situ to get my feet wet and see if the migration is something I can deal with and continue to make a living. Maybe I shouldn't word it quite like that, often my backup plans are more considered than my leaps into the advancing future with regards to tech stuff!
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