New M2 Studio / PT Ultimate / Sonoma

[martthie_08]

Do let us know about the EGFX enclosure!
I am tempted to go this route with my HDX system..
If I had HD Native I’d definitely swap the card for the thunderbolt version.

[crazy_ow]

Originally Posted by martthie_08

Do let us know about the EGFX enclosure!
I am tempted to go this route with my HDX system..
If I had HD Native I’d definitely swap the card for the thunderbolt version.

If there were any Thunderbolt Natives around I would have gone that route but I've not found any for sale in the UK over the past couple of weeks. Plus I'm not sure weather in the future I will go Carbon or HDX so the sonnet gives me options.

[martthie_08]

Ah ok, then I understand.. there’s one in Belgium on Reverb, but I guess it’s a lot of hassle dealing with customs and so on.

But if you are going HDX the Sonnet box might come in handy, though I haven’t found much info on this, especially whether the HDX card needs extra cables from Sonnet.

I’ve also got a second system with Carbon, it’s a nice system!

[innerbooty]

I am on the verge of buying a Studio M2 Ultra. I plan to configure it over a couple of months while I continue to plug away on my old HDX Cheesegrater. I will also be buying a Sonnet expansion chassis for my HDX card and UAD Octo card. Would love to hear how your process is going getting setup on your M2! I'm nervous about Sonoma. Sure sounds like a lot of nasty issues when you look at the Avid Compatability page

[crazy_ow]

I’ve not had a single issue with sonoma and PT yet…… but I’m still waiting for my chassis to arrive and a new UAD Satellite.

I’ll report back once they arrive and are setup.

[innerbooty]

My M2 Studio Ultra arrived literally just this afternoon. Haven't even unboxed it yet. I think it came with Ventura but I'll find out when I turn it on. I am thinking I should get a small interface for it so I can set it up while continuing to work on my cheesegrater / HDX / HD IO rig. Haven't gotten the Sonnett expansion chassis yet, but I don't like the idea of swapping the HDX card back and forth from rig to rig. Would welcome thoughts on good, small, affordable interface options... could just borrow my son's Focusrite Scarlett, right?

[cmbourget]

Big deal here. I've just (at least I'm trying to) switched from an AMD with Win 11 to my new Mac Studio M2 ultra (and, what's more, from Nuendo 12 to PT 2023.12). Like @crazy_ow, I've been looking so hard for external storage solutions that I forgot to check whether the Mac would arrive with Ventura (I'd read on the Nuendo forum that it would). It arrived with Sonoma 14, now updated to 14.2.1. This latest version has corrected display problems in Nuendo 12, but I don't know about Pro Tools yet. The compatibility problems announced by Avid are worrying because they can affect sound and other important aspects:

• Sluggish response and slower UI drawing performance
• Menu navigation with keyboard arrow commands broken
• Internal Dolby Atmos renderer window intermittently has missing elements
• Plugin search scrambles characters when pressing quickly
• Right clicking on Group name does not consistently maintain pop up window
• Pro Tools crashes when opening Boom virtual instrument plugin

But it concerns Sonoma before 14.2.1. I don't believe Avid has published a report on this version. We're waiting for it. This thread of testimonials and information on Sonoma's compatibility with PT is therefore very important.

For my part, despite what Avid writes on its memo, PT is not set to Rosetta by default. So I left it that way, unchecked, and so far Pro Tools works, at least with a fairly simple session, just audio and no plugins. If I'm anything like Nuendo, which opened under Rosetta, it's much better to choose Silicon. Indeed, while 14.2.1 corrected Nuendo's display problems, its operation with Rosetta was slow at times, especially in terms of navigation, and caused successive freezes. Once in Silicon, the tortoise turned into a hare. Day and night.

I will continue to report here on the ongoing process. What I saw happen once in Silicon was a problem with UAD plugins. But that's as far as I've got for now. One thing's for sure, I'm staying in Sonoma. Moving back to Ventura would be...a step backwards, a step that I'll have to make up for sooner or later. I'd rather wait to get up and running in Sonoma, while continuing to work on the PC if I have to, or on the Mac with Nuendo.

[crazy_ow]

Originally Posted by innerbooty

Haven't gotten the Sonnett expansion chassis yet,

I'm still waiting for mine to arrive and it would appear Royal Mail have lost my package

Originally Posted by innerbooty

could just borrow my son's Focusrite Scarlett, right?

That's what I've been using to get set up and run a bit of a soak test.

[crazy_ow]

Originally Posted by cmbourget

• Sluggish response and slower UI drawing performance
• Menu navigation with keyboard arrow commands broken
• Internal Dolby Atmos renderer window intermittently has missing elements
• Plugin search scrambles characters when pressing quickly
• Right clicking on Group name does not consistently maintain pop up window
• Pro Tools crashes when opening Boom virtual instrument plugin

I'm having no issues with PT Ultimate natively or under rosetta, performance is reduced under rosetta which is to be expected but everything seems to be working as it should.

I'm still waiting for the sonnet TB chassis so hoping everything still plays nicely when that arrives and I start running the HD Native card.

Originally Posted by cmbourget

What I saw happen once in Silicon was a problem with UAD plugins.

I had to get a new TB UAD Satellite for the studio as I have been using an old FW version, so UAD plugs are the only thing I haven't tested yet.

[cmbourget]

Originally Posted by crazy_ow

I'm still waiting for mine to arrive and it would appear Royal Mail have lost my package


That's what I've been using to get set up and run a bit of a soak test.

Personally, I bought Startech's 4 Bay Thunderbolt 3 NVMe Enclosure. I don't recommend it: very noisy. I put it in a closet and I can still hear it. But I realize that it's not the same thing: your Sonnet device contains PCIe cards, I imagine for PT, whereas I only need NVMe ssd. Sonnet's equivalent will be the "Echo Dual NVMe Thunderbolt Dock", but with only two slots, and I can't see if it accepts 4T WD NVMe.