Anyone tried Protools on an M1 mac yet?

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by arche3

96 gigs ram is $1000 for the mac pro 7.1. If the new mac pro 8.1 with apple silicon has system on chip including ram it will be just as expensive as the current mac pro 7.1.

There would be options with less ram for less money.

[Philthy]

Originally Posted by arche3

96 gigs ram is $1000 for the mac pro 7.1. If the new mac pro 8.1 with apple silicon has system on chip including ram it will be just as expensive as the current mac pro 7.1. No way it's 2 to 3k.

24 to 28 core m1x with 24 core apple gpu it's going to be 30k plus just like the Intel model.

Expect it to be expensive. But it will fly.

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk

There is no way I need 96g of ram to run a protools session. 16 or 32 is fine. But I want a processor running full bore, not heat throttled or designed for a tiny form factor. I don't need 24 or 28 cores. This is all what I'm talking about. The idea that there's no real estate between 4/8 core, $700 mini, and a $20,000 mac pro, is just self evidently wrong. If that's what the mac pro in 2021/22 looks like, I will run another hackintosh for the next 5 or 8 years. Maybe that will be the last one because of proprietary chips, but at least I still have the option this go-around.

If Avid would fix the Protools Windows UI so that it supported dual screen as it does under OSX, I would be done with Apple altogether (in the case of a continued ignoring of the affordable desktop class workstation. I think the current mini prices are actually reasonably fair. I think the grotesque mac pro pricing compared to the reasonable mini pricing shows that Apple prices aspirationally and not based on actual cost to manufacture... they are counting on mac pro customers being profligate spenders... not this guy.)

[EGS]

Originally Posted by Philthy

...If Avid would fix the Protools Windows UI so that it supported dual screen...

I've been running Windows/ProTools/multiple screens for years. I prefer 3 screens, with PT stretched across 2 for mix & edit, plus a 3rd for plugs and other misc.

[Philthy]

Originally Posted by EGS

I've been running Windows/ProTools/multiple screens for years. I prefer 3 screens, with PT stretched across 2 for mix & edit, plus a 3rd for plugs and other misc.

I run ProTools at home under windows, so I am familiar with what kind of dual screen support is available. Under windows you have to stretch out this one gray background window across all your monitors, and it eats up screen with its own borders. Then inside that you can place your other windows. In OSX, all the windows float on their own however you want them to, with no background window to worry about at all. Other DAWs work this way on Windows, so it is not an operating system limitation. The PT windows implementation is really clunky and ugly compared to under OSX

[huzzam]

Originally Posted by Philthy

If Avid would fix the Protools Windows UI so that it supported dual screen as it does under OSX, I would be done with Apple altogether

WORD. This is in the top three reasons I'm running a hackintosh instead of just win10. I just don't get how they're still using that weird old windowing model from Microsoft Access 2000...

[huzzam]

Originally Posted by Obsidian Dragon

I could imagine having 16-32 GB RAM built onto the processor package to do the initial heavy lifting and then allow 2-8 slots of slightly slower level 2 memory (or whatever they want to call it) to handle less processor/RAM intensive tasks that doesn't require the proximity and close integration to the processors.

This isn't that far out of an idea. It could be similar to a virtual memory system, though instead of swapping from DRAM to disk, it would swap from on-chip ram to DRAM.

[ZoeMusic]

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

Agree 100%

And for the current m1 16GB ram mini it is NOT enough for a Professional working with VI at all. We wanted to try the new Mac M1 MBP and Mini against our Mac Pro 7.1 384 GB 28 core machines and even though it is not a fair test those borrowed M1’s were dying at around 48-55 tracks with VI and thats not gonna work for most people. hobby users yes probably but for studios who live off music a Hard NO!

PT Needs a minimum of 16G but nowadays thats not anywhere near enough for VI work so 32GB and even better 64GB is closer to the sweetspot IMHO

I Seen people post that a M1 16GB is equal to a 32GB which is horse**** and not applicable in a studio environment. We did a week long testing in a pro setting in our studio with real world sessionsi from big artists and those. 1’s died pretty quick into those tests.

Hey Southsidemusic, we will come back to this thread about this time next year and see how these numbers fair when more apps are native M1. Not to mention what it's going to look like when the M1x is released with more ram. This was not an Apple's to Apple's comparison by far and not to mention if you where testing Pro Tools it was running in Rosetta 2. Try some of these test with Logic Pro and its included plugins and see how things fair. I've done some test myself and this entry level MacBook Pro smoke's anything close. I have used the standard Logic Pro test on my M1 Mac and have also tested the unsupported Pro Tools which to my surprise does work but the performance of theses two apps on the same machine where not even remotely close. Again not a fair test. I will try it again in 2030 when Pro Tools is native M1. (Not @ Soutsidemusic) but where is all the hate & hostilely for M1 coming from?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by ZoeMusic

(Not @ Soutsidemusic) but where is all the hate & hostilely for M1 coming from?

I think you missread the sentiment here. Lots of folks here have workloads that won't run on a base level memory footprint system. It will be interesting for all of those users when it gets interesting. It's just not interesting now because it's not something they can use today. And folks really need to careful about magic memory improvement claims, the claims of radical reduction in memory needs do not make sense.

I'd not be buying an M1 Mac now if I *needed* that to run Pro Tools to make a living. But hey I have an M1 MBP coming anyhow, and my Intel MBP is not going anywhere, and I sure will run Pro Tools on the M1 for some things.

[ZoeMusic]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

I think you missread the sentiment here. Lots of folks here have workloads that won't run on a base level memory footprint system. It will be interesting for all of those users when it gets interesting. It's just not interesting now because it's not something they can use today. And folks really need to careful about magic memory improvement claims, the claims of radical reduction in memory needs do not make sense.

I'd not be buying an M1 Mac now if I *needed* that to run Pro Tools to make a living. But hey I have an M1 MBP coming anyhow, and my Intel MBP is not going anywhere, and I sure will run Pro Tools on the M1 for some things.

Yeah I get it about the unproven memory claims! Also I forgot to mention most hungry VI's don't have to load in system ram nor do you need Pro Tools disk cache anymore seeing hard drive (NV/Me, Raid, etc.) are so much faster these day so system ram can go along way.

[fourthtunz]

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

Agree 100%

And for the current m1 16GB ram mini it is NOT enough for a Professional working with VI at all. We wanted to try the new Mac M1 MBP and Mini against our Mac Pro 7.1 384 GB 28 core machines and even though it is not a fair test those borrowed M1’s were dying at around 48-55 tracks with VI and thats not gonna work for most people. hobby users yes probably but for studios who live off music a Hard NO!

PT Needs a minimum of 16G but nowadays thats not anywhere near enough for VI work so 32GB and even better 64GB is closer to the sweetspot IMHO

I Seen people post that a M1 16GB is equal to a 32GB which is horse**** and not applicable in a studio environment. We did a week long testing in a pro setting in our studio with real world sessionsi from big artists and those. 1’s died pretty quick into those tests.

I think those people were posting maybe for final cut or logic.
Logic kicks ass with the m1
I don't think Protools is ready for the M1 yet.
Which Vi's did you try?
thanks!