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Post by gmichael on Jun 9, 2023 2:03:46 GMT -6
Thanks guys. For the little bit I do at home, I’m sure you’re right… I just want to make sure it’s enough for years to come since I only upgrade every 7-10 years. Snap. Same here. I spend a decent amount once every 7 to 10 years. My current pc is a shade under 9 years old, and I’m about to invest in a new system, not sure which Mac or PC, Ditto. I might have to follow you and Dan around as I make my own decision. ;-) Our uses and experiences all seem to line up so we might as well hold hands and skip together into what ever comes next.
I have heard the Mac studio fans and that really did not do anything to win me over. But I try to keep my machine as far away from me as possible. My current PC is rackmount in a silencer road case out of ears reach, for the most part. And as Dan so knowledgeably added, any needed change is a bios tweak away. I worry about not having access to bios if I need it, too. But I want LUNA for tracking, like I'm really keen to get on to LUNA. The issues keeping most pro's away don't really affect me when work from home, where 3-4 ch at a time is as complicated as it gets.
Perhaps I'm fixating but I see no down side to having a relatively decent apple that can handle recording and light processing. I'm still seeing modifying an iMac as viable and frugal. There are so many different iMac though... Buying a purpose built AVVIM daw machine is just a sure bet ime
thanks HighTenor and Dan, I'm in til the end or I make that next cpu buy!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2023 2:16:44 GMT -6
Snap. Same here. I spend a decent amount once every 7 to 10 years. My current pc is a shade under 9 years old, and I’m about to invest in a new system, not sure which Mac or PC, Ditto. I might have to follow you and Dan around as I make my own decision. ;-) Our uses and experiences all seem to line up so we might as well hold hands and skip together into what ever comes next.
I have heard the Mac studio fans and that really did not do anything to win me over. But I try to keep my machine as far away from me as possible. My current PC is rackmount in a silencer road case out of ears reach, for the most part. And as Dan so knowledgeably added, any needed change is a bios tweak away. I worry about not having access to bios if I need it, too. But I want LUNA for tracking, like I'm really keen to get on to LUNA. The issues keeping most pro's away don't really affect me when work from home, where 3-4 ch at a time is as complicated as it gets.
Perhaps I'm fixating but I see no down side to having a relatively decent apple that can handle recording and light processing. I'm still seeing modifying an iMac as viable and frugal. There are so many different iMac though... Buying a purpose built AVVIM daw machine is just a sure bet ime
thanks HighTenor and Dan, I'm in til the end or I make that next cpu buy!
If you don't want to think about it, just max out a mac mini's ram and increase the storage to something reasonable. get apple care. If it has a lot of fan noise or has coil whine, return it to apple. If not, follow the guides to optimize it for real time audio exactly like you would a windows pc. just use it. Done. Otherwise pay a daw builder, waste time copying a daw builder's pc builds, or waste a lot of money on a mac pro. I don't know if Apple updated the Studio or if you'd even benefit from it over the new mini for audio if you're going to be maxing out a single core. If you want to waste time, there's some good threads on gearspace. |
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Post by gmichael on Jun 9, 2023 2:36:34 GMT -6
Ditto. I might have to follow you and Dan around as I make my own decision. ;-) Our uses and experiences all seem to line up so we might as well hold hands and skip together into what ever comes next.
I have heard the Mac studio fans and that really did not do anything to win me over. But I try to keep my machine as far away from me as possible. My current PC is rackmount in a silencer road case out of ears reach, for the most part. And as Dan so knowledgeably added, any needed change is a bios tweak away. I worry about not having access to bios if I need it, too. But I want LUNA for tracking, like I'm really keen to get on to LUNA. The issues keeping most pro's away don't really affect me when work from home, where 3-4 ch at a time is as complicated as it gets.
Perhaps I'm fixating but I see no down side to having a relatively decent apple that can handle recording and light processing. I'm still seeing modifying an iMac as viable and frugal. There are so many different iMac though... Buying a purpose built AVVIM daw machine is just a sure bet ime
thanks HighTenor and Dan, I'm in til the end or I make that next cpu buy!
If you want to waste time, there's some good threads on gearspace. lol. I genuinely got a good laugh out of that! Thank you Dan sir! |
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Post by BenjaminAshlin on Jun 9, 2023 6:00:18 GMT -6
Even with advances in the chipsets on the PC side. I haven't heard anyone brag about them being silent the way the silicon chips are in the new gen Macs. Speed is great and I'm confident they'd perform well. But to work with audio and not have to hear a fan, ever, is really a step in the right direction. If there's something else out there with that, then go for it. My PC is completely silent while running any cubase session. Silent case & noctua fans. Lower than ambient room noise. Now you've heard it.  M1's are quiet though because the fans don't spin during audio/DAW tasks |
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Post by sirthought on Jun 9, 2023 6:19:51 GMT -6
Even with advances in the chipsets on the PC side. I haven't heard anyone brag about them being silent the way the silicon chips are in the new gen Macs. Speed is great and I'm confident they'd perform well. But to work with audio and not have to hear a fan, ever, is really a step in the right direction. If there's something else out there with that, then go for it. My PC is completely silent while running any cubase session. Silent case & noctua fans. Lower than ambient room noise. Now you've heard it. M1's are quiet though because the fans don't spin during audio/DAW tasks Yeah, the case and sound dampening doesn't count. Completely different innovation. When I can run a huge session on a laptop with zero noise that is indeed big progress. |
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Post by kcatthedog on Jun 9, 2023 7:01:42 GMT -6
Never heard my m1 mini fans and its 2 feet in front of me.
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Post by drsax on Jun 9, 2023 10:12:05 GMT -6
Just sharing my recent real world experience. I have built my last several pc’s myself. The new macs won me over. And zero building. Like most of you, I expect around 7 years out of my studio computers. When I factored in current parts costs, time to build and troubleshoot, and installation, the scale tipped in the direction of Mac this time around. So far, much less issues this go around. I tend to push my computers as I’m not just doing audio, but also video and lots of virtual instruments.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2023 11:12:34 GMT -6
My PC is completely silent while running any cubase session. Silent case & noctua fans. Lower than ambient room noise. Now you've heard it. M1's are quiet though because the fans don't spin during audio/DAW tasks Yeah, the case and sound dampening doesn't count. Completely different innovation. When I can run a huge session on a laptop with zero noise that is indeed big progress. The moment you insert lots of cpu intensive plugs like modern non-linear processing and many fx sends, you have old Mac jet engine again 6 inches from your screen when power consumption and die temperature increase. And good luck cleaning the dust out of a modern mac laptop in a year or two Many itb productions are still a pile of stock daw, waves, or mcdsp plugins and mostly sound like it. They could be mixed on a computer from 2008. Even when artist paid well-known mixer thousand or more dollars per track. They don’t even do the 2008 thing and run the mix bus and sometimes drum bus through some distorted hardware inserts. |
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Post by kcatthedog on Jun 9, 2023 11:30:59 GMT -6
What’s the issue using pressurized air to clean out a newer mac laptop/fans ?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2023 12:01:57 GMT -6
What’s the issue using pressurized air to clean out a newer mac laptop/fans ? Opening it without breaking anything. Apple uses less glue in their computers than before but there are still little easy to break clips. Many windows laptops are similar now copying Apple but have more throttling and dpc latency issues usually. The days of the bento box white Apple MacBook and black Thinkpads are long gone  Still having to pay 2000 more from Apple to get the same thing as the Mac Studio in a real case is ridiculous. You know there won’t be any real upgrades to it anyway. They should just sell the system on a chip mobos at this point. |
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Post by kcatthedog on Jun 9, 2023 12:55:37 GMT -6
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Post by thehightenor on Jun 9, 2023 13:30:50 GMT -6
Even with advances in the chipsets on the PC side. I haven't heard anyone brag about them being silent the way the silicon chips are in the new gen Macs. Speed is great and I'm confident they'd perform well. But to work with audio and not have to hear a fan, ever, is really a step in the right direction. If there's something else out there with that, then go for it. My pro built PC's are completely silent in terms of recording with mics. Mine is under my desk and the very slow moving large case fans (even when it's under full load) are in real terms silent for recording purposes. It's not a reason why I'd consider buying a Studio M2, noise on a Pro built audio workstation is a non issue. |
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Post by kcatthedog on Jun 12, 2023 12:52:58 GMT -6
Interesting:
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Post by thehightenor on Jul 18, 2023 3:05:54 GMT -6
What about heat.
I've read enough folk say they have their high end Intel and AMD's running near silently to think OK that's a box ticked.
But my room is only 3.5m x 4m where does the heat from an intel 13900K at 235 watts go!!
I'm concerned if I go down the new PC route I'm going to end up with a fast computer for Cubase and a space heater!
It's part of the reason I'm drawn toward s anew Mac Studio M2 Ultra - not only quiet but cool.
Then again, when I add a Sonnet dual nvme hub that has a small fan to cool the storage am I re-introducing noise and heat?
I'm not sure how loud and hot those Sonnet nvme hubs run?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2023 7:47:04 GMT -6
What about heat. I've read enough folk say they have their high end Intel and AMD's running near silently to think OK that's a box ticked. But my room is only 3.5m x 4m where does the heat from an intel 13900K at 235 watts go!! I'm concerned if I go down the new PC route I'm going to end up with a fast computer for Cubase and a space heater! It's part of the reason I'm drawn toward s anew Mac Studio M2 Ultra - not only quiet but cool. Then again, when I add a Sonnet dual nvme hub that has a small fan to cool the storage am I re-introducing noise and heat? I'm not sure how loud and hot those Sonnet nvme hubs run? You don't need that sort of power though and a 13900K is a fair bit more powerful than an M2 Ultra, I have a 2018 MBP which can run a metric ton of plugins at 32 samples and it's far slower than the I5 13600 I have in another machine which only has a 65w TDP (max draw 154w). Reason I chose it is because said Intel has tons of excess power, doesn't cost all that much, it doesn't let out much heat, it's pretty damn quiet with the right fan and finally it's 15% faster than the M2 pro 12 core. Won't deny it said I5 is 30% slower than the M2 Ultra but the Apple CPU has a lot more cores.
When it comes to single core performance the M2 Ultra and I5 is pretty much the same, that means certain less than efficient plugins could tank either of them. If you're doing a lot of editing, game design, programming etc. the M2 Ultra makes a lot of sense (in some ways). For music? Overkill to the nth degree.
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Post by thehightenor on Jul 18, 2023 16:26:41 GMT -6
What about heat. I've read enough folk say they have their high end Intel and AMD's running near silently to think OK that's a box ticked. But my room is only 3.5m x 4m where does the heat from an intel 13900K at 235 watts go!! I'm concerned if I go down the new PC route I'm going to end up with a fast computer for Cubase and a space heater! It's part of the reason I'm drawn toward s anew Mac Studio M2 Ultra - not only quiet but cool. Then again, when I add a Sonnet dual nvme hub that has a small fan to cool the storage am I re-introducing noise and heat? I'm not sure how loud and hot those Sonnet nvme hubs run? You don't need that sort of power though and a 13900K is a fair bit more powerful than an M2 Ultra, I have a 2018 MBP which can run a metric ton of plugins at 32 samples and it's far slower than the I5 13600 I have in another machine which only has a 65w TDP (max draw 154w). Reason I chose it is because said Intel has tons of excess power, doesn't cost all that much, it doesn't let out much heat, it's pretty damn quiet with the right fan and finally it's 15% faster than the M2 pro 12 core. Won't deny it said I5 is 30% slower than the M2 Ultra but the Apple CPU has a lot more cores.
When it comes to single core performance the M2 Ultra and I5 is pretty much the same, that means certain less than efficient plugins could tank either of them. If you're doing a lot of editing, game design, programming etc. the M2 Ultra makes a lot of sense (in some ways). For music? Overkill to the nth degree.
Yeah, I do need that kind of power :-) And I like to buy a system that will last me minimum 7 or 8 years (my current PC is 9 years old) So a 13900K or M2 Ultra is going to be my direction of travel. But that said, you make a good point about a 13th gen i5 solving the heat and noise issues at a sensible price (though I'm not really on a budget for this new system per say) The AMD 7950X is also looking attractive too. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2023 18:05:45 GMT -6
Yeah, I do need that kind of power :-) And I like to buy a system that will last me minimum 7 or 8 years (my current PC is 9 years old) So a 13900K or M2 Ultra is going to be my direction of travel. But that said, you make a good point about a 13th gen i5 solving the heat and noise issues at a sensible price (though I'm not really on a budget for this new system per say) The AMD 7950X is also looking attractive too. I've got to admit, I'm curious now. What on this great earth of music production would you need that sort of power for?
Anyway, no matter how expensive your old machine was, compared to the latest gen CPU's it will have the equivalent power of a gerbil on a wheel. I wouldn't use it as any sort of baseline. Not only are modern CPU's far more powerful they're also incredibly efficient in comparison, when I could start running 300+ plugins in a mix (as a test) I lost interest and it was driver efficiency that affected the outcome much more than the processor itself.
There are caveat's, heavier plugs etc. but for the most part at this stage I'm not all that concerned about CPU power for music if we're talking (newer) high end. Here's a good comparison chart: www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html |
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Post by thehightenor on Jul 19, 2023 0:06:41 GMT -6
Yeah, I do need that kind of power :-) And I like to buy a system that will last me minimum 7 or 8 years (my current PC is 9 years old) So a 13900K or M2 Ultra is going to be my direction of travel. But that said, you make a good point about a 13th gen i5 solving the heat and noise issues at a sensible price (though I'm not really on a budget for this new system per say) The AMD 7950X is also looking attractive too. I've got to admit, I'm curious now. What on this great earth of music production would you need that sort of power for?
Anyway, no matter how expensive your old machine was, compared to the latest gen CPU's it will have the equivalent power of a gerbil on a wheel. I wouldn't use it as any sort of baseline. Not only are modern CPU's far more powerful they're also incredibly efficient in comparison, when I could start running 300+ plugins in a mix (as a test) I lost interest and it was driver efficiency that affected the outcome much more than the processor itself.
There are caveat's, heavier plugs etc. but for the most part at this stage I'm not all that concerned about CPU power for music if we're talking (newer) high end. Here's a good comparison chart: www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.htmlThe music genre is Sting/Peter Gabriel/ Crowded House/Beatles/Genesis kind of vibe. So I'm using (though not all at the same time of course) SD3 (max bleed/max voices Ivory II piano Omnisphere Keyscape Spitfire Audio string libraries Kontakt with Organge Tree Sample Libraries UH-e Synths Softtube Sythns Native Instruments Evolution Quatumn Reverb Relab DMG Equilibrium Sound Toys Fabfilter UAD DSP and Native plugins etc etc etc All the usual suspects. I'd like to do this at 32 samples 96KHz but even a 13900K or M2 Ultra will fall over. I detest any forms of latency and the absolute minimum possible. So I'll compromise and aim for 64 samples at 48 Khz. I want a machine that has enough headroom that I literally don't have to think about CPU as pull up instruments and go crazy when I'm at the writing stage especially. Plus a machine that will give me many years of service. When I got my 4950 6 core overclock - I thought that's it this thing will never run out of power and for a few years I was right. My studio philosophy has always been do it once - do it right. It's way cheaper in the long run ime. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2023 8:41:48 GMT -6
The music genre is Sting/Peter Gabriel/ Crowded House/Beatles/Genesis kind of vibe. I'd like to do this at 32 samples 96KHz but even a 13900K or M2 Ultra will fall over. I detest any forms of latency and the absolute minimum possible. My studio philosophy has always been do it once - do it right. It's way cheaper in the long run ime. Oh stuff like Kontakt, right.. Your philosophy is commendable but simply throwing money at something doesn't always equate to the best results without understanding why. For example my workstation (for work of course) has an AMD Epyc processor, in benchmarks it's nearly twice as fast as an M2 Ultra. However for music production the M2 or I5 is a way better CPU..
Why? Single core performance. It depends on the DAW & the plugin to be fair, some DAW's thread per channel (meaning one strip = 1 core) and I have noticed that Kontakt for example will multithread voices but for the most part it still seems single core heavy (which is an issue). Due to this it's sometimes better to have more raw grunt than parallel processing power, on paper the I5 13600 is a fraction quicker than the M2 in single core performance but that means if you tank the I5, you'd also tank the M2 (you'd definitely tank the Epyc). So, tell me why you'd go for one over the other? My point is, you could throw thousands more at this and get nothing more for your money.
UA plugs introduces latency because there's an RTL (round trip latency) involved in external DSP processing even if it's Thunderbolt, if I remember correctly there's a counter in the UA app that shows you the additional. If latency is an issue than you might want to consider going completely native as well. Personally I just use a short cut key in pro tools to disable all plugs when I do overdubs and I'm desk / HW based for the most part anyway so in my situation it doesn't matter too much. That again depends on your setup..
Look, end of the day this is just some friendly advice. Something to ponder over, when it comes to audio I wouldn't consider myself any more than a general hobbyist nowadays but when it comes to tech that's my bread & butter. I might one day spare someone enough dosh to go and also buy a nice compressor they don't need  ..
P.S don't underestimate the importance of audio interface driver efficiency when it comes to latency, pops, crackles etc.
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Post by thehightenor on Jul 19, 2023 9:20:50 GMT -6
The music genre is Sting/Peter Gabriel/ Crowded House/Beatles/Genesis kind of vibe. I'd like to do this at 32 samples 96KHz but even a 13900K or M2 Ultra will fall over. I detest any forms of latency and the absolute minimum possible. My studio philosophy has always been do it once - do it right. It's way cheaper in the long run ime. Oh stuff like Kontakt, right.. Your philosophy is commendable but simply throwing money at something doesn't always equate to the best results without understanding why. For example my workstation (for work of course) has an AMD Epyc processor, in benchmarks it's nearly twice as fast as an M2 Ultra. However for music production the M2 or I5 is a way better CPU..
Why? Single core performance. It depends on the DAW & the plugin to be fair, some DAW's thread per channel (meaning one strip = 1 core) and I have noticed that Kontakt for example will multithread voices but for the most part it still seems single core heavy (which is an issue). Due to this it's sometimes better to have more raw grunt than parallel processing power, on paper the I5 13600 is a fraction quicker than the M2 in single core performance but that means if you tank the I5, you'd also tank the M2 (you'd definitely tank the Epyc). So, tell me why you'd go for one over the other? My point is, you could throw thousands more at this and get nothing more for your money.
UA plugs introduces latency because there's an RTL (round trip latency) involved in external DSP processing even if it's Thunderbolt, if I remember correctly there's a counter in the UA app that shows you the additional. If latency is an issue than you might want to consider going completely native as well. Personally I just use a short cut key in pro tools to disable all plugs when I do overdubs and I'm desk / HW based for the most part anyway so in my situation it doesn't matter too much. That again depends on your setup..
Look, end of the day this is just some friendly advice. Something to ponder over, when it comes to audio I wouldn't consider myself any more than a general hobbyist nowadays but when it comes to tech that's my bread & butter. I might one day spare someone enough dosh to go and also buy a nice compressor they don't need ..
P.S don't underestimate the importance of audio interface driver efficiency when it comes to latency, pops, crackles etc.
Thanks for your reply and thoughts. I don’t use any UAD plug-ins at the writing, arranging, tracking stage. As you say, they introduce too much latency. Before I mix I turn all my VI’s into audio and then I mix with no active VI’s …. which greatly helps the cpu and it’s my method for dealing with long term archiving. Whatever I get it will be an M2 Ultra 13900k or 7950x simply in the hope it will last me longer - which I admit may or may not be faulty thinking. My instinct is it will be the correct move for my approach. |
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Post by ericn on Jul 19, 2023 12:28:55 GMT -6
OK Apple at this point you have control over the OS, the CPU, the computer and even the DAW so how about we see some attention paid to how audio uses those multiple cores and can see some real performance?
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Post by BenjaminAshlin on Jul 20, 2023 15:28:59 GMT -6
The music genre is Sting/Peter Gabriel/ Crowded House/Beatles/Genesis kind of vibe. I'd like to do this at 32 samples 96KHz but even a 13900K or M2 Ultra will fall over. I detest any forms of latency and the absolute minimum possible. My studio philosophy has always been do it once - do it right. It's way cheaper in the long run ime. Oh stuff like Kontakt, right.. Your philosophy is commendable but simply throwing money at something doesn't always equate to the best results without understanding why. For example my workstation (for work of course) has an AMD Epyc processor, in benchmarks it's nearly twice as fast as an M2 Ultra. However for music production the M2 or I5 is a way better CPU..
Why? Single core performance. It depends on the DAW & the plugin to be fair, some DAW's thread per channel (meaning one strip = 1 core) and I have noticed that Kontakt for example will multithread voices but for the most part it still seems single core heavy (which is an issue). Due to this it's sometimes better to have more raw grunt than parallel processing power, on paper the I5 13600 is a fraction quicker than the M2 in single core performance but that means if you tank the I5, you'd also tank the M2 (you'd definitely tank the Epyc). So, tell me why you'd go for one over the other? My point is, you could throw thousands more at this and get nothing more for your money.
UA plugs introduces latency because there's an RTL (round trip latency) involved in external DSP processing even if it's Thunderbolt, if I remember correctly there's a counter in the UA app that shows you the additional. If latency is an issue than you might want to consider going completely native as well. Personally I just use a short cut key in pro tools to disable all plugs when I do overdubs and I'm desk / HW based for the most part anyway so in my situation it doesn't matter too much. That again depends on your setup..
Look, end of the day this is just some friendly advice. Something to ponder over, when it comes to audio I wouldn't consider myself any more than a general hobbyist nowadays but when it comes to tech that's my bread & butter. I might one day spare someone enough dosh to go and also buy a nice compressor they don't need ..
P.S don't underestimate the importance of audio interface driver efficiency when it comes to latency, pops, crackles etc.
This 100% |
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Post by wiz on Jul 20, 2023 18:52:20 GMT -6
I just had a LUNA project going on my M1 8G Mac... .the project when running is 10GB!! and is using 2GB of swap... not a glitch.
Memory in these things is not like our old idea of memory..
cheers
Wiz
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Post by plinker on Jul 21, 2023 12:28:56 GMT -6
I just had a LUNA project going on my M1 8G Mac... .the project when running is 10GB!! and is using 2GB of swap... not a glitch. Memory in these things is not like our old idea of memory.. cheers Wiz ...and more specifically, memory swapping is not like our old idea of memory swapping. These things are awesome! |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2023 15:21:15 GMT -6
I just had a LUNA project going on my M1 8G Mac... .the project when running is 10GB!! and is using 2GB of swap... not a glitch. Memory in these things is not like our old idea of memory.. cheers Wiz That’s going to kill that ssd eventually. |
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