New desktop macs m2/3 ?

100% for me on under 24 raw track productions that often need everything I can throw at them.

You’ll max out a single core or the buffer on your interface drivers long before ram or multi core for audio. These new mac pros might be barely better than a Mac mini if you’re maxing out a single core on a heavy fx send or bus processing. They’re for editing 8k video in final cut.

I was maxing 4gb and then 8gb of ram with old school digitalfish phones and Sonnox plugs. 32-bit days were rough at the 4 gb limit on OS X. Now I have 128 gb of ddr 4 now so I can have web browser open while I mix hardcore. Ill hit 32 gb or so on windows 11 for reaper alone.

My tracks have lots of uhe satin (runs at 384 khz), Tokyo dawn on insane (many functions running at 768 khz), sound radix and newer Sonnox plugs (lots of lookahead to kill your buffer and slow your faders to a crawl), tons of psp and fuse plugs sometimes, and the high end fx sends I use can really cripple a cpu. And I have cool stuff on everything. Usually at least… at least some Massenburg plugs on the lightest weight tracks. Guys refuse to commit in tracking now. They either need cool mix to have cool sound more than ever or it was recorded totally screwed up. Often both.

I often have to freeze to 32-bit float to ride the faders at a lower buffer. Or I’ll render out stems out as dithered 24-bit (what hits the monitoring converter) and reimport to a new session if stuff gets really unwieldy with these crazy unwieldy sessions that just grow and grow and grow. Especially if I’ve edited stuff and was processing in sections totally differently with high overall track count. I did a master recently where I had to chop up, process, and eq a 20 minute track recorded and mixed in the late 90s and then fade it all together again verse by verse. Pita and gross.

Depends how the DAW handles multicore audio. Is one core dedicated to the monitor path/whole project/certain busses/single VIs?

lol. I'm just laughing in part knowing I'm not the only one having to have a tactical plan in addition to a strategy!!! Yes, that is a way to keep moving forward. If I'm producing, it can just stop me in my tracks if I wobble it by pushing it one uhe too many or too much oversampling that I can't off load to ram

I think we are confusing the soc ram and some ssd. My understanding is the soc ram is more efficient due to its on chip proximity and design.

Some macs ssd do swap which is related to demand and total ram: analysis I ‘ve seen suggests issues were blown out of proportion: for most a non issue in terms of computer longevity.

I don’t worry about it at all, never seen my m1 mini, 256 ssd and 16 ram, break a sweat, heard fans come on or seen high cpu usage.

one too many colour copy or big sky sends and that will crash. my extreme control routing will also destroy crappy computers and crappy daws with poor delay compensation.

I was thinking in general about library size. I think 8gb will get filled up very quickly with a big daw session because all the instruments have to be stored in ram or moved to swap as its about size not efficiency. 


SOC design does improve RTL and buffer size processing, because the system only has a certain amount of time to fill up the buffer before it has to be sent out. Any requirement to access memory is improved and those improvement do make a difference for realtime audio. 

 

Yeah 16gb is fine.

Wifey needs some muscle! What's she working on?

She’s analyzing Mark’s roi on equipment purchases!